EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY 
 EDITED BY ERNEST RHYS 
 
 ESSAYS AND 
 BELLES LETTRES 
 
 CURTIS' PRUE AND I & 
 LOTUS- EATING. WITH 
 
 AN INTRODUCTION BY 
 HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE
 
 THE PUBLISHERS OF 
 LIB'IWRY WILL BE PLEASED TO SEND 
 FREELY TO ALL APPLICANTS A LIST 
 OF THE PUBLISHED AND PROJECTED 
 VOLUMES TO BE COMPRISED UNDER 
 THE FOLLOWING TWELVE HEADINGS: 
 
 TRAVEL ^ SCIENCE ^ FICTION 
 
 THEOLOGY & PHILOSOPHY 
 
 HISTORY ^ CLASSICAL 
 
 FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 
 
 ESSAYS ^ ORATORY 
 
 POETRY & DRAMA 
 
 BIOGRAPHY 
 
 ROMANCE 
 
 IN TWO STYLES OF BINDING, CLOTH, 
 FLAT BACK, COLOURED TOP, AND 
 LEATHER, ROUND CORNERS, GILT TOP. 
 
 LONDON: J. M. DENT & SONS, LTD. 
 NEW YORK: E. P. BUTTON & CO.
 
 PRUE 
 LOTUS 
 EATING By 
 G-WCURTIS 
 
 LONDON:PUBLISHED$ 
 
 AND IN NEW 
 BYE-PDUTTONSCO
 
 All rights reserved
 
 Al 
 
 \3lO 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 THE Elizabeth and Ann, sailing from the port of 
 London in May 1635, brought to New England 
 seven passengers who were duly certified by their 
 respective Ministers and Justices of the Peace as 
 having conformed to the orders and discipline of the 
 Church of England, and taken the oaths of allegiance 
 and supremacy; and it is added that "they were no 
 subsidy men." The last name on the list of seven in 
 Hatten's "List of Emigrants to America" was that 
 of Henry Curtis, from whom George William Curtis 
 was descended in the sixth generation. The men of 
 the family were notable for independence of judg- 
 ment and action ; one of them, John Curtis, of Wor- 
 cester, Mass., was an outspoken loyalist when the 
 War of the Revolution broke out, and was banished 
 from the town ; but was taken back later without, 
 apparently, any recantation of opinions on his part. 
 
 The great grandson of this outspoken loyalist was 
 George Curtis, who removed to Providence, uiarried 
 fhe daughter of the Chief Justice of Rhode Island, 
 and in 1824 became the father of George William 
 Curtis. He was conspicuous for integrity, courtesy, 
 and cultivation of taste. In one of the most delight- 
 ful chapters in Prue and 1 " Sea from Shore " 
 Mr. Curtis has recorded his impressions of the 
 wharves of Providence as they appealed to his boyish 
 imagination, sensitive to colour, to the subtle sug- 
 vii 
 
 177077
 
 viii Introduction 
 
 gestions of odour, to hints of adventure in remote 
 countries. He was fortunate in his companionship 
 with his brother Burrill, a boy of rare beauty and 
 fineness of nature, who looked, in his brother's 
 words, "as I am sure Philip Sidney looked when he 
 was a boy." 
 
 The education of the brothers was both irregular 
 and fortunate ; and one of its happiest phases was the 
 influence of Emerson, one of the most liberating and 
 inspiring thinkers who have appeared in America. 
 From 1842 to 1844 the brothers were "boarders and 
 boarders only " at Brook Farm, that interesting ex- 
 periment in plain living and high thinking which was 
 one of the expressions of the stirring of the New 
 England spirit, breaking away from Puritanism. 
 Emerson, who was as witty as he was wise, de- 
 scribed it as "a perpetual picnic, a French Revolu- 
 tion in small, an Age of Reason in a patty pan." 
 To the Curtis brothers it was a period of stiff work 
 in the languages, chemistry and music, and free and 
 stimulating talk with the ardent and often interest- 
 ing apostles of the new thought which came from 
 Germany by way of Coleridge, and was modified and 
 extended by the keen, penetrating New England 
 intelligence, and by a good deal of very human fun. 
 "We were thrown into convulsions of laughter at 
 the sight of G. W. C. dressed as Fanny Elssler, 
 making courtesies and pirouetting down the path," 
 writes one of the chroniclers of Brook Farm. The 
 brothers were embodiments of beauty and vigour ; 
 a visitor to the Farm reports that they "looked 
 like young Greek Gods." In later years George 
 William Curtis had a singular distinction of manner,
 
 Introduction ix 
 
 speech, and carriage, with a voice of beautiful 
 musical quality. Later the brothers took up their 
 residence with an elderly farmer in Concord, divid- 
 ing their time between work in the fields and study, 
 with delightful interludes of companionship with 
 Emerson, Hawthorne, Thoreau, Ellery Channing 
 and other men of note. In August 1846, Mr. Curtis 
 sailed for Europe, spending four successive winters 
 in Rome, Berlin, Paris, Egypt and Palestine, be- 
 coming a keen observer of men and manners, making 
 acquaintance with life and art, and saturating him- 
 self with the atmosphere of the Old World without 
 losing his independence of judgment or that fresh- 
 ness of feeling which made him to the very end a 
 winning teacher of the ethics and practice of idealism. 
 Returning from Europe, with an impressionable 
 imagination and a fund of vivid reminiscences, Mr. 
 Curtis wrote The Howadji in Syria, and Nile Notes of 
 a Howadji, two books saturated with the colour and 
 mystery of the nearer East. The young writer was 
 captivated by the sensuous beauty of a world little 
 known to Americans of that time ; and the rich 
 colour and ardent style of these forerunners of the 
 literature of travel in the Orient, made a distinct 
 impression, especially on young readers. In the 
 summer of 1851, Mr. Curtis' made various little 
 journeys to points of interest nearer home. He saw 
 a number of summer resorts then at the height of 
 their popularity : Niagara, Sharon, Nahant, New- 
 port. There was infinite relish in his enjoyment of 
 the natural charms of these impressive or picturesque 
 localities, and in his amused enjoyment of the follies 
 of fashion which in a mild, unsophisticated New
 
 x Introduction 
 
 World way made them the happy hunting-grounds 
 of the satirical and cynical. Mr. Curtis was too 
 wholesome and kindly for cynicism, but he had a 
 quick eye for pretension and sham, and a happy gift 
 for social satire, as The Potiphar Papers, published 
 a year later, showed. The habit of writing was 
 already established, and a record of these short 
 journeys took the lorm of a series of letters to the 
 New York Tribune, and, later, of Lotus-Eating; 
 with little illustrative notes by Kensett, one of the 
 most popular painters of the day, which contributed 
 to the charm of a volume of scenic and social 
 observation, necessarily ephemeral in form, but 
 which has the qualities of Mr. Curtis's nature : his 
 kindly temper, his humorous mood, his easy and 
 opulent style. The comparison of the Hudson and 
 the Rhine in the opening chapter assumes a general 
 unfamiliarity with the two rivers which ceased long 
 ago, and is written with a certain simplicity and 
 youthful pleasure which the more sophisticated 
 temper of to-day is likely to regard as signs of an 
 immaturity happily outgrown. There is, however, 
 no pleasanter report of the comfortable, easy, and 
 optimistic social life of the middle of the last century 
 than Lotus-Eating; nor is there a more refreshing 
 contrast with the subtle, elaborate, highly sophistic- 
 ated studies of places and people which have taken 
 the place of these simple, old-fashioned impressions 
 of a quieter, less troubled age than ours. 
 
 The author of Lotus-Eating was a tireless worker 
 and a man of many interests, and the sensuous de- 
 light of the early books in the languorous East was 
 the prelude to a career of sustained and arduous
 
 Introduction xi 
 
 activity in several fields. Mr. Curtis became, at 
 the very beginning and remained to the end, one of 
 the most eloquent and winning; speakers the country 
 has known, and in an age of accomplished orators 
 easily held a first place. He had a singularly courteous 
 attitude toward his audience, even in the moments 
 when he challenged their deepest convictions and 
 antagonized their bitterest prejudices ; in the flood 
 of political discussions he never ceased to be the 
 high-bred gentleman, and his courage was as con- 
 spicuous as his courtesy. In debate he was a Prince 
 Rupert in daring and in chivalry. In body, mind 
 and spirit he was a man of rare harmony and sym- 
 metry ; his bearing on the platform was singularly 
 graceful and dignified ; his voice musical in tone 
 and modulation; his style in political discussion, 
 direct and persuasive. On academic and literary 
 occasions he was the cultivated speaker, happy in 
 literary reference and the fortunate phrase. 
 
 He was also during many laborious years a work- 
 ing editor and a regular contributor to the news- 
 papers and magazines. His earliest connection of 
 this kind was with Putnam's Magazine, and from 
 his articles in this periodical two of his most popular 
 books came : The Potiphar Papers, a volume of social 
 satire, and Prue and I, a book of the heart, in which 
 the idealist, the lover, the artist and the man of 
 Letters combine to define freely and eloquently the 
 creed of Idealism in a view of life which exacts a 
 morality that rises into the reign of poetry. In no 
 other of Mr. Curtis's books do highmindedness, 
 chivalrous feeling, spontaneous loyalty to the finest 
 and highest ends of life, ingrained and vigorous
 
 xii Introduction 
 
 optimism, shine with so pure and beautiful a ray. 
 The simplicity of feeling, unabashed romance, flow- 
 ing and refined sentiment, richness of imagery, and 
 beauty of style so intimately expressive of the 
 thought and feeling explain Lowell's message : " Had 
 Letters kept you, every wreath were yours." The 
 book is redolent of far-reaching associations with the 
 larger world ; but its deepest note is expressed by the 
 old book-keeper : the harmony of the simplest life and 
 the plainest surroundings with the finest standards 
 and the highest idealism. In our more restrained and 
 self-conscious age, Prue and I has an old-fashioned 
 courage of emotion, a frankness of feeling, and 
 bravery of sentiment which give it an air of belong- 
 ing to an outworn past ; but since the things it deals 
 with are the immortal interests of the human spirit 
 and its manner has a saving tauch of nobility, it may 
 be that a less worldly time will crave again its 
 unworldly beauty of love and purity. 
 
 In 1859 Mr. Curtis was editing Harper's Weekly 
 and publishing his only novel, Trumps, in its 
 columns. The Civil War was in the near future, 
 and there were no more carefully reasoned and 
 clearly-written editorials on the situation and the 
 questions involved than those that appeared in this 
 very influential journal. In its columns the editor 
 developed another style, and in the Easy Chair 
 touched the arts and manners of the time with a grace 
 of diction and a charm of manner which made him 
 at once a critic of art and a preacher of morals 
 whose word was as light and winning as his thought 
 and purpose were serious. 
 
 Of his statesmanlike service to the countrv in its
 
 Introduction xiii 
 
 public life this is not the place to speak ; in ardent 
 antagonism to slavery, in searching and unsparing 
 arraignment of the spoilsmen and the spoils system 
 in American politics, . and in patient and untiring 
 advocacy of the reform of the Civil Service, his 
 commanding ability, dauntless courage and winning 
 oratory made him one of the foremost personalities 
 in a series of agitations which have not only freed 
 the country from the reproach of slavery, but will 
 ultimately free its politics from greed and corruption. 
 Mr. Curtis died on the last day of August, 1892. 
 There were many among his friends who felt that 
 his ardour for reform had deprived the country of a 
 man of Letters who would have enriched its litera- 
 ture as Addison and Steele enriched the literature of 
 England while they touched lightly the manners and 
 morals of the time; it is quite certain that he gave 
 his country and his age a shining example of a stain- 
 less career in the storm of a great crisis, and that to 
 young men especially he made politics a profession 
 worthy of a Chevalier Bayard. 
 
 HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE. 
 
 The following is a list of the Works of George William 
 Curtis : 
 
 Nile Notes by a Traveller, 1851 ; Lotus-Eating, a Summer Book, 
 1852 ; The Wanderer in Syria, 1852 ; Prue and I, 1856, 1884, 1892 ; 
 The Potiphar Papers ("Putnam's Monthly"), 1856, 1866; The 
 Howadji in Syria, 1857 ; Nile Notes of a Howadji, 1857 ; A Rhyme 
 of Rhode Island and the Times, etc., 1864 ; Sunnyside Book (in 
 collaboration with other authors), 1871 ; Eulogy on Charles Sum- 
 ner, 1874 ; Biographical Sketch of T. Winthrop (prefixed to the 
 latter's " Cecil Dreme "), 1876 ; Life, Character, and Writings of 
 W. C. Bryant, Commemorative Address, 1879 ; Eulogy on Wendell 
 Phillips, 1884 ; Party and Patronage, Addresses to National Civil-
 
 xiv Bibliography 
 
 Service Reform League, 1890, 1892 ; From the Easy Chair, Essays, 
 
 1892 ; Orations and Addresses, ed. by C. E. Norton, 1894. 
 Curtis edited : Rural Essays, by A. J. Dowring, with memoir 01 
 
 author, 1853; J. L. Motley's Correspondence, 1889 ; and " Modern 
 Ghosts " (selected and translated from Maupassant and other 
 Authors), to which he supplied an Introduction, 1890. 
 
 Early Letters : To T- S. D wight, Brook Farm and Concord, 
 Edited by G. W. Cooke, 1898. 
 
 Life : C. E. Fitch, Address in Memory of Chancellor G. W. 
 Curtis, 1892 ; W. Winter, George William- Curtis : a Eulogy, 
 
 1893 ; Commemorative Addresses on, ed. by P. Godwin, 1893 ; 
 E. Gary, George William Curtis ("American Men of Letters"), 
 1894.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PRUE AND I 
 
 DINNER-TIME 
 MY CHATEAUX . . . . 
 
 PACK 
 
 5 
 
 21 
 
 SEA FROM SHORE ... 
 
 40 
 
 TITBOTTOM'S SPECTACLES .... 
 
 . 62 
 
 A CRUISE IN THE ' FLYING DUTCHMAN ' 
 
 88 
 
 FAMILY PORTRAITS 
 
 ii t 
 
 OUR COUSIN THE CURATE .... 
 
 IZO 
 
 LOTUS-EATING 
 
 
 THE HUDSON AND THE KHINE 
 
 . 139 
 
 CATSKILI ' 
 
 . 149 
 
 CATSKILL FALLS 
 
 157 
 
 TRENTON 
 
 . 166 
 
 NIAGARA . .... 
 
 175 
 
 NIAGARA, AGAIN 
 
 . 182 
 
 SARATOGA 
 
 . 192 
 
 LAKE GEORGE 
 
 . 205 
 
 NAHANT 
 
 . 216 
 
 NEWPORT 
 
 . 226 
 
 NEWPORT, AGAIN 
 
 235
 
 -. 
 
 TO 
 
 MRS. HENRY W. LONGFELLOW, 
 
 IN MEMORY OF THE HAPPY HOURS AT OUR 
 CASTLES IN SPAIN
 
 A WORD TO THE GENTLE 
 READER 
 
 AN old book-keeper, who wears a white cravat and 
 black trousers in the morning, who rarely goes to the 
 opera, and never dines out, is clearly a person of no 
 fashion and of no superior sources of information. 
 His only journey is from his house to his office; his 
 only satisfaction is in doing his duty ; his only happi- 
 ness is in Prue and his children. 
 
 What romance can such a life have ? What stories 
 can such a man tell? 
 
 Yet I think, sometimes, when I look up from the 
 parquet at the opera, and see Aurelia smiling in the 
 boxes, and holding her court of love, and youth, and 
 beauty, that the historians have not told of a fairer 
 queen, nor the travellers seen devouter homage. And 
 when I remember that it was in misty England that 
 quaint old George Herbert sang of the 
 
 ' ' Sweet day so cool, so calm, so bright 
 The bridal of the earth and sky," 
 
 I am sure that I see days as lovely in our clearer air, 
 and do not believe that Italian sunsets have a more 
 gorgeous purple or a softer gold. 
 
 So, as the circle of my little life revolves, I console 
 myself with believing, what I cannot help believing, 
 that a man need not be a vagabond to enjoy the sweet- 
 est charm of travel, but that all countries and all 
 times repeat themselves in his experience. This is 
 an old philosophy, I am told, and much favoured by 
 those who have travelled ; and I cannot but be glad 
 that my faith has such a fine name and such com- 
 petent witnesses. I am assured, however, upon the 
 other hand, that such a faith is only imagination. 
 But, if that be true, imagination is as good as many 
 B 2 3
 
 4 A Word to the Gentle Reader 
 
 voyages and how much cheaper ! a consideration 
 which an old book-keeper can never afford to forget. 
 
 I have not found, in my experience, that travellers 
 always bring back with them the sunshine of Italy or 
 the elegance of Greece. They tell us that there are 
 such things, and that they have seen them ; but, per- 
 haps, they saw them, as the apples in the garden of 
 the Hesperides were sometimes seen over the wall. 
 I prefer the fruit which I can buy in the market to 
 that which a man tells me he saw in Sicily, but of 
 which there is no flavour in his story. Others, like 
 Moses Primrose, bring us a gross of such spectacles 
 as we prefer not to see ; so that I begin to suspect a 
 man must have Italy and Greece in his heart and 
 mind, if he would ever see them with his eyes. 
 
 I know that this may be only a device of that com- 
 passionate imagination designed to comfort me, who 
 shall never take but one other journey than my daily 
 beat. Yet there have been wise men who taught 
 that all scenes are but pictures upon the mind ; and if 
 I can see them as I walk the street that leads to my 
 office, or sit at the office-window looking into the 
 court, or take a little trip down the bay or up the 
 river, why are not my pictures as pleasant and as 
 profitable as those which men travel for years, at 
 great cost of time, and trouble, and money, to behold? 
 
 For my part, I do not believe that any man can see 
 softer skies than I see in Prue's eyes; nor hear 
 sweeter music than I hear in Prue's voice; nor find 
 a more heaven-lighted temple than I know Prue's 
 mind to be. And when I wish to please myself with 
 a lovely image of peace and contentment, I do not 
 think of the plain of Sharon, nor of the valley of 
 Enna, nor of Arcadia, nor of Claude's pictures; but, 
 feeling that the fairest fortune of my life is the right 
 to be named with her, I whisper gently, to myself, 
 with a smile for it seems as if my very heart smiled 
 within me, when I think of her " Prue and I."
 
 PRUE AND I 
 
 DINNER-TIME 
 
 " Within this hour it will be dinner-time ; 
 I'll view the manners of the town, 
 Peruse the traders, gaze upon the buildings." 
 
 Comedy of Errors. 
 
 IN the warm afternoons of the early summer, it is 
 my pleasure to stroll about Washington Square and 
 along the Fifth Avenue, at the hour when the diners- 
 out are hurrying to the tables of the wealthy and 
 refined. I gaze with placid delight upon the cheer- 
 ful expanse of white waistcoat that illumines those 
 streets at that hour, and mark the variety of emotions 
 that swell beneath all that purity. A man going 
 out to dine has a singular cheerfulness of aspect. 
 Except for his gloves, which fit so well, and which 
 he has carefully buttoned, that he may not make an 
 awkward pause in the hall of his friend's house, I am 
 sure he would search his pocket for a cent to give the 
 wan beggar at the corner. It is impossible just now, 
 my dear woman ; but God bless you ! 
 
 It is pleasant to consider that simple suit of black. 
 If my man be young and only lately cognizant of 
 the rigours of the social law, he is a little nervous 
 at being seen in his dress suit body coat and black 
 trousers before sunset. For in the last days of May 
 the light lingers long over the freshly leafed trees 
 in the Square, and lies warm along the Avenue. All 
 winter the sun has not been permitted to see dress- 
 coats. They come out only with the stars, and fade 
 with ghosts, before the dawn. Except, haply, they 
 be brought homeward before breakfast in an early 
 twilight of hackney-cr \ T ow, in the budding
 
 6 Prue and I 
 
 and bursting summer, the sun takes his revenge, and 
 looks aslant over the tree-tops and the chimneys 
 upon the most unimpeachable garments. A cat may 
 look upon a king. 
 
 I know my man at a distance. If I am chatting 
 with the nursery maids around the fountain, I see 
 him upon the broad walk of Washington Square 
 and detect him by the freshness of his movement, 
 his springy gait. Then the white waistcoat flashes 
 in the sun. 
 
 "Go on, happy youth," I exclaim aloud, to the 
 great alarm of the nursery maids, who suppose me 
 to be an innocent insane person suffered to go at 
 large, unattended, "go on, and be happy with fel- 
 low waistcoats over fragrant wines." 
 
 It is hard to describe the pleasure in this amiable 
 spectacle of a man going out to dine. I, who am 
 a quiet family man, and take a quiet family cut at 
 four o'clock; or, when I am detained down town 
 by a false quantity in my figures, who run into Del- 
 monico's and seek comfort in a cutlet, am rarely 
 invited to dinner and have few white waistcoats. 
 Indeed, my dear Prue tells me that I have but one 
 in the world, and I often want to confront my eager 
 young friends as they bound along, and ask abruptly, 
 "What do you think of a man whom one white 
 waistcoat suffices ? " 
 
 By the time I have eaten my modest repast, it is 
 the hour for the diners-out to appear. If the day is 
 unusually soft and sunny, I hurry my simple meal a 
 little, that I may not lose any of my favourite spec- 
 tacle. Then I saunter out. If you met me you 
 would see that I am also clad in black. But black 
 is my natural colour, so that it begets no false theo- 
 ries concerning my intentions. Nobody, meeting 
 me in full black, supposes that I am going to dine 
 out. That sombre hue is professional with me. It 
 belongs to book-keepers as to clergymen, physicians, 
 and undertakers. We wear it because we follow 
 solemn callings. Saving men's bodies and souls, or
 
 Dinner-time 7 
 
 keeping the machinery of business well wound, are 
 such sad professions that it is becoming to drape 
 dolefully those who adopt them. 
 
 I wear a white cravat, too, but nobody supposes 
 that it is in any danger of being stained by Lafitte. 
 It is a limp cravat with a craven tie. It has none 
 of the dazzling dash of the white that my young 
 friends sport, or, I should say, sported; for the 
 white cravat is now abandoned to the sombre pro- 
 fessions of which I spoke. My young friends sus- 
 pect that the flunkeys of the British nobleman wear 
 such ties, and they have, therefore, discarded them. 
 I am sorry to remark, also, an uneasiness, if not 
 downright scepticism, about the white waistcoat. 
 Will it extend to shirts, I ask myself with sorrow. 
 
 But there is something pleasanter to contemplate 
 during these quiet strolls of mine, than the men who 
 are going to dine out, and that is, the women. They 
 roll in carriages to the happy houses which they shall 
 honour, and I strain my eyes in at the carriage win- 
 dow to see their cheerful faces as they pass. I have 
 already dined ; upon beef and cabbage, probably, if it 
 is boiled day. I am not expected at the table to which 
 Aurelia is hastening, yet no guest there shall enjoy 
 more than I enjoy, nor so much, if he considers the 
 meats the best part of the dinner. The beauty of the 
 beautiful Aurelia I see and worship as she drives by. 
 The vision of many beautiful Aurelias driving to 
 dinner, is the mirage of that pleasant journey of mine 
 along the avenue. I do not envy the Persian poets, 
 on those afternoons, nor long to be an Arabian travel- 
 ler. For I can walk that street, finer than any of 
 which the Ispahan architects dreamed ; and I can see 
 sultanas as splendid as the enthusiastic and exagger. 
 ating Orientals describe. 
 
 But not only do I see and enjoy Aurelia 's beauty. 
 I delight in her exquisite attire. In these warm 
 days she does not wear so much as the lightest 
 shawl. She is clad only in spring sunshine. It 
 glitters in the soft darkness of her hair. It touches
 
 8 Prue and I 
 
 the diamonds, the opals, the pearls, that cling to 
 her arms, and neck, and fingers. They flash back 
 again, and the gorgeous silks glisten, and the light 
 laces flutter, until the stately Aurelia seems to me, 
 in tremulous radiance, swimming by. 
 
 I doubt whether you who are to have the inex- 
 pressible pleasure of dining with her, and even of 
 sitting by her side, will enjoy more than I. For 
 my pleasure is inexpressible, also. And it is in this 
 greater than yours, that I see all the beautiful ones 
 who are to dine at various tables, while you only 
 see your own circle, although that, I will not deny, 
 is the most desirable of all. 
 
 Beside, although my person is not present at your 
 dinner, my fancy is. I see Aurelia's carriage stop, 
 and behold white-gloved servants opening wide doors. 
 There is a brief glimpse of magnificence for the dull 
 eyes of the loiterers outside ; then the door closes. 
 But my fancy went in with Aurelia. With her, it 
 looks at the vast mirror, and surveys her form at 
 length in the Psyche-glass. It gives the final shake to 
 the skirt, the last flirt to the embroidered handker- 
 chief, carefully held, and adjusts the bouquet, com- 
 plete as a tropic nestling in orange leaves. It de- 
 scends with her, and marks the faint blush upon her 
 cheek at the thought of her exceeding beauty; the 
 consciousness of the most beautiful woman, that the 
 most beautiful woman is entering the room. There is 
 the momentary hush, the subdued greeting, the quick 
 glance of the Aurelias who have arrived earlier, and 
 who perceive in a moment the hopeless perfection of 
 that attire; the courtly gaze of gentlemen, who feel 
 the serenity of that beauty. All this my fancy sur- 
 veys ; my fancy, Aurelia's invisible cavalier. 
 
 You approach with hat in hand and the thumb of 
 your left hand in your waistcoat pocket. You are 
 polished and cool, and have an irreproachable repose 
 of manner. There are no improper wrinkles in your 
 cravat ; your shirt-bosom does not bulge ; the trousers 
 are accurate about your admirable boot. But you
 
 Dinner-time 9 
 
 look very stiff and brittle. You are a little bullied 
 by your unexceptionable shirt-collar, which interdicts 
 perfect freedom of movement in your head. You are 
 elegant, undoubtedly, but it seems as if you might 
 break and fall to pieces, like a porcelain vase, if you 
 were roughly shaken. 
 
 Now, here, I have the advantage of you. My fancy 
 quietly surveying the scene, is subject to none of 
 these embarrassments. My fancy will not utter com- 
 monplaces. That will not say to the superb lady, 
 who stands with her flowers, incarnate May, "What 
 a beautiful day, Miss Aurelia." That will not feel 
 constrained to say something, when it has nothing to 
 say ; nor will it be obliged to smother all the pleasant 
 things that occur, because they would be too flatter- 
 ing to express. My fancy perpetually murmurs in 
 Aurelia 's ear, "Those flowers would not be fair in 
 your hand, if you yourself were not fairer. That 
 diamond necklace would be gaudy, if your eyes were 
 not brighter. That queenly movement would be 
 awkward, if your soul were not queenlier." 
 
 You could not say such things to Aurelia, although, 
 if you are worthy to dine at her side, they are the 
 very things you are longing to say. What insuffer- 
 able stuff you are talking about the weather, and the 
 opera, and Alboni's delicious voice, and Newport, and 
 Saratoga ! They are all very pleasant subjects, but 
 do you suppose Ixion talked Thessalian politics when 
 he was admitted to dine with Juno? 
 
 I almost begin to pity you, and to believe that a 
 scarcity of white waistcoats is true wisdom. For 
 now dinner is announced, and you, O rare felicity, 
 are to hand down Aurelia. But you run the risk 
 of tumbling her expansive skirt, and you have to 
 drop your hat upon a chance chair, and wonder, en 
 passant, who will wear it home, which is annoying. 
 My fancy runs no such risk ; is not at all solicitous 
 about its hat, and glides by the side of Aurelia, 
 stately as she. There ! you stumble on the stair, 
 and are vexed at your own awkwardness, and are
 
 io Prue and I 
 
 sure you saw the ghost of a smile glimmer along 
 that superb face at your side. My fancy doesn't 
 tumble down-stairs, and what kind of looks it sees 
 upon Aurelia 's face, are its own secret. 
 
 Is it any better, now you are seated at table? Your 
 companion eats little because she wishes little. You 
 eat little because you think it is elegant to do so. It 
 is a shabby, second-hand elegance, like your brittle 
 behaviour. It is just as foolish for you to play with 
 the meats, when you ought to satisfy your healthy 
 appetite generously, as it is for you, in the drawing- 
 room, to affect that cool indifference when you have 
 real and noble interests. 
 
 I grant you that fine manners, if you please, are 
 a fine art. But is not monotony the destruction of 
 art? Your manners, O happy Ixion, banqueting 
 with Juno, are Egyptian. They have no perspective, 
 no variety. They have no colour, no shading. They 
 are all on a dead level ; they are flat. Now, for you 
 are a man of sense, you are conscious that those 
 wonderful eyes of Aurelia see straight through all 
 this net-work of elegant manners in which you have 
 entangled yourself, and that consciousness is uncom- 
 fortable to you. It is another trick in the game for 
 me, because those eyes do not pry into my fancy. 
 How can they, since Aurelia does not know of my 
 existence? 
 
 Unless, indeed, she should remember the first time 
 I saw her. It was only last year, in May. I had 
 dined, somewhat hastily, in consideration of the fine 
 day, and of my confidence that many would be wend- 
 ing dinnerwards that afternoon. I saw my Prue 
 comfortably engaged in seating the trousers of Ado- 
 niram, our eldest boy an economical care to which 
 my darling Prue is not unequal, even in these days 
 and in this town and then hurried toward the 
 avenue. It is never much thronged at that hour. 
 The moment is sacred to dinner. As I paused at the 
 corner of Twelfth Street, by the church, you remem- 
 ber, I saw an apple-woman, from whose stores I
 
 Dinner-time 1 1 
 
 determined to finish my dessert, which had been 
 imperfect at home. But, mindful of meritorious and 
 economical Prue, I was not the man to pay exorbitant 
 prices for apples, and while still haggling- with the 
 wrinkled Eve who had tempted me, I became sud- 
 denly aware of a carriage approaching, and, indeed, 
 already close by. I raised my eyes, still munching 
 an apple which I held in one hand, while the other 
 grasped my walking-stick (true to my instincts of 
 dinner guests, as young women to a passing wedding 
 or old ones to a funeral), and beheld Aurelia ! 
 
 Old in this kind of observation as I am, there was 
 something so graciously alluring in the look that she 
 cast upon me, as unconsciously, indeed, as she would 
 have cast it upon the church, that, fumbling hastily 
 for my spectacles to enjoy the boon more fully, I 
 thoughtlessly advanced upon the apple-stand, and, 
 in some indescribable manner, tripping, down we all 
 fell into the street, old woman, apples, baskets, stand, 
 and I, in promiscuous confusion. As I struggled 
 there, somewhat bewildered, yet sufficiently self-pos- 
 sessed to look after the carriage, I beheld that beauti- 
 ful woman looking at us through the back-window 
 (you could not have done it ; the integrity of your 
 shirt-collar would have interfered,) and smiling plea- 
 santly, so that her going around the corner was like 
 a gentle sunset, so seemed she to disappear in her 
 own smiling ; or if you choose, in view of the apple 
 difficulties like a rainbow after a storm. 
 
 If the beautiful Aurelia recalls that event, she may 
 know of my existence ; not otherwise. And even 
 then she knows me only as a funny old gentleman, 
 who, in his eagerness to look at her, tumbled over 
 an apple-woman. 
 
 My fancy from that moment followed her. How 
 grateful I was to the wrinkled Eve's extortion, and 
 to the untoward tumble, since it procured me the 
 sight of that smile. I took my sweet revenge from 
 that. For I knew that the beautiful Aurelia entered 
 the house of her host with beaming eyes, and my
 
 12 Prue and I 
 
 fancy heard her sparkling story. You consider your- 
 self happy because you are sitting- by her and helping 
 her to a lady-finger, or a macaroon, for which she 
 smiles. But I was her theme for ten mortal minutes. 
 She was my bard, my blithe historian. She was the 
 Homer of my luckless Trojan fall. She set my mishap 
 to music, in telling it. Think what it is to have 
 inspired Urania ; to have called a brighter beam into 
 the eyes of Miranda, and do not think so much of 
 passing Aurelia the mottoes, my dear young friend. 
 
 There was the advantage of not going to that 
 dinner. Had I been invited, as you were, I should 
 have pestered Prue about the buttons on my white 
 waistcoat, instead of leaving her placidly piecing 
 adolescent trousers. She would have been flustered, 
 fearful of being too late, of tumbling the garment, of 
 soiling it, fearful of offending me in some way, (ad- 
 mirable woman !) I, in my natural impatience, might 
 have let drop a thoughtless word, which would have 
 been a pang in her heart and a tear in her eye, for 
 weeks afterward. 
 
 As I walked nervously up the avenue (for I am 
 unaccustomed to prandial recreations), I should not 
 have had that solacing image of quiet Prue, and the 
 trousers, as the background in the pictures of the 
 gay figures I passed, making each, by contrast, 
 fairer. I should have been wondering what to say 
 and do at the dinner. I should surely have been very 
 warm, and yet not have enjoyed the rich, waning 
 sunlight. Need I tell you that I should not have 
 stopped for apples, but instead of economically 
 tumbling into the street with apples and apple- 
 women, whereby I merely rent my trousers across 
 the knee, in a manner that Prue can readily, and at 
 little cost, repair, I should, beyond peradventure, 
 have split a new dollar-pair of gloves in the effort 
 of straining my large hands into them, which would, 
 also, have caused me additional redness in the face, 
 and renewed fluttering. 
 
 Above all, I should not have seen Aurelia passing
 
 Dinner-time 13 
 
 in her carriage, nor would she have smiled at me, nor 
 charmed my memory with her radiance, nor the circle 
 at dinner with the sparkling Iliad of my woes. Then 
 at the table, I should not have sat by her. You 
 would have had that pleasure; I should have led out 
 the maiden aunt from the country, and have talked 
 poultry, when I talked at all. Aurelia would not have 
 remarked me. Afterward, in describing the dinner 
 to her virtuous parents, she would have concluded, 
 "and one old gentleman, whom I didn't know." 
 
 No, my polished friend, whose elegant repose of 
 manner I yet greatly commend, I am content, if you 
 are. How much better it was that I was not invited 
 to that dinner, but was permitted, by a kind fate, to 
 furnish a subject for Aurelia 's wit. 
 
 There is one other advantage in sending your fancy 
 to dinner, instead of going yourself. It is, that then 
 the occasion remains wholly fair in your memory. 
 You, who devote yourself to dining out, and who 
 are to be daily seen affably sitting down to such 
 feasts, as I know mainly by hearsay by the report of 
 waiters, guests, and others who were present you 
 cannot escape the little things that spoil the picture, 
 and which the fancy does not see. 
 
 For instance, in handing you the potage a la 
 Bisque, at the very commencement of this dinner 
 to-day, John, the waiter, who never did such a thing 
 before, did this time suffer the plate to tip, so that 
 a little of that rare soup dripped into your lap 
 just enough to spoil those trousers, which is nothing 
 to you, because you can buy a great many more 
 trousers, but which little event is inharmonious 
 with the fine porcelain dinner service, with the fra- 
 grant wines, the glittering glass, the beautiful guests, 
 and the mood of mind suggested by all of these. 
 There is, in fact, if you will pardon a free use of the 
 vernacular, there is a grease-spot upon your remem- 
 brance of this dinner. 
 
 Or, in the same way, and with the same kind of 
 mental result, you can easily imagine the meats a
 
 14 Prue and I 
 
 little tough ; a suspicion of smoke somewhere in the 
 sauces ; too much pepper, perhaps, or too little salt ; 
 or there might be the graver dissonance of claret not 
 properly attempered, or a choice Rhenish below the 
 average mark, or the spilling of some of that Are- 
 thusa Madeira, marvellous for its innumerable cir- 
 cumnavigations of the globe, and for being as dry as 
 the conversation of the host. These things are not up 
 to the high level of the dinner ; for wherever Aurelia 
 dines, all accessories should be as perfect in their 
 kind as she, the principal, is in hers. 
 
 That reminds me of a possible dissonance worse 
 than all. Suppose that soup had trickled down the 
 unimaginable berthe of Aurelia *s dress (since it might 
 have done so), instead of wasting itself upon your 
 trousers ! Could even the irreproachable elegance of 
 your manners have contemplated, unmoved, a grease- 
 spot upon your remembrance of the peerless Aurelia? 
 
 You smile, of course, and remind me that that 
 lady's manners are so perfect that, if she drank 
 poison, she would wipe her mouth after it as grace- 
 fully as ever. How much more then, you say, in 
 the case of such a slight contretemps as spotting her 
 dress, would she appear totally unmoved. 
 
 So she would, undoubtedly. She would be, and 
 look, as pure as ever; but, my young friend, her 
 dress would not. Once, I dropped a pickled oyster 
 in the lap of my Prue, who wore, on the occasion, 
 her sea-green silk gown. I did not love my Prue the 
 less ; but there certainly was a very unhandsome spot 
 upon her dress. And although I know my Prue to be 
 spotless, yet, whenever I recall that day, I see her in 
 a spotted gown, and I would prefer never to have 
 been obliged to think of her in such a garment. 
 
 Can you not make the application to the case, very 
 likely to happen, of some disfigurement of that ex- 
 quisite toilette of Aurelia's? In going down-stairs, 
 for instance, why should not heavy old Mr. Car- 
 buncle, who is coming close behind with Mrs. Peony, 
 both very eager for dinner, tread upon the hem of that
 
 Dinner-time 15 
 
 garment which my lips would grow pale to kiss? 
 The august Aurelia, yielding to natural laws, would 
 be drawn suddenly backward a very undignified 
 movement and the dress would be dilapidated. 
 There would be apologies, and smiles, and forgive- 
 ness, and pinning up the pieces, nor would there be 
 the faintest feeling of awkwardness or vexation in 
 Aurelia's mind. But to you, looking on, and, be- 
 neath all that pure show of waistcoat, cursing old 
 Carbuncle's carelessness, this tearing of dresses and 
 repair of the toilette is by no means a poetic and 
 cheerful spectacle. Nay, the very impatience that it 
 produces in your mind jars upon the harmony of the 
 moment. 
 
 You will respond, with proper scorn, that you are 
 not so absurdly fastidious as to heed the little neces- 
 sary drawbacks of social meetings, and that you have 
 not much regard for " the harmony of the occasion " 
 (which phrase I fear you will repeat in a sneering 
 tone). You will do very right in saying this ; and it is 
 a remark to which I shall give all the hospitality of my 
 mind, and I do so because I heartily coincide in it. I 
 hold a man to be very foolish who will not eat a good 
 dinner because the table-cloth is not clean, or who 
 cavils at the spots upon the sun. But still a man 
 who does not apply his eye to a telescope or some 
 kind of prepared medium, does not see those spots, 
 while he has just as much light and heat as he who 
 does. 
 
 So it is with me. I walk in the avenue, and eat 
 all the delightful dinners without seeing the spots 
 upon the table-cloth, and behold all the beautiful 
 Aurelias without swearing at old Carbuncle. I am 
 the guest who, for the small price of invisibility, 
 drinks only the best wines, and talks only to the 
 most agreeable people. That is something, I can 
 tell you, for you might be asked to lead out old Mrs. 
 Peony. My fancy slips in between you and Aurelia, 
 sit you never so closely together. It not only hears 
 what she says, but it perceives what she thinks and
 
 1 6 Prue and I 
 
 feels. It lies like a bee in her flowery thoughts, suck- 
 ing all their honey. If there are unhandsome or 
 unfeeling guests at table, it will not see them. It 
 knows only the good and fair. As I stroll in the 
 fading light and observe the stately houses, my fancy 
 believes the host equal to his house, and the courtesy 
 of his wife more agreeable than her conservatory. 
 It will not believe that the pictures on the wall and 
 the statues in the corners shame the guests. It will 
 not allow that they are less than noble. It hears 
 them speak gently of error, and warmly of worth. It 
 knows that they commend heroism and devotion, and 
 reprobate insincerity. My fancy is convinced that 
 the guests are not only feasted upon the choicest 
 fruits of every land and season, but are refreshed oy 
 a consciousness of greater loveliness and grace in 
 human character. 
 
 Now you, who actually go to the dinner, may not 
 entirely agree with the view my fancy takes of that 
 entertainment. Is it not, therefore, rather your loss? 
 Or, to put it in another way, ought I to envy you the 
 discovery that the guests are shamed by the statues 
 and pictures ; yes, and by the spoons and forks also, 
 if they should chance neither to be so genuine nor so 
 useful as those instruments? And, worse than this, 
 when your fancy wishes to enjoy the picture which 
 mine forms of that feast, it cannot do so, because you 
 have foolishly interpolated the fact between the dinner 
 and your fancy. 
 
 Of course, by this time it is late twilight, and the 
 spectacle I enjoyed is almost over. But not quite, 
 for as I return slowly along the streets, the windows 
 are open, and only a thin haze of lace or muslin 
 separates me from the Paradise within. 
 
 I see the graceful cluster of girls hovering over 
 the piano, and the quiet groups of the elders in easy 
 chairs, around little tables. I cannot hear what is 
 said, nor plainly see the faces. But some hoyden 
 evening wind, more daring than I, abruptly parts the 
 cloud to look in, and out comes a gush of light, music,
 
 Dinner-time 17 
 
 and fragrance, so that I shrink away into the dark, 
 that I may not seem, even by chance, to have invaded 
 that privacy. 
 
 Suddenly there is singing. It is Aurelia, who does 
 not cope with the Italian Prima Donna, nor sing 
 indifferently to-night, what was sung superbly last 
 evening at the opera. She has a strange, low, sweet 
 voice, as if she only sang in the twilight. It is the 
 ballad of " Allan Percy " that she sings. There is 
 no dainty applause of kid gloves, when it is ended, 
 but silence follows the singing, like a tear. 
 
 Then you, my young friend, ascend into the draw- 
 ing-room, and, after a little graceful gossip, retire ; 
 or you wait, possibly, to hand Aurelia into her car- 
 riage, and to arrange a waltz for to-morrow evening. 
 She smiles, you bow, and it is over. But it is not 
 jet over with me. My fancy still follows her, and, 
 like a prophetic dream, rehearses her destiny. For, 
 as the carnage rolls away into the darkness and I 
 return homewards, how can my fancy help rolling 
 away also, into the dim future, watching her go down 
 the years? 
 
 Upon my way home I see her in a thousand new 
 situations. My fancy says to me, "The beauty of 
 this beautiful woman is heaven's stamp upon virtue. 
 She will be equal to every chance that shall befall 
 her, and she is so radiant and charming in the circle 
 of prosperity, only because she has that irresistible 
 simplicity and fidelity of character, which can also 
 pluck the sting from adversity. Do you not see, you 
 wan old book-keeper in faded cravat, that in a poor 
 man's house this superb Aurelia would be more stately 
 than sculpture, more beautiful than painting, and more 
 graceful than the famous vases? Would her husband 
 regret the opera if she sang ' Allan Percy ' to him 
 in the twilight? Would he not feel richer than the 
 Poets, when his eyes rose from their jewelled pages, 
 to fall again dazzled by the splendour of his wife's 
 beauty? " 
 
 At this point in my reflections I sometimes run, 
 c
 
 1 8 Prue and I 
 
 rather violently, against a lamp-post, and then pro- 
 ceed along the street more sedately. 
 
 It is yet early when I reach home, where my Prue 
 awaits me. The children are asleep, and the 
 trousers mended. The admirable woman is patient 
 of my idiosyncrasies, and asks me if I have had a 
 pleasant walk, and if there were many fine dinners 
 to-day, as if I had been expected at a dozen tables. 
 She even asks me if I have seen the beautiful Aure- 
 lia (for there is always some Aurelia,) and inquires 
 what dress she wore. I respond, and dilate upon 
 what I have seen. Prue listens, as the children 
 listen to her fairy tales. We discuss the little 
 stories that penetrate our retirement, of the great 
 people who actually dine out. Prue, with fine 
 womanly instinct, declares it is a shame that Aurelia 
 
 should smile for a moment upon , yes, even upon 
 
 you, my friend of the irreproachable manners ! 
 
 "I know him," says my simple Prue; "I have 
 watched his cold courtesy, his insincere devotion. 
 I have seen him acting in the boxes at the opera, 
 much more adroitly than the singers upon the stage. 
 I have read his determination to marry Aurelia ; and 
 I shall not be surprised," concludes my tender wife, 
 sadly, " if he wins her at last, by tiring her out, or, 
 by secluding her by his constant devotion from the 
 homage of other men, convinces her that she had 
 better marry him, since it is so dismal to live on 
 unmarried." 
 
 And so, my friend, at the moment when the 
 bouquet you ordered is arriving at Aurelia 's house, 
 and she is sitting before the glass while her maid 
 arranges the last flower in her hair, my darling Prue, 
 whom you will never hear of, is shedding warm 
 tears over your probable union, and I am sitting by, 
 adjusting my cravat and incontinently clearing my 
 throat. 
 
 It is rather a ridiculous business, I allow ; yet you 
 will smile at it tenderly, rather than scornfully, if you 
 remember that it shows how closely linked we human
 
 Dinner-time 19 
 
 creatures are, without knowing it, and that more 
 hearts than we dream of enjoy our happiness and 
 share our sorrow. 
 
 Thus, I dine at great tables uninvited, and, un- 
 known, converse with the famous beauties. If Aure- 
 lia is at last engaged, (but who is worthy?) she will, 
 with even greater care, arrange that wondrous 
 toilette, will teach that lace a fall more alluring, 
 those gems a sweeter light. But even then, as she 
 rolls to dinner in her carriage, glad that she is fair, 
 not for her own sake nor for the world's, but for that 
 of a single youth (who, I hope, has not been smoking 
 at the club all the morning), I, sauntering upon the 
 sidewalk, see her pass, I pay homage to her beauty, 
 and her lover can do no more ; and if, perchance, my 
 garments which must seem quaint to her, with their 
 shining knees and carefully brushed elbows; my 
 white cravat, careless, yet prim ; my meditative 
 movement, as I put my stick under my arm to pare 
 an apple, and not, I hope, this time to fall into the 
 street, should remind her, in her spring of youth, 
 and beauty, and love, that there are age, and care, 
 and poverty, also; then, perhaps, the good fortune 
 of the meeting is not wholly mine. 
 
 For, O beautiful Aurelia, two of these things, at 
 least, must come even to you. There will be a time 
 when you will no longer go out to dinner, or only 
 very quietly, in the family. I shall be gone then : 
 but other old book-keepers in white cravats will 
 inherit my tastes, and saunter, on summer after- 
 noons, to see what I loved to see. 
 
 They will not pause, I fear, in buying apples, to 
 look at the old lady in venerable cap, who is rolling 
 by in the carriage. They will worship another 
 Aurelia. You will not wear diamonds or opals any 
 more, only one pearl upon your blue-veined finger 
 your engagement ring. Grave clergymen and anti- 
 quated beaux will hand you down to dinner, and the 
 group of polished youth, who gather around the yet 
 unborn Aurelia of that day, will look at you, sitting
 
 20 Prue and I 
 
 quietly upon the sofa, and say, softly, "She must 
 have been very handsome in her time." 
 
 All this must be : for consider how few years since 
 it was your grandmother who was the belle, by whose 
 side the handsome young men longed to sit and pass 
 expressive mottoes. Your grandmother was the 
 Aurelia of a half-century ago, although you cannot 
 fancy her young. She is indissolubly associated in 
 your mind with caps and dark dresses. You can be- 
 lieve Mary Queen of Scots, or Nell Gwyn or Cleo- 
 patra, to have been young and blooming, although 
 they belong to old and dead centuries, but not your 
 grandmother. Think of those who shall believe the 
 same of you you, who to-day are the very flower 
 of youth. 
 
 Might I plead with you, Aurelia I, who would 
 be too happy to receive one of those graciously beam- 
 ing bows that I see you bestow upon young men, in 
 passing, I would ask you to bear that thought with 
 you, always, not to sadden your sunny smile, but 
 to give it a more subtle grace. Wear in your sum- 
 mer garland this little leaf of rue. It will not be 
 the skull at the feast, it will rather be the tender 
 thoughtfulness in the face of the young Madonna. 
 
 For the years pass like summer clouds, Aurelia, 
 and the children of yesterday are the wives and 
 mothers of to-day. Even I do sometimes discover 
 the mild eyes of my Prue fixed pensively upon my 
 face, as if searching for the bloom which she re- 
 members there in the days, long ago, when we were 
 young. She will never see it there again, any more 
 than the flowers she held in her hand, in our old 
 spring rambles. Yet the tear that slowly gathers as 
 she gazes, is not grief that the bloom has faded from 
 my cheek, but the sweet consciousness that it can 
 never fade from my heart ; and as her eyes fall upon 
 her work again, or the children climb her lap to hear 
 the old fairy tales they already know by heart, my 
 wife Prue is dearer to me than the sweetheart of 
 those days long ago.
 
 My Chateaux 21 
 
 MY CHATEAUX 
 
 " In Xanadu did Kubla Khan 
 A stately pleasure-dome decree." 
 
 COLERIDGE. 
 
 I AM the owner of great estates. Many of them 
 lie in the West; but the greater part are in Spain. 
 You may see my western possessions any evening at 
 sunset when their spires and battlements flash against 
 the horizon. 
 
 It gives me a feeling of pardonable importance, 
 as a proprietor, that they are visible, to my eyes at 
 least, from any part of the world in which I chance 
 to be. In my long voyage around the Cape of Good 
 Hope to India (the only voyage I ever made, when 
 I was a boy and a supercargo), if I fell home-sick, 
 or sank into a reverie of all the pleasant homes I 
 had left behind, I had but to wait until sunset, and 
 then looking toward the west, I beheld my cluster- 
 ing pinnacles and towers brightly burnished as if 
 to salute and welcome me. 
 
 So, in the city, if I get vexed and wearied, and 
 cannot find my wonted solace in sallying forth at 
 dinner-time to contemplate the gay world of youth 
 and beauty hurrying to the congress of fashion, or 
 if I observe that years are deepening their tracks 
 around the eyes of my wife, Prue, I go quietly up 
 to the housetop, toward evening, and refresh myself 
 with a distant prospect of my estates. It is as dear 
 to me as that of Eton to the poet Gray; and, if I 
 sometimes wonder at such moments whether I shall 
 find those realms as fair as they appear, I am sud- 
 denly reminded that the night air may be noxious, 
 and descending, I enter the little parlour where Prue 
 sits stitching, and surprise that precious woman by 
 exclaiming with the poet's pensive enthusiasm :
 
 22 Prue and I 
 
 "Thought would destroy their Paradise, 
 No more ; where ignorance is bliss, 
 'Tis folly to be wise." 
 
 Columbus, also, had possessions in the West; and 
 as I read aloud the romantic story of his life, my 
 voice quivers when I come to the point in which it is 
 related that sweet odours of the land mingled with the 
 sea-air, as the admiral's fleet approached the shores; 
 that tropical birds flew out and fluttered around the 
 ships, glittering in the sun, the gorgeous promises 
 of the new country ; that boughs, perhaps with blos- 
 soms not all decayed, floated out to welcome the 
 strange wood from which the craft were hollowed. 
 Then I cannot restrain myself. I think of the gorge- 
 ous visions I have seen before I have even under- 
 taken the journey to the West, and I cry aloud to 
 Prue : 
 
 "What sun-bright birds, and gorgeous blossoms, 
 and celestial odours will float out to us, my Prue, as 
 we approach our western possessions ! " 
 
 The placid Prue raises her eyes to mine with a 
 reproof so delicate that it could not be trusted to 
 words; and, after a moment, she resumes her knit- 
 ting and I proceed. 
 
 These are my western estates, but my finest castles 
 are in Spain. It is a country famously romantic, 
 and my castles are all of perfect proportions, and 
 appropriately set in the most picturesque situations. 
 I have never been to Spain myself, but I have natur- 
 ally conversed much with travellers to that country; 
 although, I must allow, without deriving from them 
 much substantial information about my property 
 there. The wisest of them told me that there were 
 more holders of real estate in Spain than in any other 
 region he had ever heard of, and they are all great 
 proprietors. Every one of them possesses a multitude 
 of the stateliest castles. From conversation with 
 them you easily gather that each one considers his 
 own castles much the largest and in the loveliest posi- 
 tions. And, after T had heard this said, I verified it,
 
 My Chateaux 23 
 
 by discovering- that all my immediate neighbours in 
 the city were great Spanish proprietors. 
 
 One day as I raised my head from entering- some 
 long- and tedious accounts in my books, and began 
 to reflect that the quarter was expiring, and that I 
 must begin to prepare the balance-sheet, I observed 
 my subordinate, in office but not in years, (for poor 
 old Titbottom will never see sixty again !) leaning 
 on his hand, and much abstracted. 
 
 "Are you not well, Titbottom ! " asked I. 
 
 "Perfectly, but I was just building a castle in 
 Spain," said he. 
 
 I looked at his rusty coat, his faded hands, his sad 
 eye, and white hair, for a moment, in great surprise, 
 and then inquired : 
 
 " Is it possible that you own property there 
 too ? " 
 
 He shook his head silently ; and still leaning on 
 his hand, and with an expression in his eye, as if he 
 were looking upon the most fertile estate of Anda- 
 lusia, he went on making- his plans; laying out his 
 gardens, I suppose, building terraces for the vines, 
 determining- a library with a southern exposure, and 
 resolving which should be the tapestried chamber. 
 
 "What a singular whim," thought I, as I watched 
 Titbottom and filled up a cheque for four hundred 
 dollars, my quarterly salary, "that a man who owns 
 castles in Spain should be deputy book-keeper at 
 nine hundred dollars a year ! " 
 
 When I went home I ate my dinner silently, and 
 afterward sat for a long time upon the roof of the 
 house, looking at my western property, and thinking 
 of Titbottom. 
 
 It is remarkable that none of the proprietors have 
 ever been to Spain to take possession and report to 
 the rest of us the state of our property there. I, of 
 course, cannot go, I am too much eng-aged. So is 
 Titbottom. And I find it is the case with all the pro- 
 prietors. We have so much to detain us at home that 
 we cannot get away. But it is always so with rich
 
 24 Prue and I 
 
 men. Prue sighed once as she sat at the window and 
 saw Bourne, the millionaire, the President of in- 
 numerable companies, and manager and director of 
 all the charitable societies in town, going by with 
 wrinkled brow and hurried step. I asked her why 
 she sighed. 
 
 " Because I was remembering that my mother used 
 to tell me not to desire great riches, for they occa- 
 sioned great cares," said she. 
 
 "They do indeed," answered I, with emphasis, 
 remembering Titbottom, and the impossibility of 
 looking after my Spanish estates. 
 
 Prue turned and looked at me with mild surprise; 
 but I saw that her mind had gone down the street 
 with Bourne. I could never discover if he held much 
 Spanish stock. But I think he does. All the Spanish 
 proprietors have a certain expression. Bourne has 
 it to a remarkable degree. It is a kind of look, as if, 
 in fact, a man's mind were in Spain. Bourne was 
 an old lover of Prue's, and he is not married, which 
 is strange for a man in his position. 
 
 It is not easy for me to say how I know so much, 
 as I certainly do, about my castles in Spain. The 
 sun always shines upon them. They stand lofty 
 and fair in a luminous, golden atmosphere, a little 
 hazy and dreamy, perhaps, like the Indian summer, 
 but in which no gales blow and there are no tem- 
 pests. All the sublime mountains, and beautiful 
 valleys, and soft landscape, that I have not yet seen, 
 are to be found in the grounds. They command a 
 noble view of the Alps; so fine, indeed, that I should 
 be quite content with the prospect of them from the 
 highest tower of my castle, and not care to go to 
 Switzerland. 
 
 The neighbouring ruins, too, are as picturesque as 
 those of Italy, and my desire of standing in the Coli- 
 seum, and of seeing the shattered arches of the Aque- 
 ducts stretching along the Campagna and melting 
 into the Alban Mount, is entirely quenched. The 
 rich gloom of my orange groves is gilded by fruit as
 
 My Chateaux 25 
 
 brilliant of complexion and exquisite of flavour as 
 any that ever dark-eyed Sorrento girls, looking- over 
 the high plastered walls of southern Italy, hand to 
 the youthful travellers, climbing on donkeys up the 
 narrow lane beneath. 
 
 The Nile flows through my grounds. The Desert 
 lies upon their edge, and Damascus stands in my 
 garden. I am given to understand, also, that the 
 Parthenon has been removed to my Spanish posses- 
 sions. The Golden-Horn is my fish-preserve; my 
 flocks of golden fleece are pastured on the plain of 
 Marathon, and the honey of Hymettus is distilled 
 from the flowers that grow in the vale of Enna all 
 in my Spanish domains. 
 
 From the windows of those castles look the beauti- 
 ful women whom I have never seen, whose portraits 
 the poets have painted. They wait for me there, and 
 chiefly the fair-haired child, lost to my eyes so long 
 ago, now bloomed into an impossible beauty. The 
 lights that never shone, glance at evening in the 
 vaulted halls, upon banquets that were never spread. 
 The bands I have never collected, play all night long, 
 and enchant the brilliant company, that was never 
 assembled, into silence. 
 
 In the long summer mornings the children that I 
 never had, play in the gardens that I never planted. 
 I hear their sweet voices sounding low and far away, 
 calling, " Father ! father ! " I see the lost fair- 
 haired girl, grown now into a woman, descending the 
 stately stairs of my castle in Spain, stepping out 
 upon the lawn, and playing with those children. They 
 bound away together down the garden ; but those 
 voices linger, this time airily calling, " Mother ! 
 mother ! " 
 
 But there is a stranger magic than this in my 
 Spanish estates. The lawny slopes on which, when 
 a child, I played, in my father's old country place, 
 which was sold when he failed, are all there, and not 
 a flower faded, nor a blade of grass sere. The green 
 leaves are not fallen from the spring woods of half a
 
 26 Prue and I 
 
 century ago, and a gorgeous autumn has blazed un- 
 dimmed for fifty years, among the trees I remember. 
 
 Chestnuts are not especially sweet to my palate 
 now, but those with which I used to prick my fingers 
 when gathering them in New Hampshire woods are 
 exquisite as ever to my taste, when I think of eating 
 them in Spain. I never ride horseback now at home ; 
 but in Spain, when I think of it, I bound over all the 
 fences in the country, barebacked upon the wildest 
 horses. Sermons I am apt to find a little soporific in 
 this country; but in Spain I should listen as rever- 
 ently as ever, for proprietors must set a good example 
 on their estates. 
 
 Plays are insufferable to me here Prue and I never 
 go. Prue, indeed, is not quite sure it is moral; but 
 the theatres in my Spanish castles are of a prodigious 
 splendour, and when I think of going there, Prue 
 sits in a front box with me a kind of royal box 
 the good woman, attired in such wise as I have never 
 seen her here, while I wear my white waistcoat, 
 which in Spain has no appearance of mending, but 
 dazzles with immortal newness, and is a miraculous fit. 
 
 Yes, and in those castles in Spain, Prue is not the 
 placid, breeches-patching helpmate, with whom you 
 are acquainted, but her face has a bloom which we 
 both remember, and her movement a grace which my 
 Spanish swans emulate, and her voice a music sweeter 
 than those that orchestras discourse. She is always 
 there what she seemed to me when I fell in love with 
 her, many and many years ago. The neighbours 
 called her then a nice, capable girl ; and certainly she 
 did knit and darn with a zeal and success to which my 
 feet and my legs have testified for nearly half a cen- 
 tury. But she could spin a finer web than ever came 
 from cotton, and in its subtle meshes my heart was 
 entangled, and there has reposed softly and happily 
 ever since. The neighbours declared she could make 
 pudding and cake better than any girl of her age ; but 
 stale bread from Prue's hand was ambrosia to my 
 palate.
 
 My Chateaux 27 
 
 " She who makes everything well, even to making 
 neighbours speak well of her, will surely make a good 
 wife," said I to myself when I knew her; and the echo 
 of a half century answers, "a good wife." 
 
 So, when I meditate my Spanish castles, I see Prue 
 in them as my heart saw her standing by her father's 
 door. "Age cannot wither her." There is a magic in 
 the Spanish air that paralyzes Time. He glides by, 
 unnoticed and unnoticing. I greatly admire the Alps, 
 which I see so distinctly from my Spanish windows ; 
 I delight in the taste of the southern fruit that ripens 
 upon my terraces ; I enjoy the pensive shade of the 
 Italian ruins in my gardens ; I like to shoot croco- 
 diles, and talk with the Sphinx upon the shores of 
 the Nile, flowing through my domain; I am glad to 
 drink sherbet in Damascus, and fleece my flocks on 
 the plains of Marathon ; but I would resign all these 
 for ever rather than part with that Spanish portrait of 
 Prue for a day. Nay, have I not resigned them all for 
 ever, to live with that portrait's changing original? 
 
 I have often wondered how I should reach my 
 castles. The desire of going comes over me very 
 strongly sometimes, and I endeavour to see how I 
 can arrange my affairs, so as to get away. To tell 
 the truth, I am not quite sure of the route, I mean, 
 to that particular part of Spain in which my estates 
 lie. I have inquired very particularly, but nobody 
 seems to know precisely. One morning I met young 
 Aspen, trembling with excitement. 
 
 "What's the matter? " asked I with interest, for I 
 knew that he held a great deal of Spanish stock. 
 
 " Oh ! " said he, "I'm going out to take possession. 
 I have found the way to my castles in Spain." 
 
 "Dear me! " I answered, with the blood stream- 
 ing into my face ; and, heedless of Prue, pulling my 
 glove until it ripped "what is it? " 
 
 "The direct route is through California," answered 
 he. 
 
 "But then you have the sea to cross afterward," 
 said I, remembering the map.
 
 28 Prue and I 
 
 "Not at all," answered Aspen, "the road runs 
 along the shore of the Sacramento River." 
 
 He darted away from me, and I did not meet him 
 again. I was very curious to know if he arrived 
 safely in Spain, and was expecting every day to hear 
 news from him of my property there, when, one even- 
 ing, I bought an extra, full of California news, and 
 the first thing upon which my eye fell was this : 
 "Died, in San Francisco, Edward Aspen, Esq., aged 
 35." There is a large body of the Spanish stock- 
 holders who believe with Aspen, and sail for Cali- 
 fornia every week. I have not yet heard of their 
 arrival out at their castles, but I suppose they are so 
 busy with their own affairs there, that they have no 
 time to write to the rest of us about the condition of 
 our property. 
 
 There was my wife's cousin, too, Jonathan Bud, 
 who is a good, honest, youth from the country, and, 
 after a few weeks' absence, he burst into the office 
 one day, just as I was balancing my books, and 
 whispered to me, eagerly : 
 
 "I've found my castle in Spain." 
 
 I put the blotting-paper in the leaf deliberately, 
 for I was wiser now than when Aspen had excited 
 me, and looked at my wife's cousin, Jonathan Bud, 
 inquiringly. 
 
 "Polly Bacon," whispered he, winking. 
 
 I continued the interrogative glance. 
 
 " She's going to marry me, and she'll show me the 
 way to Spain," said Jonathan Bud, hilariously. 
 
 "She'll make you walk Spanish, Jonathan Bud," 
 said I. 
 
 And so she does. He makes no more hilarious 
 remarks. He never bursts into a room. He does 
 not ask us to dinner. He says that Mrs. Bud does 
 not like smoking. Mrs. Bud has nerves and babies. 
 She has a way of saying, " Mr. Bud ! " which destroys 
 conversation, and casts a gloom upon society. 
 
 It occurred to me that Bourne, the millionaire, 
 must have ascertained the safest and most expedi-
 
 My Chateaux 29 
 
 tious route to Spain ; so I stole a few minutes one 
 afternoon, and went into his office. He was sitting 
 at his desk, writing rapidly, and surrounded by files 
 of papers and patterns, specimens, boxes, every- 
 thing that covers the tables of a great merchant. 
 In the outer rooms clerks were writing. Upon high 
 shelves over their heads, were huge chests, covered 
 with dust, dingy with age, many of them, and all 
 marked with the name of the firm, in large black 
 letters "Bourne & Dye." They were all numbered 
 also with the proper year ; some of them with a single 
 capital B, and dates extending back into the last 
 century, when old Bourne made the great fortune, 
 before he went into partnership with Dye. Every- 
 thing was indicative of immense and increasing pros- 
 perity. 
 
 There were several gentlemen in waiting to con- 
 verse with Bourne (we all call him so, familiarly, 
 down town), and I waited until they went out. But 
 others came in. There was no pause in the rush. 
 All kinds of inquiries were made and answered. At 
 length I stepped up. 
 
 "A moment, please, Mr. Bourne." 
 
 He looked up hastily, wished me good morning, 
 which he had done to none of the others, and which 
 courtesy I attributed to Spanish sympathy. 
 
 "What is it, sir?" he asked, blandly, but with 
 wrinkled brow. 
 
 " Mr. Bourne, have you any castles in Spain ? " 
 said I, without preface. 
 
 He looked at me for a few moments without speak- 
 ing, and without seeming to see me. His brow 
 gradually smoothed, and his eyes, apparently looking 
 into the street, were really, I have no doubt, feasting 
 upon the Spanish landscape. 
 
 "Too many, too many," said he at length, 
 musingly, shaking his head, and without addressing 
 me. 
 
 I suppose he felt himself too much extended as 
 we say in Wall Street. He feared, I thought, that he
 
 30 Prue and I 
 
 had too much impracticable property elsewhere, to 
 own so much in Spain ; so I asked, 
 
 "Will you tell me what you consider the shortest 
 and safest route thither, Mr. Bourne? for, of course, 
 a man who drives such an immense trade with all 
 parts of the world, will know all that I have come 
 to inquire." 
 
 "My dear sir," answered he wearily, "I have been 
 trying all my life to discover it ; but none of my ships 
 have ever been there none of my captains have any 
 report to make. They bring me, as they brought my 
 father, gold dust from Guinea ; ivory, pearls, and 
 precious stones, from every part of the earth; but 
 not a fruit, not a solitary flower, from one of my 
 castles in Spain. I have sent clerks, agents, and 
 travellers of all kinds, philosophers, pleasure-hunters, 
 and invalids, in all sorts of ships, to all sorts of 
 places, but none of them ever saw or heard of my 
 castles, except one young poet, and he died in a 
 mad-house." 
 
 " Mr. Bourne, will you take five thousand at ninety- 
 seven? " hastily demanded a man, whom, as he en- 
 tered, I recognized as a broker. "We'll make a 
 splendid thing of it." 
 
 Bourne nodded assent, and the broker disappeared. 
 
 " Happy man ! " muttered the merchant, as the 
 broker went out; "he has no castles in Spain." 
 
 " I am sorry to have troubled you, Mr. Bourne," 
 said I, retiring. 
 
 " I am glad you came," returned he ; " but I assure 
 you, had I known the route you hoped to ascertain 
 from me, I should have sailed years and years ago. 
 People sail for the North-west Passage, which is 
 nothing when you have found it. Why don't the 
 English Admiralty fit out expeditions to discover all 
 our castles in Spain ? " 
 
 He sat lost in thought. 
 
 " It's nearly post-time, sir," said the clerk. 
 
 Mr. Bourne did not heed him. He was still 
 musing ; and I turned to go, wishing him good morn-
 
 My Chateaux 31 
 
 ing. When I had nearly reached the door, he called 
 me back, saying, as if continuing his remarks 
 
 " It is strange that you, of all men, should come to 
 ask me this question. If I envy any man, it is you, 
 for I sincerely assure you that I supposed you lived 
 altogether upon your Spanish estates. I once thought 
 I knew the way to mine. I gave directions for fur- 
 nishing them, and ordered bridal bouquets, which 
 were never used, but I suppose they are there still." 
 
 He paused a moment, then said slowly " How is 
 your wife? " 
 
 I told him that Prue was well that she was always 
 remarkably well. Mr. Bourne shook me warmly by 
 the hand. 
 
 "Thank you," said he. "Good morning." 
 
 I knew why he thanked me ; I knew why he thought 
 that I lived altogether upon my Spanish estates; I 
 knew a little bit about those bridal bouquets. Mr. 
 Bourne, the millionaire, was an old lover of Prue's. 
 There is something very odd about these Spanish 
 castles. When I think of them, I somehow see the 
 fair-haired girl whom I knew when I was not out of 
 short jackets. When Bourne meditates them, he 
 sees Prue and me quietly at home in their best 
 chambers. It is a very singular thing that my wife 
 should live in another's man's castle in Spain. 
 
 At length I resolved to ask Titbottom if he had 
 ever heard of the best route to our estates. He said 
 that he owned castles, and sometimes there was an 
 expression in his face, as if he saw them. I hope he 
 did. I should long ago have asked him if he had 
 ever observed the turrets of my possessions in the 
 West, without alluding to Spain, if I had not feared 
 he would suppose I was mocking his poverty. I hope 
 his poverty has not turned his head, for he is very 
 forlorn. 
 
 One Sunday I went with him a few miles into the 
 country. It was a soft, bright day, the fields and hills 
 lay turned to the sky, as if every leaf and blade of 
 grass were nerves, bared to the touch of the sun. I
 
 32 Prue and I 
 
 almost felt the ground warm under my feet. The 
 meadows waved and glittered, the lights and shadows 
 were exquisite, and the distant hills seemed only to 
 remove the horizon farther away. As we strolled 
 along, picking wild flowers, for it was in summer, I 
 was thinking what a fine day it was for a trip to 
 Spain, when Titbottom suddenly exclaimed : 
 
 "Thank God ! I own this landscape." 
 
 "You," returned I. 
 
 "Certainly," said he. 
 
 "Why," I answered, "I thought this was part of 
 Bourne's property? " 
 
 Titbottom smiled. 
 
 "Does Bourne own the sun and sky? Does Bourne 
 own that sailing shadow yonder? Does Bourne own 
 the golden lustre of the grain, or the motion of the 
 wood, or those ghosts of hills, that glide pallid along 
 the horizon? Bourne owns the dirt and fences; I 
 own the beauty that makes the landscape, or other- 
 wise how could I own castles in Spain? " 
 
 That was very true. I respected Titbottom more 
 than ever. 
 
 " Do you know," said he, after a long pause, " that 
 I fancy my castles lie just beyond those distant hills. 
 At all events, I can see them distinctly from their 
 summits." 
 
 He smiled quietly as he spoke, and it was then I 
 asked : 
 
 "But, Titbottom, have you never discovered the 
 way to them ? " 
 
 "Dear me! yes," answered he, "I know the way 
 well enough ; but it would do no good to follow it. 
 I should give out before I arrived. It is a long and 
 difficult journey for a man of my years and habits 
 and income," he added slowly. 
 
 As he spoke he seated himself upon the ground ; 
 and while he pulled long blades of grass, and, putting 
 them between his thumbs, whistled shrilly, he said : 
 
 " I have never known but two men who reached 
 their estates in Spain."
 
 My Chateaux 33 
 
 "Indeed ! " said I, "how did they go? " 
 
 "One went over the side of a ship, and the other 
 out of a third story window," said Titbottom, fitting 
 a broad blade between his thumbs and blowing a 
 demoniacal blast. 
 
 "And I know one proprietor who resides upon his 
 estates constantly," continued he. 
 
 "Who is that?" 
 
 "Our old friend, Slug, whom you may see any day 
 at the asylum, just coming in from the hunt, or going 
 to call upon his friend the Grand Lama, or dressing 
 for the wedding of the Man in the Moon, or receiving 
 an ambassador from Timbuctoo. Whenever I go to 
 see him, Slug insists that I am the Pope, disguised 
 as a journeyman carpenter, and he entertains me in 
 the most distinguished manner. He always insists 
 upon kissing my foot, and I bestow upon him, kneel- 
 ing, the apostolic benediction. This is the only 
 Spanish proprietor in possession, with whom I am 
 acquainted." 
 
 And, so saying, Titbottom lay back upon the 
 ground, and making a spy-glass of his hand, sur- 
 veyed the landscape through it. This was a marvel- 
 lous book-keeper of more than sixty ! 
 
 " I know another man who lived in his Spanish 
 castle for two months, and then was tumbled out 
 head first. That was young Stunning who married 
 old Buhl's daughter. She was all smiles, and mamma 
 was all sugar, and Stunning was all bliss, for two 
 months. He carried his head in the clouds, and 
 felicity absolutely foamed at his eyes. He was 
 drowned in love; seeing, as usual, not what really 
 was, but what he fancied. He lived so exclusively 
 in his castle, that he forgot the office down town, 
 and one morning there came a fall, and Stunning 
 was smashed." 
 
 Titbottom arose, and stooping over, contemplated 
 the landscape, with his head down between his legs. 
 
 "It's quite a new effect, so," said the nimble 
 book-keeper. 
 D
 
 34 Prue and I 
 
 "Well," said I, "Stunning failed?" 
 
 " Oh yes, smashed all up, and the castle in Spain 
 came down about his ears with a tremendous crash. 
 The family sugar was all dissolved into the original 
 cane in a moment. Fairy-times are over, are they? 
 Heigh-ho ! the falling stones of Stunning's castle 
 have left their marks all over his face. I call them 
 his Spanish scars." 
 
 "But, my dear Titbottom," said I, "what is the 
 matter with you this morning, your usual sedateness 
 is quite gone? " 
 
 "It's only the exhilarating air of Spain," he an- 
 swered. " My castles are so beautiful that I can never 
 think of them, nor speak of them, without excite- 
 ment; when I was younger I desired to reach them 
 even more ardently than now, because I heard that 
 the philosopher's stone was in the vault of one of 
 them. " 
 
 "Indeed," said I, yielding to sympathy, "and I 
 have good reason to believe that the fountain of 
 eternal youth flows through the garden of one of 
 mine. Do you know whether there are any children 
 upon your grounds?" 
 
 "The children of Alice call Bartrum father!" 
 replied Titbottom, solemnly, and in a low voice, as 
 he folded his faded hands before him, and stood 
 erect, looking wistfully over the landscape. The 
 light wind played with his thin white hair, and his 
 sober, black suit was almost sombre in the sunshine. 
 The half bitter expression, which I had remarked 
 upon his face during part of our conversation, had 
 passed away, and the old sadness had returned to 
 his eye. He stood, in the pleasant morning, the 
 very image of a great proprietor of castles in Spain. 
 
 "There is wonderful music there," he said : "some- 
 times I awake at night, and hear it. It is full of the 
 ; sweetness of youth, and love, and a new world. I 
 lie and listen, and I seem to arrive at the great gates 
 of my estates. They swing open upon noiseless 
 ; hinges, and the tropic of my dreams receives me.
 
 My Chateaux 35 
 
 Up the broad steps, whose marble pavement mingled 
 light and shadow print with shifting mosaic, beneath 
 the boughs of lustrous oleanders, and palms, and 
 trees of unimaginable fragrance, I pass into the vesti- 
 bule, warm with summer odours, and into the pre- 
 sence-chamber beyond, where my wife awaits me. 
 But castle, and wife, and odorous woods, and pic- 
 tures, and statues, and all the bright substance of my 
 household, seem to reel and glimmer in the splendour, 
 as the music fails. 
 
 " But when it swells again, I clasp the wife to my 
 heart, and we move on with a fair society, beautiful 
 women, noble men, before whom the tropical luxuri- 
 ance of that world bends and bows in homage ; and, 
 through endless days and nights of eternal summer, 
 the stately revel of our life proceeds. Then, sud* 
 denly, the music stops. I hear my watch ticking 
 under the pillow. I see dimly the outline of my little 
 upper room. Then I fall asleep, and in the morning 
 some one of the boarders at the breakfast-table says : 
 
 " ' Did you hear the serenade last night, Mr. Tit- 
 bottom ? ' ' 
 
 I doubted no longer that Titbottom was a very 
 extensive proprietor. The truth is, that he was so 
 constantly engaged in planning and arranging his 
 castles, that he conversed very little at the office, and 
 I had misinterpreted his silence. As we walked 
 homeward, that day, he was more than ever tender 
 and gentle. "We must all have something to do in 
 this world," said he, "and I, who have so much 
 leisure for you know I have no wife nor children 
 to work for know not what I should do, if I had 
 not my castles in Spain to look after." 
 
 When I reached home, my darling Prue was sit- 
 ting in the small parlour, reading. I felt a little guilty 
 for having been so long away, and upon my only 
 holiday, too. So I began to say that Titbottom in- 
 vited me to go to walk, and that I had no idea we 
 had gone so far, and that 
 
 "Don't excuse yourself," said Prue, smiling as 
 
 T) 2
 
 36 Prue and I 
 
 she laid down her book; "I am glad you have en- 
 joyed yourself. You ought to go out sometimes, and 
 breathe the fresh air, and run about the fields, which 
 I am not strong enough to do. Why did you not 
 bring home Mr. Titbottom to tea? He is so lonely, 
 and looks so sad. I am sure he has very little com- 
 fort in this life," said my thoughtful Prue, as she 
 called Jane to set the tea-table. 
 
 "But he has a good deal of comfort in Spain, 
 Prue," answered I. 
 
 " When was Mr. Titbottom in Spain ? " inquired 
 my wife. 
 
 "Why, he is there more than half the time," I 
 replied. 
 
 Prue looked quietly at me and smiled. " I see it 
 has done you good to breathe the country air," said 
 she. "Jane, get some of the blackberry jam, and 
 call Adoniram and the children." 
 
 So we went in to tea. We eat in the back parlour, 
 for our little house and limited means do not allow us 
 to have things upon the Spanish scale. It is better 
 than a sermon to hear my wife Prue talk to the chil- 
 dren ; and when she speaks to me it seems sweeter 
 than psalm singing ; at least, such as we have in our 
 church. I am very happy. 
 
 Yet I dream my dreams, and attend to my castles 
 in Spain. I have so much property there, that I could 
 not, in conscience, neglect it. All the years of my 
 youth, and the hopes of my manhood, are stored 
 away, like precious stones, in the vaults ; and I know 
 that I shall find everything convenient, elegant, and 
 beautiful, when I come into possession. 
 
 As the years go by, I am not conscious that my 
 interest diminishes. If I see that age is subtly sifting 
 his snow in the dark hair of my Prue, I smile, con- 
 tented, for her hair, dark and heavy as when I first 
 saw it, is all carefully treasured in my castles in 
 Spain. If I feel her arm more heavily leaning upon 
 mine, as we walk around the squares, I press it 
 closely to my side, for I know that the easy grace of
 
 My Chateaux 37 
 
 her youth's motion will be restored by the elixir of 
 that Spanish air. If her voice sometimes falls less 
 clearly from her lips, it is no less sweet to me, for 
 the music of her voice's prime fills, freshly as ever, 
 those Spanish halls. If the light I love fades a little 
 from her eyes, I know that the glances she gave me, 
 in our youth, are the eternal sunshine of my castles 
 in Spain. 
 
 I defy time and change. Each year laid upon our 
 heads is a hand of blessing. I have no doubt that 
 I shall find the shortest route to my possessions as 
 soon as need be. Perhaps, when Adoniram is mar- 
 ried, we shall all go out to one of my castles to pass 
 the honeymoon. 
 
 Ah ! if the true history of Spain could be written, 
 what a book were there ! The most purely romantic 
 ruin in the world is the Alhambra. But of the Span- 
 ish castles, more spacious and splendid than any pos- 
 sible Alhambra, and for ever unruined, no towers are 
 visible, no pictures have been painted, and only a few 
 ecstatic songs have been sung. The pleasure-dome of 
 Kubla Khan, which Coleridge saw in Xanadu (a 
 province with which I am not familiar), and a fine 
 Castle of Indolence belonging to Thomson, and the 
 Palace of art which Tennyson built as a "lordly 
 pleasure-house " for his soul, are among the best 
 statistical accounts of those Spanish estates. Turner, 
 too, has done for them much the same service that 
 Owen Jones has done for the Alhambra. In the vig- 
 nette to Moore's Epicurean you will find represented 
 one of the most extensive castles in Spain ; and there 
 are several exquisite studies from others, by the same 
 artists, published in Roger's Italy. 
 
 But I confess I do not recognize any of these as 
 mine, and that fact makes me prouder of my own 
 castles, for, if there be such boundless variety of 
 magnificence in their aspect and exterior, imagine 
 the life that is led there, a life not unworthy such 
 a setting. 
 
 If Adoniram should be married within a reasonable 
 
 177077
 
 38 Prue and I 
 
 time, and we should make up that little family party 
 to go out, I have considered already what society I 
 should ask to meet the bride. Jephthah's daughter 
 and the Chevalier Bayard, I should say and fair 
 Rosamond with Dean Swift King Solomon and the 
 Queen of Sheba would come over, I think, from his 
 famous castle Shakespeare and his friend the Mar- 
 quis of Southampton might come in a galley with 
 Cleopatra; and, if any guest were offended by her 
 presence, he should devote himself to the Fair One 
 with Golden Locks. Mephistophiles is not person- 
 ally disagreeable, and is exceedingly well-bred in 
 society, I am told ; and he should come tete-a-tete 
 with Mrs. Rawdon Crawley. Spenser should escort 
 his Faerie Queen, who would preside at the tea- 
 table. 
 
 Mr. Samuel Weller I should ask as Lord of Mis- 
 rule, and Dr. Johnson as the Abbot of Unreason. I 
 would suggest to Major Dobbin to accompany Mrs. 
 Fry ; Alcibiades would bring Homer and Plato in 
 his purple-sailed galley ; and I would have Aspasia, 
 Ninon de 1'Enclos, and Mrs. Battle, to make up a 
 table of whist with Queen Elizabeth. I shall order 
 a seat placed in the oratory for Lady Jane Grey and 
 Joan of Arc. I shall invite General Washington to 
 bring some of the choicest cigars from his plantation 
 for Sir Walter Raleigh ; and Chaucer, Browning, 
 and Walter Savage Landor, should talk with Goethe, 
 who is to bring Tasso on one arm and Iphigenia on 
 the other. 
 
 Dante and Mr. Carlyle would prefer, I suppose, 
 to go down into the dark vaults under the castle. 
 The Man in the Moon, the Old Harry, and William 
 of the Wisp would be valuable additions, and the 
 Laureate Tennyson might compose an official ode 
 upon the occasion: or I would ask "They" to say 
 all about it. 
 
 Of course there are many other guests whose 
 names I do not at the moment recall. But I should 
 invite, first of all, Miles Coverdale, who knows every-
 
 My Chateaux 39 
 
 thing- about these places and this society, for he was 
 at Blithedale, and he has described " a select party " 
 which he attended at a castle in the air. 
 
 Prue has not yet looked over the list. In fact I 
 am not quite sure that she knows my intention. For 
 I wish to surprise her, and I think it would be gener- 
 ous to ask Bourne to lead her out in the bridal 
 quadrille. I think that I shall try the first waltz with 
 the girl I sometimes seem to see in my fairest castle, 
 but whom I very vaguely remember. Titbottom will 
 come with old Burton and Jaques. But I have not 
 prepared half my invitations. Do you not guess it, 
 seeing that I did not name, first of all, Elia, who 
 assisted at the "Rejoicings upon the new year's 
 coming of age " ? 
 
 And yet, if Adoniram should never marry? or if 
 we could not get to Spain ? or if the company would 
 not come? 
 
 What then? Shall I betray a secret? I have 
 already entertained this party in my humble little 
 parlour at home ; and Prue presided as serenely as 
 Semiramis over her court. Have I not said that I 
 defy time, and shall space hope to daunt me? I 
 keep books by day, but by night books keep me. 
 They leave me to dreams and reveries. Shall I con- 
 fess, that sometimes when I have been sitting-, read- 
 ing to my Prue, Cymbeline, perhaps, or a Canterbury 
 tale, I have seemed to see clearly before me the broad 
 highway to my castles in Spain ; and as she looked 
 up from her work, and smiled in sympathy, I have 
 even fancied that I was already there.
 
 40 Prue and I 
 
 SEA FROM SHORE 
 
 " Come unto these yellow sands." 
 
 The Tempest. 
 "Argosies of magic sails, 
 
 Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales." 
 
 TENNYSON. 
 
 IN the month of June, Prue and I like to walk upon 
 the Battery toward sunset, and watch the steamers, 
 crowded with passengers, bound for the pleasant 
 places along the coast where people pass the hot 
 months. Sea-side lodgings are not very comfortable, 
 I am told ; but who would not be a little pinched in 
 his chamber, if his windows looked upon the sea? 
 
 In such praises of the ocean do I indulge at such 
 times, and so respectfully do I regard the sailors 
 who may chance to pass, that Prue often says, with 
 her shrewd smiles, that my mind is a kind of Green- 
 wich Hospital, full of abortive marine hopes and 
 wishes, broken-legged intentions, blind regrets, and 
 desires, whose hands have been shot away in some 
 hard battle of experience, so that they cannot grasp 
 the results towards which they reach. 
 
 She is right, as usual. Such hopes and intentions 
 do lie, ruined and hopeless now, strewn about the 
 placid contentment of my mental life, as the old 
 pensioners sit about the grounds at Greenwich, 
 maimed and musing in the quiet morning sunshine. 
 Many a one among them thinks what a Nelson he 
 would have been if both his legs had not been pre- 
 maturely carried away ; or in what a Trafalgar of 
 triumph he would have ended, if, unfortunately, he 
 had not happened to have been blown blind by the 
 explosion of that unlucky magazine. 
 
 So I dream, sometimes, of a straight scarlet collar, 
 stiff with gold lace, around my neck, instead of this 
 limp white cravat; and I have even brandished my
 
 Sea from Shore 41 
 
 quill at the office so cutlass-wise, that Titbottom has 
 paused in his additions and looked at me as if he 
 doubted whether I should come out quite square in 
 my petty cash. Yet he understands it. Titbottom 
 was born in Nantucket. 
 
 That is the secret of my fondness for the sea; 
 I was born by it. Not more surely do Savoyards 
 pine for the mountains, or Cockneys for the sound 
 of Bow bells, than those who are born within sight 
 and sound of the ocean to return to it and renew 
 their fealty. In dreams the children of the sea hear 
 its voice. 
 
 I have read in some book of travels that certain 
 tribes of Arabs have no name for the ocean, and 
 that when they came to the shore for the first time, 
 they asked with eager sadness, as if penetrated by 
 the conviction of a superior beauty, " what is that 
 desert of water more beautiful than the land?" 
 And in the translations of German stories which 
 Adoniram and the other children read, and into 
 which I occasionally look in the evening when they 
 are gone to bed for I like to know what interests 
 my children I find that the Germans, who do not 
 live near the sea, love the fairy lore of water, and 
 tell the sweet stories of Undine and Melusina, as if 
 they had especial charm for them, because their 
 country is inland. 
 
 We who know the sea have less fairy feeling about 
 it, but our realities are romance. My earliest remem- 
 brances are of a long range of old, half dilapidated 
 stores ; red brick stores with steep wooden roofs, and 
 stone window-frames and door-frames, which stood 
 upon docks built as if for immense trade with all 
 quarters of the globe. 
 
 Generally there were only a few sloops moored to 
 the tremendous posts, which I fancied could easily 
 hold fast a Spanish Armada in a tropical hurricane. 
 But somtimes a great ship, an East Indiaman, with 
 rusty, seamed, blistered sides, and dingy sails, came 
 slowly moving up the harbour, with an air of indolent
 
 42 Prue and I 
 
 self-importance and consciousness of superiority, 
 which inspired me with profound respect. If the ship 
 had ever chanced to run down a row-boat, or a sloop, 
 or any specimen of smaller craft, I should only have 
 wondered at the temerity of any floating thing in 
 crossing the path of such supreme majesty. The 
 ship was leisurely chained and cabled to the old dock, 
 and then came the disembowelling. 
 
 How the stately monster had been fattening upon 
 foreign spoils ! How it had gorged itself (such gal- 
 leons did never seem to me of the feminine gender) 
 with the luscious treasures of the tropics ! It had 
 lain its lazy length along the shores of China, and 
 sucked in whole flowery harvests of tea. The 
 Brazilian sun flashed through the strong wicker 
 prisons, bursting with bananas and nectarean fruits 
 that eschew the temperate zone. Steams of cam- 
 phor, of sandal wood, arose from the hold. Sailors 
 chanting cabalistic strains, that had to my ear a 
 shrill and monotonous pathos, like the uniform rising 
 and falling of an autumn wind, turned cranks that 
 lifted the bales, and boxes, and crates, and swung 
 them ashore. 
 
 But to my mind, the spell of their singing raised 
 the fragrant freight, and not the crank. Madagascar 
 and Ceylon appeared at the mystic bidding of the 
 song. The placid sunshine of the docks was per- 
 fumed with India. The universal calm of southern 
 seas poured from the bosom of the ship over the 
 quiet, decaying old northern port. 
 
 Long after the confusion of unloading was over, 
 and the ship lay as if all voyages were ended, I dared 
 to creep timorously along the edge of the dock, and 
 at great risk of falling in the black water of its huge 
 shadow, I placed my hand upon the hot hulk, and 
 so established a mystic and exquisite connection with 
 Pacific islands, with palm groves and all the passion- 
 ate beauties they embower; with jungles, Bengal 
 tigers, pepper, and the crushed feet of Chinese fairies. 
 I touched Asia, the Cape of Good Hope and the
 
 Sea from Shore 43 
 
 Happy Islands. I would not believe that the heat I 
 felt was of our northern sun; to my finer sympathy 
 it burned with equatorial fervours. 
 
 The freight was piled in the old stores. I believe 
 that many of them remain, but they have lost their 
 character. When I knew them, not only was I 
 younger, but partial decay had overtaken the town ; 
 at least the bulk of its India trade had shifted to New 
 York and Boston. But the appliances remained. 
 There was no throng of busy traffickers, and after 
 school, in the afternoon, I strolled by and gazed into 
 the solemn interiors. 
 
 Silence reigned within, silence, dimness, and piles 
 of foreign treasure. Vast coils of cable, like tame 
 boa-constrictors, served as seats for men with large 
 stomachs, and heavy watch-seals, and nankeen 
 trousers, who sat looking out of the door toward the 
 ships, with little other sign of life than an occasional 
 low talking, as if in their sleep. Huge hogsheads 
 perspiring brown sugar and oozing slow molasses, 
 as if nothing tropical could keep within bounds, but 
 must continually expand, and exude, and overflow, 
 stood against the walls, and had an architectural 
 significance, for they darkly reminded me of Egyptian 
 prints, and in the duskiness of the low vaulted store 
 seemed cyclopean columns incomplete. Strange fes- 
 toons and heaps of bags, square piles of square boxes 
 cased in mats, bales of airy summer stuffs, which, 
 even in winter, scoffed at cold, and shamed it by 
 audacious assumption of eternal sun, little specimen 
 boxes of precious dyes that even now shine through 
 my memory, like old Venetian schools unpainted, 
 these were all there in rich confusion. 
 
 The stores had a twilight of dimness, the air was 
 spicy with mingled odours. I liked to look suddenly 
 in from the glare of sunlight outside, and then the 
 cool sweet dimness was like the palpable breath of 
 the far off island-groves ; and if only some parrot or 
 macaw hung within, would flaunt with glistening 
 plumage in his cage, and as the gay hue flashed in
 
 44 Prue and I 
 
 a chance sunbeam, call in his hard, shrill voice, as if 
 thrusting sharp sounds upon a glistening wire from 
 out that grateful gloom, then the enchantment was 
 complete, and without moving, I was circumnavigat- 
 ing the globe. 
 
 From the old stores and the docks slowly crum- 
 bling, touched, I know not why or how, by the 
 pensive air of past prosperity, I rambled out of town 
 on those well-remembered afternoons, to the fields 
 that lay upon hillsides over the harbour, and there 
 sat, looking out to sea, fancying some distant sail 
 proceeding to the glorious ends of the earth, to be 
 my type and image, who would so sail, stately and 
 successful, to all the glorious ports of the Future. 
 Going home, I returned by the stores, which black 
 porters were closing. But I stood long looking in, 
 saturating my imagination, and as it appeared, my 
 clothes, with the spicy suggestion. For when I 
 reached home my thrifty mother another Prue 
 came snuffing and smelling about me. 
 
 " Why ! my son (snuff, snuff,) where have you 
 been? (snuff, snuff). Has the baker been making 
 (snuff) ginger-bread? You smell as if you'd been 
 in (snuff, snuff,) a bag of cinnamon." 
 
 "I've only been on the wharves, mother." 
 
 "Well, my dear, I hope you haven't stuck up your 
 clothes with molasses. Wharves are dirty places, 
 and dangerous. You must take care of yourself, my 
 son. Really this smell is (snuff, snuff,) very strong." 
 
 But I departed from the maternal presence, proud 
 and happy. I was aromatic. I bore about me the 
 true foreign air. Whoever smelt me smelt distant 
 countries. I had nutmeg, spices, cinnamon, and 
 cloves, without the jolly red-nose. I pleased myself 
 with being the representative of the Indies. I was in 
 good odour with myself and all the world. 
 
 I do not know how it is, but surely Nature makes 
 kindly provision. An imagination so easily excited 
 as mine could not have escaped disappointment if it 
 had had ample opportunity and experience of the
 
 Sea from Shore 45 
 
 lands it so longed to see. Therefore, although I made 
 the India voyage, I have never been a traveller, and 
 saving the little time I was ashore in India, I did not 
 lose the sense of novelty and romance, which the first 
 sight of foreign lands inspires. 
 
 That little time was all my foreign travel. I am 
 glad of it. I see now that I should never have found 
 the country from which the East Indiaman of my 
 early days arrived. The palm groves do not grow 
 with which that hand laid upon the ship placed me in 
 magic conception. As for the lovely Indian maid 
 whom the palmy arches bowered, she has long since 
 clasped some native lover to her bosom, and, ripened 
 into mild maternity, how should I know her now? 
 
 "You would find her quite as easily now as then," 
 says my Prue, when I speak of it. 
 
 She is right again, as usual, that precious woman; 
 and it is therefore I feel that if the chances of life 
 have moored me fast to a book-keeper's desk, they 
 have left all the lands I longed to see fairer and 
 fresher in my mind than they could ever be in my 
 memory. Upon my only voyage I used to climb into 
 the top and search the horizon for the shore. But 
 now in a moment of calm thought I see a more Indian 
 India than ever mariner discerned, and do not envy 
 the youths who go there and make fortunes, who 
 wear grass-cloth jackets, drink iced beer, and eat 
 curry; whose minds fall asleep, and w.hose bodies 
 have liver complaints. 
 
 Unseen by me for ever, nor ever regretted, shall 
 wave the Egyptian palms and the Italian pines. 
 Untrodden by me, the Forum shall still echo with 
 the footfall of imperial Rome, and the Parthenon 
 unrifled of its marbles, look, perfect, across the 
 JEgean blue. 
 
 My young friends return from their foreign tours 
 elate with the smiles of a nameless Italian or Parisian 
 belle. I know not such cheap delights ; I am a suitor 
 of Vittoria Colonna ; I walk with Tasso along the 
 terraced garden of the Villa d'Este, and look to see
 
 46 Prue and I 
 
 Beatrice smiling down the rich gloom of the cypress 
 shade. You stayed at the Hdtel Europa in Venice, at 
 Danielli's, or the Leone bianco; I am the guest of 
 Marino Faliero, and I whisper to his wife as we climb 
 the giant staircase in the summer moonlight, 
 
 "Ah ! senza amare 
 Andare sul mare, 
 Col sposo del mare, 
 Non puo consolare. " 
 
 It is for the same reason that I did not care to 
 dine with you and Aurelia, that I am content not to 
 stand in St. Peter's. Alas ! if I could see the end of 
 it, it would not be St. Peter's. For those of us 
 whom Nature means to keep at home, she provides 
 entertainment. One man goes four thousand miles 
 to Italy, and does not see it, he is so short-sighted. 
 Another is so far-sighted that he stays in his room 
 and sees more than Italy. 
 
 But for this very reason that it washes the shores 
 of my possible Europe and Asia, the sea draws me 
 contantly to itself. Before I came to New York, 
 while I was still a clerk in Boston, courting Prue, 
 and living out of town, I never knew of a ship sailing 
 for India or even for England and France, but I went 
 up to the State House cupola or to the observa- 
 tory on some friend's house in Roxbury, where I 
 could not be interrupted, and there watched the 
 departure. 
 
 The sails hung ready ; the ship lay in the stream ; 
 busy little boats and puffing steamers darted about 
 it, clung to its sides, paddled away for it, or led the 
 way to sea, as minnows might pilot a whale. The 
 anchor was slowly swung at the bow ; I could not 
 hear the sailors' song, but I knew they were singing. 
 I could not see the parting friends, but I knew fare- 
 wells were spoken. I did not share the confusion, 
 although I knew what bustle there was, what hurry, 
 what shouting, what creaking, what fall of ropes and 
 iron, what sharp oaths, low laughs, whispers, sobs. 
 But I was cool, high, separate. To me it was
 
 Sea from Shore 47 
 
 " A painted ship 
 Upon a painted ocean." 
 
 The sails were shaken out, and the ship began to 
 move. It was a fair breeze, perhaps, and no steamer 
 was needed to tow her away. She receded down the 
 bay. Friends turned back I could not see them 
 and waved their hands, and wiped their eyes, and 
 went home to dinner. Farther and farther from 
 the ships at anchor, the lessening vessel became 
 single and solitary upon the water. The sun sank 
 in the west; but I watched her still. Every flash 
 of her sails, as she tacked and turned, thrilled my 
 heart. 
 
 Yet Prue was not on board. I had never seen one 
 of the passengers or the crew. I did not know the 
 consignees, nor the name of the vessel. I had shipped 
 no adventure, nor risked any insurance, nor made 
 any bet, but my eyes clung to her as Ariadne's to the 
 fading sail of Theseus. The ship was freighted with 
 more than appeared upon her papers, yet she was not 
 a smuggler. She bore all there was of that nameless 
 lading, yet the next ship would carry as much. She 
 was freighted with fancy. My hopes, and wishes, 
 and vague desires, were all on board. It seemed to 
 me a treasure not less rich than that which filled the 
 East Indiaman at the old dock in my boyhood. 
 
 When, at length, the ship was a sparkle upon the 
 horizon, I waved my hand in last farewell, I strained 
 my eyes for a last glimpse. My mind had gone to 
 sea, and had left noise behind. But now I heard 
 again the multitudinous murmur of the city, and went 
 down rapidly, and threaded the short, narrow, streets 
 to the office. Yet, believe it, every dream of that day, 
 as I watched the vessel, was written at night to Prue. 
 She knew my heart had not sailed away. 
 
 Those days are long past now, but still I walk upon 
 the Battery and look towards the Narrows, and know 
 that beyond them, separated only by the sea, are 
 many of whom I would so gladly know, and so rarely 
 hear. The sea rolls between us like the lapse of
 
 48 Prue and I 
 
 dusky ages. They trusted themselves to it, and it 
 bore them away far and far as if into the past. Last 
 night I read of Antony, but I have not heard from 
 Christopher these many months, and by so much 
 farther away is he, so much older and more remote, 
 than Antony. As for William, he is as vague 
 as any of the shepherd kings of ante-Pharaonic 
 dynasties. 
 
 It is the sea that has done it, it has carried them 
 off and put them away upon its other side. It is 
 fortunate the sea did not put them upon its under- 
 side. Are they hale and happy still? Is their hair 
 grey, and have they mustachios ? Or have they taken 
 to wigs and crutches? Are they popes or cardinals 
 yet? Do they feast with Lucrezia Borgia, or preach 
 red republicanism to the Council of Ten? Do they 
 sing, Behold how brightly breaks the morning with 
 Masaniello? Do they laugh at Ulysses and skip 
 ashore to the Syrens? Has Mesrour, chief of the 
 Eunuchs, caught them with Zobeide in the Caliph's 
 garden, or have they made cheese cakes without 
 pepper? Friends of my youth, where in your wander- 
 ings have you tasted the blissful Lotus, that you 
 neither come nor send us tidings? 
 
 Across the sea also came idle rumours, as false 
 reports steal into history and defile fair fames. Was 
 it longer ago than yesterday that I walked with my 
 cousin, then recently a widow, and talked with her of 
 the countries to which she meant to sail? She was 
 young, and dark-eyed, and wore great hoops of gold, 
 barbaric gold, in her ears. The hope of Italy, the 
 thought of living there, had risen like a dawn in the 
 darkness of her mind. I talked and listened by rapid 
 turns. 
 
 Was it longer ago than yesterday that she told me 
 of her splendid plans, how palaces tapestried with 
 gorgeous paintings should be cheaply hired, and the 
 best of teachers lead her children to the completest 
 and most various knowledge ; how, and with her 
 slender pittance ! she should have a box at the
 
 Sea from Shore 49 
 
 opera, and a carriage, and liveried servants, and in 
 perfect health and youth, lead a perfect life in a 
 perfect climate? 
 
 And now what do I hear? Why does a tear some- 
 times drop so audibly upon my paper, that Titbottom 
 looks across with a sort of mild rebuking glance of 
 inquiry, whether it is kind to let even a single tear 
 fall, when an ocean of tears is pent up in hearts that 
 would burst and overflow if but one drop should force 
 its way out? Why across the sea came faint gusty 
 stories, like low voices in the wind, of a cloistered 
 garden and sunny seclusion and a life of unknown 
 and unexplained luxury. What is this picture of a 
 pale face showered with streaming black hair, and 
 large sad eyes looking upon lovely and noble children 
 playing in the sunshine and a brow pained with 
 thought straining into their destiny? Who is this 
 figure, a man tall and comely, with melting eyes and 
 graceful motion, who comes and goes at pleasure, 
 who is not a husband, yet has the key of the cloistered 
 garden ? 
 
 I do not know. They are secrets of the sea. The 
 pictures pass before my mind suddenly and unawares, 
 and I feel the tears rising that I would gladly repress. 
 Titbottom looks at me, then stands by the window of 
 the office and leans his brow against the cold iron 
 bars, and looks down into the little square paved 
 court. I take my hat and steal out of the office for a 
 few minutes, and slowly pace the hurrying streets. 
 Meek-eyed Alice ! magnificent Maud ! sweet baby 
 Lilian ! why does the sea imprison you so far away, 
 when will you return, where do you linger? The 
 water laps idly about docks, lies calm, or gaily 
 heaves. Why does it bring me doubts and fears now, 
 that brought such bounty of beauty in the days long 
 gone? 
 
 I remember that the day when my dark-haired 
 cousin, with hoops of barbaric gold in her ears, sailed 
 for Italy, was quarter-day, and we balanced the books 
 at the office. It was nearly noon, and in my im- 
 
 E
 
 50 Prue and I 
 
 patience to be away, I had not added my columns 
 with sufficient care. The inexorable hand of the 
 office clock pointed sternly towards twelve, and the 
 remorseless pendulum ticked solemnly to noon. 
 
 To a man whose pleasures are not many, and rather 
 small, the loss of such an event as saying farewell 
 and wishing God-speed to a friend going to Europe, 
 is a great loss. It was so to me, especially, because 
 there was always more to me, in every departure, 
 than the parting and the farewell. I was gradually 
 renouncing this pleasure, as I saw small prospect of 
 ending before noon, when Titbottom, after looking 
 at me a moment, came to my side of the desk, and 
 said : 
 
 "I should like to finish that for you." 
 
 I looked at him : poor Titbottom ! he had no friends 
 to wish God-speed upon any journey. I quietly wiped 
 my pen, took down my hat, and went out. It was in 
 the days of sail packets and less regularity, when 
 going to Europe was more of an epoch in life. How 
 gaily my cousin stood upon the deck and detailed to 
 me her plan ! How merrily the children shouted and 
 sang ! How long I held my cousin's little hand in 
 mine, and gazed into her great eyes, remembering 
 that they would see and touch the things that were 
 invisible to me for ever, but all the more precious and 
 fair ! She kissed me I was younger then there 
 were tears, I remember, and prayers, and promises, 
 a waving handkerchief, a fading sail. 
 
 It was only the other day that I saw another part- 
 ing of the same kind. I was not a principal, only a 
 spectator ; but so fond am I of sharing, afar off, as it 
 were, and unseen, the sympathies of human beings, 
 that I cannot avoid often going to the dock upon 
 steamer-days and giving myself to that pleasant and 
 melancholy observation. There is always a crowd, 
 but this day it was almost impossible to advance 
 through the masses of people. The eager faces 
 hurried by ; a constant stream poured up the gangway 
 into the steamer, and the upper deck, to which I
 
 Sea from Shore 51 
 
 gradually made my way, was crowded with the pas- 
 sengers and their friends. 
 
 There was one group upon which my eyes first 
 fell, and upon which my memory lingers. A glance, 
 brilliant as daybreak, a voice, 
 
 " Her voice's music, call it the well's bubbling, the bird's 
 warble," 
 
 a goddess girdled with flowers, and smiling farewell 
 upon a circle of worshippers, to each one of whom 
 that gracious calmness made the smile sweeter, and 
 the farewell more sad other figures, other flowers, 
 an angel face all these I saw in that group as I was 
 swayed up and down the deck by the eager swarm of 
 people. The hour came, and I went on shore with 
 the rest. The plank was drawn away the captain 
 raised his hand the huge steamer slowly moved a 
 cannon was fired the ship was gone. 
 
 The sun sparkled upon the water as they sailed 
 away. In five minutes the steamer was as much 
 separated from the shore as if it had been at sea a 
 thousand years. 
 
 I leaned against a post upon the dock and looked 
 around. Ranged upon the edge of the wharf stood 
 that band of worshippers, waving handkerchiefs and 
 straining their eyes to see the last smile of farewell 
 did any eager selfish eye hope to see a tear? They 
 to whom the handkerchiefs were waved stood high 
 upon the stern, holding flowers. Over them hung the 
 great flag, raised by the gentle wind into the graceful 
 folds of a canopy, say rather a gorgeous gonfalon 
 waved over the triumphant departure, over that 
 supreme youth, and bloom, and beauty, going out 
 across the mystic ocean to carry a finer charm and 
 more human splendour into those realms of my 
 imagination beyond the sea. 
 
 " You will return, O youth and beauty ! " I said to 
 
 my dreaming and foolish self, as I contemplated those 
 
 fair figures, "richer than Alexander with Indian 
 
 spoils. All that historic association, that copious 
 
 E 2
 
 52 Prue and I 
 
 civilization, those grandeurs and graces of art, that 
 variety and picturesqueness of life, will mellow and 
 deepen your experience even as time silently touches 
 those old pictures into a more persuasive and pathetic 
 beauty, and as this increasing summer sheds ever 
 softer lustre upon the landscape. You will return 
 conquerors and not conquered. You will bring 
 Europe, even as Aurelian brought Zenobia captive, 
 to deck your homeward triumph. I do not wonder 
 that these clouds break away, I do not wonder that 
 the sun presses out and floods all the air, and land, 
 and water, with light that graces with happy omens 
 your stately farewell." 
 
 But if my faded face looked after them with such 
 earnest and longing emotion, I, a solitary old man, 
 unknown to those fair beings, and standing apart 
 from that band of lovers, yet in that moment bound 
 more closely to them than they knew, how was it 
 with those whose hearts sailed away with that youth 
 and beauty? I watched them closely from behind 
 my post. I knew that life had paused with them ; 
 that the world stood still. I knew that the long, long 
 summer would be only a yearning regret. I knew 
 that each asked himself the mournful question, " Is 
 this parting typical this slow, sad, sweet, reces- 
 sion?" And I knew that they did not care to ask 
 whether they should meet again, nor dare to contem- 
 plate the chances of the sea. 
 
 The steamer swept on, she was near Staten Island, 
 and a final gun boomed far and low across the water. 
 The crowd was dispersing, but the little group re- 
 mained. Was it not all Hood had sung? 
 
 " I saw thee, lovely Inez, 
 Descend along the shore 
 With bands of noble gentlemen, 
 And banners waved before ; 
 And gentle youths and maidens gay, 
 And snowy plumes they wore ; 
 It would have been a beauteous dream, 
 If it had been no more ! " 
 
 " O youth ! " I said to them without speaking,
 
 Sea from Shore 53 
 
 "be it gently said, as it is solemnly thought, should 
 they return no more, yet in your memories the high 
 hour of their loveliness is for ever enshrined. Should 
 they come no more they never will be old, nor 
 changed, to you. You will wax and wane, you will 
 suffer, and struggle, and grow old ; but this summer 
 vision will smile, immortal, upon your lives, and 
 those fair faces shall shed, for ever, from under that 
 slowly waving flag, hope and peace." 
 
 It is so elsewhere; it is the tenderness of Nature. 
 Long, long ago we lost our first-born, Prue and I. 
 Since then, we have grown older and our children 
 with us. Change comes, and grief, perhaps, and 
 decay. We are happy, our children are obedient and 
 gay. But should Prue live until she has lost us all, 
 and laid us, gray and weary, in our graves, she will 
 have always one babe in her heart. Every mother 
 who has lost an infant, has gained a child of immortal 
 youth. Can you find comfort here, lovers, whose 
 mistress has sailed away? 
 
 I did not ask the question aloud, I thought it only, 
 as I watched the youths, and turned away while they 
 still stood gazing. One, I observed, climbed a post 
 and waved his black hat before the white-washed side 
 of the shed over the dock, whence I supposed he 
 would tumble into the water. Another had tied a 
 handkerchief to the end of a somewhat baggy um- 
 brella, and in the eagerness of gazing, had forgotten 
 to wave it, so that it hung mournfully down, as if 
 overpowered with grief it could not express. The 
 entranced youth still held the umbrella aloft. It 
 seemed to me as if he had struck his flag ; or as if one 
 of my cravats were airing in that sunlight. A negro 
 carter was joking with an apple-woman at the en- 
 trance of the dock. The steamer was out of sight. 
 
 I found that I was belated and hurried back to my 
 desk. Alas ! poor lovers ; I wonder if they are watch- 
 ing still? Has he fallen exhausted from the post into 
 the water? Is that handkerchief, bleached and rent, 
 still pendant upon that somewhat baggy umbrella?
 
 54 Prue and I 
 
 "Youth and beauty went to Europe to-day," said 
 I to Prue, as I stirred my tea at evening. 
 
 As I spoke, our youngest daughter brought me the 
 sugar. She is just eighteen, and her name should be 
 Hebe. I took a lump of sugar and looked at her. 
 She had never seemed so lovely, and as I dropped the 
 lump in my cup, I kissed her. I glanced at Prue as 
 I did so. The dear woman smiled, but did not answer 
 my exclamation. 
 
 Thus, without travelling, I travel, and share the 
 emotions of those I do not know. But sometimes 
 the old longing comes over me as in the days when I 
 timidly touched the huge East Indiaman, and mag- 
 netically sailed around the world. 
 
 It was but a few days after the lovers and I waved 
 farewell to the steamer, and while the lovely figures 
 standing under the great gonfalon were as vivid in 
 my mind as ever, that a day of premature sunny sad- 
 ness, like those of the Indian summer, drew me away 
 from the office early in the afternoon : for fortunately 
 it is our dull season now, and even Titbottom some- 
 times leaves the office by five o'clock. Although why 
 he should leave it, or where he goes, or what he does, 
 I do not well know. Before I knew him, I used 
 sometimes to meet him with a man whom I was after- 
 wards told was Bartleby, the scrivener. Even then 
 it seemed to me that they rather clubbed their loneli- 
 ness than made society for each other. Recently I 
 have not seen Bartleby ; but Titbottom seems no more 
 solitary because he is alone. 
 
 I strolled into the Battery as I sauntered about. 
 Staten Island looked so alluring, tender-hued with 
 summer and melting in the haze, that I resolved to 
 indulge myself in a pleasure-trip. It was a little 
 selfish, perhaps, to go alone, but I looked at my 
 watch, and saw that if I should hurry home for 
 Prue the trip would be lost ; then I should be dis- 
 appointed, and she would be grieved. 
 
 Ought I not rather (I like to begin questions, which 
 I am going to answer affirmatively, with ought,) to
 
 Sea from Shore 55 
 
 take the trip and recount my adventures to Prue upon 
 my return, whereby I should actually enjoy the excur- 
 sion and the pleasure of telling her ; while she would 
 enjoy my story and be glad that I was pleased? 
 Ought I wilfully to deprive us both of this various 
 enjoyment by aiming at a higher, which, in losing, 
 we should lose all? 
 
 Unfortunately, just as I was triumphantly answer- 
 ing " Certainly not ! " another question marched into 
 my mind, escorted by a very defiant ought. 
 
 " Ought I to go when I have such a debate about 
 it?" 
 
 But while I was perplexed, and scoffing at my own 
 scruples, the ferry-bell suddenly rang, and answered 
 all my questions. Involuntarily I hurried on board. 
 The boat slipped from the dock. I went up on deck 
 to enjoy the view of the city from the bay, but just as 
 I sat down, and meant to have said "how beautiful ! " 
 I found myself asking : 
 
 "Ought I to have come? " 
 
 Lost in perplexing debate, I saw little of the scenery 
 of the bay ; but the remembrance of Prue and the 
 gentle influence of the day plunged me into a mood of 
 pensive reverie which nothing tended to destroy, 
 until we suddenly arrived at the landing. 
 
 As I was stepping ashore, I was greeted by Mr. 
 Bourne, who passes the summer on the island, and 
 who hospitably asked if I were going his way. His 
 way was toward the southern end of the island, and I 
 said yes. His pockets were full of papers and his 
 brow of wrinkles ; so when we reached the point 
 where he should turn off, I asked him to let me alight, 
 although he was very anxious to carry me wherever 
 I was going. 
 
 "I am only strolling about," I answered, as I 
 clambered carefully out of the wagon. 
 
 "Strolling about?" asked he, in a bewildered 
 manner; "do people stroll about, now-a-days?" 
 
 " Sometimes," I answered, smiling, as I pulled my 
 trousers down over my boots, for they had dragged
 
 56 Prue and I 
 
 up, as I stepped out of the wagon, "and beside, what 
 can an old book-keeper do better in the dull season 
 than stroll about this pleasant island, and watch the 
 ships at sea? " 
 
 Bourne looked at me with his weary eyes. 
 
 "I'd give five thousand dollars a year for a dull 
 season," said he, "but as for strolling, I've forgotten 
 how." 
 
 As he spoke, his eyes wandered dreamily across the 
 fields and woods, and were fastened upon the distant 
 sails. 
 
 " It is pleasant," he said musingly, and fell into 
 silence. But I had no time to spare, so I wished him 
 good-afternoon. 
 
 "I hope your wife is well," said Bourne to me, as 
 I turned away. Poor Bourne ! He drove on alone in 
 his wagon. 
 
 But I made haste to the most solitary point upon 
 the southern shore, and there sat, glad to be so near 
 the sea. There was that warm, sympathetic silence 
 in the air, that gives to Indian-summer days almost 
 a human tenderness of feeling. A delicate haze, that 
 seemed only the kindly air made visible, hung over 
 the sea. The water lapped languidly among the 
 rocks, and the voices of children in a boat beyond, 
 rang musically, and gradually receded, until they 
 were lost in the distance. 
 
 It was some time before I was aware of the outline 
 of a large ship, drawn vaguely upon the mist, which 
 I supposed, at first, to be only a kind of mirage. 
 But the more steadfastly I gazed, the more distinct it 
 became, and I could no longer doubt that I saw a 
 stately ship lying at anchor, not more than half a 
 mile from the land. 
 
 "It is an extraordinary place to anchor," I said to 
 myself, "or can she be ashore? " 
 
 There were no signs of distress ; the sails were 
 carefully clewed up, and there were no sailors in the 
 tops, nor upon the shrouds. A flag, of which I could 
 not see the device or the nation, hung heavily at the
 
 Sea from Shore 57 
 
 stern, and looked as if it had fallen asleep. My 
 curiosity began to be singularly excited. The form 
 of the vessel seemed not to be permanent ; but within 
 a quarter of an hour, I was sure that I had seen half 
 a dozen different ships. As I gazed, I saw no more 
 sails nor masts, but a long range of oars, flashing 
 like a golden fringe, or straight and stiff, like the legs 
 of a sea-monster. 
 
 " It is some bloated crab, or lobster, magnified by 
 the mist," I said to myself, complacently. 
 
 But, at the same moment, there was a concentrated 
 flashing and blazing in one spot among the rigging, 
 and it was as if I saw a beatified ram, or, more truly, 
 a sheep-skin, splendid as the hair of Berenice. 
 
 "Is that the golden fleece?" I thought. "But, 
 surely, Jason and the Argonauts have gone home 
 long since. Do people go on gold-fleecing expedi- 
 tions now?" I asked myself, in perplexity. "Can 
 this be a California steamer? " 
 
 How could I have thought it a steamer? Did I 
 not see those sails, "thin and sere "? Did I not feel 
 the melancholy of that solitary bark? It had a mystic 
 aura; a boreal brilliancy shimmered in its wake, for 
 it was drifting seaward. A strange fear curdled 
 along my veins. That summer sun shone cool. The 
 weary, battered ship was gashed, as if gnawed by 
 ice. There was terror in the air, as a "skinny hand 
 so brown " waved to me from the deck. I lay as one 
 bewitched. The hand of the ancient mariner, seemed 
 to be reaching for me, like the hand of death. 
 
 Death? Why, as I was inly praying Prue's for- 
 giveness for my solitary ramble and consequent 
 demise, a glance like the fulness of summer splendour 
 gushed over me ; the odour of flowers and of eastern 
 gums made all the atmosphere. I breathed the 
 orient, and lay drunk with balm, while that strange 
 ship, a golden galley now, with glittering draperies 
 festooned with flowers, paced to the measured beat 
 of oars along the calm, and Cleopatra smiled allur- 
 ingly from the great pageant's heart.
 
 58 Prue and I 
 
 Was this a barge for summer waters, this peculiar 
 ship I saw? It had a ruined dignity, a cumbrous 
 grandeur, although its masts were shattered, and its 
 sails rent. It hung preternaturally still upon the sea, 
 as if tormented and exhausted by long driving and 
 drifting. I saw no sailors, but a great Spanish ensign 
 floated over, and waved, a funereal plume. I knew 
 it then. The armada was long since scattered; but, 
 floating far 
 
 "on desolate rainy seas," 
 
 lost for centuries, and again restored to sight, here 
 lay one of the fated ships of Spain. The huge 
 galleon seemed to fill all the air, built up against 
 the sky, like the gilded ships of Claude Lorraine 
 against the sunset. 
 
 But it fled, for now a black flag fluttered at the 
 mast-head a long low vessel darted swiftly where 
 the vast ship lay ; there came a shrill piping whistle, 
 the clash of cutlasses, fierce ringing oaths, sharp 
 pistol cracks, the thunder of command, and over all 
 the gusty yell of a demoniac chorus, 
 
 ' ' My name was Robert Kidd, when I sailed. " 
 
 There were no clouds longer, but under a serene 
 sky I saw a bark moving with festal pomp, thronged 
 with grave senators in flowing robes, and one with 
 ducal bonnet in the midst, holding a ring. The 
 smooth bark swam upon a sea like that of southern 
 latitudes. I saw the Bucentoro and the nuptials of 
 Venice and the Adriatic. 
 
 Who were those coming over the side? Who 
 crowded the boats, and sprang into the water, men 
 in old Spanish armour, with plumes and swords, and 
 bearing a glittering cross? Who was he standing 
 upon the deck with folded arms and gazing towards 
 the shore, as lovers on their mistresses and martyrs 
 upon heaven? Over what distant and tumultuous 
 seas had this small craft escaped from other centuries 
 and distant shores? What sounds of foreign hymns,
 
 Sea from Shore 59 
 
 forgotten now, were these, and what solemnity of 
 debarkation? Was this grave form Columbus? 
 
 Yet these were not so Spanish as they seemed 
 just now. This group of stern-faced men with high 
 peaked hats, who knelt upon the cold deck and 
 looked out upon a shore which, I could see by their 
 joyless smile of satisfaction, was rough, and bare, 
 and forbidding. In that soft afternoon, standing in 
 mournful groups upon the small deck, why did they 
 seem to me to be seeing the sad shores of wintry 
 New England? That phantom-ship could not be the 
 May Flower ! 
 
 I gazed long upon the shifting illusion. 
 
 "If I should board this ship," I asked myself, 
 "where should I go? whom should I meet? what 
 should I see? Is not this the vessel that shall carry 
 me to my Europe, my foreign countries, my impos- 
 sible India, the Atlantis that I have lost? " 
 
 As I sat staring at it I could not but wonder 
 whether Bourne had seen this sail when he looked 
 upon the water? Does he see such sights every day, 
 because he lives down here? Is it not perhaps a 
 magic yacht of his ; and does he slip off privately 
 after business hours to Venice, and Spain, and Egypt, 
 perhaps to El Dorado? Does he run races with 
 Ptolemy, Philopater and Hiero of Syracuse, rare 
 regattas on fabulous seas? 
 
 Why not? He is a rich man, too, and why should 
 not a New York merchant do what a Syracuse tyrant 
 and an Egyptian prince did? Has Bourne's vacht 
 those sumptuous chambers, like Philopater's galley, 
 of which the greater part was made of split cedar, 
 and of Milesian cypress ; and has he twenty doors 
 put together with beams of citron-wood, with many 
 ornaments? Has the roof of his cabin a carved 
 golden face, and is his sail linen with a purple 
 fringe? 
 
 " I suppose it is so," I said to myself, as I looked 
 wistfully at the ship, which began to glimmer and 
 melt in the haze.
 
 60 Prue and I 
 
 "It certainly is not a fishing-smack?" I asked, 
 doubtfully. 
 
 No, it must be Bourne's magic yacht; I was sure 
 of it. I could not help laughing at poor old Hiero, 
 whose cabins were divided into many rooms, with 
 floors composed of mosaic work, of all kinds of stones 
 tessellated. And, on this mosaic, the whole story of 
 the Iliad was depicted in a marvellous manner. He 
 had gardens "of all sorts of most wonderful beauty, 
 enriched with all sorts of plants, and shadowed by 
 roofs of lead or tiles. And, besides this, there were 
 tents roofed with boughs of white ivy and of the vine 
 the roots of which derived their moisture from 
 casks' full of earth, and were watered in the same 
 manner as the gardens. There were temples, also, 
 with doors of ivory and citron-wood, furnished in the 
 most exquisite manner, with pictures and statues, 
 and with goblets and vases of every form and shape 
 imaginable." 
 
 "Poor Bourne! " I said. "I suppose his is finer 
 than Hiero's, which is a thousand years old. Poor 
 Bourne ! I don't wonder that his eyes are weary, 
 and that he would pay so dearly for a day of leisure. 
 Dear me ! is it one of the prices that must be paid for 
 wealth, the keeping of a magic yacht? " 
 
 Involuntarily, I had asked the question aloud. 
 
 "The magic yacht is not Bourne's," answered a 
 familiar voice. I looked up, and Titbottom stood 
 by my side. "Do you not know that all Bourne's 
 money would not buy the yacht? " asked he. "He 
 cannot even see it. And if he could, it would be no 
 magic yacht to him, but only a battered and solitary 
 hulk." 
 
 The haze blew gently away, as Titbottom spoke, 
 and there lay my Spanish galleon, my Bucentoro, my 
 Cleopatra's galley, Columbus 's Santa Maria, and the 
 Pilgrims' May Flower, an old bleaching wreck upon 
 the beach. 
 
 " Do you suppose any true love is in vain ? " asked 
 Titbottom solemnly, as he stood bareheaded, and the
 
 Sea from Shore 61 
 
 soft sunset wind played with his few hairs. "Could 
 Cleopatra smile upon Antony, and the moon upon 
 Endymion, and the sea not love its lovers ? " 
 
 The fresh air breathed upon our faces as he spoke. 
 I might have sailed in Micro's ship, or in Roman 
 galleys, had I lived long centuries ago, and been 
 born a nobleman. But would it be so sweet a re- 
 membrance, that of lying on a marble couch, under 
 a golden-faced roof, and within doors of citron-wood 
 and ivory, and sailing in that state to greet queens 
 who are mummies now, as that of seeing those fair 
 figures, standing under the great gonfalon, them- 
 selves as lovely as Egyptian belles, and going to see 
 more than Egypt dreamed? 
 
 The yacht was mine, then, and not Bourne's. I 
 took Titbottom's arm, and we sauntered toward the 
 ferry. What sumptuous sultan was I, with this sad 
 vizier? My languid odalisque, the sea, lay at my 
 feet as we advanced, and sparkled all over with a 
 sunset smile. Had I trusted myself to her arms, to 
 be borne to the realms that I shall never see, or 
 sailed long voyages towards Cathay, I am not sure 
 I should have brought a more precious present to 
 Prue, than the story of that afternoon. 
 
 "Ought I to have gone alone? " I asked her, as I 
 ended. 
 
 "I ought not to have gone with you," she replied, 
 "for I had work to do. But how strange that you 
 should see such things at Staten Island. I never 
 did, Mr. Titbottom," said she, turning to my deputy, 
 whom I had asked to tea. 
 
 "Madam," answered Titbottom, with a kind of 
 wan and quaint dignity, so that I could not help 
 thinking he must have arrived in that stray ship from 
 the Spanish armada, "neither did Mr. Bourne."
 
 62 Prue and I 
 
 TITBOTTOM'S SPECTACLES 
 
 " In my mind's eye, Horatio." 
 
 Hamlet. 
 
 PRUE and I do not entertain much ; our means 
 forbid it. In truth, other people entertain for us. 
 We enjoy that hospitality of which no account is 
 made. We see the show, and hear the music, and 
 smell the flowers, of great festivities, tasting, as it 
 were, the drippings from rich dishes. 
 
 Our own dinner service is remarkably plain, our 
 dinners, even on state occasions, are strictly in keep- 
 ing, and almost our only guest is Titbottom. I buy 
 a handful of roses as I come up from the office, per- 
 haps, and Prue arranges them so prettily in a glass 
 dish for the centre of the table, that, even when I 
 have hurried out to see Aurelia step into her carriage 
 to go out to dine, I have thought that the bouquet 
 she carried was not more beautiful because it was 
 more costly. 
 
 I grant that it was more harmonious with her 
 superb beauty and her rich attire. And I have no 
 doubt that if Aurelia knew the old man, whom she 
 must have seen so often watching her, and his wife, 
 who ornaments her sex with as much sweetness, 
 although with less splendour, than Aurelia herself, 
 she would also acknowledge that the nosegay of 
 roses was as fine and fit upon their table, as her own 
 sumptuous bouquet is for herself. I have so much 
 faith in the perception of that lovely lady. 
 
 It is my habit, I hope I may say, my nature, 
 to believe the best of people, rather than the worst. 
 If I thought that all this sparkling setting of beauty, 
 this fine fashion, these blazing jewels, and lus- 
 trous silks, and airy gauzes, embellished with gold- 
 threaded embroidery and wrought in a thousand ex- 
 quisite elaborations, so that I cannot see one of those
 
 Titbottom's Spectacles 63 
 
 lovely girls pass me by, without thanking God for 
 the vision, if I thought that this was all, and that, 
 underneath her lace flounces and diamond bracelets, 
 Aurelia was a sullen, selfish woman, then I should 
 turn sadly homeward, for I should see that her jewels 
 were flashing scorn upon the object they adorned, 
 that her laces were of a more exquisite loveliness 
 than the woman whom they merely touched with a 
 superficial grace. It would be like a gaily decorated 
 mausoleum, bright to see, but silent and dark 
 within. 
 
 "Great excellences, my dear Prue," I sometimes 
 allow myself to say, "lie concealed in the depths of 
 character, like pearls at the bottom of the sea. Under 
 the laughing, glancing surface, how little they are 
 suspected ! Perhaps love is nothing else than the 
 sight of them by one person. Hence every man's 
 mistress is apt to be an enigma to everybody 
 else. 
 
 " I have no doubt that when Aurelia is engagefl, 
 people will say she is a most admirable girl, cer- 
 tainly ; but they cannot understand why any man 
 should be in love with her. As if it were at all 
 necessary that they should ! And her lover, like a 
 boy who finds a pearl in the public street, and wonders 
 as much that others did not see it as that he did, will 
 tremble until he knows his passion is returned ; feel- 
 ing, of course, that the whole world must be in love 
 with this paragon, who cannot possibly smile upon 
 anything so unworthy as he. 
 
 "I hope, therefore, my dear Mrs. Prue," I con- 
 tinue, and my wife looks up, with pleased pride, from 
 her work, as if I were such an irresistible humorist, 
 "you will allow me to believe that the depth may be 
 calm, although the surface is dancing. If you tell 
 me that Aurelia is but a giddy girl, I shall believe 
 that you think so. But I shall know, all the while, 
 what profound dignity, and sweetness, and peace lie 
 at the foundation of her character." 
 
 I say such things to Titbottom, during the dull
 
 64 Prue and I 
 
 season at the office. And I have known him some- 
 times to reply, with a kind of dry, sad humour, not 
 as if he enjoyed the joke, but as if the joke must be 
 made, that he saw no reason why I should be dull 
 because the season was so. 
 
 "And what do I know of Aurelia, or any other 
 girl?" he says to me with that abstracted air; "I, 
 whose Aurelias were of another century, and another 
 zone." 
 
 Then he falls into a silence which it seems quite 
 profane to interrupt. But as we sit upon our high 
 stools, at the desk, opposite each other, I leaning 
 upon my elbows, and looking at him, he, with side- 
 long face, glancing out of the window, as if it com- 
 manded a boundless landscape, instead of a dim, 
 dingy office court, I cannot refrain from saying : 
 
 "Well!" 
 
 He turns slowly, and I go chatting on, a little 
 too loquacious perhaps, about those young girls. But 
 I know that Titbottom regards such an excess as 
 venial, for his sadness is so sweet that you could 
 believe it the reflection of a smile from long, long 
 years ago. 
 
 One day, after I had been talking for a long time, 
 and we had put up our books, and were preparing 
 to leave, he stood for some time by the window, 
 gazing with a drooping intentness, as if he really saw 
 something more than the dark court, and said slowly : 
 
 "Perhaps you would have different impressions of 
 things, if you saw them through my spectacles." 
 
 There was no change in his expression. He still 
 looked from the window, and I said : 
 
 "Titbottom, I did not know that you used glasses. 
 I have never seen you wearing spectacles." 
 
 "No, I don't often wear them. I am not very 
 fond of looking through them. But sometimes an 
 irresistible necessity compels me to put them on, and 
 I cannot help seeing." 
 
 Titbottom sighed. 
 
 " Is it so grievous a fate to see? " inquired I.
 
 Titbottom's Spectacles 65 
 
 "Yes; through my spectacles," he said, turning 
 slowly, and looking at me with wan solemnity. 
 
 It grew dark as we stood in the office talking, and, 
 taking our hats, we went out together. The narrow 
 street of business was deserted. The heavy iron 
 shutters were gloomily closed over the windows. 
 From one or two offices struggled the dim gleam of 
 an early candle, by whose light some perplexed 
 accountant sat belated, and hunting for his error. 
 A careless clerk passed, whistling. But the great 
 tide of life had ebbed. We heard its roar far away, 
 and the sound stole into that silent street like the 
 murmur of the ocean into an inland dell. 
 
 " You will come and dine with us, Titbottom ? " 
 
 He assented by continuing to walk with me, and 
 I think we were both glad when we reached the house, 
 and Prue came to meet us, saying : 
 
 "Do you know I hoped you would bring Mr. 
 Titbottom to dine ? " 
 
 Titbottom smiled gently, and answered : 
 
 " He might have brought his spectacles with him, 
 and have been a happier man for it." 
 
 Prue looked a little puzzled. 
 
 "My dear," I said, "you must know that our 
 friend, Mr. Titbottom, is the happy possessor of a 
 pair of wonderful spectacles. I have never seen 
 them, indeed ; and, from what he says, I should be 
 rather afraid of being seen by them. Most short- 
 sighted persons are very glad to have the help of 
 glasses ; but Mr. Titbottom seems to find very little 
 pleasure in his." 
 
 " It is because they make him too far-sighted, 
 perhaps," interrupted Prue quietly, as she took the 
 silver soup-ladle from the sideboard. 
 
 We sipped our ' wine after dinner, and Prue 
 took her work. Can a man be too far-sighted? 
 I did not ask the question aloud. The very tone 
 in which Prue had spoken, convinced me that he 
 might. 
 
 "At least," I said, "Mr. Titbottom will not refuse 
 F
 
 66 Prue and I 
 
 to tell us the history of his mysterious spectacles. I 
 have known plenty of magic in eyes " (and I glanced 
 at the tender blue eyes of Prue), "but I have not 
 heard of any enchanted glasses." 
 
 " Yet you must have seen the glass in which your 
 wife looks every morning, and, I take it, that glass 
 must be daily enchanted," said Titbottom, with a bow 
 of quaint respect to my wife. 
 
 I do not think I have seen such a blush upon 
 Prue's cheek since well, since a great many years 
 ago. 
 
 " I will gladly tell you the history of my spectacles," 
 began Titbottom. " It is very simple ; and I am not 
 at all sure that a great many other people have not a 
 pair of the same kind. I have never, indeed, heard of 
 them by the gross, like those of our young friend, 
 Moses, the son of the Vicar of Wakefield. In fact, 
 I think a gross would be quite enough to supply the 
 world. It is a kind of article for which the demand 
 does not increase with use. If we should all wear 
 spectacles like mine, we should never smile any more. 
 Or I am not quite sure we should all be very 
 happy." 
 
 "A very important difference," said Prue, counting 
 her stitches. 
 
 " You know my grandfather Titbottom was a West 
 Indian. A large proprietor, and an easy man, he 
 basked in the tropical sun, leading his quiet, luxurious 
 life. He lived much alone, and was what people call 
 eccentric by which I understand, that he was very 
 much himself, and, refusing the influence of other 
 people, they had their revenges, and called him 
 names. It is a habit not exclusively tropical. I think 
 I have seen the same thing even in this city. 
 
 " But he was greatly beloved my bland and 
 bountiful grandfather. He was so large-hearted and 
 open-handed. He was so friendly, and thoughtful, 
 and genial, that even his jokes had the air of graceful 
 benedictions. He did not seem to grow old, and he 
 was one of those who never appear to have been very
 
 Titbottom's Spectacles 67 
 
 young. He flourished in a perennial maturity, an 
 immortal middle-age. 
 
 "My grandfather lived upon one of the small 
 islands St. Kitt's, perhaps and his domain ex- 
 tended to the sea. His house, a rambling West 
 Indian mansion, was surrounded with deep, spacious 
 piazzas, covered with luxurious lounges, among 
 which one capacious chair was his peculiar seat. 
 They tell me, he used sometimes to sit there for the 
 whole day, his great, soft, brown eyes fastened upon 
 the sea, watching the specks of sails that flashed upon 
 the horizon, while the evanescent expressions chased 
 each other over his placid face, as if it reflected the 
 calm and changing sea before him. 
 
 " His morning costume was an ample dressing- 
 gown of gorgeously-flowered silk, and his morning 
 was very apt to last all day. He rarely read ; but 
 he would pace the great piazza for hours, with his 
 hands buried in the pockets of his dressing-gown, 
 and an air of sweet reverie, which any book must 
 be a very entertaining one to produce. 
 
 " Society, of course, he saw little. There was some 
 slight apprehension that, if he were bidden to social 
 entertainments, he might forget his coat, or arrive 
 without some other essential part of his dress ; and 
 there is a sly tradition in the Titbottom family, that 
 once, having been invited to a ball in honour of a new 
 governor of the island, my grandfather Titbottom 
 sauntered into the hall towards midnight, wrapped 
 in the gorgeous flowers of his dressing-gown, and 
 with his hands buried in the pockets, as usual. There 
 was great excitement among the guests, and immense 
 deprecation of gubernatorial ire. Fortunately, it hap- 
 pened that the governor and my grandfather were old 
 friends, and there was no offence. But, as they were 
 conversing together, one of the distressed managers 
 cast indignant glances at the brilliant costume of my 
 grandfather, who summoned him, and asked court- 
 eously : 
 
 ' ' Did you invite me, or my coat? ' 
 
 F 2
 
 68 Prue and I 
 
 " ' You, in a proper coat,' replied the manager. 
 
 "The governor smiled approvingly, and looked at 
 my grandfather. 
 
 " ' My friend,' said he to the manager, ' I beg your 
 pardon, I forgot.' 
 
 "The next day, my grandfather was seen prome- 
 nading in full ball dress along the streets of the 
 little town. 
 
 "' They ought to know,' said he, ' that I have a 
 proper coat, and that not contempt, nor poverty, 
 but forgetfulness, sent me to a ball in my dressing- 
 gown. ' 
 
 "He did not much frequent social festivals after 
 this failure, but he always told the story with satis- 
 faction and a quiet smile. 
 
 "To a stranger, life upon those little islands is 
 uniform even to weariness. But the old native dons, 
 like my grandfather, ripen in the prolonged sunshine, 
 like the turtle upon the Bahama banks, nor know of 
 existence more desirable. Life in the tropics I take 
 to be a placid torpidity. 
 
 " During the long, warm mornings of nearly half 
 a century, my grandfather Titbottom had sat in his 
 dressing-gown, and gazed at the sea. But one calm 
 June day, as he slowly paced the piazza after break- 
 fast, his dreamy glance was arrested by a little vessel, 
 evidently nearing the shore. He called for his spy- 
 glass, and, surveying the craft, saw that she came 
 from the neighbouring island. She glided smoothly, 
 slowly, over the summer sea. The warm morning air 
 was sweet with perfumes, and silent with heat. The 
 sea sparkled languidly, and the brilliant blue sky 
 hung cloudlessly over. Scores of little island vessels 
 had my grandfather seen coming over the horizon, 
 and cast anchor in the port. Hundreds of summer 
 mornings had the white sails flashed and faded, like 
 vague faces through forgotten dreams. But this 
 time he laid down the spyglass, and leaned against a 
 column of the piazza, and watched the vessel with an 
 intentness that he could not explain. She came
 
 Titbottom's Spectacles 69 
 
 nearer and nearer, a graceful spectre in the dazzling 
 morning. 
 
 " ' Decidedly, I must step down and see about that 
 vessel,' said my grandfather Titbottom. 
 
 " He gathered his ample dressing-gown about him, 
 and stepped from the piazza, with no other protection 
 from the sun than the little smoking-cap upon his 
 head. His face wore a calm, beaming smile, as if he 
 loved the whole world. He was not an old man ; but 
 there was almost a patriarchal pathos in his expres- 
 sion, as he sauntered along in the sunshine towards 
 the shore. A group of idle gazers was collected, to 
 watch the arrival. The little vessel furled her sails, 
 and drifted slowly landward, and, as she was of very 
 light draft, she came close to the shelving shore. A 
 long plank was put out from her side, and the de- 
 barkation commenced. 
 
 "My grandfather Titbottom stood looking on, to 
 see the passengers as they passed. There were but 
 a few of them, and mostly traders from the neigh- 
 bouring island. But suddenly the face of a young 
 girl appeared over the side of the vessel, and she 
 stepped upon the plank to descend. My grandfather 
 Titbottom instantly advanced, and, moving briskly, 
 reached the top of the plank at the same moment, 
 and with the old tassel of his cap flashing in the sun, 
 and one hand in the pocket of his dressing-gown, 
 with the other he handed the young lady carefully 
 down the plank. That young lady was afterwards my 
 grandmother Titbottom. 
 
 " For, over the gleaming sea which he had watched 
 so long, and which seemed thus to reward his patient 
 gaze, came his bride that sunny morning. 
 
 " ' Of course, we are happy,' he used to say to her, 
 after they were married : ' For you are the gift of 
 the sun I have loved so long and so well.' And my 
 grandfather Titbottom would lay his hand so tenderly 
 upon the golden hair of his young bride, that you 
 could fancy him a devout Parsee, caressing sunbeams. 
 
 "There were endless festivities upon occasion of
 
 70 Prue and I 
 
 the marriage; and my grandfather did not go to one 
 of them in his dressing-gown. The gentle sweetness 
 of his wife melted every heart into love and sym- 
 pathy. He was much older than she, without doubt. 
 But age, as he used to say with a smile of immortal 
 youth, is a matter of feeling, not of years. 
 
 "And if, sometimes, as she sat by his side on the 
 piazza, her fancy looked through her eyes upon that 
 summer sea, and saw a younger lover, perhaps some 
 one of those graceful and glowing heroes who occupy 
 the foreground of all young maidens' visions by the 
 sea, yet she could not find one more generous and 
 gracious, nor fancy one more worthy and loving than 
 my grandfather Titbottom. 
 
 "And if, in the moonlit midnight, while he lay 
 calmly sleeping, she leaned out of the window, and 
 sank into vague reveries of sweet possibility, and 
 watched the gleaming path of the moonlight upon the 
 water, until the dawn glided over it it was only that 
 mood of nameless regret and longing, which underlies 
 all human happiness ; or it was the vision of that life 
 of cities and the world, which she had never seen, but 
 of which she had often read, and which looked very 
 fair and alluring across the sea, to a girlish imagina- 
 tion, which knew that it should never see that reality. 
 
 "These West Indian years were the great days of 
 the family," said Titbottom, with an air of majestic 
 and regal regret, pausing, and musing, in our little 
 parlour, like a late Stuart in exile, remembering 
 England. 
 
 Prue raised her eyes from her work, and looked 
 at him with subdued admiration ; for I have observed 
 that, like the rest of her sex, she has a singular sym- 
 pathy with the representative of a reduced family. 
 
 Perhaps it is their finer perception, which leads 
 these tender-hearted women to recognize the divine 
 right of social superiority so much more readily than 
 we ; and yet, much as Titbottom was enhanced in my 
 wife's admiration by the discovery that his dusky 
 sadness of nature and expression was, as it were, the
 
 Titbottom's Spectacles 71 
 
 expiring gleam and late twilight of ancestral splen- 
 dours, I doubt if Mr. Bourne would have preferred 
 him for book-keeper a moment sooner upon that 
 account. In truth, I have observed, down town, 
 that the fact of your ancestors doing nothing, is not 
 considered good proof that you can do anything. 
 
 But Prue and her sex regard sentiment more than 
 action, and I understand easily enough why she is 
 never tired of hearing me read of Prince Charlie. 
 If Titbottom had been only a little younger, a little 
 handsomer, a little more gallantly dressed in fact, 
 a little more of a Prince Charlie, I am sure her eyes 
 would not have fallen again upon her work so tran- 
 quilly, as he resumed his story. 
 
 " I can remember my grandfather Titbottom, 
 although I was a very young child, and he was a very 
 old man. My young mother and my young grand- 
 mother are very distinct figures in my memory, minis- 
 tering to the old gentleman, wrapped in his dressing- 
 gown, and seated upon the piazza. I remember his 
 white hair, and his calm smile, and how, not long 
 before he died, he called me to him, and laying his 
 hand upon my head, said to me : 
 
 "'My child, the world is not this great sunny 
 piazza, nor life the fairy stories which the women 
 tell you here, as you sit in their laps. I shall soon 
 be gone, but I want to leave with you some memento 
 of my love for you, and I know of nothing more 
 valuable than these spectacles, which your grand- 
 mother brought from her native island, when she 
 arrived here one fine summer morning, long ago. I 
 cannot tell whether, when you grow older, you will 
 regard them as a gift of the greatest value, or as 
 something that you had been happier never to have 
 possessed. ' 
 
 " ' But, grandpapa, I am not short-sighted. ' 
 
 "'My son, are you not human?' said the old 
 gentleman ; and how shall I ever forget the thought- 
 ful sadness with which, at the same time, he handed 
 me the spectacles ?
 
 72 Prue and I 
 
 " Instinctively I put them on, and looked at my 
 grandfather. But I saw no grandfather, no piazza, 
 no flowered dressing-gown ; I saw only a luxuriant 
 palm-tree, waving broadly over a tranquil landscape ; 
 pleasant homes clustered around it; gardens teem- 
 ing with fruit and flowers ; flocks quietly feeding ; 
 birds wheeling and chirping. I heard children's 
 voices, and the low lullaby of happy mothers. The 
 sound of cheerful singing came wafted from distant 
 fields upon the light breeze. Golden harvests glis- 
 tened out of sight, and I caught their rustling 
 whispers of prosperity. A warm, mellow atmosphere 
 bathed the whole. 
 
 " I have seen copies of the landscapes of the Italian 
 painter Claude, which seemed to me faint reminis- 
 cences of that calm and happy vision. But all this 
 peace and prosperity seemed to flow from the spread- 
 ing palm as from a fountain. 
 
 "I do not know how long I looked, but I had, 
 apparently, no power, as I had no will, to remove the 
 spectacles. What a wonderful island must Nevis be, 
 thought I, if people carry such pictures in their 
 pockets, only by buying a pair of spectacles ! What 
 wonder that my dear grandmother Titbottom has 
 lived such a placid life, and has blessed us all with 
 her sunny temper, when she has lived surrounded by 
 such images of peace ! 
 
 " My grandfather died. But still, in the warm 
 morning sunshine upon the piazza, I felt his placid 
 presence, and as I crawled into his great chair, and 
 drifted on in reverie through the still, tropical day, it 
 was as if his soft, dreamy eye had passed into my 
 soul. My grandmother cherished his memory with 
 tender regret. A violent passion of grief for his loss 
 was no more possible than for the pensive decay of 
 the year. 
 
 "We have no portrait of him, but I see always, 
 when I remember him, that peaceful and luxuriant 
 palm. And I think that to have known one good 
 old man one man who, through the chances and
 
 Titbottom's Spectacles 73 
 
 rubs of a long life, has carried his heart in his hand, 
 like a palm branch, waving all discords into peace, 
 helps our faith in God, in ourselves, and in each 
 other, more than many sermons. I hardly know 
 whether to be grateful to my grandfather for the 
 spectacles ; and yet when I remember that it is to 
 them I owe the pleasant image of him which I cherish, 
 1 seem to myself sadly ungrateful. 
 
 "Madam," said Titbottom to Prue, solemnly, "my 
 memory is a long and gloomy gallery, and only re- 
 motely, at its further end, do I see the glimmer of soft 
 sunshine, and only there are the pleasant pictures 
 hung. They seem to me very happy along whose 
 gallery the sunlight streams to their very feet, 
 striking all the pictured walls into unfading splen- 
 dour." 
 
 Prue had laid her work in her lap, and as Titbottom 
 paused a moment, and I turned towards her, I found 
 her mild eyes fastened upon my face, and glistening 
 with many tears. I knew that the tears meant that 
 she felt herself to be one of those who seemed to 
 Titbottom very happy. 
 
 " Misfortunes of many kinds came heavily upon the 
 family after the head was gone. The great house was 
 relinquished. My parents were both dead, and my 
 grandmother had entire charge of me. But from the 
 moment that I received the gift of the spectacles, I 
 could not resist their fascination, and I withdrew into 
 myself, and became a solitary boy. There were not 
 many companions for me of my own age, and they 
 gradually left me, or, at least, had not a hearty 
 sympathy with me; for, if they teased me, I pulled 
 out my spectacles and surveyed them so seriously that 
 they acquired a kind of awe of me, and evidently re- 
 garded my grandfather's gift as a concealed magical 
 weapon which might be dangerously drawn upon 
 them at any moment. Whenever, in our games, there 
 were quarrels and high words, and I began to feel 
 about my dress and to wear a grave look, they all 
 took the alarm, and shouted, ' Look out for Titbot-
 
 74 Prue and I 
 
 tom's spectacles,' and scattered like a flock of scared 
 sheep. 
 
 " Nor could I wonder at it. For, at first, before 
 they took the alarm, I saw strange sights when I 
 looked at them through the glasses. 
 
 " If two were quarrelling about a marble or a ball, 
 I had only to go behind a tree where I was concealed 
 and look at them leisurely. Then the scene changed, 
 and it was no longer a green meadow with boys play- 
 ing, but a spot which I did not recognize, and forms 
 that made me shudder, or smile. It was not a big boy 
 bullying a little one, but a young wolf with glistening 
 teeth and a lamb cowering before him ; or, it was a 
 dog faithful and famishing or a star going slowly 
 into eclipse or a rainbow fading or a flower bloom- 
 ing or a sun rising or a waning moon. 
 
 "The revelations of the spectacles determined my 
 feeling for the boys, and for all whom I saw through 
 them. No shyness, nor awkwardness, nor silence, 
 could separate me from those who looked lovely as 
 lilies to my illuminated eyes. But the vision made me 
 afraid. If I felt myself warmly drawn to any one, I 
 struggled with the fierce desire of seeing him through 
 the spectacles, for I feared to find him something else 
 than I fancied. I longed to enjoy the luxury of ignor- 
 ant feeling, to love without knowing, to float like a 
 leaf upon the eddies of life, drifted now to a sunny 
 point, now to a solemn shade now over glittering 
 ripples, now over gleaming calms, and not to deter- 
 mined ports, a trim vessel with an inexorable rudder. 
 
 " But sometimes, mastered after long struggles, as 
 if the unavoidable condition of owning the spectacles 
 were using them, I seized them and sauntered into the 
 little town. Putting them to my eyes I peered into the 
 houses and at the people who passed me. Here sat a 
 family at breakfast, and I stood at the window look- 
 ing in. O motley meal ! fantastic vision ! The good 
 mother saw her lord sitting opposite, a grave, respect- 
 able being, eating muffins. But I saw only a bank- 
 bill, moBe or less crumbled and tattered, marked with
 
 Titbottom's Spectacles 75 
 
 a larger or lesser figure. If a sharp wind blew sud- 
 denly, I saw it tremble and flutter; it was thin, flat, 
 impalpable. I removed my glasses, and looked with 
 my eyes at the wife. I could have smiled to see the 
 humid tenderness with which she regarded her 
 strange vis-a-vis. Is life only a game of blindman's- 
 buff ? of droll cross-purposes? 
 
 "Or I put them on again, and then looked at the 
 wives. How many stout trees I saw, how many 
 tender flowers, how many placid pools ; yes, and 
 how many little streams winding out of sight shrink- 
 ing before the large, hard, round eyes opposite, and 
 slipping off into solitude and shade, with a low, inner 
 song for their own solace. 
 
 " In many houses I thought to see angels, nymphs, 
 or, at least, women, and could only find broomsticks, 
 mops, or kettles, hurrying about, rattling and tink- 
 ling, in a state of shrill activity. I made calls upon 
 elegant ladies, and after I had enjoyed the gloss of 
 silk, and the delicacy of lace, and the glitter of jewels, 
 I slipped on my spectacles, and saw a peacock's 
 feather, flounced, and furbelowed, and fluttering-; or 
 an iron rod, thin, sharp, and hard ; nor could I pos- 
 sibly mistake the movement of the drapery for any 
 flexibility of the thing draped. 
 
 " Or, mysteriously chilled, I saw a statue of per- 
 fect form, or flowing movement, it might be alabas- 
 ter, or bronze, or marble, but sadly often it was 
 ice ; and I knew that after it had shone a little, and 
 frozen a few eyes with its despairing perfection, it 
 could not be put away in the niches of palaces for 
 ornament and proud family tradition, like the ala- 
 baster, or bronze, or marble statues, but would melt, 
 and shrink, and fall coldly away in colourless and 
 useless water, be absorbed in the earth and utterly 
 forgotten. 
 
 " But the true sadness was rather in seeing those 
 who, not having the spectacles, thought that the 
 iron rod was flexible, and the ice statue warm. I 
 saw many a gallant heart, which seemed to me brave
 
 76 Prue and I 
 
 and loyal as the crusaders, pursuing-, through days 
 and nights, and a long life of devotion, the hope of 
 lighting at least a smile in the cold eyes, if not a fire 
 in the icy heart. I watched the earnest, enthusiastic 
 sacrifice. I saw the pure resolve, the generous faith, 
 the fine scorn of doubt, the impatience of suspicion. 
 I watched the grace, the ardour, the glory of devo- 
 tion. Through those strange spectacles how often I 
 saw the noblest heart renouncing all other hope, all 
 other ambition, all other life, than the possible love of 
 some one of those statues. 
 
 " Ah me ! it was terrible, but they had not the 
 love to give. The face was so polished and smooth, 
 because there was no sorrow in the heart, and 
 drearily, often, no heart to be touched. I could 
 not wonder that the noble heart of devotion was 
 broken, for it had dashed itself against a stone. I 
 wept, until my spectacles were dimmed, for those 
 hopeless lovers ; but there was a pang beyond tears 
 for those icy statues. 
 
 " Still a boy, I was thus too much a man in know- 
 ledge, I did not comprehend the sights I was com- 
 pelled to see. I used to tear my glasses away from 
 my eyes, and, frightened at myself, run to escape my 
 own consciousness. Reaching the small house where 
 we then lived, I plunged into my grandmother's room, 
 and, throwing myself upon the floor, buried my face 
 in her lap ; and sobbed myself to sleep with premature 
 grief. 
 
 " But when I awakened, and felt her cool hand 
 upon my hot forehead, and heard the low sweet song, 
 or the gentle story, or the tenderly told parable from 
 the Bible, with which she tried to soothe me, I could 
 not resist the mystic fascination that lured me, as I 
 lay in her lap, to steal a glance at her through the 
 spectacles. 
 
 " Pictures of the Madonna have not her rare and 
 pensive beauty. Upon the tranquil little islands her 
 life had been eventless, and all the fine possibilities 
 of her nature were like flowers that never bloomed.
 
 Titbottom's Spectacles 77 
 
 Placid were all her years ; yet I have read of no hero- 
 ine, of no woman great in sudden crises, that it did 
 not seem to me she might have been. The wife and 
 widow of a man who loved his home better than the 
 homes of others, I have yet heard of no queen, no 
 belle, no imperial beauty, whom in grace, and bril- 
 liancy, and persuasive courtesy, she might not have 
 surpassed. 
 
 "Madam," said Titbottom to my wife, whose heart 
 hung upon his story; "your husband's young friend, 
 Aurelia, wears sometimes a camelia in her hair, and 
 no diamond in the ball-room seems so costly as that 
 perfect flower, which women envy, and for whose 
 least and withered petal men sigh ; yet, in the tropical 
 solitudes of Brazil, how many a camelia bud drops 
 from the bush that no eye has ever seen, which, had 
 it flowered and been noticed, would have gilded all 
 hearts with its memory. 
 
 " When I stole these furtive glances at my grand- 
 mother, half fearing that they were wrong, I saw 
 only a calm lake, whose shores were low, and over 
 which the sun hung unbroken, so that the least star 
 was clearly reflected. It had an atmosphere of 
 solemn twilight tranquillity, and so completely did 
 its unruffled surface blend with the cloudless, star- 
 studded sky, that, when I looked through my spec- 
 tacles at my grandmother, the vision seemed to me 
 all heaven and stars. 
 
 "Yet, as I gazed and gazed, I felt what stately 
 cities might well have been built upon those shores, 
 and have flashed prosperity over the calm, like 
 coruscations of pearls. I dreamed of gorgeous fleets, 
 silken-sailed, and blown by perfumed winds, drift- 
 ing over those depthless waters and through those 
 spacious skies. I gazed upon the twilight, the in- 
 scrutable silence, like a God-fearing discoverer upon 
 a new and vast sea bursting upon him through forest 
 glooms, and in the fervour of whose impassioned 
 gaze, a millennial and poetic world arises, and man 
 need no longer die to be happy.
 
 78 Prue and I 
 
 " My companions naturally deserted me, for I had 
 grown wearily grave and abstracted : and, unable to 
 resist the allurements of my spectacles, I was con- 
 stantly lost in the world, of which those companions 
 were part, yet of which they knew nothing. 
 
 "I grew cold and hard, almost morose; people 
 seemed to me so blind and unreasonable. They did 
 the wrong thing. They called green, yellow ; and 
 black, white. Young men said of a girl, ' What a 
 lovely, simple creature ! ' I looked, and there was 
 only a glistening wisp of straw, dry and hollow. Or 
 they said, ' What a cold, proud beauty ! ' I looked, 
 and lo ! a Madonna, whose heart held the world. 
 Or they said, ' What a wild, giddy girl ! ' and I saw 
 a glancing, dancing mountain stream, pure as the 
 virgin snows whence it flowed, singing through sun 
 and shade, over pearls and gold dust, slipping along 
 unstained by weed or rain, or heavy foot of cattle, 
 touching the flowers with a dewy kiss, a beam of 
 grace, a happy song, a line of light, in the dim and 
 troubled landscape. 
 
 " My grandmother sent me to school, but I looked 
 at the master, and saw that he was a smooth, round 
 ferule, or an improper noun, or a vulgar fraction, and 
 refused to obey him. Or he was a piece of string, a 
 rag, a willow-wand, and I had a contemptuous pity. 
 But one was a well of cool, deep water, and looking 
 suddenly in, one day, I saw the stars. 
 
 "That one gave me all my schooling. With him 
 I used to walk by the sea, and, as we strolled and 
 the waves plunged in long legions before us, I looked 
 at him through the spectacles, and as his eyes dilated 
 with the boundless view, and his chest heaved with 
 an impossible desire, I saw Xerxes and his army, 
 tossed and glittering, rank upon rank, multitude upon 
 multitude, out of sight, but ever regularly advancing, 
 and with confused roar of ceaseless music, prostrat- 
 ing themselves in abject homage. Or, as with arms 
 outstretched and hair streaming on the wind, he 
 chanted full lines of the resounding Iliad, I saw
 
 Titbottom's Spectacles 79 
 
 Homer pacing the Egean sands of the Greek sunsets 
 of forgotten times. 
 
 "My grandmother died, and I was thrown into 
 the world without resources, and with no capital 
 but my spectacles. I tried to find employment, but 
 everybody was shy of me. There was a vague 
 suspicion that I was either a little crazed, or a good 
 deal in league with the prince of darkness. My 
 companions, who would persist in calling a piece 
 of painted muslin, a fair and fragrant flower, had 
 no difficulty ; success waited for them around every 
 corner, and arrived in every ship. 
 
 " I tried to teach, for I loved children. But if any- 
 thing excited a suspicion of my pupils, and putting 
 on my spectacles, I saw that I was fondling a snake, 
 or smelling at a bud with a worm in it, I sprang up 
 in horror and ran away; or, if it seemed to me 
 through the glasses, that a cherub smiled upon me, 
 or a rose was blooming in my buttonhole, then I felt 
 myself imperfect and impure, not fit to be leading 
 and training what was so essentially superior to 
 myself, and I kissed the children and left them 
 weeping and wondering. 
 
 " In despair I went to a great merchant on the 
 island, and asked him to employ me. 
 
 "' My dear young friend,' said he, ' I understand 
 that you have some singular secret, some charm, or 
 spell, or amulet, or something, I don't know what, 
 of which people are afraid. Now you know, my 
 dear,' said the merchant, swelling up, and appar- 
 ently prouder of his great stomach than of his large 
 fortune, ' I am not of that kind. I am not easily 
 frightened. You may spare yourself the pain of 
 trying to impose upon me. People who propose to 
 come to time before I arrive, are accustomed to arise 
 very early in the morning,' said he, thrusting his 
 thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, and spread- 
 ing the fingers like two fans, upon his bosom. ' I 
 think I have heard something of your secret. You 
 have a pair of spectacles, I believe, that you value
 
 8o Prue and I 
 
 very much, because your grandmother brought them 
 as a marriage portion to your grandfather. Now, if 
 you think fit to sell me those spectacles, I will pay 
 you the largest market price for them. What do 
 you say? ' 
 
 "I told him I had not the slightest idea of selling 
 my spectacles. 
 
 " ' My young friend means to eat them, I suppose,' 
 said he, with a contemptuous smile. 
 
 " I made no reply, but was turning to leave the 
 office, when the merchant called after me : 
 
 " ' My young friend, poor people should never 
 suffer themselves to get into pets. Anger is an ex- 
 pensive luxury, in which only men of a certain income 
 can indulge. A pair of spectacles and a hot temper 
 are not the most promising capital for success in life, 
 Master Titbottom.' 
 
 " I said nothing, but put my hand upon the door 
 to go out, when the merchant said, more respect- 
 fully : 
 
 " ' Well, you foolish boy, if you will not sell your 
 spectacles, perhaps you will agree to sell the use of 
 them to me. That is, you shall only put them on 
 when I direct you, and for my purposes. Hallo ! you 
 little fool ! ' cried he, impatiently, as he saw that I 
 intended to make no reply. 
 
 " But I had pulled out my spectacles and put them 
 on for my own purposes, and against his wish and 
 desire. I looked at him, and saw a huge, bald-headed 
 wild boar, with gross chaps and a leering eye only 
 the more ridiculous for the high-arched, gold-bowed 
 spectacles, that straddled his nose. One of his fore- 
 hoofs was thrust into the safe, where his bills receiv- 
 able were hived, and the other into his pocket, among 
 the loose change and bills there. His ears were 
 pricked forward with a brisk, sensitive smartness. 
 In a world where prize pork was the best excellence, 
 he would have carried off all the premiums. 
 
 "I stepped into the next office in the street, and 
 a mild-faced, genial man, also a large and opulent
 
 Titbottom's Spectacles 81 
 
 merchant, asked me my business in such a tone, 
 that I instantly looked through my spectacles, and 
 saw a land flowing with milk and honey. There I 
 pitched my tent, and stayed till the good man died, 
 and his business was discontinued. 
 
 "But while there," said Titbottom, and his voice 
 trembled away into a sigh, " I first saw Preciosa. 
 Despite the spectacles, I saw Preciosa. For days, 
 for weeks, for months, I did not take my spectacles 
 with me. I ran away from them, I threw them up 
 on high shelves, I tried to make up my mind to throw 
 them into the sea, or down the well. I could not, I 
 would not, I dared not, look at Preciosa through the 
 spectacles. It was not possible for me deliberately 
 to destroy them ; but I awoke in the night, and could 
 almost have cursed my dear old grandfather for his 
 gift. 
 
 " I sometimes escaped from the office, and sat for 
 whole days with Preciosa. I told her the strange 
 things I had seen with my mystic glasses. The hours 
 were not enough for the wild romances which I raved 
 in her ear. She listened, astonished and appalled. 
 Her blue eyes turned upon me with sweet depreca- 
 tion. She clung to me, and then withdrew, and fled 
 fearfully from the room. 
 
 " But she could not stay away. She could not 
 resist my voice, in whose tones burnt all the love 
 that filled my heart and brain. The very effort to 
 resist the desire of seeing her as I saw everybody 
 else, gave a frenzy and an unnatural tension to my 
 feeling and my manner. I sat by her side, looking 
 into her eyes, smoothing her hair, folding her to my 
 heart, which was sunken deep and deep why not 
 for ever? in that dream of peace. I ran from her 
 presence, and shouted, and leaped with joy, and sat 
 the whole night through, thrilled into happiness by 
 the thought of her love and loveliness, like a wind- 
 harp, tightly strung, and answering the airiest sigh of 
 the breeze with music. 
 
 "Then came calmer days the conviction of deep 
 G
 
 82 Prue and I 
 
 love settled upon our lives as after the hurrying, 
 heaving days of spring, comes the bland and be- 
 nignant summer. 
 
 " ' It is no dream, then, after all, and we are 
 happy, ' I said to her, one day ; and there came no 
 answer, for happiness is speechless. 
 
 '" We are happy, then,' I said to myself, 'there 
 is no excitement now. How glad I am that I can 
 now look at her through my spectacles. ' 
 
 " I feared lest some instinct should warn me to 
 beware. I escaped from her arms, and ran home 
 and seized the glasses, and bounded back again to 
 Preciosa. As I entered the room I was heated, my 
 head was swimming with confused apprehensions, my 
 eyes must have glared. Preciosa was frightened, 
 and rising from her seat, stood with an inquiring 
 glance of surprise in her eyes. 
 
 " But I was bent with frenzy upon my purpose. 
 I was merely aware that she was in the room. I 
 saw nothing else. I heard nothing. I cared for 
 nothing, but to see her through that magic glass, 
 and feel at once all the fulness of blissful perfection 
 which that would reveal. Preciosa stood before the 
 mirror, but alarmed at my wild and eager movements, 
 unable to distinguish what I had in my hands, and 
 seeing me raise them suddenly to my face, she 
 shrieked with terror, and fell fainting upon the floor, 
 at the very moment that I placed the glasses before 
 my eyes, and beheld myself, reflected in the mirror, 
 before which she had been standing. 
 
 "Dear madam," cried Titbottom, to my wife, 
 springing up and falling back again in his chair, 
 pale and trembling, while Prue ran to him and took 
 his hand, and I poured out a glass of water " I saw 
 myself." 
 
 There was silence for many minutes. Prue laid 
 her hand gently upon the head of our guest, whose 
 eyes were closed, and who breathed softly like an 
 infant in sleeping. Perhaps, in all the long years of 
 anguish since that hour, no tender hand had touched
 
 Titbottom's Spectacles 83 
 
 his brow, nor wiped away the damps of a bitter sor- 
 row. Perhaps the tender, maternal ringers of my 
 wife soothed his weary head with the conviction 
 that he felt the hand of his mother playing with the 
 long- hair of her boy in the soft West India morning. 
 Perhaps it was only the natural relief of expressing 
 a pent-up sorrow. 
 
 When he spoke again, it was with the old subdued 
 tone, and the air of quaint solemnity. 
 
 "These things were matters of long, long ago, and 
 I came to this country soon after. I brought with 
 me, premature age, a past of melancholy memories, 
 and the magic spectacles. I had become their slave. 
 I had nothing more to fear. Having seen myself, I 
 was compelled to see others, properly to understand 
 my relations to them. The lights that cheer the future 
 of other men had gone out for me; my eyes were 
 those of an exile turned backwards upon the receding 
 shore, and not forwards with hope upon the ocean. 
 
 " I mingled with men, but with little pleasure. 
 There are but many varieties of a few types. I did 
 not find those I came to clearer-sighted than those 
 I had left behind. I heard men called shrewd and 
 wise, and report said they w r ere highly intelligent 
 and successful. My finest sense detected no aroma 
 of purity and principle; but I saw only a fungus 
 that had fattened and spread in a night. They went 
 to the theatres to see actors upon the stage. I went 
 to see actors in the boxes, so consummately cunning, 
 that others did not know they were acting, and they 
 did not suspect it themselves. 
 
 " Perhaps you wonder it did not make me misan- 
 thropical. My dear friends, do not forget that I 
 had seen myself. That made me compassionate, not 
 cynical. 
 
 " Of course, I could not value highly the ordinary 
 standards of success and excellence. When I went 
 to church and saw a thin, blue, artificial flower, or 
 a great sleepy cushion expounding the beauty of 
 holiness to pews full of eagles, half-eagles, and three-
 
 8 4 
 
 Prue and I 
 
 pences, however adroitly concealed they might be in 
 broadcloth and boots : or saw an onion in an Easter 
 bonnet weeping over the sins of Magdalen, I did not 
 feel as they felt who saw in all this, not only pro- 
 priety but piety. 
 
 "Or when at public meetings an eel stood up on 
 end, and wriggled and squirmed lithely in every direc- 
 tion, and declared that, for his part, he went in for 
 rainbows and hot water how could I help seeing 
 that he was still black and loved a slimy pool? 
 
 " I could not grow misanthropical when I saw in 
 the eyes of so many who were called old, the gushing 
 fountains of eternal youth, and the light of an im- 
 mortal dawn, or when I saw those who were esteemed 
 unsuccessful and aimless, ruling a fair realm of peace 
 and plenty, either in their own hearts, or in another's 
 a realm and princely possession for which they 
 had well renounced a hopeless search and a belated 
 triumph. 
 
 " I knew one man who had been for years a by- 
 word for having sought the philosopher's stone. But 
 I looked at him through the spectacles and saw a 
 satisfaction in concentrated energies, and a tenacity 
 arising from devotion to a noble dream which was 
 not apparent in the youths who pitied him in the 
 aimless effeminacy of clubs, nor in the clever gentle- 
 men who cracked their thin jokes upon him over a 
 gossiping dinner. 
 
 "And there was your neighbour over the way, 
 who passes for a woman who has failed in her career, 
 because she is an old maid. People wag solemn 
 heads of pity, and say that she made so great a mis- 
 take in not marrying the brilliant and famous man 
 who was for long years her suitor. It is clear that 
 no orange flower will ever bloom for her. The young 
 people make their tender romances about her as they 
 watch her, and think of her solitary hours of bitter 
 regret and wasting longing, never to be satisfied. 
 
 "When I first came to town I shared this sym- 
 pathy, and pleased my imagination with fancying her
 
 I itbottom s bpectacles 05 
 
 hard struggle with the conviction that she had lost 
 all that made life beautiful. I supposed that if I had 
 looked at her through my spectacles, I should see 
 that it was only her radiant temper which so illu- 
 minated her dress, that we did not see it to be heavy 
 sables. 
 
 " But when, one day, I did raise my glasses, and 
 glanced at her, I did not see the old maid whom we 
 all pitied for a secret sorrow, but a woman whose 
 nature was a tropic, in which the sun shone, and 
 birds sang, and flowers bloomed for ever. There 
 were no regrets, no doubts and half wishes, but a 
 calm sweetness, a transparent peace. I saw her blush 
 when that old lover passed by, or paused to speak to 
 her, but it was only the sign of delicate feminine 
 consciousness. She knew his love, and honoured it, 
 although she could not understand it nor return it. 
 I looked closely at her, and I saw that although all 
 the world had exclaimed at her indifference to such 
 homage, and had declared it was astonishing she 
 should lose so fine a match, she would only say 
 simply and quietly : 
 
 " ' If Shakespeare loved me and I did not love him, 
 how could I marry him? ' 
 
 "Could I be misanthropical when I saw such 
 fidelity, and dignity, and simplicity? 
 
 "You may believe that I was especially curious 
 to look at that old lover of hers, through my glasses. 
 He was no longer young, you know, when I came, 
 and his fame and fortune were secure. Certainly I 
 have heard of few men more beloved, and of none 
 more worthy to be loved. He had the easy manner 
 of a man of the world, the sensitive grace of a poet, 
 and the charitable judgment of a wide traveller. He 
 was accounted the most successful and most unspoiled 
 of men. Handsome, brilliant, wise, tender, graceful, 
 accomplished, rich, and famous, I looked at him, 
 without the spectacles, in surprise and admiration, 
 and wondered how your neighbour over the way had 
 been so entirely untouched by his homage. I watched
 
 86 Prue and I 
 
 their intercourse in society, I saw her gay smile, her 
 cordial greeting; I marked his frank address, his 
 lofty courtesy. Their manner told no tales. The 
 eager world was baulked, and I pulled out my spec- 
 tacles. 
 
 " I had seen her already, and now I saw him. He 
 lived only in memory, and his memory was a spacious 
 and stately palace. But he did not oftenest frequent 
 the banqueting hall, where were endless hospitality 
 and feasting, nor did he loiter much in the reception 
 rooms, where a throng of new visitors was for ever 
 swarming, nor did he feed his vanity by haunting 
 the apartment in which were stored the trophies of 
 his varied triumphs, nor dream much in the great 
 gallery hung with pictures of his travels. 
 
 " From all these lofty halls of memory he constantly 
 escaped to a remote and solitary chamber, into which 
 no one had ever penetrated. But my fatal eyes, be- 
 hind the glasses, followed and entered with him, and 
 saw that the chamber was a chapel. It was dim, and 
 silent, and sweet with perpetual incense that burned 
 upon an altar before a picture for ever veiled. There, 
 whenever I chanced to look, I saw him kneel and 
 pray ; and there, by day and by night, a funeral hymn 
 was chanted. 
 
 " I do not believe you will be surprised that I have 
 been content to remain a deputy book-keeper. My 
 spectacles regulated my ambition, and I early learned 
 that there were better gods than Plutus. The glasses 
 have lost much of their fascination now, and I do 
 not often use them. But sometimes the desire is 
 irresistible. Whenever I am greatly interested, I am 
 compelled to take them out and see what it is that I 
 admire. 
 
 "And yet and yet," said Titbottom, after a pause, 
 "I am not sure that I thank my grandfather." 
 
 Prue had long since laid away her work, and had 
 heard every word of the story. I saw that the dear 
 woman had yet one question to ask, and had been 
 earnestly hoping to hear something that would spare
 
 Titbottom's Spectacles 87 
 
 her the necessity of asking. But Titbottom had re- 
 sumed his usual tone, after the momentary excite- 
 ment, and made no further allusion to himself. We 
 all sat silently; Titbottom's eyes fastened musingly 
 upon the carpet, Prue looking wistfully at him, and I 
 regarding both. 
 
 It was past midnight, and our guest arose to go. 
 He shook hands quietly, made his grave Spanish bow 
 to Prue, and, taking his hat, went towards the front 
 door. Prue and I accompanied him. I saw in her 
 eyes that she would ask her question. And as Tit- 
 bottom opened the door, I heard the low words : 
 
 "And Preciosa? " 
 
 Titbottom paused. He had just opened the door, 
 and the moonlight streamed over him as he stood, 
 turning back to us. 
 
 " I have seen her but once since. It was in church, 
 and she was kneeling, with her eyes closed, so that 
 she did not see me. But I rubbed the glasses well, 
 and looked at her, and saw a white lily, whose stem 
 was broken, but which was fresh, and luminous, and 
 fragrant still." 
 
 "That was a miracle," interrupted Prue. 
 
 "Madam, it was a miracle," replied Titbottom, 
 " and for that one sight I am devoutly grateful for my 
 grandfather's gift. I saw, that although a flower 
 may have lost its hold upon earthly moisture, it may 
 still bloom as sweetly, fed by the dews of heaven." 
 
 The door closed, and he was gone. But as Prue 
 put her arm in mine, and we went up-stairs together, 
 she whispered in my ear : 
 
 "How glad I am that you don't wear spectacles."
 
 Prue and I 
 
 A CRUISE IN THE 'FLYING 
 DUTCHMAN' 
 
 "When I sailed : when I sailed." 
 
 Ballad of Robert KidJ. 
 
 WITH the opening of spring my heart opens. My 
 fancy expands with the flowers, and, as I walk down 
 town in the May morning, toward the dingy count- 
 ing-room, and the old routine, you would hardly 
 believe that I would not change my feelings for 
 those of the French Barber-Poet Jasmin, who goes, 
 merrily singing, to his shaving and hair-cutting. 
 
 The first warm day puts the whole winter to flight. 
 It stands in front of the summer like a young warrior 
 before his host, and, single-handed, defies and 
 destroys its remorseless enemy. 
 
 I throw up the chamber-window, to breathe the 
 earliest breath of summer. 
 
 "The brave young David has hit old Goliath square 
 in the forehead this morning," I say to Prue, as I 
 lean out, and bathe in the soft sunshine. 
 
 My wife is tying on her cap at the glass, and, not 
 quite disentangled from her dreams, thinks I am 
 speaking of a street-brawl, and replies that I had 
 better take care of my own head. 
 
 "Since you have charge of my heart, I suppose," 
 I answer gaily, turning round to make her one of 
 Titbottom's bows. 
 
 " But seriously, Prue, how is it about my summer 
 wardrobe? " 
 
 Prue smiles, and tells me we shall have two months 
 of winter yet, and I had better stop and order some 
 more coal as I go down town. 
 
 " Winter coal ! " 
 
 Then I step back, and taking her by the arm, lead 
 her to the window. I throw it open even wider than
 
 Cruise in the ' Flying Dutchman ' 89 
 
 before. The sunlight streams on the great church- 
 towers opposite, and the trees in the neighbouring- 
 square glisten, and wave their boughs gently, as if 
 they would burst into leaf before dinner. Cages are 
 hung at the open chamber-windows in the street, and 
 the birds, touched into song by the sun, make Mem- 
 non true. Prue's purple and white hyacinths are in 
 full blossom, and perfume the warm air, so that the 
 canaries and the mocking birds are no longer aliens 
 in the city streets, but are once more swinging in 
 their spicy native groves. 
 
 A soft wind blows upon us as we stand, listening 
 and looking. Cuba and the Tropics are in the air. 
 The drowsy tune of a hand-organ rises from the 
 square, and Italy comes singing in upon the sound. 
 My triumphant eyes meet Prue's. They are full of 
 sweetness and spring. 
 
 "What do you think of the summer-wardrobe 
 now? " I ask, and we go down to breakfast. 
 
 But the air has magic in it, and I do not cease to 
 dream. If I meet Charles, who is bound for Alabama, 
 or John, who sails for Savannah, with a trunk full of 
 white jackets, I do not say to them, as their other 
 friends say : 
 
 " Happy travellers, who cut March and April out 
 of the dismal year ! " 
 
 I do not envy them. They will be sea-sick on the 
 way. The southern winds will blow all the water 
 out of the rivers, and, desolately stranded upon mud, 
 they will relieve the tedium of the interval by tying 
 with large ropes a young gentleman raving with 
 delirium tremens. They will hurry along, appalled 
 by forests blazing in the windy night ; and, housed 
 in a bad inn, they will find themselves anxiously 
 asking, "Are the cars punctual in leaving?" 
 grimly sure that impatient travellers find all con- 
 veyances too slow. The travellers are very warm, 
 indeed, even in March and April, but Prue doubts 
 if it is altogether the effect of the southern climate. 
 
 Why should they go to the South? If they only
 
 QO Prue and I 
 
 wait a little, the South will come to them. Savannah 
 arrives in April; Florida in May; Cuba and the Gulf 
 come in with June, and the full splendour of the 
 Tropics burns through July and August. Sitting 
 upon the earth, do we not glide by all the constella- 
 tions, all the awful stars? Does not the flash of 
 Orion's scimeter dazzle as we pass? Do we not hear, 
 as we gaze in hushed midnights, the music of the 
 Lyre ; are we not throned with Cassiopeia ; do we not 
 play with the tangles of Berenice's hair, as we sail, 
 as we sail? 
 
 When Christopher told me that he was going to 
 Italy, I went into Bourne's conservatory, saw a 
 magnolia, and so reached Italy before him. Can 
 Christopher bring Italy home? But I brought to 
 Prue a branch of magnolia blossoms, with Mr. 
 Bourne's kindest regards, and she put them upon 
 her table, and our little house smelled of Italy for a 
 week afterward. The incident developed Prue's 
 Italian tastes, which I had not suspected to be so 
 strong. I found her looking very often at the mag- 
 nolias; even holding them in her hand, and standing 
 before the table with a pensive air. I suppose she 
 was thinking of Beatrice Cenci, or of Tasso and 
 Leonora, or of the wife of Marino Faliero, or of some 
 other of those sad old Italian tales of love and woe. 
 So easily Prue went to Italy ! 
 
 Thus the spring comes in my heart as well as in 
 the air, and leaps along my veins as well as through 
 the trees. I immediately travel. An orange takes 
 me to Sorrento, and roses, when they blow, to 
 Paestum. The camelias in Aurelia's hair bring Brazil 
 into the happy rooms she treads, and she takes me 
 to South America as she goes to dinner. The pearls 
 upon her neck make me free of the Persian gulf. 
 Upon her shawl, like the Arabian prince upon his 
 carpet, I am transported to the vales of Cashmere; 
 and thus, as I daily walk in the bright spring days, 
 I go round the world. 
 
 But the season wakes a finer longing, a desire that
 
 Cruise in the 'Flying Dutchman' 91 
 
 could only be satisfied if the pavilions of the clouds 
 were real, and I could stroll among the towering 
 splendours of a sultry spring evening. Ah ! if I could 
 leap those flaming battlements that glow along the 
 west if I could tread those cool, dewy, serene isles 
 of sunset, and sink with them in the sea of stars. 
 
 I say so to Prue, and my wife smiles. 
 
 "But why is it so impossible," I ask, "if you go 
 to Italy upon a magnolia branch? " 
 
 The smile fades from her eyes. 
 
 " I went a shorter voyage than that," she an- 
 swered; "it was only to Mr. Bourne's." 
 
 I walked slowly out of the house, and overtook 
 Titbottom as I went. He smiled gravely as he 
 greeted me, and said : 
 
 " I have been asked to invite you to join a little 
 pleasure party." 
 
 ' Where is it going? " 
 
 'Oh ! anywhere," answered Titbottom. 
 
 'And how? " 
 
 'Oh ! anyhow," he replied. 
 
 'You mean that everybody is to go wherever he 
 pleases, and in the way he best can. My dear Tit- 
 bottom, I have long belonged to that pleasure party, 
 although I never heard it called by so pleasant a 
 name before." 
 
 My companion said only : 
 
 " If you would like to join, I will introduce you to 
 the party. I cannot go, but they are all on board." 
 
 I answered nothing ; but Titbottom drew me along. 
 We took a boat, and put off to the most extra- 
 ordinary craft I had ever seen. We approached her 
 stern, and, as I curiously looked at it, I could think 
 of nothing but an old picture that hung in my father's 
 house. It was of the Flemish school, and represented 
 the rear view of the vrouw of a burgomaster going to 
 market. The wide yards were stretched like elbows, 
 and even the studding-sails were spread. The hull 
 was seared and blistered, and, in the tops, I saw 
 what I supposed to be strings of turnips or cabbages,
 
 92 Prue and I 
 
 little round masses, with tufted crests ; but Titbottom 
 assured me they were sailors. 
 
 We rowed hard, but came no nearer the vessel. 
 
 "She is going with the tide and wind," said I : 
 "we shall never catch her." 
 
 My companion said nothing. 
 
 "But why have they set the studding-sails?" 
 asked I. 
 
 "She never takes in any sails," answered Tit- 
 bottom. 
 
 "The more fool she," thought I, a little im- 
 patiently, angry at not getting nearer to the vessel. 
 But I did not say it aloud. I would as soon have 
 said it to Prue as to Titbottom. The truth is, I 
 began to feel a little ill, from the motion of the boat, 
 and remembered, with a shade of regret, Prue and 
 peppermint. If wives could only keep their husbands 
 a little nauseated, I am confident they might be very 
 sure of their constancy. 
 
 But, somehow, the strange ship was gained, and 
 I found myself among as singular a company as I 
 have ever seen. There were men of every country, 
 and costumes of all kinds. There was an indescrib- 
 able mistiness in the air, or a premature twilight, 
 in which all the figures looked ghostly and unreal. 
 The ship was of a model such as I had never seen, 
 and the rigging had a musty odour, so that the whole 
 craft smelled like a ship-chandler's shop grown 
 mouldy. The figures glided rather than walked 
 about, and I perceived a strong smell of cabbage 
 issuing from the hold. 
 
 But the most extraordinary thing of all was the 
 sense of resistless motion which possessed my mind 
 the moment my foot struck the deck. I could have 
 sworn we were dashing through the water at the 
 rate of twenty knots an hour. (Prue has a great, 
 but a little ignorant, admiration of my technical 
 knowledge of nautical affairs and phrases.) I looked 
 aloft and saw the sails taut with a stiff breeze, and 
 I heard a faint whistling of the wind in the rigging,
 
 Cruise in the ' Flying Dutchman ' 93 
 
 but very faint, and rather, it seemed to me, as if it 
 came from the creak of cordage in the ships of 
 Crusaders ; or of quaint old craft upon the Spanish 
 main, echoing through remote years so far away it 
 sounded. 
 
 Yet I heard no orders given ; I saw no sailors 
 running aloft, and only one figure crouching over 
 the wheel. He was lost behind his great beard as 
 behind a snow-drift. But the startling speed with 
 which we scudded along did not lift a solitary hair 
 of that beard, nor did the old and withered face of 
 the pilot betray any curiosity or interest as to what 
 breakers, or reefs, or pitiless shores, might be lying 
 in ambush to destroy us. 
 
 Still on we swept; and as the traveller in a night- 
 train knows that he is passing green fields, and 
 pleasant gardens, and winding streams fringed with 
 flowers, and is now gliding through tunnels or dart- 
 ing along the base of fearful cliffs, so I was conscious 
 that we were pressing through various climates and 
 by romantic shores. In vain I peered into the gray 
 twilight mist that folded all. I could only see the 
 vague figures that grew and faded upon the haze, as 
 my eye fell upon them, like the intermittent charac- 
 ters of sympathetic ink when heat touches them. 
 
 Now, it was a belt of warm, odorous air in which 
 we sailed, and then cold as the breath of a polar 
 ocean. The perfume of new-mown hay and the 
 breath of roses, came mingled with the distant music 
 of bells, and the twittering song of birds, and a low 
 surf-like sound of the wind in summer woods. There 
 were all sounds of pastoral beauty, of a tranquil 
 landscape such as Prue loves and which shall be 
 painted as the background of her portrait whenever 
 she sits to any of my many artist friends and that 
 pastoral beauty shall be called England ; I strained 
 my eyes into the cruel mist that held all that music 
 and all that suggested beauty, but I could see nothing. 
 It was so sweet that I scarcely knew if I cared to 
 see. The very thought of it charmed my senses and
 
 94 Prue and I 
 
 satisfied my heart. I smelled and heard the landscape 
 that I could not see. 
 
 Then the pungent, penetrating fragrance of blos- 
 soming vineyards was wafted across the air; the 
 flowery richness of orange groves, and the sacred 
 odour of crushed bay leaves, such as is pressed from 
 them when they are strewn upon the flat pavement 
 of the streets of Florence, and gorgeous priestly pro- 
 cessions tread them under foot. A steam of incense 
 rilled the air. I smelled Italy as in the magnolia 
 from Bourne's garden and, even while my heart 
 leaped with the consciousness, the odour passed, and 
 a stretch of burning silence succeeded. 
 
 It was an oppressive zone of heat oppressive not 
 only from its silence, but from the sense of awful, 
 antique forms, whether of art or nature, that were 
 sitting, closely veiled, in that mysterious obscurity. 
 I shuddered as I felt that if my eyes could pierce 
 that mist, or if it should lift and roll away, I should 
 see upon a silent shore low ranges of lonely hills, 
 or mystic figures and huge temples trampled out of 
 history by time. 
 
 This, too, we left. There was a rustling of distant 
 palms, the indistinct roar of beasts, and the hiss of 
 serpents. Then all was still again. Only at times 
 the remote sigh of the weary sea, moaning around 
 desolate isles undiscovered ; and the howl of winds 
 that had never wafted human voices, but had rung 
 endless changes upon the sound of dashing waters, 
 made the voyage more appalling and the figures 
 around me more fearful. 
 
 As the ship plunged on through all the varying 
 zones, as climate and country drifted behind us, 
 unseen in the gray mist, but each, in turn, making 
 that quaint craft England or Italy, Africa and the 
 Southern seas, I ventured to steal a glance at the 
 motley crew, to see what impression this wild career 
 produced upon them. 
 
 They sat about the deck in a hundred listless 
 postures. Some leaned idly over the bulwarks, and
 
 Cruise in the ' Flying Dutchman ' 95 
 
 looked wistfully away from the ship, as if they 
 fancied they saw all that I inferred but could not see. 
 As the perfume, and sound, and climate changed, I 
 could see many a longing eye sadden and grow moist, 
 and as the chime of bells echoed distinctly like the 
 airy syllables of names, and, as it were, made pictures 
 in music upon the minds of those quaint mariners 
 then dry lips moved, perhaps to name a name, per- 
 haps to breathe a prayer. Others sat upon the deck, 
 vacantly smoking pipes that required no refilling, but 
 had an immortality of weed and fire. The more they 
 smoked the more mysterious they became. The 
 smoke made the mist around them more impene- 
 trable, and I could clearly see that those distant 
 sounds gradually grew more distant, and, by some 
 of the most desperate and constant smokers, were 
 heard no more. The faces of such had an apathy, 
 which, had it been human, would have been despair. 
 
 Others stood staring up into the rigging, as if 
 calculating when the sails must needs be rent and 
 the voyage end. But there was no hope in their 
 eyes, only a bitter longing. Some paced restlessly 
 up and down the deck. They had evidently been 
 walking a long, long time. At intervals they, too, 
 threw a searching glance into the mist that enveloped 
 the ship, and up into the sails and rigging that 
 stretched over them in hopeless strength and order. 
 
 One of the promenaders I especially noticed. His 
 beard was long and snowy, like that of the pilot. He 
 had a staff in his hand, and his movement was very 
 rapid. His body swung forward, as if to avoid 
 something, and his glance half turned back over his 
 shoulder, apprehensively, as if he were threatened 
 from behind. The head and the whole figure were 
 bowed as if under a burden, although I could not see 
 that he had anything upon his shoulders ; and his gait 
 was not that of a man who is walking off the ennui of 
 a voyage, but rather of a criminal flying, or of a 
 startled traveller pursued. 
 
 As he came nearer to me in his walk, I saw that
 
 96 Prue and I 
 
 his features were strongly Hebrew, and there was an 
 air of the proudest dignity, fearfully abased, in his 
 mien and expression. It was more than the dignity 
 of an individual. I could have believed that the pride 
 of a race was humbled in his person. 
 
 His agile eye presently fastened itself upon me, as 
 a stranger. He came nearer and nearer to me, as he 
 paced rapidly to and fro, and was evidently several 
 times on the point of addressing me, but, looking 
 over his shoulder apprehensively, he passed on. At 
 length, with a great effort, he paused for an instant, 
 and invited me to join him in his walk. Before the 
 invitation was fairly uttered, he was in motion again. 
 I followed, but I could not overtake him. He kept 
 just before me, and turned occasionally with an air 
 of terror, as if he fancied I were dogging him; then 
 glided on more rapidly. 
 
 His face was by no means agreeable, but it had 
 an inexplicable fascination, as if it had been turned 
 upon what no other mortal eyes had ever seen. Yet 
 I could hardly tell whether it were, probably, an 
 object of supreme beauty or of terror. He looked 
 at everything as if he hoped its impression might 
 obliterate some anterior and awful one; and I was 
 gradually possessed with the unpleasant idea that his 
 eyes were never closed that, in fact, he never slept. 
 
 Suddenly, fixing me with his unnatural, wakeful 
 glare, he whispered something which I could not 
 understand, and then darted forward even more 
 rapidly, as if he dreaded that, in merely speaking, 
 he had lost time. 
 
 Still the ship drove on, and I walked hurriedly 
 along the deck, just behind my companion. But 
 our speed and that of the ship contrasted strangely 
 with the mouldy smell of old rigging, and the list- 
 less and lazy groups, smoking and leaning on the 
 bulwarks. The seasons, in endless succession and 
 iteration, passed over the ship. The twilight was 
 summer haze at the stern, while it was the fiercest 
 winter mist at the bows. But as a tropical breath,
 
 Cruise in the ' Flying Dutchman ' 97 
 
 like the warmth of a Syrian day, suddenly touched 
 the brow of my companion, he sighed, and I could 
 not help saying : 
 
 "You must be tired." 
 
 He only shook his head and quickened his pace. 
 But now that I had once spoken, it was not so 
 difficult to speak, and I asked him why he did not 
 stop and rest. 
 
 He turned for a moment, and a mournful sweetness 
 shone in his dark eyes and haggard, swarthy face. 
 It played flittingly around that strange look of ruined 
 human dignity, like a wan beam of late sunset about 
 a crumbling and forgotten temple. He put his hand 
 hurriedly to his forehead, as if he were trying to 
 remember like a lunatic, who, having heard only 
 the wrangle of fiends in his delirium, suddenly, in a 
 conscious moment, perceives the familiar voice of 
 love. But who could this be, to whom mere human 
 sympathy was so startlingly sweet? 
 
 Still moving, he whispered with a woeful sadness, 
 " I want to stop, but I cannot. If I could only stop 
 long enough to leap over the bulwarks ! " 
 
 Then he sighed long and deeply, and added, " But 
 I should not drown." 
 
 So much had my interest been excited by his face 
 and movement, that I had not observed the costume 
 of this strange being. He wore a black hat upon his 
 head. It was not only black, but it was shiny. Even 
 in the midst of this wonderful scene, I could observe 
 that it had the artificial newness of a second-hand 
 hat; and, at the same moment, I was disgusted by 
 the odour of old clothes very old clothes, indeed. 
 The mist and my sympathy had prevented my seeing 
 before what a singular garb the figure wore. It was 
 all second-hand and carefully ironed, but the gar- 
 ments were obviously collected from every part of the 
 civilized globe. Good heavens ! as I looked at the 
 coat, I had a strange sensation. I was sure that I 
 had once worn that coat. It was my wedding surtout 
 long in the skirts which Prue had told me, years
 
 98 Prue and I 
 
 and years before, she had given away to the neediest 
 Jew beggar she had ever seen. 
 
 The spectral figure dwindled in my fancy the 
 features lost their antique grandeur, and the restless 
 eye ceased to be sublime from immortal sleeplessness, 
 and became only lively with mean cunning. The 
 apparition was fearfully grotesque, but the driving 
 ship and the mysterious company gradually restored 
 its tragic interest. I stopped and leaned against the 
 side, and heard the rippling water that I could not 
 see, and flitting through the mist, with anxious speed, 
 the figure held its way. What was he flying ? What 
 conscience with relentless sting pricked this victim 
 on? 
 
 He came again nearer and nearer to me in his walk. 
 I recoiled with disgust, this time, no less than terror. 
 But he seemed resolved to speak, and, finally, each 
 time, as he passed me, he asked single questions, as 
 a ship which fires whenever it can bring a gun to 
 bear. 
 
 "Can you tell me to what port we are bound? " 
 
 "No," I replied; "but how came you to take 
 passage without inquiry? To me it makes little 
 difference." 
 
 "Nor do I care," he answered, when he next came 
 near enough ; " I have already been there." 
 
 "Where?" asked I. 
 
 "Wherever we are going," he replied. "I have 
 been there a great many times, and, oh ! I am very 
 tired of it." 
 
 " But why are you here at all, then ; and why don't 
 you stop? " 
 
 There was a singular mixture of a hundred con- 
 flicting emotions in his face, as I spoke. The repre- 
 sentative grandeur of a race, which he sometimes 
 showed in his look, faded into a glance of hopeless 
 and puny despair. His eyes looked at me curiously, 
 his chest heaved, and there was clearly a struggle in 
 his mind, between some lofty and mean desire. At 
 times, I saw only the austere suffering of ages in his
 
 Cruise in the ' Flying Dutchman ' 99 
 
 strongly-carved features, and again I could see 
 nothing but the second-hand black hat above them. 
 He rubbed his forehead with his skinny hand; he 
 glanced over his shoulder, as if calculating whether 
 he had time to speak to me ; and then, as a splendid 
 defiance flashed from his piercing eyes, so that I 
 know how Milton's Satan looked, he said, bitterly, 
 and with hopeless sorrow, that no mortal voice ever 
 knew before : 
 
 " I cannot stop : my woe is infinite, like my sin ! " 
 and he passed into the mist. 
 
 But, in a few moments, he reappeared. I could 
 now see only the hat, which sank more and more 
 over his face, until it covered it entirely ; and I heard 
 a querulous voice, which seemed to be quarrelling 
 with itself, for saying what it was compelled to say, 
 so that the words were even more appalling than 
 what it had said before : 
 
 "OldcloM old clo! " 
 
 I gazed at the disappearing figure, in speechless 
 amazement, and was still looking, when I was 
 tapped upon the shoulder, and, turning round, saw 
 a German cavalry officer, with a heavy moustache, 
 and a dog-whistle in his hand. 
 
 "Most extraordinary man, your friend yonder," 
 said the officer; "I don't remember to have seen 
 him in Turkey, and yet I recognize upon his feet 
 the boots that I wore in the great Russian cavalry 
 charge, where I individually rode down five hundred 
 and thirty Turks, slew seven hundred, at a moderate 
 computation, by the mere force of my rush, and, 
 taking the seven insurmountable walls of Constanti- 
 nople at one clean flying leap, rode straight into the 
 seraglio, and, dropping the bridle, cut the sultan's 
 throat with my bridle-hand, kissed the other to the 
 ladies of the harem, and was back again within our 
 lines and taking a glass of wine with the hereditary 
 Grand Duke Generalissimo before he knew that I 
 had mounted. Oddly enough, your old friend is now 
 sporting the identical boots I wore on that occasion." 
 H 2
 
 ioo Prue and I 
 
 The cavalry officer coolly curled his moustache 
 with his fingers. I looked at him in silence. 
 
 "Speaking of boots," he resumed, "I don't re- 
 member to have told you of that little incident of 
 the Princess of the Crimea's diamonds. It was 
 slight, but curious. I was dining one day with the 
 Emperor of the Crimea, who always had a cover 
 laid for me at his table, when he said, in great per- 
 plexity, ' Baron, my boy, I am in straits. The Shah 
 of Persia has just sent me word that he has pre- 
 sented me with two thousand pearl-of-Oman neck- 
 laces, and I don't know how to get them over, the 
 duties are so heavy. ' ' Nothing easier, ' replied I ; 
 ' I'll bring them in my boots.' ' Nonsense! ' said 
 the Emperor of the Crimea. ' Nonsense ! yourself,' 
 replied I, sportively : for the Emperor of the Crimea 
 always gives me my joke ; and so after dinner I went 
 over to Persia. The thing was easily enough done. 
 I ordered a hundred thousand pairs of boots or so, 
 filled them with the pearls ; said at the Custom-house 
 that they were part of my private wardrobe, and I 
 had left the blocks in to keep them stretched, for 
 I was particular about my bunions. The officers 
 bowed, and said that their own feet were tender, 
 upon which I jokingly remarked that I wished their 
 consciences were, and so in the pleasantest manner 
 possible the pearl-of-Oman necklaces were bowed 
 out of Persia, and the Emperor of the Crimea gave 
 me three thousand of them as my share. It was no 
 trouble. It was only ordering the boots, and 
 whistling to the infernal rascals of Persian shoe- 
 makers to hang for their pay." 
 
 I could reply nothing to my new acquaintance, 
 but I treasured his stories to tell to Prue, and at 
 length summoned courage to ask him why he had 
 taken passage. 
 
 "Pure fun," answered he, "nothing else under 
 the sun. You see, it happened in this way : I was 
 sitting quietly and swinging in a cedar of Lebanon, 
 on the very summit of that mountain, when suddenly,
 
 Cruise in the 'Flying Dutchman' 101 
 
 feeling- a little warm, I took a brisk dive into the 
 Mediterranean. Now I was careless, and got going 
 obliquely, and with the force of such a dive I could 
 not come up near Sicily, as I had intended, but I 
 went clean under Africa, and came out at the Cape 
 of Good Hope, and as Fortune would have it, just 
 as this good ship was passing. So I sprang over the 
 side, and offered the crew to treat all round if they 
 would tell me where I started from. But I suppose 
 they had just been piped to grog, for not a man 
 stirred, except your friend yonder, and he only kept 
 on stirring." 
 
 "Are you going far? " I asked. 
 
 The cavalry officer looked a little disturbed. " I 
 cannot precisely tell," answered he, "in fact, I wish 
 I could ; " and he glanced round nervously at the 
 strange company. 
 
 " If you should come our way, Prue and I will be 
 very glad to see you," said I, "and I can promise 
 you a warm welcome from the children." 
 
 "Many thanks," said the officer, and handed me 
 his card, upon which I read, Le Baron Munchausen, 
 
 "I beg your pardon," said a low voice at my side; 
 and, turning, I saw one of the most constant smokers 
 a very old man " I beg your pardon, but can you 
 tell me where I came from ? " 
 
 " I am sorry to say I cannot," answered I, as I 
 surveyed a man with a very bewildered and wrinkled 
 face, who seemed to be intently looking for some- 
 thing. 
 
 "Nor where I am going? " 
 
 I replied that it was equally impossible. He 
 mused a few moments, and then said slowly, "Do 
 you know, it is a very strange thing that I have not 
 found anybody who can answer me either of those 
 questions. And yet I must have come from some- 
 where," said he, speculatively "yes, and I must 
 be going somewhere, and I should really like to 
 know something- about it." 
 
 "I observe," said I, "that you smoke a good deal,
 
 102 Prue and I 
 
 and perhaps you find tobacco clouds your brain a 
 little." 
 
 " Smoke ! Smoke ! " repeated he, sadly, dwelling 
 upon the words; "why, it all seems smoke to me; " 
 and he looked wistfully around the deck, and I felt 
 quite ready to agree with him. 
 
 "May I ask what you are here for," inquired I; 
 "perhaps your health, or business of some kind; 
 although I was told it was a pleasure party? " 
 
 "That's just it," said he; "if I only knew where 
 we were going, I might be able to say something 
 about it. But where are you going? " 
 
 "I am going home as fast as I can," replied I 
 warmly, for I began to be very uncomfortable. The 
 old man's eyes half closed, and his mind seemed to 
 have struck a scent. 
 
 "Isn't that where I was going? I believe it is; 
 I wish I knew; I think that's what it is called. 
 Where is home? " 
 
 And the old man puffed a prodigious cloud of 
 smoke, in which he was quite lost. 
 
 "It is certainly very smoky," said he. "I came 
 on board this ship to go to in fact, I meant, as I 
 was saying, I took passage for He smoked 
 
 silently. " I beg your pardon, but where did you 
 say I was going ? " 
 
 Out of the mist where he had been leaning over 
 the side, and gazing earnestly into the surrounding- 
 obscurity, now came a pale young man, and put his 
 arm in mine. 
 
 "I see," said he, "that you have rather a general 
 acquaintance, and, as you know many persons, per- 
 haps you know many things. I am young, you see, 
 but I am a great traveller. I have been all over the 
 world, and in all kinds of conveyances; but," he 
 continued, nervously, starting continually, and look- 
 ing around, "I haven't yet got abroad." 
 
 "Not got abroad, and yet you have been every- 
 where? " 
 
 "Oh! yes; I know," he replied, hurriedly; "but
 
 Cruise in the ' Flying Dutchman ' 103 
 
 I mean that I haven't yet got away. I travel con- 
 stantly, but it does no good and perhaps you can 
 tell me the secret I want to know. I will pay any 
 sum for it. I am very rich and very young, and, if 
 money cannot buy it, I will give as many years of 
 my life as you require." 
 
 He moved his hands convulsively, and his hair 
 was wet upon his forehead. He was very handsome 
 in that mystic light, but his eye burned with eager- 
 ness, and his slight, graceful frame thrilled with the 
 earnestness of his emotion. The Emperor Hadrian, 
 who loved the boy Antinous, would have loved the 
 youth. 
 
 "But what is it that you wish to leave behind? " 
 said I, at length, holding his arm paternally; "what 
 do you wish to escape? " 
 
 He threw his arms straight down by his side, 
 clenched his hands, and looked fixedly in my eyes. 
 The beautiful head was thrown a little back upon 
 one shoulder, and the wan face glowed with yearn- 
 ing desire and utter abandonment to confidence, so 
 that, without his saying it, I knew that he had never 
 whispered the secret which he was about to impart 
 to me. Then, with a long sigh, as if his life were 
 exhaling, he whispered, 
 
 "Myself." 
 
 "Ah! my boy, you are bound upon a long 
 journey." 
 
 "I know it," he replied mournfully; "and I cannot 
 even get started. If I don't get off in this ship, I 
 fear I shall never escape." His last words were lost 
 in the mist which gradually removed him from my 
 view. 
 
 "The youth has been amusing you with some of 
 his wild fancies, I suppose," said a venerable man, 
 who might have been twin brother of that snowy- 
 bearded pilot. " It is a great pity so promising a 
 young man should be the victim of such vagaries." 
 
 He stood looking over the side for some time, and 
 at length added :
 
 IO4 Priie and I 
 
 "Don't you think we ought to arrive soon? " 
 
 "Where?" asked I. 
 
 "Why, in Eldorado, of course," answered he. 
 " The truth is, I became very tired of that long" pro- 
 cess to find the Philosopher's Stone, and, although 
 I was just upon the point of the last combination 
 which must infallibly have produced the medium, 
 I abandoned it when I heard Orellana's account, 
 and found that Nature had already done in Eldorado 
 precisely what I was trying to do. You see," con- 
 tinued the old man abstractedly, " I had put youth, 
 and love, and hope, besides a great many scarce 
 minerals, into the crucible, and they all dissolved 
 slowly, and vanished in vapour. It wa.s curious, but 
 they left no residuum except a little ashes, which 
 were not strong enough to make a lye to cure a lame 
 ringer. But, as I was saying, Orellana told us about 
 Eldorado just in time, and I thought, if any ship 
 would carry me there it must be this. But I am very 
 sorry to find that any one who is in pursuit of such 
 a hopeless goal as that pale young man yonder, 
 should have taken passage. It is only age," he said, 
 slowly stroking his white beard, "that teaches us 
 wisdom, and persuades us to renounce the hope of 
 escaping ourselves ; and just as we are discovering 
 the Philosopher's Stone, relieves our anxiety by 
 pointing the way to Eldorado." 
 
 "Are we really going there?" asked I, in some 
 trepidation. 
 
 "Can there be any doubt of it?" replied the old 
 man. "Where should we be going, if not there? 
 However, let us summon the passengers and 
 ascertain." 
 
 So saying, the venerable man beckoned to the 
 various groups that were clustered, ghost-like, in the 
 mist that enveloped the ship. They seemed to draw 
 nearer with listless curiosity, and stood or sat near 
 us, smoking as before, or, still leaning on the side, 
 idly gazing. But the restless figure who had first 
 accosted me, still paced the deck, flitting in and out
 
 Cruise in the ' Flying Dutchman ' 105 
 
 of the obscurity; and as he passed there was the 
 same mien of humbled pride, and the air of a fate 
 of tragic grandeur, and still the same faint odour of 
 old clothes, and the low querulous cry, "Old clo' ! 
 old clo' ! " 
 
 The ship dashed on. Unknown odours and 
 strange sounds still filled the air, and all the world 
 went by us as we flew, with no other noise than the 
 low gurgling of the sea around the side. 
 
 "Gentlemen," said the reverend passenger for 
 Eldorado, " I hope there is no misapprehension as 
 to our destination ? " 
 
 As he said this, there was a general movement of 
 anxiety and curiosity. Presently the smoker, who 
 had asked me where he was going, said, doubtfully : 
 
 "I don't know it seems to me I mean I wish 
 somebody would distinctly say where we are going." 
 
 "I think I can throw a light upon this subject," 
 said a person whom I had not before remarked. He 
 was dressed like a sailor, and had a dreamy eye. 
 " It is very clear to me where we are going. I have 
 been taking observations for some time, and I am 
 glad to announce that we are on the eve of achieving 
 great fame; and I may add," said he, modestly, 
 "that my own good name for scientific acumen will 
 be amply vindicated. Gentlemen, we are undoubtedly 
 going into the Hole." 
 
 "What hole is that?" asked M. le Baron Mun- 
 chausen, a little contemptuously. 
 
 " Sir, it will make you more famous than you ever 
 were before," replied the first speaker, evidently 
 much enraged. 
 
 " I am persuaded we are going into no such absurd 
 place," said the Baron, exasperated. 
 
 The sailor with the dreamy eye was fearfully 
 angry. He drew himself up stiffly and said : 
 
 " Sir, you lie ! " 
 
 M. le Baron Munchausen took it in very good part. 
 He smiled and held out his hand : 
 
 "My friend," said he, blandly, "that is precisely
 
 io6 Prue and I 
 
 what I have always heard. I am glad you do me no 
 more than justice. I fully assent to your theory : and 
 your .words constitute me the proper historiographer 
 of the expedition. But tell me one thing, how soon, 
 after getting into the Hole, do you think we shall get 
 out? " 
 
 "The result will prove," said the marine gentle- 
 man, handing the officer his card, upon which was 
 written, Captain Symmes. The two gentlemen then 
 walked aside ; and the groups began to sway to and 
 fro in the haze as if not quite contented. 
 
 "Good God," said the pale youth, running up to 
 me and clutching my arm, " I cannot go into any 
 Hole alone with myself. I should die I should 
 kill myself. I thought somebody was on board, and 
 I hoped you were he, who would steer us to the 
 fountain of oblivion." 
 
 "Very well, that is in the Hole," said M. le Baron, 
 who came out of the mist at that moment, leaning 
 upon the Captain's arm. 
 
 "But can I leave myself outside?" asked the 
 youth, nervously. 
 
 "Certainly," interposed the old Alchemist; "you 
 may be sure that you will not get into the Hole, until 
 you have left yourself behind." 
 
 The pale young man grasped his hand, and gazed 
 into his eyes. 
 
 "And then I can drink and be happy," murmured 
 he, as he leaned over the side of the ship, and listened 
 to the rippling water, as if it had been the music of 
 the fountain of oblivion. 
 
 " Drink ! drink ! " said the smoking old man. 
 " Fountain ! fountain ! Why, I believe that is what 
 I am after. I beg your pardon," 'continued he, 
 addressing the Alchemist. " But can you tell me if 
 I am looking for a fountain?" 
 
 "The fountain of youth, perhaps," replied the 
 Alchemist. 
 
 "The very thing ! " cried the smoker, with a shrill 
 laugh, while his pipe fell from his mouth, and was.
 
 Cruise in the ' Flying Dutchman ' 107 
 
 shattered upon the deck, and the old man tottered 
 away into the mist, chuckling feebly to himself, 
 " Youth ! youth ! " 
 
 "He'll find that in the Hole, too," said the 
 Alchemist, as he gazed after the receding figure. 
 
 The crowd now gathered more nearly around us. 
 
 "Well, gentlemen," continued the Alchemist, 
 " where shall we go, or, rather, where are we 
 going? " 
 
 A man in a friar's habit, with the cowl closely 
 drawn about his head, now crossed himself, and 
 whispered : 
 
 " I have but one object. I should not have been 
 here if I had not supposed we were going to find 
 Prester John, to whom I have been appointed father 
 confessor, and at whose court I am to live splendidly, 
 like a cardinal at Rome. Gentlemen, if you will only 
 agree that we shall go there, you shall all be per- 
 mitted to hold my train when I proceed to be 
 enthroned as Bishop of Central Africa." 
 
 While he was speaking, another old man came 
 from the bows of the ship, a figure which had been 
 so immovable in its place that I supposed it was the 
 ancient figure-head of the craft, and said in a low, 
 hollow voice, and a quaint accent : 
 
 " I have been looking for centuries, and I cannot 
 see it. I supposed we were heading for it. I 
 thought sometimes I saw the flash of distant spires, 
 the sunny gleam of upland pastures, the soft undula- 
 tion of purple hills. Ah me ! I am sure I heard the 
 singing of birds, and the faint low of cattle. But I 
 do not know : we come no nearer ; and yet I felt its 
 presence in the air. If the mist would only lift, we 
 should see it lying so fair upon the sea, so graceful 
 against the sky. I fear we may have passed it. 
 Gentlemen," said he, sadly, "I am afraid we may 
 have lost the island of Atlantis for ever." 
 
 There was a look of uncertainty in the throng 
 upon the deck. 
 
 "But yet," said a group of young men in every
 
 io8 Prue and I 
 
 kind of costume, and of every country and time, "we 
 have a chance at the Encantadas, the Enchanted 
 Islands. We were reading of them only the other 
 day, and the very style of the story had the music of 
 waves. How happy we shall be to reach a land 
 where there is no work, nor tempest, nor pain, and 
 we shall be for ever happy." 
 
 "I am content here," said a laughing youth, with 
 heavily matted curls. "What can be better than 
 this? We feel every climate, the music and the 
 perfume of every zone are ours. In the starlight I 
 woo the mermaids, as I lean over the side, and no 
 enchanted island will show us fairer forms. I am 
 satisfied. The ship sails on. We cannot see but 
 we can dream. What work or pain have we here? 
 I like the ship; I like the voyage; I like my com- 
 pany, and am content." 
 
 As he spoke he put something into his mouth, and, 
 drawing a white substance from his pocket, offered 
 it to his neighbour, saying, "Try a bit of this lotus; 
 you will find it very soothing to the nerves, and an 
 infallible remedy for home-sickness." 
 
 "Gentlemen," said M. le Baron Munchausen, "I 
 have no fear. The arrangements are well made ; 
 the voyage has been perfectly planned, and each 
 passenger will discover what he took passage to find, 
 in the Hole into which we are going, under the 
 auspices of this worthy Captain." 
 
 He ceased, and silence fell upon the ship's com- 
 pany. Still on we swept ; it seemed a weary way. 
 The tireless pedestrians still paced to and fro, and 
 the idle smokers puffed. The ship sailed on, and 
 endless music and odour chased each other through 
 the misty air. Suddenly a deep sigh drew universal 
 attention to a person who had not yet spoken. He 
 held a broken harp in his hand, the strings fluttered 
 loosely in the air, and the head of the speaker, bound 
 with a withered wreath of laurels, bent over it. 
 
 "No, no," said he, "I will not eat your lotus, 
 nor sail into the Hole. No magic root can cure the
 
 Cruise in the ' Flying Dutchman ' 109 
 
 home-sickness I feel; for it is no regretful remem- 
 brance, but an immortal longing. I have roamed 
 farther than I thought the earth extended. I have 
 climbed mountains ; I have threaded rivers ; I have 
 sailed seas ; but nowhere have I seen the home for 
 which my heart aches. Ah ! my friends, you look 
 very weary; let us go home." 
 
 The pedestrian paused a moment in his walk, and 
 the smokers took their pipes from their mouths. 
 The soft air which blew in that moment across the 
 deck, drew a low sound from the broken harp-strings, 
 and a light shone in the eyes of the old man of the 
 figure-head, as if the mist had lifted for an instant, 
 and he had caught a glimpse of the lost Atlantis. 
 
 "I really believe that is where I wish to go," said 
 the seeker of the fountain of youth. " I think I would 
 give up drinking at the fountain if I could get there. 
 I do not know," he murmured, doubtfully; "it is not 
 sure; I mean, perhaps, I should not have strength 
 to get to the fountain, even if I were near it." 
 
 " But is it possible to get home? " inquired the pale 
 young man. " I think I should be resigned if I could 
 get home." 
 
 "Certainly," said the dry, hard voice of Prester 
 John's confessor, as his cowl fell a little back, and a 
 sudden flush burned upon his gaunt face ; " if there 
 is any chance of home, I will give up the Bishop's 
 palace in Central Africa." 
 
 "But Eldorado is my home," interposed the old 
 Alchemist. 
 
 "Or is home Eldorado? " asked the poet, with the 
 withered wreath, turning towards the Alchemist. 
 
 It was a strange company and a wondrous voyage. 
 Here were all kinds of men, of all times and coun- 
 tries, pursuing the wildest hopes, the most chimerical 
 desires. One took me aside to request that I would 
 not let it be known, but that he inferred from certain 
 signs we were nearing Utopia. Another whispered 
 gaily in my ear that he thought the water was 
 gradually becoming of a ruby colour the hue of
 
 io Prue and I 
 
 wine ; and he had no doubt we should wake in the 
 morning and find ourselves in the land of Cockaigne. 
 A third, in great anxiety, stated to me that such 
 continuous mists were unknown upon the ocean ; that 
 they were peculiar to rivers, and that, beyond ques- 
 tion, we were drifting along some stream, probably 
 the Nile, and immediate measures ought to be taken 
 that we did not go ashore at the foot of the moun- 
 tains of the moon. Others were quite sure that we 
 were in the way of striking the great southern con- 
 tinent; and a young man, who gave his name as 
 Wilkins, said we might be quite at ease, for presently 
 some friends of his would come flying over from the 
 neighbouring islands and tell us all we wished. 
 
 Still I smelled the mouldy rigging, and the odour 
 of cabbage was strong from the hold. 
 
 Prue, what could the ship be, in which such 
 fantastic characters were sailing toward impossible 
 bournes characters which in every age have ven- 
 tured all the bright capital of life in vague specula- 
 tions and romantic dreams? What could it be but 
 the ship that haunts the sea for ever, and, with all 
 sails set, drives onward before a ceaseless gale, and 
 is not hailed, nor ever comes to port? 
 
 1 know the ship is always full; I know the gray- 
 beard still watches at the prow for the lost Atlantis, 
 and still the alchemist believes that Eldorado is at 
 hand. Upon his aimless quest, the dotard still asks 
 where he is going, and the pale youth knows that 
 he shall never fly himself. Yet they would gladly 
 renounce that wild chase and the dear dreams of 
 years, could they find what I have never lost. They 
 were ready to follow the poet home, if he would have 
 told them where it lay. 
 
 I know where it lies. I breathe the soft air of 
 the purple uplands which they shall never tread. I 
 hear the sweet music of the voices they long for in 
 vain. I am no traveller ; my only voyage is to the 
 office and home again. William and Christopher, 
 John and Charles sail to Europe and the South, but
 
 Family Portraits 1 1 1 
 
 I defy their romantic distances. When the spring 
 comes and the flowers blow, I drift through the year 
 belted with summer and with spice. 
 
 With the changing months I keep high carnival 
 in all the zones. I sit at home and walk with Prue, 
 and if the sun that stirs the sap quickens also the 
 wish to wander, I remember my fellow-voyagers on 
 that romantic craft, and looking round upon my 
 peaceful room, and pressing more closely the arm of 
 Prue, I feel that I have reached the port for which 
 they hopelessly sailed. And when winds blow fiercely 
 and the night-storm rages, and the thought of lost 
 mariners and of perilous voyages touches the soft 
 heart of Prue, I hear a voice sweeter to my ear than 
 that of the syrens to the tempest-tost sailor : " Thank 
 God ! Your only cruising is in the ' Flying Dutch- 
 man ' ! " 
 
 FAMILY PORTRAITS 
 
 " Look here upon this picture, and on this." 
 
 Hamlet. 
 
 WE have no family pictures, Prue and I, only a 
 portrait of my grandmother hangs upon our parlour 
 wall. It was taken at least a century ago, and repre- 
 sents the venerable lady, whom I remember in my 
 childhood in spectacles and comely cap, as a young 
 and blooming girl. 
 
 She is sitting upon an old-fashioned sofa, by the 
 side of a prim aunt of hers, and with her back to the 
 open window. Her costume is quaint, but hand- 
 some. It consists of a cream-coloured dress made 
 high in the throat, ruffled around the neck, and over 
 the bosom and the shoulders. The waist is just 
 under her shoulders, and the sleeves are tight, tighter 
 than any of our coat sleeves, and also ruffled at the 
 wrist. Around the plump and rosy neck, which I
 
 1 1 2 Prue and I 
 
 remember as shrivelled and sallow, and hidden under 
 a decent lace handkerchief, hangs, in the picture, a 
 necklace of large ebony beads. There are two curls 
 upon the forehead, and the rest of the hair flows away 
 in ringlets down the neck. 
 
 The hands hold an open book : the eyes look up 
 from it with tranquil sweetness, and, through the 
 open window behind, you see a quiet landscape a 
 hill, a tree, the glimpse of a river, and a few peaceful 
 summer clouds. 
 
 Often in my younger days, when my grandmother 
 sat by the fire, after dinner, lost in thought perhaps 
 remembering the time when the picture was really 
 a portrait I have curiously compared her wasted 
 face with the blooming beauty of the girl, and tried 
 to detect the likeness. It was strange how the re- 
 semblance would sometimes start out : how, as I 
 gazed and gazed upon her old face, age disappeared 
 before my eager glance, as snow melts in the sun- 
 shine, revealing the flowers of a forgotten spring. 
 
 It was touching to see my grandmother steal 
 quietly up to her portrait, on still summer mornings 
 when every one had left the house, and I, the only 
 child, played, disregarded, and look at it wistfully 
 and long. 
 
 She held her hand over her eyes to shade them 
 from the light that streamed in at the window, and 
 I have seen her stand at least a quarter of an hour 
 gazing steadfastly at the picture. She said nothing, 
 she made no motion, she shed no tear, but when she 
 turned away there was always a pensive sweetness 
 in her face that made it not less lovely than the face 
 of her youth. 
 
 I have learned since, what her thoughts must have 
 been how that long, wistful glance annihilated time 
 and space, how forms and faces unknown to any 
 other, rose in sudden resurrection around her how 
 she loved, suffered, struggled and conquered again; 
 how many a jest that I shall never hear, how many a 
 game that I shall never play, how many a song that
 
 Family Portraits 113 
 
 I shall never sing, were all renewed and remembered 
 as my grandmother contemplated her picture. 
 
 I often stand, as she stood, gazing earnestly at the 
 picture, so long and so silently, that Prue looks up 
 from her work and says she shall be jealous of that 
 beautiful belle, my grandmother, who yet makes her 
 think more kindly of those remote old times. 
 
 "Yes, Prue, and that is the charm of a family 
 portrait." 
 
 "Yes, again; but," says Titbottom when he hears 
 the remark, "how, if one's grandmother were a 
 shrew, a termagant, a virago? " 
 
 "Ah ! in that case " I am compelled to say, while 
 Prue looks up again, half archly, and I add gravely 
 "you, for instance, Prue." 
 
 Then Titbottom smiles one of his sad smiles, and 
 we change the subject. 
 
 Yet, I am always glad when Minim Sculpin, our 
 neighbour, who knows that my opportunities are few, 
 comes to ask me to step round and see the family 
 portraits. 
 
 The Sculpins, I think, are a very old family. 
 Titbottom says they date from the deluge. But I 
 thought people of English descent preferred to 
 stop with William the Conqueror, who came from 
 France. 
 
 Before going with Minim, I always fortify myself 
 with a glance at the great family Bible, in which 
 Adam, Eve, and the patriarchs, are indifferently well 
 represented. 
 
 "Those are the ancestors of the Howards, the 
 Plantagenets, and the Montmorencis," says Prue, 
 surprising me with her erudition. " Have you any 
 remoter ancestry, Mr. Sculpin?" she asks Minim, 
 who only smiles compassionately upon the dear 
 woman, while I am buttoning my coat. 
 
 Then we step along the street, and I am conscious 
 of trembling a little, for I feel as if I were going to 
 court. Suddenly we are standing before the range 
 of portraits.
 
 "This," says Minim, with unction, "is Sir Solomon 
 Sculpin, the founder of the family." 
 
 "Famous for what?" I ask, respectfully. 
 
 "For founding the family," replies Minim gravely, 
 and I have sometimes thought a little severely. 
 
 "This," he says, pointing to a dame in hoops and 
 diamond stomacher, "this is Lady Sheba Sculpin. 
 
 "Ah ! yes. Famous for what? " I inquire. 
 
 "For being the wife of Sir Solomon." 
 
 Then, in order, comes a gentleman in a huge, 
 curling wig, looking indifferently like James the 
 Second, or Louis the Fourteenth, and holding a scroll 
 in his hand. 
 
 "The Right Honourable Haddock Sculpin, Lord 
 Privy Seal, etc., etc." 
 
 A delicate beauty hangs between, a face fair, and 
 loved, and lost, centuries ago a song to the eye a 
 poem to the heart the Aurelia of that old society. 
 
 "Lady Dorothea Sculpin, who married young Lord 
 Pop and Cock, and died prematurely in Italy." 
 
 Poor Lady Dorothea ! whose great grandchild, in 
 the tenth remove, died last week, an old man of 
 eighty 5 
 
 Next the gentle lady hangs a fierce figure, flourish- 
 ing a sword, with an anchor embroidered on his coat- 
 collar, and thunder and lightning, sinking ships, 
 flames and tornadoes in the background. 
 
 " Rear Admiral Sir Shark Sculpin, who fell in the 
 great action off Madagascar." 
 
 So Minim goes on through the series, brandish- 
 ing his ancestors about my head, and incontinently 
 knocking me into admiration. 
 
 And when we reach the last portrait and our own 
 times, what is the natural emotion? Is it not to put 
 Minim against the wall, draw off at him with my eyes 
 and mind, scan him, and consider his life, and deter- 
 mine how much of the Right Honourable Haddock's 
 integrity, and the Lady Dorothea's loveliness, and the 
 Admiral Shark's valour, reappears in the modern 
 man? After all this proving and refining, ought not
 
 Family Portraits 115 
 
 the last child of a famous race to be its flower and 
 epitome? Or, in the case that he does not chance to 
 be so, is it not better to conceal the family name? 
 
 I am told, however, that in the higher circles of 
 society, it is better not to conceal the name, however 
 unworthy the man or woman may be who bears it. 
 Prue once remonstrated with a lady about the mar- 
 riage of a lovely young girl with a cousin of Minim's ; 
 but the only answer she received was, " Well, he may 
 not be a perfect man, but then he is a Sculpin," which 
 consideration apparently gave great comfort to the 
 lady's mind. 
 
 But even Prue grants that Minim has some reason 
 for his pride. Sir Solomon was a respectable man, 
 and Sir Shark a brave one; and the Right Honour- 
 able Haddock a learned one; the Lady Sheba was 
 grave and gracious in her way ; and the smile of the 
 fair Dorothea lights with soft sunlight those long- 
 gone summers. The filial blood rushes more gladly 
 from Minim's heart as he gazes; and admiration for 
 the virtues of his kindred inspires and sweetly mingles 
 with good resolutions of his own. 
 
 Time has its share, too, in the ministry, and the 
 influence. The hills beyond the river lay yesterday, 
 at sunset, lost in purple gloom ; they receded into airy 
 distances of dreams and faery ; they sank softly into 
 night, the peaks of the delectable mountains. But I 
 knew, as I gazed enchanted, that the hills, so purple- 
 soft of seeming, were hard, and gray, and barren in 
 the wintry twilight ; and that in the distance was the 
 magic that made them fair. 
 
 So, beyond the river of time that flows between, 
 walk the brave men and the beautiful women of our 
 ancestry, grouped in twilight upon the shore. Dis- 
 tance smooths away defects, and, with gentle dark- 
 ness, rounds every form into grace. It steals the 
 harshness from their speech, and every word becomes 
 a song. Far across the gulf that ever widens, they 
 look upon us with eyes whose glance is tender, and 
 which light us to success. We acknowledge our in- 
 i 2
 
 u6 Prue and I 
 
 heritance ; we accept our birthright ; we own that 
 their careers have pledged us to noble action. Every 
 great life is an incentive to all other lives ; but when 
 the brave heart, that beats for the world, loves us 
 with the warmth of private affection, then the ex- 
 ample of heroism is more persuasive, because more 
 personal. 
 
 This is the true pride of ancestry. It is founded 
 in the tenderness with which the child regards the 
 father, and in the romance that time sheds upon 
 history. 
 
 " Where be all the bad people buried ? " asks every 
 man, with Charles Lamb, as he strolls among the 
 rank grave-yard grass, and brushes it aside to read 
 of the faithful husband, and the loving wife, and the 
 dutiful child. 
 
 He finds only praise in the epitaphs, because the 
 human heart is kind; because it yearns with wistful 
 tenderness after all its brethren who have passed into 
 the cloud, and will only speak well of the departed. 
 No offence is longer an offence when the grass is 
 green over the offender. Even faults then seem char- 
 acteristic and individual. Even Justice is appeased 
 when the drop falls. How the old stories and plays 
 teem with the incident of the duel in which one gentle- 
 man falls, and, in dying, forgives and is forgiven. 
 We turn the page with a tear. How much better had 
 there been no offence, but how well that death wipes 
 it out. 
 
 It is not observed in history that families improve 
 with time. It is rather discovered that the whole 
 matter is like a comet, of which the brightest part is 
 the head ; and the tail, although long and luminous, 
 is gradually shaded into obscurity. 
 
 Yet, by a singular compensation, the pride of 
 ancestry increases in the ratio of distance. Adam 
 was valiant, and did so well at Poictiers that he was 
 knighted a hearty, homely, country gentleman, who 
 lived humbly to the end. But young Lucifer, his 
 representative in the twentieth remove, has a tinder-
 
 Family Portraits 117 
 
 like conceit because old Sir Adam was so brave and 
 humble. Sir Adam's sword is hung up at home, and 
 Lucifer has a box at the opera. On a thin finger he 
 has a ring, cut with a match fizzling, the crest of the 
 Lucifers. But if he should be at a Poictiers, he would 
 run away. Then history would be sorry not only 
 for his cowardice, but for the shame it brings upon 
 old Adam's name. 
 
 So, if Minim Sculpin is a bad young man, he not 
 only shames himself, but he disgraces that illustrious 
 line of ancestors, whose characters are known. His 
 neighbour, Mudge, has no pedigree of this kind, and 
 when he reels homeward, we do not suffer the sorrow 
 of any fair Lady Dorothea in such a descendant we 
 pity him for himself alone. But genius and power 
 are so imperial and universal, that when Minim Scul- 
 pin falls, we are grieved not only for him, but for 
 that eternal truth and beauty which appeared in the 
 valour of Sir Shark, and the loveliness of Lady 
 Dorothea. His neighbour Mudge's grandfather may 
 have been quite as valorous and virtuous as Sculpin 's ; 
 but we know of the one, and we do not know of the 
 other. 
 
 Therefore, Prue, I say to my wife, who has, by 
 this time, fallen as soundly asleep as if I had been 
 preaching a real sermon, do not let Mrs. Mudge feel 
 hurt, because I gaze so long and earnestly upon the 
 portrait of the fair Lady Sculpin, and, lost in dreams, 
 mingle in a society which distance and poetry im- 
 mortalize. 
 
 But let the love of the family portraits belong to 
 poetry and not to politics. It is good in the one 
 way, and bad in the other. 
 
 The sentiment of ancestral pride is an integral part 
 of human nature. Its organization in institutions is 
 the real object of enmity to all sensible men, because 
 it is a direct preference of derived to original power, 
 implying a doubt that the world at every period is 
 able to take care of itself. 
 
 The family portraits have a poetic significance;
 
 n8 Prue and I 
 
 but he is a brave child of the family who dares to 
 show them. They all sit in passionless and austere 
 judgment upon himself. Let him not invite us to 
 see them, until he has considered whether they are 
 honoured or disgraced by his own career until he 
 has looked in the glass of his own thought and 
 scanned his own proportions. 
 
 The family portraits are like a woman's diamonds; 
 they may flash finely enough before the world, but 
 she herself trembles lest their lustre eclipse her eyes. 
 It is difficult to resist the tendency to depend upon 
 those portraits, and to enjoy vicariously through 
 them a high consideration. But, after all, what 
 girl is complimented when you curiously regard her 
 because her mother was beautiful? What attenuated 
 consumptive, in whom self-respect is yet unconsumed, 
 delights in your respect for him, founded in honour 
 for his stalwart ancestor? 
 
 No man worthy the name rejoices in any homage 
 which his own effort and character have not deserved. 
 You intrinsically insult him when you make him the 
 scapegoat of your admiration for his ancestor. But 
 when his ancestor is his accessory, than your homage 
 would flatter Jupiter. All that Minim Sculpin does 
 by his own talent is the more radiantly set and orna- 
 mented by the family fame. The imagination is 
 pleased when Lord John Russell is Premier of Eng- 
 land and a Whig, because the great Lord William 
 Russell, his ancestor, died in England for liberty. 
 
 In the same way Minim's sister Sara adds to her 
 own grace the sweet memory of the Lady Dorothea. 
 When she glides, a sunbeam, through that quiet 
 house, and in winter makes summer by her presence ; 
 when she sits at the piano, singing in the twilight, 
 or stands leaning against the Venus in the corner of 
 the room herself more graceful then, in glancing 
 from her to the portrait of the gentle Dorothea, you 
 feel that the long years between them have been 
 lighted by the same sparkling grace, and shadowed 
 by the same pensive smile for this is but one Sara
 
 Family Portraits 119 
 
 and one Dorothea, out of all that there are in the 
 world. 
 
 As we look at these two, we must own that noblesse 
 oblige in a sense sweeter than we knew, and be glad 
 when young Sculpin invites us to see the family 
 portraits. Could a man be named Sidney, and not be 
 a better man, or Milton, and be a churl? 
 
 But it is apart from any historical association that 
 I like to look at the family portraits. The Sculpins 
 were very distinguished heroes, and judges, and 
 founders of families ; but I chiefly linger upon their 
 pictures, because they were men and women. Their 
 portraits remove the vagueness from history, and give 
 it reality. Ancient valour and beauty cease to be 
 names and poetic myths, and become facts. I feel 
 that they lived, and loved, and suffered in those old 
 days. The story of their lives is instantly full of 
 human sympathy in my mind, and I judge them more 
 gently, more generously. 
 
 Then I look at those of us who are the spectators 
 of the portraits. I know that we are made of the 
 same flesh and blood, that time is preparing us to 
 be placed in his cabinet and upon canvas, to be 
 curiously studied by the grandchildren of unborn 
 Prues. I put out my hands to grasp those of my 
 fellows around the pictures. "Ah! friends, we live 
 not only for ourselves. Those whom we shall never 
 see, will look to us as models, as counsellors. We 
 shall be speechless then. We shall only look at them 
 from the canvas, and cheer or discourage them by 
 their idea of our lives and ourselves. Let us so look 
 in the portrait, that they shall love our memories 
 that they shall say, in turn, ' they were kind and 
 thoughtful, those queer old ancestors of ours ; let us 
 not disgrace them. ' " 
 
 If they only recognize us as men and women like 
 themselves, they will be the better for it, and the 
 family portraits will be family blessings. 
 
 This is what' my grandmother did. She looked at 
 her own portrait, at the portrait of her youth, with
 
 I2O Prue and I 
 
 much the same feeling that I remember Prue as she 
 was when I first saw her ; with much the same feeling 
 that I hope our grandchildren will remember us. 
 
 Upon those still summer mornings, though she 
 stood withered and wan in a plain black silk gown, 
 a close cap, and spectacles, and held her shrunken 
 and blue-veined hand to shield her eyes, yet, as she 
 gazed, with that long and longing glance, upon the 
 blooming beauty that had faded from her form for 
 ever, she recognized under that flowing hair and that 
 rosy cheek the immortal fashions of youth and 
 health and beneath those many ruffles and that 
 quaint high waist, the fashions of the day the same 
 true and loving woman. If her face was pensive as 
 she turned away, it was because truth and love are, 
 in their essence, for ever young ; and it is the hard 
 condition of nature that they cannot always appear so. 
 
 OUR COUSIN THE CURATE 
 
 " Why, let the stricken deer go weep, 
 
 The heart ungalled play ; 
 For some must watch while some must sleep ; 
 Thus runs the world away." 
 
 PRUE and I have very few relations : Prue, especially, 
 says that she never had any but her parents, and that 
 she has none now but her children. She often wishes 
 she had some large aunt in the country, who might 
 come in unexpectedly with bags and bundles, and 
 encamp in our little house for a whole winter. 
 
 " Because you are tired of me, I suppose, Mrs. 
 Prue? " I reply with dignity, when she alludes to the 
 imaginary large aunt. 
 
 " You could take aunt to the opera, you know, and 
 walk with her on Sundays," says Prue, as she knits 
 and calmly looks me in the face, without recognizing 
 rny observation.
 
 Our Cousin the Curate 121 
 
 Then I tell Prue in the plainest possible manner 
 that, if her large aunt should come up from the 
 country to pass the winter, I should insist upon her 
 bringing- her oldest daughter, with whom I would 
 flirt so desperately that the street would be scandal- 
 ized, and even the corner grocery should gossip over 
 the iniquity. 
 
 " Poor Prue, how I should pity you," I say triumph- 
 antly to my wife. 
 
 " Poor oldest daughter, how I should pity her," 
 replies Prue, placidly counting her stitches. 
 
 So the happy evening passes, as we gaily mock 
 each other, and wonder how old the large aunt should 
 be, and how many bundles she ought to bring with 
 her. 
 
 " I would have her arrive by the late train at mid- 
 night," says Prue; "and when she had eaten some 
 supper and had gone to her room, she should discover 
 that she had left the most precious bundle of all in 
 the cars, without whose contents she could not sleep, 
 nor dress, and you would start to hunt for it." 
 
 And the needle clicks faster than ever. 
 
 " Yes, and when I am gone to the office in the 
 morning, and am busy about important affairs yes, 
 Mrs. Prue, important affairs," I insist, as my wife 
 half raises her head incredulously "then our large 
 aunt from the country would like to go shopping, and 
 would want you for her escort. And she would 
 cheapen tape at all the shops, and even to the great 
 Stewart himself, she would offer a shilling less for the 
 gloves. Then the comely clerks of the great Stewart 
 would look at you, with their brows lifted, as if they 
 said, Mrs. Prue, your large aunt had better stay in 
 the country." 
 
 And the needle clicks more slowly, as if the tune 
 were changing. 
 
 The large aunt will never come, I know ; nor shall 
 I ever flirt with the oldest daughter. I should like 
 to believe that our little house will teem with aunts 
 and cousins when Prue and I are gone ; but how can I
 
 122 Prue and I 
 
 believe it, when there is a milliner within three doors, 
 and a hair-dresser combs his wigs in the late dining- 
 room of my opposite neighbour? The large aunt 
 from the country is entirely impossible, and as Prue 
 feels it, and I feel it, the needles seem to click a dirge 
 for that late lamented lady. 
 
 " But at least we have one relative, Prue." 
 
 The needles stop : only the clock ticks upon the 
 mantel to remind us how ceaselessly the stream of 
 time flows on that bears us away from our cousin 
 the curate. 
 
 When Prue and I are most cheerful, and the world 
 looks fair we talk of our cousin the curate. When 
 the world seems a little cloudy, and we remember that 
 though we have lived and loved together, we may 
 not die together we talk of our cousin the curate. 
 When we plan little plans for the boys and dream 
 dreams for the girls we talk of our cousin the curate. 
 When I tell Prue of Aurelia whose character is every 
 day lovelier we talk of our cousin the curate. There 
 is no subject which does not seem to lead naturally to 
 our cousin the curate. As the soft air steals in and 
 envelopes everything in the world, so that the trees, 
 and the hills, and the rivers, the cities, the crops, and 
 the sea, are made remote, and delicate, and beautiful, 
 by its pure baptism, so over all the events of our little 
 lives, comforting, refining, and elevating, falls like a 
 benediction the remembrance of our cousin the curate. 
 
 He was my only early companion. He had no 
 brother, I had none : and we became brothers to 
 each other. He was always beautiful. His face was 
 symmetrical and delicate ; his figure was slight and 
 graceful. He looked as the sons of kings ought to 
 look : as I am sure Philip Sidney looked when he 
 was a boy. His eyes were blue, and as you looked 
 at them, they seemed to let your gaze out into a 
 June heaven. The blood ran close to the skin, and 
 his complexion had the rich transparency of light. 
 There was nothing gross or heavy in his expression 
 or texture; his soul seemed to have mastered his
 
 Our Cousin the Curate 123 
 
 body. But he had strong- passions, for his delicacy 
 was positive, not negative : it was not weakness, 
 but intensity. 
 
 There was a patch of ground about the house 
 which we tilled as a garden. I was proud of my 
 morning-glories, and sweet peas; my cousin culti- 
 vated roses. One day and we could scarcely have 
 been more than six years old we were digging 
 merrily and talking. Suddenly there was some kind 
 of difference; I taunted him, and, raising his spade, 
 he struck me upon the leg. The blow was heavy for 
 a boy, and the blood trickled from the wound. I burst 
 into indignant tears, and limped toward the house. 
 My cousin turned pale and said nothing, but just as 
 I opened the door, he darted by me, and before I 
 could interrupt him, he had confessed his crime, and 
 asked for punishment. 
 
 From that day he conquered himself. He devoted 
 a kind of ascetic energy to subduing his own will, 
 and I remember no other outbreak. But the penalty 
 he paid for conquering his will, was a loss of the 
 gushing expression of feeling. My cousin became 
 perfectly gentle in his manner, but there was a want 
 of that pungent excess, which is the finest flavour of 
 character. His views were moderate and calm. He 
 was swept away by no boyish extravagance, and, 
 even while I wished he would sin only a very little, I 
 still adored him as a saint. The truth is, as I tell 
 Prue, I am so very bad because I have to sin for two 
 for myself and our cousin the curate. Often, when 
 I returned panting and restless from some frolic, 
 which had wasted almost all the night, I was rebuked 
 as I entered the room in which he lay peacefully 
 sleeping. There was something holy in the profound 
 repose of his beauty, and, as I stood looking at him, 
 how many a time the tears have dropped from my hot 
 eyes upon his face, while I vowed to make myself 
 worthy of such a companion, for I felt my heart own- 
 ing its allegiance to that strong and imperial nature. 
 
 My cousin was loved by the boys, but the girls
 
 124 Prue and I 
 
 worshipped him. His mind, large in grasp, and 
 subtle in perception, naturally commanded his com- 
 panions, while the lustre of his character allured 
 those who could not understand him. The ascetic- 
 ism occasionally showed itself a vein of hardness, or 
 rather of severity in his treatment of others. He did 
 what he thought it his duty to do, but he forgot that 
 few could see the right so clearly as he, and very few 
 of those few could so calmly obey the least command 
 of conscience. I confess I was a little afraid of him, 
 for I think I never could be severe. 
 
 In the long winter evenings I often read to Prue 
 the story of some old father of the church, or some 
 quaint poem of George Herbert's and every Christ- 
 mas Eve, I read to her Milton's Hymn of the Nativ- 
 ity. Yet, when the saint seems to us most saintly, 
 or the poem most pathetic or sublime, we find our- 
 selves talking of our cousin the curate. I have not 
 seen him for many years; but, when we parted, his 
 head had the intellectual symmetry of Milton's, with- 
 out the puritanic stoop, and with the stately grace 
 of a cavalier. 
 
 Such a boy has premature wisdom he lives and 
 suffers prematurely. 
 
 Prue loves to listen when I speak of the romance 
 of his life, and I do not wonder. For my part, I find 
 in. the best romance only the story of my love for her, 
 and often as I read to her, whenever I come to what 
 Titbottom calls "the crying part," if I lift my eyes 
 suddenly, I see that Prue's eyes are fixed on me with 
 a softer light by reason of their moisture. 
 
 Our cousin the curate loved, while he was yet a 
 boy, Flora, of the sparkling eyes and the ringing 
 voice. His devotion was absolute. Flora was flat- 
 tered, because all the girls, as I said, worshipped him ; 
 but she was a gay, glancing girl, who had invaded 
 the student's heart with her audacious brilliancy, and 
 was half surprised that she had subdued it. Our 
 >usin for I never think of him as my cousin, only 
 wasted away under the fervour of his passion. His
 
 Our Cousin the Curate 125 
 
 life exhaled as incense before her. He wrote poems 
 to her, and sang- them under her window, in the 
 summer moonlight. He brought her flowers and 
 precious gifts. When he had nothing else to give, he 
 gave her his love in a homage so eloquent and beauti- 
 ful that the worship was like the worship of the wise 
 men. The gay Flora was proud and superb. She 
 was a girl, and the bravest and best boy loved her. 
 She was young, and the wisest and truest youth loved 
 her. They lived together, we all lived together, in 
 the happy ^valley of childhood. We looked forward to 
 manhood as island-poets look across the sea, believing 
 that the whole world beyond is a blest Araby of spices. 
 
 The months went by, and the young love con- 
 tinued. Our cousin and Flora were only children still, 
 and there was no engagement. The elders looked 
 upon the intimacy as natural and mutually beneficial. 
 It would help soften the boy and strengthen the girl ; 
 and they took for granted that softness and strength 
 were precisely what were wanted. It is a great pity 
 that men and women forget that they have been 
 children. Parents are apt to be foreigners to their 
 sons and daughters. Maturity is the gate of Para- 
 dise, which shuts behind us; and our memories are 
 gradually weaned from the glories in which our 
 nativity was cradled. 
 
 The months went by, the children grew older, and 
 they constantly loved. Now Prue always smiles at 
 one of my theories ; she is entirely sceptical of it ; but 
 it is, nevertheless, my opinion, that men love most 
 passionately, and women most permanently. Men 
 love at first and most warmly ; women love last and 
 longest. This is natural enough ; for nature makes 
 women to be won, and men to win. Men are the 
 active, positive force, and, therefore, they are more 
 ardent and demonstrative. 
 
 I can never get farther than that in my philosophy, 
 when Prue looks at me, and smiles me into scepticism 
 of my own doctrines. But they are true, notwith- 
 standing.
 
 126 Prue and I 
 
 My day is rather past for such speculations; but 
 so long as Aurelia is unmarried, I am sure I shall 
 indulge myself in them. I have never made much 
 progress in the philosophy of love; in fact, I can 
 only be sure of this one cardinal principle, that when 
 you are quite sure two people cannot be in love with 
 each other, because there is no earthly reason why 
 they should be, then you may be very confident that 
 you are wrong, and that they are in love, for the 
 secret of love is past finding out. Why our cousin 
 should have loved the gay Flora so ardently was hard 
 to say ; but that he did so, was not difficult to see. 
 
 He went away to college. He wrote the most 
 eloquent and passionate letters ; and when he returned 
 in vacations, he had no eyes, ears, nor heart for any 
 other being. I rarely saw him, for I was living away 
 from our early home, and was busy in a store learn- 
 ing to be book-keeper but I heard afterward from 
 himself the whole story. 
 
 One day when he came home for the holidays, he 
 found a young foreigner with Flora a handsome 
 youth, brilliant and graceful. I have asked Prue a 
 thousand times why women adore soldiers and 
 foreigners. She says it is because they love heroism 
 and are romantic. A soldier is professionally a hero, 
 says Prue, and a foreigner is associated with all un- 
 known and beautiful regions. I hope there is no 
 worse reason. But if it be the distance which is 
 romantic, then, by her own rule, the mountain which 
 looked to you so lovely when you saw it upon the 
 horizon, when you stand upon its rocky and barren 
 side, has transmitted its romance to its remotest 
 neighbour. I cannot but admire the fancies of girls 
 which make them poets. They have only to look 
 upon a dull-eyed, ignorant, exhausted rou6, with an 
 impudent moustache, and they surrender to Italy, to 
 the tropics, to the splendours of nobility, and a court 
 life and 
 
 "Stop," says Prue, gently; "you have no right 
 to say ' girls ' do so, because some poor victims have
 
 Our Cousin the Curate 127 
 
 been deluded. Would Aurelia surrender to a blear- 
 eyed foreigner in a moustache? " 
 
 Prue has such a reasonable way of putting these 
 things ! 
 
 Our cousin came home and found Flora and the 
 young foreigner conversing. The young foreigner 
 had large, soft, black eyes, and the dusky skin of 
 the tropics. His manner was languid and fascinat- 
 ing, courteous and reserved. It assumed a natural 
 supremacy, and you felt as if here were a young 
 prince travelling before he came into possession of 
 his realm. 
 
 It is an old fable that love is blind. But I think 
 there are no eyes so sharp as those of lovers. I am 
 sure there is not a shade upon Prue's brow that I 
 do not instantly remark, nor an altered tone in her 
 voice that I do not instantly observe. Do you sup- 
 pose Aurelia would not note the slightest deviation 
 of heart in her lover, if she had one? Love is the 
 coldest of critics. To be in love is to live in a crisis, 
 and the very imminence of uncertainty makes the 
 lover perfectly self-possessed. His eye constantly 
 scours the horizon. There is no footfall so light that 
 it does not thunder in his ear. Love is tortured by the 
 tempest the moment the cloud of a hand's size rises 
 out of the sea,. It foretells its own doom ; its agony 
 is past before its sufferings are known. 
 
 Our cousin the curate no sooner saw the tropical 
 stranger, and marked his impression upon Flora, 
 than he felt the end. As the shaft struck his heart, 
 his smile was sweeter, and his homage even more 
 poetjjp and reverential. I doubt if Flora understood 
 him or herself. She did not know, what he instinct- 
 ively perceived, that she loved him less. But there 
 are no degrees in love ; when it is less than absolute 
 and supreme, it is nothing. Our cousin and Flora 
 were not formally engaged, but their betrothal was 
 understood by all of us as a thing of course. He did 
 not allude to the stranger ; but as day followed day, 
 he saw with every nerve all that passed. Gradually
 
 128 Prue and I 
 
 so gradually that she scarcely noticed it our 
 cousin left Flora more and more with the soft-eyed 
 stranger, whom he saw she preferred. His treatment 
 of her was so full of tact, he still walked and talked 
 with her so familiarly, that she was not troubled by 
 any fear that he saw what she hardly saw herself. 
 Therefore, she was not obliged to conceal anything 
 from him or from herself ; but all the soft currents 
 of her heart were setting toward the West Indian. 
 
 iOur cousin's cheek grew paler, and his soul burned 
 and wasted within him. His whole future all his 
 iream of life had been founded upon his love. It 
 was a stately palace built upon the sand, and now 
 the sand was sliding away. I have read somewhere, 
 that love will sacrifice everything but itself. But our 
 xmsin sacrificed his love to the happiness of his mis- 
 tress. He ceased to treat her as peculiarly his own. 
 He made no claim in word or manner that everybody 
 might not have made. He did not refrain from seeing 
 her, or speaking of her as of all his other friends; 
 and, at length, although no one could say how or 
 when the change had been made, it was evident and 
 understood that he was no more her lover, but that 
 both were the best of friends. 
 
 He still wrote to her occasionally from college, 
 and his letters were those of a friend, not of a lover. 
 He could not reproach her. I do not believe any man 
 is secretly surprised that a woman ceases to love him. 
 Her love is a heavenly favour won by no desert of 
 his. If it passes, he can no more complain than a 
 flower when the sunshine leaves it. 
 
 Before our cousin left college, Flora was married 
 to the tropical stranger. It was the brightest of June 
 days, and the summer smiled upon the bride. There 
 were roses in her hand and orange flowers in her 
 hair, and the village church bell rang out over the 
 peaceful fields. The warm sunshine lay upon the 
 landscape like God's blessing, and Prue and I, not 
 yet married ourselves, stood at an open window in the 
 old meeting-house, hand in hand, while the young
 
 Our Cousin the Curate 129 
 
 couple spoke their vows. Prue says that brides are 
 always beautiful, and I, who remember Prue herself 
 upon her wedding-day how can I deny it? Truly, 
 the gay Flora was lovely that summer morning, and 
 the throng was happy in the old church. But it was 
 very sad to me, although I only suspected then what 
 now I know. I shed no tears at my own wedding, 
 but I did at Flora's, although I knew she was marry- 
 ing a soft-eyed youth whom she dearly loved, and 
 who, I doubt not, dearly loved her. 
 
 Among the group of her nearest friends was our 
 cousin the curate. When the ceremony was ended, 
 he came to shake her hand with the rest. His face 
 was calm, and his smile sweet, and his manner un- 
 constrained. Flora did not blush why should she? 
 but shook his hand warmly, and thanked him for 
 his good wishes. Then they all sauntered down the 
 aisle together ; there were some tears with the smiles 
 among the other friends ; our cousin handed the bride 
 into her carriage, shook hands with the husband, 
 closed the door, and Flora drove away. 
 
 I have never seen her since ; I do not even know 
 if she be living still. But I shall always remember 
 her as she looked that June morning, holding roses in 
 her hand, and wreathed with orange flowers. Dear 
 Flora ! it was no fault of hers that she loved one 
 man more than another : she could not be blamed 
 for not preferring our cousin to the West Indian : 
 there is no fault in the story, it is only a tragedy. 
 
 Our cousin carried all the collegiate honours but 
 without exciting jealousy or envy. He was so really 
 the best, that his companions were anxious he should 
 have the sign of his superiority. He studied hard, he 
 thought much, and wrote well. There was no evi- 
 dence of any blight upon his ambition or career, but 
 after living quietly in the country for some time, he 
 went to Europe and travelled. When he returned, he 
 resolved to study law, but presently relinquished it. 
 Then he collected materials for a history, but suffered 
 them to lie unused. Somehow the mainspring was 
 K
 
 130 Prue and I 
 
 gone. He used to come and pass weeks with Prue 
 and me. His coming- made the children happy, for 
 he sat with them, and talked and played with them all 
 day long, as one of themselves. They had no quarrels 
 when our cousin the curate was their playmate, and 
 their laugh was hardly sweeter than his as it rang 
 down from the nursery. Yet sometimes, as Prue 
 was setting- the tea-table, and I sat musing- by the 
 fire, she stopped and turned to me as we heard that 
 sound, and her eyes filled with tears. 
 
 He was interested in all subjects that interested 
 others. His fine perception, his clear sense, his noble 
 imagination, illuminated every question. His friends 
 wanted him to go into political life, to write a great 
 book, to do something worthy of his powers. It was 
 the very thing he longed to do himself ; but he came 
 and played with the children in the nursery, and the 
 great deed was undone. Often, in the long winter 
 evenings, we talked of the past, while Titbottom sat 
 silent by, and Prue was busily knitting. He told us 
 the incidents of his early passion but he did not 
 moralize about it, nor sigh, nor grow moody. He 
 turned to Prue, sometimes, and jested gently, and 
 often quoted from the old song of George Withers, 
 I believe : 
 
 " If she be not fair for me, 
 What care I how fair she be?" 
 
 But there was no flippancy in the jesting ; I thought 
 the sweet humour was no gayer than a flower upon 
 a grave. 
 
 I am sure Titbottom loved our cousin the curate, 
 for his heart is as hospitable as the summer heaven. 
 It was beautiful to watch his courtesy toward him, 
 and I do not wonder that Prue considers the deputy 
 book-keeper the model of a high-bred gentleman. 
 When you see his poor clothes, and thin, gray hair, 
 his loitering step, and dreamy eye, you might pass 
 him by as an inefficient man ; but when you hear his 
 voice always speaking for the noble and generous
 
 Our Cousin the Curate 131 
 
 side, or recounting, in a half-melancholy chant, the 
 recollections of his youth; when you know that his 
 heart beats with the simple emotion of a boy's heart, 
 and that his courtesy is as delicate as a girl's modesty, 
 you will understand why Prue declares that she has 
 never seen but one man who reminded her of our 
 especial favourite, Sir Philip Sidney, and that his 
 name is Titbottom. 
 
 At length our cousin went abroad again to Europe. 
 It was many years ago that we watched him sail 
 away, and when Titbottom, and Prue, and I, went 
 home to dinner, the grace that was said that day was 
 a fervent prayer for our cousin the curate. Many an 
 evening afterward, the children wanted him, and cried 
 themselves to sleep calling upon his name. Many an 
 evening still, our talk flags into silence as we sit 
 before the fire, and Prue puts down her knitting and 
 takes my hand, as if she knew my thoughts, although 
 we do not name his name. 
 
 He wrote us letters as he wandered about the 
 world. They were affectionate letters, full of ob- 
 servation, and thought, and description. He lingered 
 longest in Italy, but he said his conscience accused 
 him of yielding to the syrens ; and he declared that 
 his life was running uselessly away. At last he came 
 to England. He was charmed with everything, and 
 the climate was even kinder to him than that of Italy. 
 He went to all the famous places, and saw many of 
 the famous Englishmen, and wrote that he felt Eng- 
 land to be his home. Burying himself in the ancient 
 gloom of a university town, although past the prime 
 of life, he studied like an ambitious boy. He said 
 again that his life had been wine poured upon the 
 ground, and he felt guilty. And so our cousin became 
 a curate. 
 
 "Surely," wrote he, "you and Prue will be glad 
 to hear it; and my friend Titbottom can no longer 
 boast that he is more useful in the world than I. 
 Dear old George Herbert has already said what I 
 would say to you, and here it is :
 
 132 Prue and I 
 
 I made a posy, while the day ran by : 
 
 I smell my remna 
 My life within this hand. 
 
 Here will I smell my remnant out, and tie 
 
 But time did beckon to the flowers, and they 
 My noon most cunningly did steal away, 
 And wither'd in my hand. 
 
 ' My hand was next to them, and then my heart ; 
 I took, without more thinking, in good part, 
 
 Time's gentle admonition ; 
 Which did so sweetly death's sad taste convey, 
 Making my mind to smell my fatal day, 
 
 Yet sugaring the suspicion. 
 
 ' Farewell, dear flowers, sweetly your time ye spent, 
 Fit, while ye lived, for smell or ornament, 
 
 And after death for cures ; 
 I follow straight without complaints or grief, 
 Since if my scent be good, I care not if 
 
 It be as short as yours.' " 
 
 This is our only relation ; and do you wonder that, 
 whether our days are dark or bright, we naturally 
 speak of our cousin the curate? There is no nursery 
 longer, for the children are grown ; but I have seen 
 Prue stand, with her hand holding the door, for an 
 hour, and looking into the room now so sadly still and 
 tidy, with a sweet solemnity in her eyes that I will 
 call holy. Our children have forgotten their old play- 
 mate, but I am sure if there be any children in his 
 parish, over the sea, they love our cousin the curate, 
 and watch eagerly for his coming. Does his step 
 falter now, I wonder ; is that long, fair hair, gray ; is 
 that laugh as musical in those distant homes as it 
 used to be in our nursery; has England, among all 
 her good and great men, any man so noble as our 
 cousin the curate? 
 
 The great book is unwritten ; the great deeds are 
 undone; in no biographical dictionary will you find 
 the name of our cousin the curate. Is his life, there- 
 fore, lost? Have his powers been wasted? 
 
 I do not dare to say it; for I see Bourne, on the 
 pinnacle of prosperity, but still looking sadly for 
 his castle in Spain ; I see Titbottom, an old deputy
 
 Our Cousin the Curate 133 
 
 book-keeper, whom nobody knows, but with his 
 chivalric heart, loyal to whatever is generous and 
 humane, full of sweet hope, and faith, and devotion ; 
 I see the superb Aurelia, so lovely that the Indians 
 would call her a smile of the Great Spirit, and as 
 beneficent as a saint of the calendar how shall I say 
 what is lost, or what is won? I know that in every 
 way, and by all His creatures, God is served and His 
 purposes accomplished. How should I explain or 
 understand, I who am only an old book-keeper in a 
 white cravat? 
 
 Yet in all history, in the splendid triumphs of 
 emperors and kings, in the dreams of poets, the 
 speculations of philosophers, the sacrifices of heroes, 
 and the ecstasies of saints, I find no exclusive secret 
 of success. Prue says she knows that nobody eve/ 
 did more good than our cousin the curate, for every 
 smile and word of his is a good deed ; and I, for my 
 part, am sure that, although many must do more 
 good in the world, nobody enjoys it more than 
 Prue and I.
 
 LOTUS-EATING
 
 TO 
 
 CHARLES A. DANA 
 
 THE LETTERS 
 ORIGINALLY ADDRESSED TO THE EDITOR 
 
 ARE NOW 
 AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED TO THE FRIEND
 
 LOTUS-EATING 
 
 THE HUDSON AND THE RHINE 
 
 July : Newbttrgh on the Hudson. 
 
 WHERE could a man meet the summer more 
 pleasantly than in the fragrant silence of a garden 
 whence have emanated the most practical and poetic 
 suggestions toward the greater dignity, comfort and 
 elegance of country life? If the aspect of our land- 
 scape yearly improves, in the beauty of the houses, 
 and in tasteful and picturesque rural treatment, our 
 enjoyment of it will be an obligation to Mr. Downing. 
 
 Not four days away from the city, I have not yet 
 done roaming, bewildered with the summer's breath, 
 through the garden, smelling of all the flowers, and 
 returning to lie upon the lawn, and bask, dreaming, 
 in the July sun. What a cold word is "beautiful" 
 to express the ecstasy which, in some choice moments 
 of midsummer, suddenly overwhelms your mind, like 
 an unexpected and exquisite thought. 
 
 I found a few late spring-flowers this morning, 
 upon the lawn, and welcomed them with Robert 
 Herrick's "Greeting to the Violets " : 
 
 " Welcome, maids of honour, 
 
 You do bring 
 
 In the Spring, 
 And wait upon her. 
 She has virgins many, 
 
 Fresh and fair ; 
 
 Yet you are 
 More sweet than any. 
 You're the Maiden Posies, 
 
 And so graced 
 
 To be placed 
 'Fore damask roses. 
 139
 
 140 Lotus-Eating 
 
 Yet though thus respected, 
 
 By-and-by, 
 
 You do lie, 
 Poor girls, neglected." 
 
 As I lay repeating these lines, whose melody is as 
 delicate as the odour of the flowers they sing, I saw 
 the steamer, crowded with passengers, hurrying away 
 from the city. For none more than the Americans 
 make it a principle to desert the city, and none less 
 than Americans know how to dispense with it. So 
 we compromise by taking the city with us, and the 
 country gently laughs us to scorn. 
 
 Although the day was tropical, on which we left 
 New York, the Reindeer ran with us as if we had 
 been mere Laplanders, and our way a frozen plain, 
 instead of the broad, blue river. It is only in the 
 steamer that the Hudson can be truly perceived and 
 enjoyed. In the Indian summer, the western shore, 
 seen from the railroad, is a swiftly unrolling pano- 
 rama of dreams ; yet the rush, and roar, and sharp 
 steam-shriek would have roused Rip Van Winkle 
 himself, and the dust would have choked and blinded 
 him as he opened his eyes. The railroad will answer 
 to deliver legislators at Albany, although which 
 "side up" is a little uncertain. But the traveller 
 who loves the law of beauty and pursues pleasure, 
 will take the steamer and secure silence, cleanliness, 
 sufficient speed, and an unencumbered enjoyment of 
 the landscape. 
 
 If the trains are as thronged as the boats, they do 
 well. It was curious to set forth upon a river- 
 excursion, surrounded by hundreds bent upon similar 
 summer pleasures, and yet see no red hand-book and 
 no state-travelling carriage upon the forward deck, 
 with a state-travelling countenance of an English 
 milord on the inside, and the ruddy, round cheeks of 
 state-travelling Abigails, in the rumble behind. These 
 are Rhenish reminiscences. But they are as much 
 part of a journey up the Rhine as Drachenfels or 
 St. Goar.
 
 The Hudson and the Rhine 141 
 
 John Bull, upon his travels, is an old joke, as well 
 to himself as others ; and the amusement is never 
 exhausted. Yet he is the boldest and best of travel- 
 lers. He carries bottled ale to Nineveh, and black 
 tea to the top of Mont Blanc, and haunts Norwegian 
 rivers with the latest improved angling " flies " ; but 
 he carries integrity, heroism, and intelligence, also. 
 His patriotism amounts to prejudice ; yet, if there is 
 any cosmopolitan, it is John Bull. He takes pride, 
 indeed, in asserting his prejudices, and insisting 
 upon his black tea everywhere and in all societies. 
 But his sublime scepticism of any excellence out of 
 England is pleasanter than our crude mixture of 
 boastfulness and subserviency. It was remarkable 
 during the revolutions of 1848, in Europe, that there 
 were no monarchists so absolute as the Americans. 
 They declared, almost to a man, that Europe was 
 not fit for republicanism. As if time would ripen 
 republics from despotism, so that, like mellow pears, 
 they would fall off without any confusion; or as if it 
 were the habit of kings to educate their subjects to 
 dispense with royalty. 
 
 But it is still very amusing to see how the English 
 patronize the continent. They ascend the Rhine 
 imperturbably. They evidently feel that they are 
 conferring much more honour upon the landscape by 
 looking at it, than ever the landscape can give them 
 pleasure. This annual overflow of the continent with 
 Cockneys is the point of Thackeray's "Kickleburys 
 on the Rhine " a picture whose breadth is hardly 
 broader than the reality, and which requires you to 
 be a traveller fully to enjoy. 
 
 This was the pith of my chat with Willow as we 
 sped along under the Palisades, and threaded the 
 Highlands. 
 
 Of course these comparisons soon led to the grand 
 question which usually consumes the three hours from 
 Murray-street to West Point the comparative claims 
 of interest in the rivers themselves. 
 
 The first day upon the Rhine is an epoch in the
 
 142 Lotus-Eating 
 
 traveller's memory. I came out of the Tyrol through 
 Southern Germany to Heidelberg, and on a brilliant 
 July morning took the steamer at Mayence for Bop- 
 part, a few miles above Coblentz, and not far below 
 St. Goar. It was a soft, windless day. I lay in the 
 very bow of the boat, with a Scotch boy going home 
 for the summer from his school in Zurich. All day 
 he buzzed in my ears stories of Switzerland and 
 Scotland, and through his words I saw the misty and 
 snowy grandeur of each. Our way was straight over 
 the gleaming river, by the open spaces of Nassau 
 and the sunny slopes of the vineyards of the Schloss 
 Johannisberger, through the narrow pass of Bingen, 
 where the Highlands of the Rhine begin, and under 
 the Rudesheimer vines and the little castles, it still 
 wound onward, every mile revealing the picture 
 which fancy had so plainly seen, until in the late 
 afternoon I stepped ashore at Boppart. 
 
 On the other side of the river were the ruins of the 
 twin castles of "The Brothers," which every reader 
 of Bulwer's "Pilgrims of the Rhine" remembers, 
 and crossing in a small boat at twilight, we climbed 
 the conical hills and rambled and stumbled by moon- 
 light among the ruins. The feeling of that evening 
 was of the nameless sadness which is always born of 
 moonlight in spots of romantic association. Yet it 
 would not be possible to experience precisely the 
 same thing upon any other than that river. The 
 Rhine has its own character, its own romance; and 
 Uhland's ballad with which I accompanied the slow 
 dip of the oars, as at midnight we rowed homewards, 
 is the music and the meaning of the Rhine. 
 
 " Many a year is in its grave 
 Since I crossed the restless wave, 
 And the evening, fair as ever, 
 Shines on ruin, rock, and river. 
 
 Then, in this same boat, heside, 
 Sat two comrades, old and tried ; 
 One with all a father's truth, 
 One with all the fire of youth.
 
 The Hudson and the Rhine 143 
 
 One on earth in silence wrought, 
 
 And his grave in silence sought, 
 
 But the younger, brighter form, 
 
 Passed in battle and in storm. 
 
 So whene'er I turn my eye 
 
 Back upon the days gone by, 
 
 Saddening thoughts of friends come o'er me, 
 
 Friends, who closed their course before me. 
 
 Yet what binds us friend to friend 
 
 But that soul with soul can blend ? 
 
 Soul-like were those hours of yore : 
 
 Let us walk in soul once more ! 
 
 Take, O boatman, thrice thy fee : 
 
 Take, I give it willingly, 
 
 For, invisible to thee, 
 
 Spirits twain have crossed with me." 
 
 A few evenings afterward I was standing with a 
 fellow-countryman upon the terrace of the castle of 
 Heidelberg, looking out toward the glorious opening 
 of the Neckar valley upon the plain of the Rhine, 
 and was severely taken to task by him for my indis- 
 creet Rhenish raptures and absolute light-speaking 
 of the Hudson. 
 
 " Of course you don't prefer the Rhine ! " exclaimed 
 my friend with patriotic ire. 
 
 I contemplated the height of the terrace from the 
 ground, and accommodated my answer to it. 
 
 " Yes ! ' for this night only ' I think I do. But I 
 have no doubt I shall sleep it off. I am sure I shall 
 be better in the morning." 
 
 "Strange words they seemed of slight and scorn, 
 
 My true-love sighed for sorrow, 
 
 And looked me in the face, to think 
 
 I thus could speak of Yarrow." 
 
 I did not sleep it off, however, that night, at least, 
 for a day or two afterward I returned to the Rhine, 
 and in my friend's absence carried the question clear 
 against the Hudson. 
 
 The difference between the rivers is that of the 
 countries. The Rhine is a narrow belt of turbid 
 water winding among the vineyards that wall it upon
 
 144 Lotus-Eating 
 
 each side. In its beautiful reach between Bingen 
 and Bonn, the only beautiful part of the river, except 
 near Lake Constance, it has no shores but vineyarded 
 hillsides, and occasionally a narrow grain field in 
 front of them. There are no trees, no varieties of 
 outline, and the vines, regularly planted and kept 
 short for wine, not left to luxuriate at length, for 
 beauty, are a little formal in their impression. The 
 castles the want of which is so lamented upon the 
 Hudson shores are not imposing, but romantic. 
 They are rather small and toy-like, and stand like 
 small sentries upon small hills commanding the 
 entrances to small valleys. 
 
 But they are interesting enough to make their own 
 traditions, even better than those you read in Mur- 
 ray's red-book : and the mass of travellers who merely 
 pass in the steamers, when the white glare of noon 
 hardens the hills, as if they were sullen, and would 
 not reveal their charms to a hasty stare, can have 
 but faint idea of the tranquil and romantic beauty 
 of the river. 
 
 A river is the coyest of friends. You must love it 
 and live with it before you can know it. 
 
 " And you must love him, ere to you 
 He will seem worthy of your love." 
 
 The Rhine, after all, is the theme and mistress of 
 romance and song although to many of us, that 
 fame be only traditional. The Rhine songs, both 
 those which directly celebrate its beauty, and those 
 which are ballads of life upon its banks, are among 
 the most sonorous in the songful German literature. 
 
 It is the Rhine wine, pure Rhenish, the blood of 
 the life that blooms along these monotonous hillsides, 
 which is the wine poetic, that routs all the temper- 
 ance societies. The foliage of the vine itself is fair 
 and lustrous. It wreathes the hot hills with a gor- 
 geous garland, and makes the day upon the Rhine a 
 festival. Then the old crumbling castles, if vague in 
 fame, are so much the more suggestive, and from one
 
 The Hudson and the Rhine 145 
 
 shattered buttress to another, miles away on a distant 
 hilltop, the gay vine-garland sweeps, alive now, as 
 much as ever, and by the vivid contrast softens the 
 suggestion and deepens the delight. 
 
 Near St. Goar you glide under the rock of the 
 Lorelei. Henry Heine in one of his tender songs 
 relates its mournful tradition, which is the most 
 beautiful and wildest of the Rhine. Willow and 
 Xtopher and I sing it nightly as we lie on the lawn 
 here, watching the moonlight streaming upon the 
 river, and to-day Xtopher has translated it without 
 letting the aroma escape. The first line of the last 
 verse is hard to render. The verb in German ex- 
 presses the river embracing the boat and sailor, like 
 a serpent in its folds. 
 
 " I know not what it presages, 
 
 This heart with sadness fraught, 
 'T is a tale of the olden ages, 
 That will not from my thought. 
 
 The air grows cool and darkles, 
 
 The Rhine flows calmly on, 
 The mountain summit sparkles 
 
 In the light of the setting sun. 
 
 There sits in soft reclining 
 
 A maiden wondrous fair, 
 With golden raiment shining, 
 
 And combing her golden hair. 
 
 With a comb of gold she combs it, 
 And combing, low singeth she, 
 
 A song of a strange, sweet sadness, 
 A wonderful melody. 
 
 The sailor shudders as o'er him 
 
 The strain comes floating by, 
 He sees not the cliffs before him, 
 
 He only looks on high. 
 
 Ah ! round him the dark waves flinging 
 Their arms, draw him slowly down, 
 
 And this with her wild, sweet singing 
 The Lorelei has done." 
 
 Mendelssohn was to have written an opera upon 
 this story and had already commenced it, but the
 
 146 Lotus-Eating 
 
 king of Prussia, who is fond of the classics, ordered 
 the composer, who was the royal director of music, 
 to write an overture and choruses for the Antigone. 
 We have lost in that opera the companion of Don 
 Giovanni; in a different kind, of course, for Mozart 
 was all melody, and Mendelssohn had only rhythm. 
 In his music the melody is like a faint perfume in a 
 dreamy south wind. How long must we wait for 
 another Fine-ear to detect and interpret those weird 
 melodies of the Lorelei? 
 
 These are the genuine delights of the Rhine. 
 They are those of romantic association and sugges- 
 tion. They are those which are only possible in an old 
 and storied country. It is not what you see there, 
 but what you feel through what you see, that charms 
 you. The wild grape in our woods is pleasant from 
 the association with the Rhenish vineyards, and they 
 in turn from their association with the glory of the 
 grape in all literature and tradition. The Rhine is a 
 lyric, or a ballad. 
 
 Avoid the steamer, if you can, and in some country 
 market-boat float at evening or morning along its 
 shores, following the wildest whim of fancy, with 
 Uhland in one pocket and a flasche of Rudesheimer 
 in the other, dozing away the noon in the coolest 
 corner of some old ruin, and dreaming of Ariadne as 
 you drift, sighing, beneath the moonlighted vine- 
 yards. Then you, too, will exasperate some chance 
 friend at Heidelberg, and believe in the Rhine, for 
 that night only. 
 
 I know that romance is in the poet's heart, and 
 not in the outward forms he sees. But there is a 
 technical material of romance the moonlight, a 
 ruin, an Italian girl, for instance which is useful in 
 begetting a romantic mood of mind, as a quotation 
 will often suggest verses that haunt you all day long. 
 And it is in this material that the Rhine is so rich. 
 
 The Hudson, however, is larger and grander. It 
 is not to be devoured in detail. No region without 
 association, is, except by science. But its spacious
 
 The Hudson and the Rhine 147 
 
 and stately character, its varied and magnificent 
 outline, from the Palisades to the Catskill, are as 
 epical as the loveliness of the Rhine is lyrical. The 
 Hudson implies a continent behind. For vineyards 
 it has forests. For a belt of water, a majestic stream. 
 For graceful and grain-goldened heights it has im- 
 posing mountains. There is no littleness about the 
 Hudson, but there is in the Rhine. Here everything 
 is boldly touched. What lucid and penetrant lights, 
 
 what broad and sober shadows ! The river moistens 
 the feet, and the clouds anoint the heads, of regal 
 hills. The Danube has, in parts, glimpses of such 
 grandeur. The Elbe has sometimes such delicately 
 pencilled effects. But no European river is so lordly 
 in its bearing, none flows in such state to the sea. 
 
 Of all our rivers that I know, the Hudson, with 
 this grandeur, has the most exquisite episodes. Its 
 morning and evening reaches are like the lakes of 
 dreams. Looking from this garden, at twilight, 
 toward the huge hills, enamelled with soft darkness, 
 that guard the entrance of the Highlands, near West 
 Point, I "would be a merman bold," to float on the 
 L 2
 
 148 Lotus-Eating 
 
 last ray through that mysterious gate to the softest 
 shadow in Cro' Nest, where, if I were a merman 
 bold, I should know the culprit fay was sleeping. 
 Out of that dim portal glide the white sails of sloops, 
 like spectres : they loiter languidly along the bases 
 of the hills, as the evening breeze runs after them, 
 enamoured, and they fly, taking my fascinated eyes 
 captive, far and far away, until they glimmer like 
 ghosts and strand my sight upon the distance. 
 
 These tranquil evening reveries are the seed of 
 such beautiful and characteristic harvests as the 
 Hudson tales of the Sketch Book and Knicker- 
 bocker's History. And rubbing those golden grains 
 upon bis eyes, Darley has so well perceived the spirit 
 of the river, that in a few simple forms, in the 
 vignette of his illustrations of Rip Van Winkle, he 
 has seized its suggestion and made it visible. Nor 
 will any lover of the Hudson forget its poet, Joseph 
 Rodman Drake, who in his " Culprit Fay " shows 
 that the spirits of romance and beauty haunt every 
 spot upon which falls the poetic eye. If a man would 
 touch the extremes of experience in a single day, I 
 know not how it could be better done, than by step- 
 ping upon a steamer, after a long bustling morning 
 in Wall-street, and reading the " Culprit Fay " by 
 moonlight upon the piazza of the hotel at West Point, 
 looking up the river to Cro' Nest. 
 
 It was a happy fortune for the beauty of the river 
 that steam did not drive away the sails. It was 
 feared that the steamers would carry all the freight, 
 and so bereave the river of the characteristic and 
 picturesque life of the white-sailed sloops. But 
 economy was on the side of beauty this time, and it 
 was found cheaper to carry heavy freights by sail, as 
 of old. So the sloops doze and dream along, very 
 beautiful to behold from the banks, and sometimes, 
 awakened as they enter the Highlands by a sudden 
 stoop from some saucy gust coquetting with the hills, 
 they bend and dip, and come crowding toward us 
 through the grim mountain gate, like a troop of
 
 Catskill 149 
 
 white-winged pilgrims fluttering and flying from the 
 Castle of Giant Despair. 
 
 You see I have heard the Hudson syrens : perhaps 
 some faint, far-off strain of that lullaby of silence 
 that soothed old Rip to his mountain nap. And 
 while I smell Florida and the Tropics, as I sit under 
 the branching magnolia, it goes clear and clean 
 against the Rhine. But when, leaving the garden, 
 and sitting under the foliaged trellises of the piazza, 
 we see the moon rise over the opposite mountains 
 the ghost of the summer day drawing the outline 
 of the Warwick vase more delicately in shadow upon 
 the sward than ever the skilful artist carved it in 
 marble, then a glimpse of Grecian beauty penetrates 
 and purifies the night ; while, within doors, Willow's 
 hands dream upon the keys of the piano, and singing, 
 sad and sweet enough to silence the Lorelei, com- 
 pletes the discomfiture of the Rhine. 
 
 In the moonlight and the music Xtopher and I are 
 but 
 
 " Such stuff as dreams are made of," 
 until 
 
 " From tower on trel-top high, 
 
 The sentry elf his call has made, 
 A streak is in the eastern sky, 
 
 Shapes of moonlight ! flit and fade ! 
 The hill-tops gleam in morning's spring, 
 The sky-lark shakes his dappled wing, 
 The day-glimpse glimmers on the lawn, 
 The cock has crowed and the fays are gone ! " 
 
 CATSKILL 
 
 July : The Mountain House. 
 
 THE New World is a filagree frame-work of 
 white wood surrounding a huge engine, which is 
 much too conspicuous. I am speaking, by the bye, 
 of the Hudson steamer ; and yet, perhaps, the symbol
 
 150 Lotus-Eating 
 
 holds for the characteristic expression of the nation. 
 For just so flimsy and overfine are our social arrange- 
 ments, our peculiarities of manner and dress, and 
 just so prominent and evident is the homely practical 
 genius that carries us forward, with steam-speed, 
 through the sloop-sluggishness of our compeers. 
 
 A sharp-faced, thought-furrowed, hard-handed 
 American, with his anxious eye and sallow com- 
 plexion, his nervous motion and concentrated expres- 
 sion, and withal, accoutred for travelling in blue coat 
 with gilt buttons, dark pantaloons, patent leather 
 boots, and silk vest hung with charms, chains, and 
 bits of metal, as if the Indian love of lustre lingered 
 in the Yankee, is not unlike one of these steamers, 
 whose machinery, driving it along, jars the cut glass 
 and the choice centre-tables and crimson-covered 
 lounges, and with a like accelerated impetus, would 
 shiver the filagree into splinters. 
 
 Yet for all this the New World is a very pleasant 
 place. It has a light, airy, open and clean deck, 
 whence you may spy the shyest nook of scenery upon 
 the banks, and a spacious cabin, where you do not 
 dine at a huge table, with eager men plunging their 
 forks into dishes before you, and their elbows into 
 your sides, but quietly and pleasantly as at a Parisian 
 cafe. What an appalling ordeal an American table 
 d'hote is! What a chaos of pickles, puddings and 
 meats ! and each man plunging through everything 
 as if he and the steamer were racing for victory. 
 The waiters, usually one third the necessary num- 
 ber, rush up and down the rear of the benches, and 
 cascades of gravies and sauces drip ominously along 
 their wake. It is the seed-time of dyspepsia, and 
 Dickens in that anti-American novel, which none of 
 us can read without feeling its injustice, has yet 
 described, only too well, an American ordinary. 
 
 Who can wonder that we are lantern-jawed, lean, 
 sickly and serious of aspect, when he has dined on 
 a steamer or at a great business hotel? We laugh 
 very loftily at the Rhine dinners in which the pud-
 
 Catskill 151 
 
 ding and fish meet in the middle of the courses. 
 But a Rhine dinner upon the open, upper deck of the 
 steamer, is quiet and orderly and inoffensive, while 
 one of our gregarious repasts must needs offend every 
 man who has some regard for proprieties and some 
 self-respect. 
 
 And Catskill? 
 
 Yes, we are rapidly approaching, even while we 
 sit on deck and our eyes slide along the gentle green 
 banks, as we meditate American manners and the 
 extremes that meet in our characteristics. Beyond 
 Poughkeepsie a train darts along the shore, rattling 
 over the stones on the water's edge, and rolling with 
 muffled roar behind the cuts and among the heavy 
 foliage. So nearly matched is our speed, that until 
 the locomotive ran beside us, I did not know how 
 rapid was our silent movement. But there is heat 
 and bustle and dust in the nervous little train, which 
 winds along, like a jointed reptile, while with our 
 stately steamer there is silence, and the cool, con- 
 stant patter of the few drops, where our sharp prow 
 cuts the river. 
 
 A little above Poughkeepsie the river bends, and 
 the finest point is gained. It is a foreground of cul- 
 tivated and foliaged hills of great variety of outline, 
 rising as they recede, and ranging, and towering at 
 last along the horizon, in the Catskill mountains. It 
 was a brilliant day, and the heavy, rounding clouds 
 piled in folds along the line of the hills taking, at 
 length, precisely their own hue, and so walling up 
 the earth with a sombre, vaporous rampart, such as 
 Titans and fallen angels storm. As we glided 
 nearer, keen flashes darted from the wall of cloud, 
 and as if riven and rent with its sharpness, the heavy 
 masses rolled asunder ; then more heavily piled 
 themselves in dense darkness, fold overlying fold, 
 while the startled wind changed, and rushed down 
 the river, chilled, and breathing cold before the storm. 
 
 No longer a wall, but a swiftly advancing and 
 devastating power, the storm threw up pile upon pile
 
 152 Lotus-Eating 
 
 of jagged blackness into the clear, tender blue of the 
 afternoon, and there was a wail in the hurried gusts 
 that swept past us and over us, and the river curled 
 more and more into sudden waves, which were foam- 
 tipped, and scattered spray. 
 
 We were now abreast of the mountains, and far 
 behind them the storm had burst. Down the vast 
 ravines that opened outward toward the river, I saw 
 the first softness of the shower skimming along the 
 distant hillsides, moister and grayer, until they were 
 merged in mist. Deep into those solemn mountain 
 forests leaped the lightning, and the echo of its 
 
 wrathful roar surged and boomed among the hills, 
 and dashed far up the cliffs and dark hemlock slopes, 
 and crashed over the gurgling brooks, where was 
 none to hear but the trees and the streams, and they 
 were undismayed, and in the shuddering breeze of the 
 pauses the trees rustled and whispered to the streams, 
 and the streams laughed to themselves the strange, 
 sweet, mystical laughter that Undine laughed. 
 
 "They roll their nine-pins still, among the Cats- 
 kill," said Olde. 
 
 "And there's a ten-strike," interposed Swans- 
 downe, as a mighty bolt burst among the hills, but
 
 Catskill 153 
 
 still toward the inner valleys, for the slope toward 
 the river yet stood in cold, dark, purple distinctness. 
 
 The breeze was cool and strong as we landed at 
 Catskill. We were huddled ashore rapidly, the 
 board was pulled in, and the New World disap- 
 peared. I proposed riding up to the Mountain 
 House on the outside of the coach, but Olde smiled 
 and said, "I shall go inside." 
 
 Now Olde loves scenery as well as any man, poet 
 or painter, but he holds that a drenching rain de- 
 stroys both the beauty of the scene and the capacity 
 for enjoyment of the seer, and while I stood with my 
 hand upon the door, my common-sense thoroughly 
 convinced, as well by his action as by his words, but 
 my carnal heart lusting after the loveliness of the 
 cloud-crowned and shower-veiled mountains, there 
 came another ten-strike that suddenly shook a cloud 
 to pieces over our heads and down it came. 
 
 "I think I shall go inside, too," I said, as I 
 stumbled up the steps and closed the door. 
 
 During the first eight miles of the inland drive 
 toward the Mountain House, I enjoyed the prospect 
 of six travellers, four stained leather curtains, and 
 the two wooden windows of the door. It was not 
 cool inside the coach, but without, the wind was in 
 high frolic with the rain, and through the slightest 
 crevice the wily witch dashed us with her missiles, 
 cold and very wet. Then the showers swept along a 
 little, and we threw up the curtains and breathed 
 fresh air, and about three miles from the Mountain 
 House, where the steep ascent commences, Olde and 
 Swansdowne and I jumped out of the stage and 
 walked. The road is very firmly built, and is for- 
 tunate in its material of a slaty rock, and in the 
 luxuriance of foliage, for the tangled tree-roots hold 
 the soil together. 
 
 The road climbs at first in easy zigzags, and pres- 
 ently pushes straight on through the woods, and 
 upon the side of a steep ravine; the level-branched 
 foliage sheering regularly down, sheeting the moun-
 
 154 Lotus-Eating 
 
 tain side with leafy terraces. Between the trunks 
 and down the gorges we looked over a wide but 
 mountainous landscape, and as we ascended, the air 
 became more invigorating with the greater height 
 and the coolness of the shower. Two hours before 
 sunset we stood upon the plateau before the Moun- 
 tain House, 2,800 feet above the sea. 
 
 'There is a fine sense of height there, but all moun- 
 tain views over a plain are alike. You stand on the 
 piazza of the Mountain House and look directly down 
 into the valley of the Hudson, with only a foreground, 
 deep beneath you, of a lower layer than that on 
 which you stand, with its precipice of pine and hem- 
 lock. The rest stretches then, a smooth surface to 
 the eye, but hilly enough to the feet, when you are 
 there, to an unconfined horizon at the north and 
 south, and easterly to the Berkshire hills. 
 
 Through this expanse lies the Hudson, not very 
 sinuous, but a line of light dividing the plain. In 
 the vague twilight atmosphere it was very effective. 
 Sometimes the mist blotted out individual outlines, 
 and the whole scene was but a silver-gray abyss, 
 and the hither line of the river was the horizon, 
 and the stream itself a white gleam of sky beyond. 
 Then the distance and the foreground were mingled 
 in the haze, a shining opaque veil, wherein the 
 river was a rent, through which beamed a remote 
 brightness. Or the vapours clustered toward the 
 south and the stream flowed into them, flashing 
 and far, as into a terrene cloud-land. All the coun- 
 try was chequered with yellow patches of ripe grain, 
 and marked faintly with walls and fences, and 
 looked rather a vast domain than a mountain-ruled 
 landscape. 
 
 Whoever is familiar with mountain scenery will 
 know what to anticipate in the Catskill view. The 
 whole thing is graceful and generous, but not 
 sublime. Your genuine mountaineer (which I am 
 not) shrugs his shoulder at the shoulders of moun- 
 tains which soar thousands of feet above him and are
 
 Catskill 155 
 
 still shaggy with forest. He draws a long breath 
 over the spacious plain, but he feels the want of 
 that true mountain sublimity, the presence of lonely 
 snow-peaks. 
 
 And as we always require in scenery of a similar 
 class, similar emotions, there is necessarily a little 
 disappointment in the Catskill. They are hills rather 
 than mountains. But, as they have the fame of 
 mountains, you are recalling your Alpine impres- 
 sions, all the way up. It is not very wise, perhaps, 
 but it is very natural and rather unavoidable. Yet, 
 when the night falls, the silence and coolness of your 
 lofty home impart the genuine mountain tone to 
 your thoughts. Then you begin to acknowledge the 
 family resemblance, and to remember Switzerland. 
 
 When I was on the Faulhorn, the highest point 
 in Europe upon which a dwelling-house is placed, 
 and that inhabited for three months only in the year, 
 I stepped out in the middle of the night, and as I 
 looked across the valley of Grindelwald and saw the 
 snow-fields and ice-precipices of all the Horns 
 never trodden and never to be trodden by man 
 shining cold in the moonlight, my heart stood still 
 as I felt that those awful peaks and I were alone 
 in the solemn solitude. Then I felt the significance 
 of Switzerland, and knew the sublimity of moun- 
 tains. 
 
 And do you remember, said Olde, how delicately 
 the dawn touched those summits with cool, bright 
 fingers, and how their austerity burned and blushed 
 under that caressing, until the sunrise overwhelmed 
 them with rosy flame, and they flashed perfect day 
 far over Switzerland; and hours afterward, when 
 day was old upon the mountain-tops, how gentlemen- 
 travellers turned in their beds in the valley inns, and 
 said, "Hallo, Tom, the sun is rising"? 
 
 The Mountain House is really unceremonious. 
 You are not required to appear at dinner in ball 
 costume, and if you choose, you may scramble to the 
 Falls in cowhide boots and not in varnished pumps.
 
 156 Lotus-Eating 
 
 The house has a long and not ill-proportioned 
 Corinthian colonnade, wooden of course, and glaring 
 white. The last point, however, is a satisfaction from 
 below, for its vivid contrast with the dark green forest 
 reveals the house from a great distance upon the 
 river. The table is well supplied, but Olde and 
 Swansdowne were forced to throw themselves upon 
 the compassion of the chambermaid, (I would say 
 Femme-de-Chambre, if a single eye, slopping shoes, 
 and a thick, cotton handkerchief pinned night-cap- 
 wise over the head, would possibly allow that sug- 
 gestive word,) and to submit that a towel of the 
 magnitude of a small mouchoir, (they did not say 
 mouchoir,) was not large allowance for two full- 
 grown men. The dame's answer had gravity and 
 instance. 
 
 "Gentlemen, how can I give you what we have 
 not?" 
 
 A written placard around the house announced 
 that dancing music could be had at the bar. But 
 none wished to polk and how music could be made 
 in that parlour, which seemed to have been dislocated 
 by some tempestuous mountain ague, remains a 
 mystery to me. There are eight windows, and none 
 of them opposite to any of the others ; folding-doors 
 which have gone down the side of the room in some 
 wild architectural dance, and have never returned, 
 and a row of small columns stretching in an inde- 
 pendent line across the room, quite irrespective of 
 the middle. It is a dangerous parlour for a nervous 
 man. 
 
 We sat on the edge of the precipice, looking off 
 into the black abyss of night. Swansdowne told wild 
 tales of crazy men in lonely nooks of Scotland, and 
 Olde talked of Italy. They were pleasant days, he 
 said, which shall return no more. 
 
 " My eyes are full of childish tears, 
 
 My heart is idly stirred, 
 For the same sound is in my ears, 
 That in those days I heard.
 
 Catskill Falls 157 
 
 Thus fares it still in our decay, 
 
 And yet the wiser mind 
 Mourns less for what age takes away 
 
 Than what it leaves behind." 
 
 CATSKILL FALLS 
 
 July. 
 
 I DID not see the sun rise from the Catskill. There- 
 fore my more cunning way would be to give you a 
 florid history of all the sunrises that I have seen from 
 famous places, omitting mention of the chills, yawns, 
 and, in general, very ameliorated admiration of such 
 early spectacles. 
 
 Quite unwittingly I was conscious of no sunrise 
 that bright Sunday morning upon the Catskill; yet 
 I was not scornful of it but only sleepy. 
 
 Not scornful, for still flashes along the heights of 
 memory many a Swiss sunrise. That of the Righi, 
 for instance, with the groups of well-whiskered Eng- 
 lishmen and well-booted Americans, gathered upon 
 the Culm, and wrapt in coats, cloaks, blankets, and 
 comforters as if each had arisen, bed and all, and 
 had so stepped out to enjoy the spectacle. A wooden 
 horn was blown, much vague sentiment was uttered, 
 and the exceeding absurdity of the crowd interfered 
 with the grandeur of the moment. 
 
 But beyond these and above them were the peaks 
 of the Mid-Alps, celestial snow-fields, smooth and 
 glittering as the sky, and the rugged glaciers sloping 
 into unknown abysses, Niagaran cataracts frozen in 
 foam for ever. There were lesser mountains in the 
 undulating mass of the panorama, green and grace- 
 ful, or angular with sharp cliffs, sheering perpen- 
 dicularly away, or gently veering into the glassy 
 calmness of cold lakes, in which the night had bathed 
 and left its blackness. There was the range of the
 
 158 Lotus-Eating 
 
 Jura, dusky and far, and the faint flash of the Aar 
 in the morning mist, and among these awful moun- 
 tains, and upon them, spots of fame, poetic and 
 patriotic, each one the home of a thousand traditions, 
 each the melody of myriad household songs. It was 
 the region of William Tell all around me. 
 
 The keen, cool breath of early morning smote me, 
 as with the heroic spirit of the story, and the senti- 
 ments and memories of the spot brightened into 
 significance with the increasing dawn. And as we 
 stood there, too shivering to be sentimental for the 
 breath which lives "with death and morning on the 
 silver horns," blew every feeling away that was not 
 genuine and fair far over the hushed tumult of 
 peaks which thronged to the utmost east, came the 
 sun, sowing those sublime snow-fields with glorious 
 day. The light leaped from peak to peak, the only 
 thing alive, glad and gay, worthy to sport with those 
 worthy mates, until the majestic solemnity of the 
 moment yielded to the persuasive warmth of day, 
 and our hearts yearned for the valley. 
 
 Do you remember in Tennyson's "Princess," the 
 "small, sweet idyl," which she read? 
 
 " Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height ; 
 What pleasure lives in height, (the shepherd sang,) 
 In height and cold, the splendour of the hills ? 
 But cease to move so near the heavens, and cease 
 To glide a sunbeam by the blasted pine, 
 To sit a star upon the sparkling pire ; 
 And come, for Love is of the valley, come, 
 For Love is of the valley, come thou down 
 And find him ; by the happy threshold, he, 
 Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize, 
 Or red with spirted purple of the vats, 
 Or fox-like in the vine ; nor cares to walk 
 With Death and Morning on the Silver Horns, 
 Nor wilt thou snare him in the white ravine, 
 Nor find him dropt upon the firths of ice, 
 That huddling slant in furrow-cloven falls, 
 To roll the torrent out of dusky doors : 
 But follow ; let the torrent dance thee down 
 To find him in the valley ; let the wild 
 Lean-headed eagles yelp alone, and leave
 
 Catskill Falls 159 
 
 The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill 
 
 Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke, 
 
 That like a broken purpose waste in air : 
 
 So waste not thou : but come ; for all the vales 
 
 Await thee ; azure pillars of the hearth 
 
 Arise to thee ; the children call, and I 
 
 Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound, 
 
 Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet ; 
 
 Myriads of rivulets hurrying through the lawn, 
 
 The moan of doves in immemorial elms, 
 
 And murmuring of innumerable bees." 
 
 Remembering- these things, when I came down and 
 found Olde and Swansdowne under the Corinthian 
 colonnade, I did not feel as if I had seen nothing, 
 although I had lost the Catskill sunrise, which, they 
 told me, was a magnificent effect of slanting light 
 over a level floor of fleecy clouds, much more mag- 
 nificent, indeed, than any polar ocean could be, except 
 those that poets see. 
 
 It was a clear, crystal morning ; and after break- 
 fast those who were disposed, repaired to the village 
 of Catskill, twelve miles away, to church. I believe 
 there were not very many. Some of the rest of us 
 looked mountainward. The more distant hills for 
 there are none lost in mist so far as to seem most 
 distant were sharply drawn, purply cold, and 
 rounded with foliage up the sides. Over the 
 summit we went, and down the purple glen, toward 
 the throbbing heart of the Catskill. 
 
 "And on that morning thro* the grass, 
 
 And by the steaming rills, 
 We travelled merrily to pass 
 A day among the hills." 
 
 The road to the Falls is most unromantically dis- 
 tinguishable. A coach load was to follow, but we 
 scorned coaches mighty mountaineers that we were ! 
 and went cheerily along past the lake, dark and cold 
 enough to have a dreary tradition, while the vibrant, 
 liquidly-gurgling song of the wood-thrush poured 
 through the trees, and a solitary, flaming golden-rod 
 nodded autumn to us as we passed. It is a walk
 
 160 Lotus-Eating 
 
 through the woods a wood-road to a finger-post that 
 says curtly, " To the Falls " ; and then down into a 
 dell to a very new and very neat white house and a 
 bar-room, with a balcony over the abyss. 
 
 The proprietor of the bar-room is also the genius 
 of the Fall, and drives a trade both with his spirits 
 and his water. In fact, if your romantic nerves can 
 stand the steady truth, the Catskill Fall is turned on 
 to accommodate poets and parties of pleasure. 
 
 The process of " doing " the sight, for those who 
 are limited in time, is very methodical. You leave 
 the hotel and drive in a coach to the bar-room. You 
 "refresh." You step out upon the balcony, and look 
 into the abyss. The proprietor of the Fall informs 
 you that the lower plunge is eighty feet high. It 
 appears to you to be about ten. You laugh in- 
 credulously he smiles in return the smile of a mens 
 conscia recti. "Would you step down and have the 
 water turned on ? " You do step down a somewhat 
 uneven but very safe staircase. You reach the bot- 
 tom. " Look ! now it comes ! " and the proud cascade 
 plunges like a freed force into the air and slips, 
 swimming in foam, away from your gaze. 
 
 You would gladly stay all day. But the sage of 
 the party looks at his watch remembers dinner 
 deems it time to think of returning; and you climb 
 the staircase step upon the balcony throw a last 
 look into the abyss down the blue mistiness of the 
 winding valley whose repose leads your thought far 
 into eternal silence and summer, and mounting the 
 coach you are boxed up again and delivered at the 
 Mountain House just as the dinner-bell rings. 
 
 This is ludicrous. But most of us are really only 
 shop-keepers, and natural spectacles are but shop- 
 windows on a great scale. People love the country 
 theoretically, as they do poetry. Very few are heroic 
 enough to confess that it is wearisome, even when 
 they are fatigued by it. The reason of which reluct- 
 ance I suppose to be a lurking consciousness that we 
 ought to love it, that we ought to be satisfied and
 
 Catskill Falls 161 
 
 glad among the hills and under the trees, and that if 
 we are not, it is because the city has corrupted us 
 because the syren has sung away our strength. The 
 distaste which many clever persons feel for Words- 
 worth may often be traced to a want of sympathy 
 with his intense and personal enjoyment of nature. 
 It is incredible to them, and seems inflated if not 
 false. 
 
 This want of direct pleasure and exhilaration in 
 nature is a matter of regret, as would be the want of 
 love for flowers. A man who has it is never friend- 
 less. The wildest or rarest day flushing the land- 
 scape with its own character, is his companion and 
 his counsellor. "The mountains are a feeling," the 
 streams are books that babble without nonsense, and 
 the coming and going of the year, as he marks it 
 upon the budding and fading leaf, is the swelling 
 and dying of celestial music in his heart. Happily 
 no man is always insensible. He cannot always 
 escape the electrical shock of natural grandeur and 
 beauty. A noble landscape, a cataract, a mountain, 
 impresses him imperially, but as vaguely and blindly 
 as a great hero surprises pedlers and pettifoggers. 
 
 Olde and Swansdowne and I, citizens too, de- 
 scended the perpendicular staircase to the rock pave- 
 ment, which, hollowed into a basin in the centre, 
 receives the first long fall. You may picture the 
 general effect of the scene from below by fancying 
 a mountain stream followed up the natural valley 
 between two mountains, until it is checked by an 
 abrupt rocky precipice, stretching from one hillside 
 to the other directly across the ravine, and half-con- 
 cavely pointing down the valley. Directly over the 
 centre of the parapet of this rocky wall flows the 
 Fall. At first it is only the surplus of a dammed 
 mill-stream, (I beg pardon,) but beyond the mill and 
 the dam, nature has claimed her own again, and 
 reels the slight stream away, a thread of airy silver, 
 wreathing into rainbow spray. 
 
 Indeed, so slight is the Fall, when not turned on, 
 II
 
 1 62 Lotus-Eating 
 
 but only dripping through the gate, that there is but 
 a single shoot of watery arrows in Indian file, an 
 appearance which any observer of cascades will 
 understand. It is about the volume of the Swiss 
 Staubbach, when it has fallen some four hundred 
 of its nine hundred feet toward the green lawns of 
 Lauterbrunnen, which it moistens as spray and never 
 reaches as a fall, except during a "spell of weather," 
 the dissolution of spring, or some other time unseen 
 of Dr. Syntax, and the hunters of the picturesque. 
 
 The first effect of the Catskill Falls is very simple 
 and beautiful. Seen from the highest platform, after 
 you have descended and are looking up, it has a quiet 
 grandeur, even, which declines into picturesqueness 
 when you pass below the second broken fall that 
 pours away into the gorge, whence it steals off, sing- 
 ing, between the heavily wooded hillsides. The great 
 rock, over which flows the first fall, is hollowed out, 
 a little above the level of the basin into which it 
 plunges, and you can walk, stooping a little, quite 
 around and behind the thin, flickering fall. It has a 
 delicate spray of its own, too, when the wind scatters 
 it into the sunlight which touches it into diamond 
 dust; and very gracious was the sun that morning, 
 for when, after our arrival below, the coaches arrived 
 above, and the parties descended, the ladies glided 
 .and shrank along under the rock a motley troop of 
 white ladies of Avenel, if you will, except that for her 
 -the fall parted, and she did not stoop but droop 
 .and as they came around, where the wind had waved 
 the cascade in spray to cool them, the sun flashed 
 suddenly from behind the fleecy clouds, and arched 
 'them with a rainbow. What could the Catskill do 
 more for them, since it could not part like the Fall 
 -of Avenel, and frame them in living silver, as they 
 passed beneath? 
 
 They all came down to the level of the second fall, 
 .and there, clustered upon the rocks, we awaited the 
 " turning on," or rather the artificial spring and 
 ^imitative effects of snow-melting upon the moun-
 
 Catskill Falls 
 
 163 
 
 tains, produced by our friend of the "Refreshment 
 Saloon," whose little building perched upon the cliff, 
 at the very point of the fall, with its friendly basket 
 far overhanging the ravine upon an outstretched 
 pole, like that of an old well, is extremely effective 
 and recalls vaguely those desert convents from whose 
 high walls hang baskets, the sole communication 
 with the world, except through posterns bolted and 
 barred. 
 
 The fall swelled suddenly, and in a moment, a 
 downward volley of flashing arrows of light plunged 
 into the basin beneath. It 
 flaked into spray as it fell, 
 and sheeted the basin near 
 it with foam, and the mist 
 steamed up into the con- 
 cave abyss, and clouded it, 
 as if to veil the fall in its 
 most majestic moment. It 
 was of the same character 
 still, but developed into 
 fulness ; and the second 
 fall, pouring over a cres- 
 cent of rock brilliantly 
 greened with grass and 
 light foliage, and of pic- 
 turesquely broken outline, 
 overflowed at crevices and 
 points unseen before, and 
 a graceful group of rills 
 danced attendance upon \'" 
 
 each side of the chief fall. 
 
 Down to the basin of this we descended, and com- 
 manded both cascades. But my pen commands no 
 colours, and the neutral tint of words will not glow 
 with the flashing water and the rich, serious green 
 of the banks of foliage, nor seize the movement of 
 the clouds June clouds, that swam fleecily back- 
 ward directly over the cascade, adding the sympathy 
 of motion in the moist blue sky to that of the falling
 
 164 Lotus-Eating 
 
 water. This was a rare and exquisite effect. The 
 round, white clouds hung low, and as they swept 
 swiftly backward, seemed to pass through the very 
 narrow dent of rock which the cascade had worn, as 
 if its own spray had curled into compact clouds, and 
 was so hurrying back again to feed the fountain. 
 
 The groups of loiterers exhausted words but not 
 delight, and after resting a little upon the rocks, 
 climbed the cliff again homeward. We lingered 
 below. Swansdowne with rapid pencil was tracing 
 the general outline of the appearance of the full fall. 
 Olde and I were lying at length gossiping of Swit- 
 zerland, and watching the shifting splendours of the 
 day, and the fall, as the gate was closed, gradually 
 dwindled, wasting from that full-bodied maturity, 
 and sinking again into infantine weakness and un- 
 certainty. 
 
 There is a feeling of life in moving water, and the 
 poets call it living water, when it flows freshly and 
 clear. Therefore, we could not watch it, as if pining 
 away, without a little regret, not at the loss of our 
 own pleasure, but at its loss of life. Its song in the 
 ravine behind us grew fainter, subsiding at last into 
 a uniform, gentle gurgling. Whether a solitary in 
 a slouched hat upon the hillside below us, with 
 tablets in hand, was measuring that murmur into 
 verse I shall never know. But certainly the music 
 of the song I shall never forget. 
 
 Sunday stillness brooded over the day. Sweet and 
 sacred it was like the memory of George Herbert, 
 and his was the hymn we sang that Sunday at the 
 Catskill Falls. 
 
 " Sweet day ! so cool, so calm, so bright ; 
 
 The bridal of the earth and sky : 
 The dew shall weep thy fall to-night ; 
 For thou must die. 
 
 Sweet rose ! whose hue, angry and brave, 
 
 Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye ; 
 Thy root is ever in its grave ; 
 And thou must die.
 
 Catskill Falls 165 
 
 Sweet Spring ! full of sweet days and roses ; 
 
 A box where sweets compacted lie ; 
 My music shows ye have your closes : 
 And all must die. 
 
 Only a sweet and virtuous soul, 
 
 Like seasoned timber never gives : 
 But, though the whole world turn to coal, 
 Then chiefly lives." 
 
 We walked down the stream for a mile afterwards, 
 and I advise every one to do the same, crossing at 
 the usual place, and stumbling over the rocks a little 
 at first, but at last pushing smoothly on. The path 
 leads you to a pleasant opening where the water 
 polishes a broad pavement, and where bits of the 
 picturesque abound. With his delicately sensitive 
 artistic eye, Swansdowne glanced among the trees, 
 and from time to time, announced "a Kensett," as 
 a broad bit of mossed rock, or a shapely stretch of 
 trees with the mountain outline beyond, recalled the 
 poetic accuracy and characteristic subjects of that 
 artist. 
 
 And so, finding the stones, poems and pictures, as 
 well as sermons, we voted, of course, to finish the 
 day at the Fall. A neat and well-cooked dinner in 
 the very small and clean new house near the pictur- 
 esque bar-room, (seen from below,) consoled us for 
 the loss of the Mountain House ordinary, and, as we 
 dined, a wind furious enough for November, a very 
 cataract of a wind, dashed and swept along the 
 mountain-sides, and Swansdowne and I did privately 
 shiver, (it was the 2Oth of July,) until we sallied 
 forth and climbed down the rock again to the first 
 platform. 
 
 The water was unchained for us, and the lilies in 
 the extremest depths of the ravine that grow beyond 
 the edge of the usual flowing, were folded once more 
 before sunset in its crystal caresses. The western 
 light streaming up the ravine was of tenderer tone 
 than that of morning, and our thoughts grew ten- 
 derer too. Our chat was of Italy now, no longer of
 
 1 66 Lotus-Eating 
 
 Switzerland, and the tranquil sunset closed over a 
 day that will sing- as pleasantly through memory as 
 the stream through the solitary dell. 
 
 "To-morrow to fresh fields and pastures new." 
 
 TRENTON 
 
 IN Longfellow's delicious proem to the "Waif," he 
 invokes the singing of a song of rest. Sometimes, 
 urges the poet, let us escape the battle cry and the 
 bugle call, and repose that we may the better wrestle. 
 
 " Such songs have power to quiet 
 
 The restless pulse of care, 
 
 And come like the benediction 
 
 That follows after prayer." 
 
 Trenton is that summer song of rest. 
 
 Only lovely images haunt its remembrance, beauti- 
 ful as the Iris which, in some happy moment of the 
 ramble through the ravine, spans the larger or lesser 
 fall. Beauty and grace are its praises. You hear 
 them from those who are either hurrying to the 
 grandeur of Niagara, or from those who, return- 
 ing, step aside at Utica to enjoy the music of the 
 greater cataract, softened here at Trenton into an 
 exquisite echo. 
 
 It matters little when you see these Falls, whether 
 before or after Niagara. The charm of Trenton is 
 unique, and you will not scorn the violets and lilies 
 because you knelt to the passion-flowers and roses. 
 In the prime of a summer which, from the abundant 
 rains, is singularly unworn and unwithered, a day 
 at Trenton, because of its rare and picturesque, but 
 harmonious, attractions, is like a feast of flowers. In 
 some choice niche of memory you will lay it aside, 
 not as a sublime statue nor a prophetic and solemn
 
 Trenton 167 
 
 picture, but as a vase most delicate, symmetrical if 
 slight, and chased with pastoral tracery. 
 
 From Albany its Campagna-like suburbs once 
 passed a pleasant day made pleasant pictures of 
 the broad, rich, tranquil landscape. The country 
 gained, possibly, in tenderness of aspect that I 
 glanced at it in the intervals of reading Hawthorne's 
 "Seven Gables," and as the heat increased, the 
 monotonous clatter of the cars grew soothing as the 
 airy harpsichord of the fair Alice, dead centuries ago, 
 and persuaded my mind into Clifford's vague and 
 dreamy mood. Floating thus along the fascinating 
 verge of slumber, I opened my eyes upon the placid 
 picturesqueness of the actual landscape, and anon 
 closed them to behold, instantly, the enchanted 
 scenery of sleep. It was a meet approach to Trenton, 
 a passage through a dream-frescoed corridor, pierced 
 with windows that looked into the real world. In 
 every garden, as we hurried on, wherever was an old 
 tree and a hint of the " moated grange," (they are not 
 many on that railroad,) I looked to see the soft-souled 
 Clifford, Alice Pyncheon, and the high-hearted Hep- 
 zibah, seated in the shadow and wondering at the 
 world. 
 
 But when the petulant bell rang two o'clock at 
 Utica, dreams vanished, and I emerged into a 
 crowded and confused station, and was whirled 
 among porters, luggage, barrows, rival coachmen, 
 bells, gongs, and steam, to the hotel. The regular 
 coach to Trenton had left upon the arrival of the 
 preceding train, but there were several white-hatted 
 individuals of extremely conciliatory and persuasive 
 manners, who launched instantly into extravagant 
 praises of various stages, wagons, and other car- 
 riages, all offering the most delightful and easy 
 method of reaching the Falls. 
 
 But it was singular to an inquiring mind to remark 
 that whenever you descended to particulars, as to 
 hours, and numbers, and carriages, these romances 
 instantly reeled away into the most astonishing
 
 1 68 Lotus-Eating 
 
 vagueness, and while you fancied one moment that 
 you heard the noise of the fall, the next it was a very 
 indistinguishable and quite inaudible object in the 
 vista of a prolonged perspective. The fact was that 
 these men who manifested so laudable an interest in 
 your getting to Trenton, comfortably and speedily, 
 wished only to secure your promise to go, and would 
 "arrange" afterward. Remember that when you 
 come, and act accordingly. 
 
 It was clear that nothing could be done until after 
 dinner, which was dispatched, and while I quietly 
 consumed a noxious weed, and patiently awaited my 
 prospects, a short, thick-set, English-looking gentle- 
 man crossed the passage and suggested to my fancy 
 that "Two horsemen might have been seen slowly 
 mounting a hill." But before I proceeded further in 
 the natural reflections of the moment, my co-Tren- 
 tonians appeared in the shape of a party of twelve; 
 just a coach-load with their luggage, and my own 
 coach-prospects began to dwindle dolefully. Then 
 came the tug of war, and truly " no pent-up Utica " 
 contracted the powers of those rival coach-agents, 
 for I never heard so sharp a struggle for a freight. 
 
 The landlord was forced to interfere, while 1 and 
 the "two horsemen" stood aside, I, for my part, 
 wincing at every moment of the tranquil summer 
 afternoon wasted from Trenton. Presently there was 
 a lull in the war, but no victory, and when a quiet 
 man led me quietly aside, and asked my views of a 
 little open wagon, and a separate and rapid drive to 
 Trenton, I found they entirely coincided with his, 
 and within a few moments I was rolling across the 
 spacious, sunny plain of the Mohawk. 
 
 But mark the chances of life, nor dream of doing 
 "an old stager." My private conveyance, the quiet 
 suggestion of my quiet man, was the property of 
 the very agent who had first accosted me, and who, 
 as I thought, had dropped me from mind as a mere 
 single passenger. Not he. Given, a party of twelve 
 together, on the one hand, and a party of one upon
 
 Trenton 169 
 
 the other, to furnish a coach to the first, at $ ! and 
 a wagon to the other, at $ ! ! was his problem, 
 and it was solved. Genius had made this man an 
 emperor of nations ; fate had placed him in authority 
 over horses and hunters of the picturesque. 
 
 My charioteer was a fine boy of sixteen. He 
 whipped along over the plank-road, and gossiped 
 of the horses, the people, and the places we passed. 
 He was sharp-eyed and clear-minded a bright boy, 
 who may one day be President. As we were slowly 
 climbing the hill : 
 
 "Have you heard Jenny Lind, sir? " inquired my 
 Antinous of the stables. 
 
 "Yes, often." 
 
 " Great woman, sir. Don't you think so? " 
 
 "I do." 
 
 " She was here last week, sir. Get up, Charlie ! " 
 
 "Did you hear her? " I asked. 
 
 "Yes, sir, and I drove with her to the Falls that 
 is, Tom Higgins drove, but I sat on the box." 
 
 "And was she pleased? " 
 
 "Yes, sir; only when she was going to see the 
 Falls, everybody in the hotel ran to the door to look 
 at her, so she went back to her room, and then 
 slipped out of the back door. But there was some- 
 thing better than that, sir." 
 
 "What was that? " 
 
 " She gave Tom Higgins fifty dollars when he 
 drove her back. But there was something still better 
 than that, sir." 
 
 " Indeed ! what was that?" 
 
 "Why, sir, as we came back, we passed a little 
 wood, and she stopped the carriage, and stepped out 
 with the rest of the party, and me and Tom Higgins, 
 and went into the wood. It was towards sunset and 
 the wood was beautiful. She walked about a little, 
 and picked up flowers, and sung, like to herself, as 
 if it were pleasant. By and by she sat down upon 
 a rock and began to sing aloud. But before she 
 stopped, a little bird came and sat upon the bough
 
 170 Lotus-Eating 
 
 close by us. I saw it, sir, with my own eyes, the 
 whole of it and when Jenny Lind had done, he began 
 to sing and shout away like she did. While he was 
 singing she looked delighted, and when he stopped 
 she sang again, and oh ! it was beautiful, sir. But 
 the little bird wouldn't give it up, and he sang again, 
 but not until she had done. Then Jenny Lind sang 
 as well as ever she could. Her voice seemed to fill 
 the woods all up with music, and when it was over, 
 the little bird was still a while, but tried it again in 
 a few moments. He couldn't do it, sir. He sang 
 very bad, and then the foreign gentlemen with Jenny 
 Lind laughed, and they all came back to the 
 carriage." 
 
 We had left the plank-road and were approaching 
 the hotel at the Falls through fine maple woods. It 
 was pleasant to hear the boy's story. Was it a poor 
 prelude to Trenton ? I had not dreamed that the 
 romance of the Poet's Lute and the Nightingale 
 should be native to Oneida county no less than to 
 Greece, and that its poet should be my callow 
 charioteer, who may one day be President. When 
 I sat at my window afterward and in the fading 
 twilight looked over the maple woods, and heard the 
 murmur of Trenton Falls, I wondered if the bird 
 ever reached its nest, or was found dead in the woods 
 without a gun-shot wound. 
 
 There is no better hotel than that at Trenton. It 
 is spacious, and clean, and comfortable, and the table 
 justifies its fame. Moreover, it is painted dark and 
 not white, and stands very modestly on the edge of 
 the woods that overhang the ravine of the Falls. 
 Modestly, although it is high, for the glaring, white 
 caravanseries, our summer palaces of pleasure, wear 
 the flaunting aspect of being no better than they 
 should be. Happy were we, were they always as 
 good ! 
 
 Poets' fancies only should image the Falls, they 
 are so rich and rare a combination of quiet pictur- 
 esqueness of beauty, and a sense of resistless force
 
 Trenton 
 
 171 
 
 in the rushing waters. You descend from a lofty 
 wood into a long, rocky chasm, which the Germans 
 would call a Grund, for it is not a valley. It is 
 walled and pavemented with smooth rocks, and the 
 thronging forest fringes the summit of the wall. 
 
 
 .//' 
 
 Over this smooth pavement 
 
 slips the river, in those 
 
 long, swift, still, foamless 
 
 bounds, which vividly figure "111-" 
 
 the appalling movement of a titanic '^JiKI 
 
 serpent. The chasm almost closes 
 
 up the river, and you see a foamy 
 
 cascade above. Then, as if the best 
 
 beauty and mystery were beyond, 
 
 you creep along a narrow ledge in the rockside of the 
 
 throat of the gorge, the water whirling and bubbling 
 
 beneath, and reach the first large Fall. A slight 
 
 spray enfolds you as a baptism in the spirit of the 
 
 place. A broad ledge of the rock here offers firm 
 
 and sufficient foothold while you gaze at the Falls.
 
 172 Lotus-Eating 
 
 Before you is a level parapet of rock, and the river, 
 after sliding very shallowly over the broad bed above, 
 concentrates mainly at one point for a fall, and 
 plunges in a solid amber sheet. 
 
 Close by the side of this you climb, and pass along 
 the base of the overhanging mountain, and stooping 
 under the foot of an imperial cliff, stand before the 
 great Fall, which has two plunges, a long one above, 
 from which the river sheers obliquely over a polished 
 floor of rock, and again plunges. The river bends 
 here, and a high, square, regular bank projects from 
 the cliff, smooth as a garden terrace, and perpetually 
 veiled and softened by the spray. It is one of the 
 most beautiful and boldest points in the long ravine, 
 and when the late light of afternoon falls soft upon 
 it, there is a strange contrast in your feelings as 
 visions of Boccaccio's garden mingle with the wild- 
 ness of American woods. 
 
 Upon the cliff above this great Fall is a little house 
 where the weary may rest, and those who find 
 "water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink," 
 may pledge the spirit of Trenton, in that kind, if not 
 that quality, of nectar which Boccaccio himself would 
 have desired. Here, under the densely-foliaged trees 
 sit musing above the Fall, and watch the broad stream 
 concentrate as it nears the verge ; and then from the 
 deep dark indigo of the pool collected there, see it 
 pour itself away, a fall of brilliant amber, into the 
 light streaming warmly from the west up the ravine. 
 As you, musing, gaze, your own fancy will flow from 
 the sombreness of serious thought, and pour itself 
 away in a spray of romance and reverie, far through 
 the golden gloom of the past and the bright-hued 
 hope of the future that streams toward you like the 
 light from the west. 
 
 You will recall the European falls of fame; you 
 will hear once more the glad Velino "cleave the 
 wave-worn precipice," and mark the dark eyes of 
 Italian girls, who steal to your side as you listen, 
 and say, as if the dark eyes whispered it, "un bai-
 
 Trenton 173 
 
 occho, Signore." You will see the Sibylline temple, 
 high-crowning the cliff at Tivoli, and once more, over 
 the sea-surface, but silent and motionless, of the 
 Campagna, your eye will rest upon St. Peter's dome, 
 rising mountain-like from the plain, and Beatrice 
 d'Este will glide a pallid phantom, along the marble- 
 floored, cypress-gloomed terraces of the villa. The 
 thousand Alpine cascades of Switzerland will flicker 
 through your memory, slight avalanches of snow- 
 dust, shimmering into rainbow-mist, and the Rhine, 
 beneath your back window in the hotel at Schaff- 
 hausen, will plunge once more over its little rocky 
 barrier, sending its murmur far into the haunted 
 depths of the Black Forest beside you. Or, farther 
 and fainter still, the rapids of the Nile and the rills 
 of Lebanon will rush and gurgle, as you did not 
 dream to hear them again, nor will your fancy rest 
 until it sinks in the oriental languor of the banks of 
 Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus. 
 
 Wild is the witchery of water, and the spell en- 
 chanted, which its ceaseless flowing weaves. Such 
 pictures were in that amber Fall. Such echoes 
 answered those silver cadences. Such names, and 
 places, and memories are now the synonyms of 
 Trenton. But for you and for others it may sing 
 different songs. An organ of many stops, it dis- 
 courses sweet music in all. Not like the airy harpsi- 
 chord of the fair Alice, dead centuries ago, tuned 
 to a single strain, but like the heart of the young 
 Phoebe, gushing gaily or gravely, according as the 
 sun or shadow overswept it. 
 
 There is something especially pleasant in the tran- 
 quil, family-like character of the house at Trenton. 
 It is by far the best hostelry of the kind that I have 
 encountered in my summer wandering; and, lying 
 away from any town or railroad, the traveller seems 
 to have stepped back into the days when travelling 
 was an event and not a habit, and when the necessity 
 of moderation in speed imposed a corresponding 
 leisure in enjoyment. Doubtless the railroad makes
 
 174 Lotus-Eating 
 
 us move mentally, as well as physically, with more 
 rapidity. The eye sees more in life, but does the 
 heart feel more, is experience really richer? Haste 
 breeds indigestion, but happiness lies, first of all, in 
 health. 
 
 The man who in the quiet round of life has made 
 friends with every object of the landscape he knows, 
 who sees its changes, and sympathizes with them, 
 and who has learned from a single tree what men 
 have exhausted all libraries and societies without 
 finding he is of better, because of profounder, ex- 
 perience than his friend who has raced over half the 
 world in a twelve-month, and whose memory is only 
 a kaleidoscope. A mile horizontally on the surface 
 of the earth does not carry you one inch toward its 
 centre, and yet it is in the centre that the gold mines 
 are. A man who truly knows Shakespeare, only, is 
 the master of a thousand who have squeezed the cir- 
 culating libraries dry. 
 
 Do not fail to see Trenton. It is various-voiced. 
 It is the playing of lutes on the moonlight lawn as 
 Stoddard delicately sings. It is well to listen for it 
 in the pauses of the steam-shriek of our career. For 
 if once your fancy hears its murmur, you will be as 
 the boatman who catches through the roar of the 
 Rhine, the song of the Lorelei, and you too will be 
 won to delicious repose. 
 
 " But thou, who didst appear so fair 
 
 To fond imagination, 
 Dost rival in the light of day, 
 
 Her delicate creation : 
 Meek loveliness is round thee spread, 
 
 A softness still and holy : 
 The grace of forest charms decayed, 
 
 And pastoral melancholy. 
 
 The vapours linger round the height ; 
 
 They meet and soon must vanish : 
 One hour is theirs, nor more is mine, 
 
 Sad thought, which I would banish,
 
 Niagara 175 
 
 But that I know, where'er I go, 
 
 Thy genuine image, Yarrow, 
 Will dwell with me, to heighten joy, 
 
 And cheer my mind in sorrow." 
 
 NIAGARA 
 
 August. 
 
 THE Rapids before Niagara are not of water only. 
 The Cataract is the centre of a vortex of travel a 
 maelstrom which you scarcely suspect until you are 
 swimming round in its intense swiftness, and feel 
 that you are drawn nearer and closer, every moment, 
 to an awful and unimagined Presence. 
 
 The summer-bird of a traveller who skims up the 
 Hudson dippingly, wending Niagara-ward, if he has 
 never seen the Falls, and has heard of them all his 
 life, loiters along his way, quite unimpressed by the 
 anticipation of his bourne, whose image has lost 
 much of its grandeur in his mind by the household 
 familiarity of the name. It is somewhat so with 
 Switzerland after a residence in Europe. You 
 approach half languidly, more than half suspicious 
 that the fixed stare of the world has melted the 
 glaciers, and the snow sifted along inaccessible, rocky 
 crevices, or at least has sadly stained them, and that 
 even the Alps have been lionized into littleness. But 
 some choice evening, as if the earth had suddenly 
 bared her bosom to the glowing kiss of the dying 
 day, you behold from Berne or Zurich the austere 
 purity of the snow-Alps, incredibly lofty, majestic 
 and awful, and the worship of remembrance is for 
 ever after, living and profound. 
 
 So I came sauntering along through Western New 
 York, (sauntering by steam ! and yet the mind may 
 loiter, may remain fast and firm behind, although 
 the body flies,) and turned aside with my presidential
 
 176 Lotus-Eating 
 
 Antinous at Trenton, nor once paused to listen 
 through its graceful whisper for the regal voice 
 beyond. In the ravine of Trenton you meet some 
 chance friend returning from the great cataract, and 
 sit with him upon the softest rock, where you can 
 well watch the beautiful amber-fall the while, and 
 curiously compare, at the last moment, your own 
 fancies, with the daguerrean exactness of his fresh 
 impression. But, after all, it is only curiously. You 
 dream and wonder vaguely, and comparisons are 
 constantly baffled by the syren singing of the falling 
 waters which will have no divided love. Allured by 
 the beauty in whose lap you lie, your friend's present 
 praises are much sincerer and more intelligible than 
 his remembered raptures. 
 
 Such a friend I met and we discussed Niagara. 
 But as he told his story, I was placing the stairs here, 
 and towers there, about the rocks ; and the great 
 sheet and the little sheet were before us; and Goat 
 Island smiled greenly in the bold, beautiful bank, 
 which, like a verdured terrace, hung toward the 
 stream from an enchanted palace in the pines ; and 
 when the tale was told, I had a very pleasant, if 
 somewhat incongruous, fancy of Niagara, as a kind 
 of sublimed Trenton. 
 
 And still, with memory clinging to the amber 
 skirts of Trenton, I rushed along on a day that veiled 
 the outline of the landscape with scudding gusts of 
 mist, through the most classical of all American 
 regions through Rome, and Manlius, and Syracuse, 
 and Camillus, and Marcellus ; ruthlessly on, through 
 Waterloo, Geneva, East Vienna, Rochester, Cold 
 Water, Chili, (natural neighbours !) Byron, Attica, 
 and Darien ; then drew breath enough to wonder, 
 that with such wealth of names inherited from the 
 Indians, we so tenaciously cling to the glories of old 
 fames to cover the nakedness of our newness, and 
 saw, at the same moment that we had left classi- 
 cality, that we had overtaken a name peculiar to our 
 continent, and had arrived at Buffalo !
 
 Niagara 177 
 
 Why not Bison, Ox, or Wild Horse? And this, 
 too, with the waves breaking along the shore of Lake 
 Ontario, a majestic and melodious Indian name, 
 hitherto unappropriated to a city. No wonder that 
 the Buffalo sky thundered and lightened all night, 
 from sheer vexation at its loss. I awoke at midnight 
 to the music of a serenade that was vainly striving 
 to soothe the tempest, and later, the angry clash of 
 fire-bells stormed against the storm. But it was not 
 comforted or subdued. Still, in the lull of the music, 
 and the pauses of the bells, I heard it muttering and 
 moaning as it glared: "I, that am Buffalo, might 
 have been Ontario." 
 
 But the storm wept itself away, and I awoke at 
 morning to find myself upon the verge of the interest 
 and excitement which immediately precedes all great 
 events. During the previous day I had smiled rather 
 loftily at the idea of excitement in approaching 
 Niagara ; but when my luggage was checked, and 
 I bought a ticket for "Niagara Falls," and stepping 
 into the cars, knew that I should not alight until I 
 heard the roar and saw the spray of the cataract; 
 then the sense of its grandeur, of its unique sublimity, 
 which I perfectly knew, though I had never seen, 
 came down upon me, and smote me suddenly with 
 awe as when a man who has loitered idly to St. 
 Peter's, grasps the leathern curtain to push it aside, 
 that he may behold the magnificence whose remem- 
 bered lustre shall illuminate every year of his life. 
 
 It is remarkable that the anti-romance of a rail- 
 road is a mere prejudice. The straight lines piercing 
 the rounding landscape are essentially poetic, and 
 the fervid desire of sight and possession which fires 
 the mind upon approaching beloved or famous places 
 and persons, takes adequate form in the steam-speed 
 of a train which, straight as thought and swift as 
 hope, cleaves the country to the single point. In 
 the wild woods we do not insist upon the prosaic 
 character of the railroad, because we wish to hurry 
 through; and no one, I believe, not even the poets, 
 
 N
 
 178 Lotus-Eating 
 
 sigh for the good old times of staging from Albany 
 to Niagara. 
 
 But, in Europe, in lands of traditional romance, it 
 appears at first very differently. A railroad to Venice ! 
 "Heaven forefend ! " said I, as I lumbered easily out 
 of Florence in a vettura, comfortably accomplishing 
 its thirty miles a day. " Heaven forefend ! " said I 
 still, as we climbed the Apennines, and descending, 
 rolled into the quaint, arcaded Bologna, and listened 
 beneath Raphael's St. Cecilia, to hear if no spirit of 
 a sound trembled from the harp-strings. " Heaven 
 forefend ! " said I still, as we jogged along the Lom- 
 bard post-roads, green and golden, and glittering 
 with the swaying of vines in the languid wind, hang- 
 ing from grave, stiff old poplars, like beautiful, win- 
 ning, bewildering arms of loveliness, caressing whole 
 perspectives of solemn quaker papas, and festooning 
 the road as if the summer were a festival of Bacchus, 
 and a jolly rout of bacchanals had but now reeled 
 along to the vintage. "Heaven forefend! " said I, 
 as we tramped through the grassy streets of Ferrara, 
 mouthing uncertain verses from Tasso, and utterly 
 incredulous of Byron's fable of songless gondoliers 
 beyond : and still, " Heaven forefend ! " said I, as by 
 the many-domed cathedral of St. Antony, we mingled 
 in the evening Corso, and straining our eyes for the 
 University of Padua, alighted at the hotel, thirty or 
 forty miles from Venice. But when, the next morn- 
 ing, I opened my eyes, and, eschewing the cud of 
 dreams, said to myself, "You are thirty miles from 
 Venice," I sprang up like one whose marriage-morn 
 has dawned, and cried aloud, "Thank God, there is 
 a railroad to Venice ! " 
 
 Nor could the speed of that railroad more than 
 figure the eagerness of my desire, as it swept us 
 through the vineyards. Nor did the dream of Venice 
 fade, but deepen rather, for the strange contrast of 
 that wild speed, and its eternal, romantic rest. 
 
 I had the same eagerness in stepping upon the cars 
 at Buffalo. Within a certain circumference every-
 
 Niagara 1 79 
 
 body is Niagarized, and flies in a frenzy to the centre 
 as filings to the magnet. Before the train stopped, 
 and while I fancied that we were slackening speed for 
 a way-station I, listening the while to the pleasant 
 music of words, that weaned my hearing from any 
 roar of waters a crowd of men leaped from the cars, 
 and ran like thieves, lovers, soldiers, or what you 
 will, to the "Cataract," as the conductor said. I 
 looked upon them at once as a select party of poets, 
 overwhelmed by the enthusiastic desire to see the 
 Falls. It was an error: they were "knowing ones," 
 intent upon the first choice of rooms at the " Cataract 
 House." I followed them, and found a queue, as at 
 the box-office of the opera in Paris a long train of 
 travellers waiting to enter their names. Not one 
 could have a room yet, (it was ten o'clock,) but at 
 half-past two everybody was going away, and then 
 everybody could be accommodated. 
 
 And meanwhile? 
 
 Meanwhile, Niagara. 
 
 Disappointment in Niagara seems to be affected, 
 or childish. Your fancies may be very different, but 
 the regal reality sweeps them away like weeds and 
 dreams. You may have nourished some impossible 
 idea of one ocean pouring itself over a precipice into 
 another. But it was a wild whim of inexperience, 
 and is in a moment forgotten. If, standing upon the 
 bridge as you cross to Goat Island, you can watch 
 the wild sweep and swirl of the waters around the 
 wooded point above, dashing, swelling, and raging, 
 but awful from the inevitable and resistless rush, and 
 not feel that your fancy of a sea is paled by the chaos 
 of wild water that tumbles toward you, then you are 
 a child, and the forms of your thought are not precise 
 enough for the profoundest satisfaction in great 
 natural spectacles. 
 
 Over that bridge how slowly you will walk, and 
 how silently, gazing in awe at the tempestuous sweep 
 of the rapids, and glancing with wonder at the faint 
 cloud of spray over the American Fall. As the sense 
 
 N 2
 
 180 Lotus-Eating 
 
 of grandeur and beauty subdues your mind, you will 
 still move quietly onward, pausing a moment, leaning 
 a moment on the railing, closing your eyes to hear 
 only Niagara, and ever, as a child says its prayers in 
 a time of danger, slowly, and with strange slowness, 
 repeating to yourself, " Niagara ! Niagara ! " 
 
 For although you have not yet seen the Cataract, 
 you feel that nothing else can be the crisis of this 
 excitement. Were you suddenly placed blindfolded 
 where you stand, and your eyes were unbandaged, 
 and you were asked, "What shall be the result of all 
 this?" the answer would accompany the question, 
 "Niagara ! " 
 
 Yet marvellous calmness still waits upon intense 
 feeling. "It was odd," wrote Sterling to a friend, 
 "to be curiously studying the figures on the doctor's 
 waistcoat, while my life, as I thought, was bleed- 
 ing from my lips." We must still sport with our 
 emotions. Some philosopher will die, his last breath 
 sparkling from his lips in a pun. Some fair and 
 fated Lady Jane Grey will span her slight neck with 
 her delicate fingers, and smile to the headsman that 
 his task is easy. And we, with kindred feeling, turn 
 aside into the shop of Indian curiosities and play 
 with Niagara, treating it as a jester, as a Bayadere, 
 to await our pleasure. 
 
 Then, through the woods on Goat Island solemn 
 and stately woods how slowly you will walk, again, 
 and how silently ! Ten years ago, your friend carved 
 his name upon some tree there, and Niagara must 
 now wait until he finds it, swollen and shapeless with 
 time. You saunter on. It is not a sunny day. It 
 is cloudy, but the light is moist and rich, and when 
 you emerge upon the quiet green path that skirts the 
 English Rapids, the sense of life in the waters the 
 water as a symbol of life and human passion fills 
 your mind. Certainly no other water in the world is 
 watched with such anxiety, with such sympathy. 
 The helplessness of its frenzied sweep saddens your 
 heart. It is dark, fateful, foreboding. At times, as
 
 Niagara 
 
 181 
 
 if a wild despair had seized it and rent it, it seethes, 
 and struggles, and dashes foam-like into the air. Not 
 with kindred passion do you regard it, but sadly, 
 with folded hands of resignation, as you watch the 
 death struggles of a hero. It sweeps away as you 
 look, dark, and cold, and curling, and the seething 
 you saw, before your thought is shaped, is an eddy 
 of foam in the Niagara River below. 
 
 As yet you have not seen the Fall. You are com- 
 ing with its waters, and are at its level. But groups 
 
 of persons, sitting upon yonder point, which we see 
 through the trees, are looking at the Cataract. We 
 do not pause for them ; we run now, down the path, 
 along the bridges, into the Tower, and lean far over 
 where the spray cools our faces. The living water of 
 the rapids moves to its fall, as if torpid with terror ; 
 and the river that we saw, in one vast volume now 
 pours over the parapet, and makes Niagara. It is 
 not all stricken into foam as it falls, but the densest 
 mass is smooth, and almost of livid green. 
 
 Yet, even as it plunges, see how curls of spray 
 exude from the very substance of the mass, airy,
 
 182 Lotus-Eating 
 
 sparkling and wreathing into mist emblems of the 
 water's resurrection into summer clouds. Looking 
 over into the abyss, we behold nothing below, we 
 hear only a slow, constant thunder; and, bewildered 
 in the mist, dream that the Cataract has cloven the 
 earth to its centre, and that, pouring its waters into 
 the fervent inner heat, they hiss into spray, and 
 overhang the fated Fall, the sweat of its agony. 
 
 NIAGARA, AGAIN 
 
 August. 
 
 " ARETHUSA arose 
 
 From her couch of snows 
 In the Acroceraunian Mountains 
 
 From cloud and from crag 
 
 With many a jag, . 
 Shepherding her bright fountains, 
 
 She leapt down the rocks, 
 
 With her rainbow locks 
 Streaming among the streams : 
 
 Her steps paved with green 
 
 The downward ravine, 
 Which slopes to the Western gleams : 
 
 And gliding and springing, 
 
 She went ever singing 
 In murmurs as soft as sleep : 
 
 The earth seemed to love her, 
 
 And heaven smiled above her, 
 As she lingered toward the deep." 
 
 SHELLEY would wonder, could he know that these 
 lines of his were quoted at Niagara. But Niagara 
 is no less beautiful than sublime, although I do not 
 remember to have heard much of its beauty. It even 
 suggests the personal feeling implied in such verses, 
 and which, at a distance, seems utterly incompatible 
 with the grandeur of the spot. 
 
 Nature has her partialities for places as well as
 
 Niagara, again 183 
 
 persons, and as she thrones the Goethean or Web- 
 sterian intellect upon "the front of Jove himself," 
 so she is quite sure to adorn the feet of her snowy 
 Alps with the lustrous green of vineyards, the stately 
 shade of chestnuts, or the undulating- sweep of lawn- 
 like pastures. Here at Niagara she enamels the 
 cliffs with delicate verdure, and the luminous gloom 
 of the wood upon Goat Island invites to meditation 
 with cathedral solemnity. 
 
 Nothing struck me more than the ease of access to 
 the very verge of the Cataract. Upon the narrow 
 point between the large and small American falls 
 you may sit upon the soft bank on a tranquil after- 
 noon, dabbling your feet in the swiftly slipping water, 
 reading the most dreamy of romances, and soothed 
 by the huge roar, as if you were the vicegerent of 
 the prophet, and the flow of the cool, smooth river 
 but the constant caressing of troops of slaves, and 
 the roar of the Cataract but hushed voices singing 
 their lord to sleep. 
 
 But if in your reading you pause, or if the low 
 ripple of talk subsides, in which your soul was laved, 
 as your frame in the gurgling freshness of wood- 
 streams, and your eyes are left charmed upon the 
 current or if your dream dissolves and you behold 
 the water, its own fascination is not less than that 
 of the romance. It flows so tranquilly, is so un- 
 impatient of the mighty plunge, that it woos and woos 
 you to lay your head upon its breast and slide into 
 dreamless sleep. 
 
 "Darkling, I listen ; and, for many a time, 
 
 I have been half in love with easeful Death 
 Called him soft names in many a mused rhyme, 
 
 To take into the air my quiet breath : 
 Now more than ever seems it rich to die, 
 To cease upon the midnight with no pain, 
 While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad 
 
 In such an ecstasy ! 
 
 Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain 
 To thy high requiem become a sod." 
 
 So sang Keats to the nightingale which sang to
 
 184 Lotus-Eating 
 
 him, and whoever was really so enamoured could ill 
 resist the seduction of the stream at the Falls. For 
 in its might subsides all fear. It is a force so resist- 
 less, that it would need only a slight step, the merest 
 overture of your will. If Niagara were in France, 
 I am confident the Frenchmen would make suicide 
 pic-nics to the Cataract. Unhappy lovers would take 
 express trains, and their "quietus make " where their 
 dirge would be endless. The French, of course, 
 would add the melodramatic character of such an 
 ending to its intrinsic charms, and even John Bull 
 might forego the satisfaction of a leap from the Duke 
 of York's column for a Niagaran annihilation. 
 
 As you sit, chatting and wondering, upon the bench 
 at this point, you are sure to hear the sad romance 
 of two years since. A young man caught up a child 
 and swung it to and fro over the water only a few 
 feet from the precipice, laughing gaily and feign- 
 ing fright, when suddenly the child sprang from his 
 arms into the rapid. He stepped in instantly, for the 
 water near the shore is not more than two feet deep, 
 and caught her again in his arms. But the treach- 
 erous stones at the bottom were so slippery with the 
 constant action of the water, that, although he could 
 resist the force of the stream, he could not maintain 
 his foothold, and was swept with the child in his 
 arms, and his betrothed mistress watching him from 
 the bank, directly over the fall. The man who told 
 me the story was a musician and had still a low tone 
 of horror in his voice ; for he said that, as the young 
 man came to the Point, he told him there was to 
 be a dance that evening and that he must have his 
 music ready. They had scarcely parted, his words 
 were yet ringing in his ears, when he heard a curd- 
 ling shriek of terror, and knew that "somebody had 
 gone over the Falls." 
 
 Niagara has but one interest, and that absorbs all 
 attention. The country around is entirely level, and 
 covered with woods and grain fields. It is very 
 thinly populated ; civilization seems to have made
 
 Niagara, again 185 
 
 small inroad upon the primeval grandeur of the spot. 
 Standing upon the western end of Goat Island and 
 looking up the stream the wooded banks stare back 
 upon you as in a savage silence of folded arms and 
 scornful eyes. They are not fair woods, but dark 
 
 forests. They smite you only with a sense of magnifi- 
 cent space, as I fancy the impression of Rocky Moun- 
 tain scenery, but which is akin to that of chaos. 
 
 From the spot where stood the young English 
 hermit's cottage, upon Goat Island, you front the 
 Canada shore. But the name dies along your mind 
 almost without echo, even as your voice might call
 
 1 86 Lotus-Eating 
 
 into those dark forests, but melt from them no human 
 response. Canada ! The name is a mist in the 
 mind. Slowly and vaguely a few remembrances 
 shape themselves. Shadowy and terrible traditions 
 of hopeless and heartless Indian wars, which tapped 
 the choicest veins of French and English blood, but 
 gave no glory in return, half tell themselves in the 
 mind, like the croning of a beldame in the chimney 
 corner. 
 
 Slowly from the red mist of that vague remembrance 
 rise the names of Wolfe and Montgomery and Mont- 
 calm, heroes where heroism little availed, for the 
 Indian element mingled in the story, and where the 
 Indian is, there nobility and chivalry are not. You 
 look across the rapids upon a country which has made 
 no mark in history ; where few men love to live, ex- 
 cept those who have little choice ; where the towns are 
 stagnant and few ; upon a country whose son no man 
 is proud to be, and the barrenness of the impression 
 somewhat colours your feelings of Niagara, for the 
 American shore is wild too, although the zealous 
 activity of the little village at the Falls, and the white 
 neatness of Lewiston, below, relieve the sense of 
 desolation upon the distant banks. 
 
 The beauty of Niagara is in its immediate neigh- 
 bourhood. It is upon Goat Island upon the cliffs 
 over which hangs the greenest verdure in the trees 
 that lean out and against the Rapids, as if the forest 
 were enamoured of the waters, and which overhang 
 and dip, suffering their youngest and softest leaves 
 to thrill in the trembling frenzy of the touch of 
 Niagara. It is in the vivid contrast of the repose 
 of lofty trees and the whirl of a living river and in 
 the contrast, more singular and subtle, of twinkling, 
 shimmering leaves, and the same magnificent mad- 
 ness. It is in the profuse and splendid play of 
 colours in and around the Cataract, and in the 
 thousand evanescent fancies which wreathe its image 
 in the mind as the sparkling vapour floats, a rainbow, 
 around the reality. It is in the flowers that grow
 
 Niagara, again 
 
 187 
 
 quietly along the edges of the precipices, to the 
 slightest of which one drop of the clouds of spray 
 that curl from the seething abyss is the sufficient 
 elixir of a long and lovely life. 
 
 Yet for we must look the Alpine comparison 
 
 which is sug- 
 gested to 
 every one 
 
 who knows Switzerland, 
 fairly in the face the Alps 
 are more terrible than \ 
 Niagara. The movement l > - 
 and roar of the Cataract, and the 
 facility of approach to the very 
 plunge, relieve the crushing sense 'u'i 1 
 of awfulness which the silent, inaccessible, deadly 
 solitudes of the high Alps inspire. The war of an 
 avalanche heard in those solemn heights, because 
 beginning often and ending beyond the point that 
 human feet may ever tread, is a sound of dread and 
 awe like that of the mysterious movement of another 
 world, heard through the silence of our own. 
 
 Besides, where trees grow, there human sympathy 
 lingers. Doubtless it is the supreme beauty of the 
 edges of Niagara, which often causes travellers to 
 fancy that they are disappointed, as if in Semiramis
 
 1 88 Lotus-Eating 
 
 they should see more of the woman than of the queen. 
 But, climbing the Alps, you leave trees below. They 
 shrink and retire. They lose their bloom and beauty. 
 They decline from tenderness into toughness ; from 
 delicate, shifting hues into sombre evergreen darker 
 and more solemn, until they are almost black, until 
 they are dwarfed and scant and wretched, and are 
 finally seen no more. With the trees, you leave the 
 sights and sounds and sentiments of life. The Alpine 
 peaks are the ragged edges of creation, half blent 
 with chaos. Upon them, inaccessible for ever, in 
 the midst of the endless murmur of the world, ante- 
 mundane silence lies stranded, like the corse of an 
 antediluvian upon a solitary rock-point in the sea. 
 Painfully climbing toward those heights you may 
 feel, with the fascination of wonder and awe, that 
 you look, as the Chinese say, behind the beginning. 
 But if the Alps are thus death, Niagara is life ; 
 and you know which is the more terrible. It is a 
 life, however, which you are to observe in many 
 ways from below, from above, from the sides, from 
 the suspension bridge, and, finally, you must steam 
 up to its very front, and then climb down behind it. 
 These two latter excursions are by no means to be 
 omitted. The little steamer leaves the shore by the 
 suspension bridge, and, gliding with effort into the 
 current of the river, you remember that there is the 
 Cataract before and the whirlpool behind, and sheer 
 rocky precipices on each side. But there is only gay 
 gossip and pleasant wonder all around you, the 
 morning is mild, and the Falls flash like a plunge 
 of white flame. Slowly, slowly, tugs the little boat 
 against the stream. She hugs the shore, rocky- 
 hearted, stiff, straight, prim old puritan of a shore 
 that it is, although it is wreathed and crowned with 
 graceful foliage. 
 
 Presently comes a puff of cool spray. Is it a 
 threat, a kiss, or a warning from our terrible bourne? 
 The fussy little captain exhorts everybody to wrap 
 in a water-proof cloak and cap; we shall else be
 
 Niagara, again 189 
 
 soaked through and through, as we were never 
 soaked by shower before. But some of us, beautiful 
 daughters of a mother famously fair, love our looks, 
 and would fain enjoy everything without making 
 ourselves less lovely. 
 
 "Pooh, pooh!" insists our captain, "I wouldn't 
 give three cents for them 'ere bunnets," (our choice 
 travelling hats !) "if they once get wet." 
 
 So we consent to cloaks, but we positively decline 
 India-rubber caps, especially after an advance to six 
 cents by a gallant friend upon the captain's bid for 
 our "bunnets." The men must shift for themselves. 
 Here we are in the roar and the rush and the spray. 
 Whew ! it drives, it sweeps, and the steady thunder 
 of the Cataract booms, cramming the air with sound. 
 Only a few of us hold the upper deck. Nor are we, 
 who have no mantles, all unprotected, for shawls 
 wont to protect flowers from the summer wind, now 
 shield us from the spray of Niagara. 
 
 We sweep along upon our leaf, which quivers and 
 skims the foam sweep straight into the blinding 
 white, thick, suffocating mist of the Cataract, strain 
 our eyes, as we gasp, for the curve of the Fall, for 
 the parapet above, and in a sudden break of the 
 cloud, through which breathes cold the very air of 
 the rush of waters, we catch a glorious glimpse of 
 a calm ocean pouring white and resistless from the 
 blue sky above into the white clouds below, and 
 behold the very image of that Mind's process whose 
 might 
 
 " Moves on 
 
 His undisturbed affairs." 
 
 I glance backward upon the deck, which is raked 
 by the scudding gusts of spray, and see a line of wet 
 men crouching together, like a group of Esquimaux, 
 with their faces upturned toward the Fall. They sit 
 motionless, and staring, and appalled, like a troop in 
 Dante's "Inferno." But straight before us good 
 God ! pilot, close under the bow there, looming 
 through the mist ! Are you blind? are you mad? or
 
 190 Lotus-Eating 
 
 does the Cataract mock our feeble power, and will 
 claim its victims? A black rock, ambushed in the 
 surge and spray, lowers before us. We are driving 
 straight upon it we all see it, but we do not speak. 
 We fancy that the boat will not obey that the due 
 fate shall reward this terrific trifling. Straight before 
 us, a boat's length away, and lo ! swerving with the 
 current around the rock, on and farther, with felici- 
 tous daring, the little Maid of the Mist dances up to 
 the very foot of the Falls, wrapping herself saucily 
 in the rainbow robe of its own mist. There we 
 tremble, in perfect security, mocking with our little 
 Maid the might of Niagara. For man is the 
 magician, as he plants his foot upon the neck of 
 mountains, and passes the awful Alps, safely as the 
 Israelites through the divided sea, so he dips his hand 
 into Niagara, and gathering a few drops from its 
 waters, educes a force from Niagara itself, by which 
 he confronts and defies it. The very water which as 
 steam was moving us to the Cataract, had plunged 
 over it as spray a few hours before. 
 
 Or go, some bright morning down the Biddle 
 staircase, and creeping along under the cliff, change 
 your dress at the little house by the separate sheet 
 of the American Fall. The change made, we shall 
 reappear like exhausted firemen, or Swampscot 
 fishermen. Some of us will not insist upon our 
 "bunnets" but will lay them aside and join the 
 dilapidated firemen and fishermen outside the house, 
 as Bloomerized Undines, mermaids, or naiads. A 
 few descending steps of rock, and we have reached 
 the perpendicular wooden staircase that leads under 
 the Fall. Do not stop do not pause to look 
 affrighted down into that whirring cauldron of cold 
 mist, where the winds dart, blinding, in arrowy 
 gusts. Now we see the platform across the bottom 
 now a cloud of mist blots it out. And it roars so ! 
 
 Come, Fishermen, Mermaids, Naiads, Firemen 
 and Undine, down ! down ! Cling to the railing ! 
 Lean on me ! Thou gossamer blossom which the
 
 Niagara, again 191 
 
 softest summer zephyr would thrill, whither will 
 these mad gales beneath the Cataract whirl thee ! 
 We are here upon the narrow platform ; it is railed 
 upon each side, and the drops dash like sleet, like 
 acute hail, against our faces. The swift sweep of 
 the water across the floor would slide us also into the 
 yawning gulf beyond, but clinging with our hands, 
 we move securely as in calm airs. And now look up, 
 for you stand directly beneath the arching water, 
 directly under the fall. The rock is hollowed, and 
 the round pebbles on the ground rush and rattle with 
 the sliding water as on the sea-beach. You leave 
 the platform, you climb between two rocks, and slid- 
 ing along a staging, unstable almost as the water, 
 yet quite firm enough, you stand directly upon the 
 rocks, and Niagara plunges and tumbles above you 
 and around you. 
 
 There at sunset, and only there, you may see three 
 circular rainbows, one within another. For Niagara 
 has unimagined boons for her lovers rewards of 
 beauty so profound that she enjoins silence as the 
 proof of fidelity. 
 
 Returning, there is an overhanging shelf of rock, 
 and there, except that it is cold and wet, you sit 
 secluded from the spray. It is a lonely cave, cur- 
 tained from the sun by the Cataract, for ever. And 
 if still your daring is untamed, you may climb over 
 slippery rocks in the blinding mist and the deafening 
 roar, and feel yourself as far under the Great 
 American Fall as human foot may venture. 
 
 I must stop. If you have been at Niagara, what 
 I have written may recall it, but can hardly paint, 
 except to remembrance, the austere grandeur and 
 dreamy beauties which are its characteristics. Your 
 few days there are days upon the river bank, walk- 
 ing and wondering. Your frail fancies of it are 
 swallowed up as they rise, like chance flowers flung 
 upon its current. Many a man to whom Niagara 
 has been a hope, and an inspiration, and who has 
 stood before its majesty awe-stricken and hushed,
 
 192 Lotus-Eating 
 
 secretly wonders that his words describing it are not 
 pictures and poems. But any great natural object 
 a cataract, an Alp, a storm at sea are seed too vast 
 for any sudden flowering. They lie in experience 
 moulding life. At length the pure peaks of noble 
 aims and the broad flow of a generous manhood 
 betray that in some happy hour of youth you have 
 seen the Alps and Niagara. 
 
 SARATOGA 
 
 August. 
 " Wilt thou be a nun, Sophie? 
 
 Nothing but a nun ? 
 Is it not a better thing 
 With thy friends to laugh and sing ? 
 To be loved and sought ? 
 
 To be wooed and won ? 
 Dost thou love the shadow, Sophie, 
 Better than the sun ? " 
 
 ROMANCE is the necessary association of watering- 
 places, because they are the haunts of youth and 
 beauty seeking pleasure. When on some opaline 
 May day you drive out from Naples to Baiae, the 
 Saratoga of old Rome, and in the golden light of 
 the waning afternoon drink Falernian while you look 
 upon the vineyards where it ripened for Horace, your 
 fancy is thronged with the images of Romance, and 
 you could listen to catch some echo of a long silent 
 love-song, lingering in the air. 
 
 It is a kind of sentimentality inseparable from the 
 spot a pensive reverie into which few men are loth 
 to fall ; for its atmosphere is " the light that never was 
 on sea or land." Yet romance, like a ghost, eludes 
 touching. It is always where you were, not where 
 you are. The interview or the conversation was 
 prose at the time, but it is poetry in memory.
 
 Saratoga 193 
 
 Thus persons of poetic feeling- speak of people and 
 events as if they were the figures of a romance and 
 are laughed at for seeing everything through their 
 imagination. But why is it not as pleasant to see 
 through imagination as through scepticism? Why, 
 because people are bad, should I be faithless of the 
 virtues of a beautiful woman? 
 
 Life is the best thing we can possibly make of it. 
 It is dull and dismal and heavy, if a man loses his 
 temper : it is glowing with promise and satisfaction 
 if he is not ashamed of his emotions. Young America 
 is very anxious to be a man of the world. He has 
 heard that in England a gentleman is a being of 
 sublime indifference, who has exhausted all varieties 
 of experience who has, in fact, opened the oyster 
 of the world. So Young America cultivates non- 
 chalance with the ladies, and cannot help it if he 
 does know everything that is worth knowing. To 
 every man of thought and perception he is the miser- 
 able travesty of a human being, whose social life is 
 an injustice and an insult to every woman. 
 
 He does not see that indifference is satiety that 
 it is the weakness of a man whom circumstances 
 have mastered, and not the sensitive calmness, like a 
 lake's surface, of profound and digested experience. 
 What is the charm of a belle but her purely natural 
 manners? And they are charming, not in themselves, 
 but because they harmonize with her nature and 
 character. Yet if another person imitates her man- 
 ners in the hope of being a belle, the result is at once 
 ludicrous and painful. But such musings, however 
 suggested by the place, I fancy you will consider the 
 sand barren in which Saratoga lies. 
 
 The romance of a watering-place, like other 
 romance, always seems past when you are there. 
 Here at Saratoga, when the last polka is polked, and 
 the last light in the ball-room is extinguished, you 
 saunter along the great piazza, with the "good- 
 night " of Beauty yet trembling upon your lips, and 
 meet some old Habitue, or even a group of them, 
 o
 
 194 Lotus-Eating 
 
 smoking in lonely arm-chairs, and meditating the 
 days departed. 
 
 The great court is dark and still. The waning 
 moon is rising beyond the trees, but does not yet 
 draw their shadows, moonlight-mosaics, upon the 
 lawn. There are no mysterious couples moving in 
 the garden, not a solitary foot-fall upon the piazza. 
 A few lanterns burn dimly about the doors, and the 
 light yet lingering in a lofty chamber reminds you 
 that some form, whose grace this evening has made 
 memory a festival, is robing itself for dreams. 
 
 If courtly Edmund Waller were with you, it would 
 not be hard to tempt him to step with you across the 
 court to serenade under that window, with the most 
 musical and genuine of his verses. 
 
 "Go, lovely Rose ! 
 Tell her, who wastes her time and me, 
 
 That now she knows, 
 When I resemble her to thee, 
 How sweet and fair she seems to be. 
 
 Tell her that's young, 
 And shuns to have her graces spied, 
 
 That hadst thou sprung 
 In deserts, where no men abide, 
 Thou must have uncommended died. 
 
 Small is the worth 
 Of beauty from the light retired ; 
 
 Bid her come forth, 
 Suffer herself to be desired, 
 And not blush so to be admired. 
 
 Then die ! that she 
 The common fate of all things rare 
 
 May read in thee 
 How small a part of time they share 
 That are so wondrous sweet and fair." 
 
 He not being at Saratoga this year you are con- 
 tent with looking across the court and remembering 
 his song. The moonlight softens your heart as did 
 the golden days at Baiae. You, too, seat yourself in 
 a lonely arm-chair, and your reveries harmonize with
 
 Saratoga 195 
 
 the melancholy minor of the old Habitud's reflections. 
 You speak to him, musingly, of the " lovely Rose " 
 who wastes her time and you. 
 
 "Yes," he responds, "but you should have seen 
 Saratoga in her mother's days." 
 
 And while the moon rides higher, and pales from 
 the yellow of her rising into a watery lustre, you hear 
 stories of blooming belles, who are grandmothers 
 now, and of brilliant beaux, bald now and gouty. 
 These midnight gossips are very mournful. They 
 will not suffer you to leave those, whose farewells yet 
 thrill your heart, in the eternal morning of youth, but 
 compel you to forecast their doom, to draw sad and 
 strange outlines upon the future to paint pictures 
 of age, wrinkles, ochre-veined hands and mob-caps 
 until your Saratoga episode of pleasure has sombred 
 into an Egyptian banquet, with your old, silently- 
 smoking, and meditative Habitue for the death's 
 head. . 
 
 Nor is it strange that you should then repeat to 
 him Charles Lamb's "Gipsy's Malison," with its 
 fantastic, Egyptian-like sternness. 
 
 " Suck, baby, suck, mother's love grows by giving, 
 Drain the sweet founts that only thrive by wasting ; 
 Black manhood comes, when riotous, guilty living 
 Hands thee the cup that shall be death in tasting. 
 
 Kiss, baby, kiss, mother's lips shine by kisses, 
 Choke the warm breath that else would fall in blessings ; 
 Black manhood comes, when turbulent, guilty blisses, 
 Tends thee the kiss that poisons mid caressings. 
 
 Hang, baby, hang, mother's love loves such forces, 
 Shame the fond neck that bends still to thy clinging. 
 Black manhood comes, when violent lawless courses 
 Leave thee a spectacle in rude air swinging." 
 
 In fact, after a few such midnights, even the 
 morning sunshine cannot melt away this Egyptian 
 character from the old Habitue's. As you cross the 
 court, after breakfast, to the bowling-alley, with a 
 bevy so young and lovely, that age and mob-caps 
 seem only fantastic visions of dyspepsia, and, of 
 
 O 2
 
 196 Lotus-Hating 
 
 hearts that were never young, you will see them 
 sitting, a solemn reality of "black manhood," along 
 the western piazza, leaning back in arm-chairs, smok- 
 ing perhaps, chatting of stocks possibly, a little 
 rounded in the shoulders, holding canes which are no 
 longer foppish switches, but substantial and serious 
 supports. They are the sub-bass in the various- 
 voiced song, the prosaic notes to the pleasant lyric 
 of Saratoga life. 
 
 They are not really thinking of stocks, nor are 
 they very conscious of the flavour of their cigars, but 
 they watch the scene as they would dream a dream. 
 As the sound of young voices pulses toward them on 
 the morning air, as they watch the flitting forms, the 
 cool morning-dresses, the gush of youth overflowing 
 the sunny and shady paths of the garden, they are 
 old Habitues no longer; they are those gentlemen, 
 gallant and gay, dancing in the warm light of bright 
 eyes toward a future gorgeous as a sunset, gossip- 
 ing humorously or seriously, according as the light 
 of eyes is sunshine or moonlight, and it is themselves 
 as they were, with their own parties, their own loves, 
 jealousies and scandals, moving briskly across the 
 garden to the bowling-alley. 
 
 We pass, butterflies of this summer, and the 
 vision fades upon their eyes. It was only the image 
 of dead days, only the Fata Morgana of the enchanted 
 islands they shall see no more, only the ghosts of 
 grace and beauty, that witched the world for their 
 youth. 
 
 " The mossy marbles rest 
 On the lips that they have pressed 
 
 In thtir bloom, 
 
 And the names they loved to hear 
 Have been carved for many a year 
 On the tomb." 
 
 We stroll down the street to Congress Hall, we 
 make a pilgrimage to the piazza, which was the 
 Saratoga of our reading and romance to Congress 
 Hall, across whose smooth-columned piazza we pass,
 
 Saratoga 197 
 
 to pay the tribute of our homage to the spot where 
 so much love beat in warm hearts and blushed in 
 beautiful cheeks. For when Saratoga was first 
 fashionable, Congress Hall was the temple of fashion. 
 
 If you observe, while "we youth" (as Falstaff 
 would say, were he an old Habitue^) are grieving 
 that the romance is gone, and are regretting its going 
 to the companion of our promenade, and are sitting, 
 meditative and melancholy, with the Habitue's at 
 midnight, we are all the while, and therein, tasting 
 quite as sparkling a draught of romance as ever our 
 revered grandparents quaffed. And no sooner have 
 the doors of the " United States " clanged awful upon 
 our departure, than sad and sweet faces of remem- 
 brance look from all the windows, and in the young, 
 feminine fancy, when Saratoga is once left behind, 
 the great hotel stands shining like a transfigured 
 palace of fairy. 
 
 Be assured, Saratoga is still a golden-clasped, 
 illuminated romance for summer reading. Young 
 men still linger, loth to fly, and when the trunk must 
 be packed, they yet sit gossiping upon the edge of 
 the bed, and were you under it, you would hear how 
 every Tom Thumb, or Prince Riquet with the tuft, 
 was the most chivalric and resistless of King Arthurs ; 
 what innumerable fair-haired Preciosas were wonder- 
 ing at the same wonderful Arthurs ; and how many 
 a Fatima has been rescued, or at least was clearly 
 ready to be rescued, from unpolking, stock-jobbing, 
 mercantile old Blue Beards. Then, gorged with 
 experience, blas& of the world, patronizing and 
 enduring life, the royal Arthurs, scorning the heaps 
 of broken hearts they leave behind, transfer them- 
 selves and their boots to a new realm of conquest at 
 Newport, and reduce the most impregnable heart 
 with a Redowa, or a fatally fascinating Schottish. 
 
 But while we laugh at Saratoga, its dancing, dress- 
 ing, and flirtation, it is yet a "coign of vantage " for 
 an observing eye. It is not all dress and dancing. 
 Like every aspect of life, and like most persons, it is
 
 198 
 
 Lotus-Eating 
 
 It is perpetual festival. 
 
 a hint and suggestion of something high and poetic. 
 
 It is an oasis of repose in the desert of our American 
 
 hurry. Life is leisurely there, and business is amuse- 
 
 ment. 
 
 The " United States " is 
 the nearest hit we 
 Americans can make 
 to Boccaccio's garden. 
 It is a spacious house, 
 admirably kept, with 
 a stately piazza sur- 
 rounding a smooth 
 green lawn, con- 
 stantly close-shaven, 
 and shadowed with 
 lofty trees. Along 
 that stately piazza we 
 pass to the ball-room, 
 and cross that lawn 
 under those trees to 
 , and 
 
 1 the place of spirits. 
 We rise and break- 
 
 fast at any time. Then we chat a little and bowl 
 till noon. If you choose, you may sit apart and 
 converse, instead of bowling, upon metaphysics and 
 morals. At noon, we must return to the parlour and 
 practise the polka which we have not danced since 
 yesterday midnight. There are sofas and comfort- 
 able chairs strewn around the room, and, if you have 
 reached no metaphysical conclusion, in the bowling- 
 alley, you may wish to continue your chat. We 
 ladies must go shopping after the polka, and we mere 
 men may go to the bath. Dinner then, in our semi- 
 toilettes, feeing Ambrose and Anthony to get us 
 something to eat, and watching the mighty Morris, 
 in an endless frenzy of excitement, tearing his hair, 
 whenever a plate, loud-crashing, shivers on the floor. 
 After dinner the band plays upon the lawn, and 
 we all promenade upon the piazza, or in the walks
 
 Saratoga 199 
 
 of the court, or sit at the parlour windows. We 
 discuss the new arrivals. We criticize dresses, and 
 styles, and manners. We discriminate the arctic 
 and antarctic Bostonians, fair, still, and stately, with 
 a vein of scorn in their Saratoga enjoyment, and the 
 languid, cordial, and careless Southerners, far from 
 precise in dress or style, but balmy in manner as a 
 bland southern morning. We mark the crisp cour- 
 tesy of the New Yorker, elegant in dress, exclusive 
 in association, a pallid ghost of Paris without its 
 
 easy elegance, its bonhomie, its gracious savotr 
 faire, without the spirituel sparkle of its conversa- 
 tion, and its natural and elastic grace of style. We 
 find that a Parisian toilette is not France, nor grace, 
 nor fascination. We discover that exclusiveness is 
 not elegance. 
 
 But while we mark and moralize, the last strain of 
 Lucia or Ernani has died away, and it is five o'clock. 
 A crowd of carriages throngs the street before the 
 door, there is a flutter through the hall, a tripping 
 up and down stairs, and we are bowling along to the 
 lake. There is but one drive : everybody goes to
 
 2OO Lotus-Eating 
 
 the lake. And no sooner have we turned by the 
 Congress Spring, than we are in the depths of the 
 country, in a long, level reach of pines, with a few 
 distant hills of the Green Mountains rolling along 
 the horizon. It is a city gala at the hotel, but the 
 five minutes were magical, and among the pines upon 
 the road we remember the city and its life as a winter 
 dream. 
 
 The vivid and sudden contrast of this little drive 
 with the hotel, is one of the pleasantest points of 
 Saratoga life. In the excitement of the day, it is 
 like stepping out on summer evenings from the glar- 
 ing ball-room upon the cool and still piazza. 
 
 There is a range of carriages at the Lake. A select 
 party is dining upon those choice trouts, black bass 
 and young woodcock various other select parties 
 are scattered about upon the banks or on the piazza, 
 watching the sails and sipping cobblers. The descent 
 to the Lake is very steep, and the smooth water 
 is dotted with a few boats gliding under the low, 
 monotonous banks. The afternoon is tranquil, the 
 light is tender, the air is soft, and the lapping of the 
 water upon the pebbly shore is haply not so musical 
 as words spoken upon its surface. 
 
 In the sunset we bowl back again to the hotel. I 
 saw most autumnal sunsets at Saratoga, cold and 
 gorgeous, like the splendour of October woods. 
 They were still and solemn over the purple hills of 
 the horizon, and their light looked strangely in at the 
 windows of the hotel. Many a belle, just arrived 
 from the drive and about to consider the evening's 
 dressing, paused a moment at the window, stood 
 resplendent in that dying light, and a shade of 
 melancholy touched her lithe fancies, as a cloud dims 
 the waving of golden grain. Who had stood there 
 to dress for a Saratoga ball years ago? Who should 
 stand there, dressing, years to come? This Saratoga, 
 dreamed of, wondered at, longed for where to be a 
 belle was the flower of human felicity whose walks, 
 drives, hops, moonlight talks and mornings should
 
 Saratoga 20 1 
 
 be the supreme satisfaction had it fulfilled its 
 promise? 
 
 This moment not Waller should speak to her but 
 Wordsworth, with pensive music : 
 
 ' ' Look at the fate of summer flowers, 
 Which blow at daybreak, droop ere even-song : 
 And, grieved for their brief date, confess that ours 
 Measured by what we are and ought to be, 
 Measured by all that, trembling, we foresee, 
 Is not so long ! 
 
 If human life do pass nway, 
 
 Perishing, yet more swiftly than the flower, 
 
 Whose frail existence is but of a day : 
 
 What space hath Virgin's beauty to disclose 
 
 Her sweets, and triumph o'er the breathing rose, 
 
 Not even an hour ! 
 The deepest grove whose foliage hid 
 The happiest lovers Arcady might boast. 
 Could not the entrance of this thought forbid : 
 O be thou wise as they, soul-gifted maid ! 
 Nor rate too high what must so quickly fade, 
 
 So soon be lost ! 
 
 Then shall Love teach some virtuous youth 
 ' To draw out of the object of his eyes ' 
 The whilst on thee ihey gaze in simple truth, 
 Hues more exalted, ' a refined form,' 
 That dreads not age, nor suffers from the worm, 
 
 And never dies ! " 
 
 She comes at last. The sun has set, and with it 
 those weird fancies, those vague thoughts that 
 streamed shapelessly through her mind like these 
 long, sad vapours through the twilight sky. Nor, 
 for that moment, is the belle less gay, though more 
 beautiful, nor is Saratoga less charming. 
 
 Music flows towards us from the ball-room in 
 languid, luxurious measures, like warm, voluptuous 
 arms wreathing around us and drawing us to the 
 dance. When we enter the hall we find very few 
 people, but at the lower end a sprinkling of New 
 Yorklings are in their heaven. 
 
 Dancing is natural and lovely as singing. The 
 court of youth and beauty with the presence of
 
 2O2 Lotus-Eating 
 
 brilliantly dressed women, and an air smoothed and 
 softened with delicate and penetrating perfumes, and 
 the dazzling splendour of lights, is a song unsung, a 
 flower not blossomed, until you mingle in movement 
 with the strain until the scene is so measured by 
 the music that they become one. This has been said 
 so finely by De Quincey that I cannot refrain from 
 enriching my pages with the quotation : 
 
 "And in itself, of all the scenes which this world 
 offers, none is to me so profoundly interesting, none 
 (I say deliberately) so affecting, as the spectacle of 
 men and women floating through the mazes of a 
 dance; under these conditions, however, that the 
 music shall be rich and festal, the execution of the 
 dances perfect, and the dance itself of a character to 
 admit of free, fluent and continuous motion. . . . 
 And wherever the music happens to be not of a light, 
 trivial character, but charged with the spirit of festal 
 pleasure, and the performers in the dance so far 
 skilful as to betray no awkwardness verging on the 
 ludicrous, I believe that many persons feel as I feel 
 in such circumstances, viz. derive from the spectacle 
 the very grandest form of passionate sadness which 
 can belong to any spectacle whatsoever. . . . 
 From all which the reader may comprehend, if he 
 should not happen experimentally to have felt, that a 
 spectacle of young men and women flowing through 
 the mazes of an intricate dance, under a full volume 
 of music, taken with all the circumstantial adjuncts 
 of such a scene in rich men's halls, the blaze of lights 
 and jewels, the life, the motion, the sea-like undula- 
 tion of heads, the interweaving of the figures, the 
 anakuklosis, or self-revolving, both of the dance and 
 the music; never ending, still beginning, and the 
 continual regeneration of order from a system of 
 motions which seem for ever to approach the very 
 brink of confusion ; that such a spectacle, with such 
 circumstances, may happen to be capable of exciting 
 and sustaining the very grandest emotions of philo- 
 sophic melancholy to which the human spirit is open.
 
 Saratoga 203 
 
 The reason is in part that such a scene presents a 
 sort of masque of human life, with its whole equipage 
 of pomps and glories, its luxuries of sight and sound, 
 its hours of golden youth, and the interminable 
 revolution of ages hurrying after ages, and one 
 generation treading over the flying footsteps of 
 another, whilst all the while the overruling music 
 attempers the mind to the spectacle, the subject 
 (as a German would say) to the object, the beholder 
 to the vision. And although this is known to be but 
 one phase of life of life culminating and in ascent 
 yet the other and repulsive phasis is concealed upon 
 the hidden or averted side of the golden arras, known 
 but not felt or is seen but dimly in the rear, crowd- 
 ing into indistinct proportions. The effect of the 
 music is to place the mind in a state of elective- 
 attraction for everything in harmony with its own 
 prevailing key." 
 
 I do not know how far others will acknowledge the 
 justice of this brilliant passage, but to me it gave a 
 thrill of satisfaction when I read it, as the expression 
 of what is often felt in such circumstances. The 
 secret of the feeling is in the entire harmony of the 
 music and the movement it is that the dancing is 
 the visible form of the infinite and subtle suggestions 
 of the music. Who that has felt the extreme pathos 
 of Strauss 's Waltzes but has known them seem to 
 the sensitive imagination, excited by the grace and 
 beauty of women and the odorous brilliancy of a 
 thronged hall, passionate love-lyrics? Nor will you 
 be surprised, if you have been haunted by their sad- 
 ness as you listened, and especially as you danced 
 to them, to hear that the best are Bohemian and 
 Hungarian songs, wrought into the form of a waltz. 
 The national songs of all people being always in a 
 minor key. 
 
 This is a day at Saratoga, and all days there. It 
 is a place for pleasure. The original aim of a visit 
 thither, to drink the waters, is now mainly the excuse 
 of fathers and of the Habitues, to whom, however,
 
 204 Lotus-Eating 
 
 summer and Saratoga are synonymous. It is our 
 pleasant social exchange. There we step out of the 
 worn and weary ruts of city society, and mingle in a 
 broad field of various acquaintance. There we may 
 scent the fairest flowers of the south and behold the 
 beauty which is ours, of which we have a right to be 
 proud in Italy and Spain, but which is really less 
 familiar to most of us northerners than Spanish or 
 Italian beauty. There, too, men mingle and learn 
 from contact and sympathy a sweeter temper and a 
 more Catholic consideration, so that the summer 
 flowers we went to wreathe may prove not the gar- 
 land of an hour, but the firmly linked chain of an 
 enduring union. 
 
 If you seek health, avoid it if you can ; or if you 
 must drink the waters there, take rooms in some 
 other house, not in the " United States," where you 
 will be tortured with the constant vision of the 
 carnival of the high health you have lost. Youth, 
 health and beauty are still the trinity of Saratoga. 
 No old belle ever returns. No girl who was beautiful 
 and famous there, comes as a grandmother to that 
 gay haunt. The ghosts of her blooming days would 
 dance a direful dance around her in the moonlight 
 of the court. Faces that grew sad, and cold, and 
 changed, would look in at her midnight window. 
 Phantoms of promenades, when the wish was spoken 
 rather than the feeling, would make her shudder as 
 she hurried along the piazza. The dull aching sense 
 of youth passed for ever would become suddenly 
 poignant, as she glanced upon the gay groups, gay 
 as she was gay, young and fair no more than she had 
 been. Worst of all, if in some lonely path she met 
 gray-haired, dull-eyed and tottering upon crutches, 
 the handsome and graceful partner of her first 
 Saratoga season. 
 
 You will not linger long. A week with Calypso is 
 all that a wise Telemachus will allow himself. But 
 he will not be unjust to its character nor deem it all 
 folly. And if, after dinner, you walk slowly through
 
 Lake George 205 
 
 the garden with Robert Herrick toward the railroad, 
 by the music and the groups who listen to it, he, 
 watching their youth and beauty, will say to them in 
 farewell, as he did 
 
 "TO BLOSSOMS 
 
 " Fair pledges of a fruitful tree, 
 Why do ye fall so fast ? 
 Your date is not so past, 
 But you may stay yet here awhile 
 To blush and gently smile, 
 And go at last. 
 
 \Vhat ! were ye born to be 
 
 An hour or halfs delight, 
 
 And so to bid good-night ? 
 'Twas pity Nature brought ye forth 
 Merely to show your worth, 
 And lose you quite. 
 
 But you are lovely leaves, where we 
 
 May read how soon things have 
 
 Their end, tho' ne'er so brave : 
 And after they have shown their pride 
 Like you, awhile, they glide 
 Into the grave." 
 
 LAKE GEORGE 
 
 August'. 
 
 AN hour upon the railroad brings you from Sara- 
 toga to the Moreau Station. Here you climb a stage- 
 coach to roll across the country to Lake George. It 
 is a fine strip of landscape variously outlined, and 
 with glimpses of beautiful distance. The driver 
 pointed out to us the tree under which Jane McCrea 
 was murdered by the Indians a lovely spot, meet 
 for so sad a tradition. Between us and the dim- 
 rolling outline of the Green Mountains were the 
 windings of the Hudson, which here, in its infancy,,
 
 206 Lotus-Eating 
 
 is a stream of fine promise, and rolled our fancies 
 forward to its beautiful banks below, its dark high- 
 lands, its glassy reaches, and the forms of friends on 
 lawns and in gardens along its shores. 
 
 We dined at Glen's Falls, which we visited. They 
 are oppressed by the petty tyranny of a decayed 
 dynasty of saw-mills, and the vexed river rages and 
 tumbles among channeled rocks, making a fine spec- 
 tacle of the Trentonian character. Then we bowled 
 along through a brilliant afternoon toward the Lake. 
 The road .is one of the pleasantest I remember. And 
 particularly on that day the grain-fields and the 
 mountains were of the rarest delicacy of tone and 
 texture. Through the trees, an hour from Glen's 
 Falls, I saw a sheet of water, and we emerged upon 
 a fine view of the Lake. 
 
 An azure air, of which the water seemed only a 
 part more palpable, set in hills of graceful figure and 
 foliage, and studded with countless isles of romantic 
 beauty such a picture as imagination touches upon 
 the transparent perfection of summer noons, was my 
 fancy of Lake George. 
 
 It was but partly true. 
 
 Caldwell is a hamlet at the southern end of the 
 Lake. It is named from an eccentric gentleman, 
 (illiberal obstinacy is always posthumously beatified 
 into eccentricity) who owned the whole region, built 
 a hotel on the wrong spot, determined that no one 
 else should build anywhere, and ardently desired that 
 no more people should settle in the neighbourhood ; 
 and, in general, infested the southern shore with a 
 success worthy of a mythological dragon. Instead, 
 therefore, of a fine hotel at the extremity of the Lake, 
 commanding a view of its length, and situated in 
 grounds properly picturesque, there is a house on one 
 side of the end, looking across it to the opposite 
 mountain, and for ever teasing the traveller with 
 wonder that it stands where it does. 
 
 The hotel is kept admirably, however, and the 
 faults of position and size are obviated, as far as
 
 Lake George 207 
 
 possible, by the courtesy and ability of the host. But 
 the increasing throng of travel justifies the erection 
 of an inn equal in every manner to the best. This 
 year the little hamlet was but the " colony " of the 
 hotel, and a mile across the Lake, on the opposite 
 shore, was a small house for the accommodation of 
 the public. 
 
 Lake George is a strange lull in excitement after 
 Saratoga. Its tranquillity is like the morning after 
 a ball. There is nothing to do but to bowl or to sit 
 upon the piazza, or to go fishing upon the Lake. It 
 is a good place to study fancy fishermen, who have 
 taken their piscatory degrees in Wall and Pearl- 
 streets. Most of the visitors are guests of a night, 
 but there are also pleasant parties who pass weeks 
 upon the Lake, and listen to the enthusiastic stories 
 of Saratoga as incredulously as to Syren-songs ; to 
 whom Saratoga is a name and a vapour, incredible as 
 the fervour of a tropical day to the Russian Empress 
 in her icy palace ; parties of a character rare in our 
 country, who do not utterly surrender the summer to 
 luxurious idleness, but steal honey from the flowers 
 as they fly. 
 
 And if, strolling upon the piazza, while the moon 
 paves a quivering path across the water, along which 
 throng enchanted recollections, a quiet voice asks if 
 Como's self is more lovely, you are glad to say to one 
 who understands it, your feelings of the difference 
 between European and American scenery. We were 
 watching the water from the piazza, over the low 
 trees in the garden, when the empress said to me, 
 "Now is it not more beautiful than Como? " It was 
 an unfortunate question, because the Lake of Como 
 is the most beautiful lake the traveller sees, and 
 because the details of comparisons were instantly 
 forced upon my mind. 
 
 Lake George is a simple mountain lake upon the 
 verge of the wilderness. You ascend from its banks 
 westward and plunge into a wild region. The hills 
 that frame the water are low, and when not bare
 
 208 Lotus-Eating 
 
 for fires frequently consume many miles of wood- 
 land on the hillsides covered with the stiffly out- 
 lined, dark and cold foliage of evergreens. Among 
 these are no signs of life. You might well fancy the 
 populace of the primeval forest yet holding those 
 retreats. You might still dream in the twilight that 
 it were not impossible to catch the ring of a French 
 or English rifle, or the wild whoop of the Indian ; sure 
 that the landscape you see, was the same they saw, 
 and their remotest ancestors. 
 
 From the water rise the rocks, sometimes solitary 
 and bearing a single tree, sometimes massed into a 
 bowery island. 
 
 The boat-boys count the isles of the Lake by the 
 days of the year, and tell you of three hundred and 
 sixty-five. It is a story agreeable enough to hear, 
 but wearisome when the same thing is told at every 
 pretty stretch of islanded water. In the late after- 
 noon or by moonlight, it is pleasant to skim the quiet 
 Lake to the little Tea Island, which has a tree-shel- 
 tered cove for harbour and on which stands a ruined 
 temple to T. But whether bohea, or gunpowder, or 
 some more mysterious divinity, the boat-boys reluct 
 to say, and you must rely on fancy to suggest. I 
 only know, that as we pushed aside the branches 
 that overhang the cove and climbed to the Island 
 and the Temple, we had no sooner set foot upon its 
 floor, and gazed dreamily forth over the Lake, which 
 the moon enchanted, than the slow beat of oars 
 pushed through the twilight, and directly across the 
 moon-paven path of the water shot a skiff with female 
 figures only. 
 
 The throb of oars approached, and singing voices 
 mingled with the beat. The boat drove silently into 
 the black shadow of the cove, the singing ceased, and 
 a hushed tumult of low laughter trembled through the 
 trees. For that moment I was a South Sea Islander, 
 a Typeean, a Herman Melville, and down the ruined 
 steps I ran to catch a moonlight glimpse of Fayaway, 
 but saw only the rippling brilliance of the rapidly
 
 Lake George 209 
 
 fading boat. Therefore I know not what forms they 
 were, nor the moonlight mysteries of Lake George, 
 nor of the little T Island, 
 
 "What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape, 
 Of Deities, or Mortals, or of both." 
 
 Another day we spread our sails and flew four 
 miles up the Lake to Diamond Island. It has a little 
 stony beach, on which crystals are found, and here 
 also are ruins, but of nothing more stable than Robin 
 Hood's temples. A faded bower, spacious enough 
 for the pavilion of the loveliest May Queen, and 
 romantic enough for a trap of Fancy to catch reveries, 
 is the ruin of the Island. 
 
 The brisk wind that blew us rapidly thither drooped 
 as it passed the faded bower, and the lake lapped 
 idly against the stones as we embarked for Caldwell. 
 We drifted homewards in gusts and calms, while a 
 gorgeous sunset streamed from behind the western 
 mountains. It faded into pensive twilight, the very 
 hour of Wordsworth's lines : 
 
 " How richly glows the water's breast 
 Before us, tinged with evening's hues, 
 While, facing thus the crimson West, 
 The boat her silent course pursues, 
 P
 
 2io Lotus-Eating 
 
 And see how dark the backward stream, 
 A little moment past so smiling ! 
 And still, perhaps with faiihless gleam, 
 Some other loiterers beguiling. 
 
 Such views the youthful bard allure, 
 
 But heedless of the following gloom, 
 
 He dreams their colours shall endure, 
 
 Till peace go with him to the tomb. 
 
 And let him nurse his fond deceit, 
 
 And what if he must die in sorrow, 
 
 Who would not cherish dreams so sweet, 
 
 Though grief and pain may come to-morrow?" 
 
 All this was pleasant, but all this does not make a 
 lake as beautiful as Como. Here, at Lake George, 
 is no variety of foliage. The solemn evergreens 
 emphasize the fact of a wild primeval landscape. 
 \Vere there brilliant, full-foliaged chestnuts, or 
 lustrous vines, to vary the monotony of hue, or 
 spiring cypresses and domed stone pines to multiply 
 different forms, or long reaches of terraced shore, 
 the melancholy monotony of impression, which is now 
 so prominent, would be alleviated. The scene is too 
 sad and lonely. The eye is tortured by the doomed 
 ranks of firs and hemlocks, that descend like resigned 
 martyrs to the shore. It is not sublime, it is not the 
 perfection of loneliness, it is not the best of its kind. 
 Yet in the August moonlight the empress asked me 
 if it was not more beautiful than Como. 
 
 Consider Como. That strip of water blends the 
 most characteristic Swiss and Italian beauty. From 
 the dark and awful shadow of the Snow-Alps which 
 brood over its northern extremity, the lake stretches 
 under waving vines and shimmering olives, (that 
 look as if they grew only by moonlight, said Mrs. 
 Jameson's niece,) under orange terraces, and 
 lemons and oleanders, under sumptuous chestnuts 
 and funereal cypresses and ponderous pines and all 
 that they imply of luxurious palaces, marble balus- 
 ters, steps, statues, vases and fountains, under these 
 and through all the imagery of ideal Italy, deep and 
 far into the very heart of Southern Italian loveliness.
 
 Lake George 2 1 1 
 
 And on the shores near the town of Como, among 
 the garden paths or hills that overhang the villas, 
 you may look from the embrace of Italy straight at 
 the eternal snow-peaks of Switzerland as if on 
 the divinest midsummer day your thought could 
 cleave the year and behold December as distinctly 
 as June. 
 
 Lake Como is the finest combination of natural 
 sublimity and beauty with the artistic results which 
 that sublimity and beauty have inspired. This is the 
 combination essential to a perfect and permanently 
 satisfactory enjoyment in landscape. We modern 
 men cannot be satisfied with the satisfaction of the 
 savage, nor with that of any partial nature and 
 education. 
 
 The landscape must be lonely as well as lovely, if 
 it is not sublime. We have a right to require in 
 scenery the presence of the improvement which 
 Nature there suggested. In the Alps, in Niagara, 
 in the Sea, Nature suggests nothing more. They 
 are foregone conclusions. No colossal statue carved 
 from a cliff, or palace hewn from a glacier, are more 
 than curious. Nor can you in any manner improve 
 or deepen by Art the essential impression of natural 
 features so sublime. 
 
 When I speak of what Art can do for the land- 
 scape, you will not suppose that I wish Nature to be 
 put in order, or that there should be only landscape 
 gardens. The wide flowering levels of the Western 
 Prairies, rolling in billows of golden blossoms upon 
 the horizon, have a supreme and peculiar beauty, 
 which no human touch can improve, and the lonely 
 lakes of the Tyrol, dark withdrawn under cliffs that 
 do not cease to frown, charmed in weird calm which 
 never the scream of wild fowl vexes, these, like the 
 Alps and the Ocean, and Niagara, are beyond the 
 hope of Art. 
 
 But it is different when Nature gives no landscape 
 material, when the forms of hill and shore are
 
 212 Lotus-Eating 
 
 monotonous or unimportant of themselves, yet sug- 
 gest a latent possibility of picturesque effects. 
 
 This is not irreverent meddling with Nature, it is 
 only following her lead. Has no one observed how 
 often the absence of water in the landscape leaves 
 the landscape dead? Was never a castle so placed 
 upon hill or by river side that it grieved the eye of 
 taste? What I say aims only at removing the 
 occasion of such grief. The inextricable mazes of 
 a forest are not imposing when you are entangled 
 among them. A boundless forest is only sublime 
 when the eye commands it by overlooking it. The 
 forest is only the rude grandeur of the block ; but the 
 groves and gardens which wait upon the civilizing 
 footsteps that unravel those mazes are the graceful 
 statue and the fine result. 
 
 So when the Empress said to me, " Is it not more 
 beautiful than Como? " I said, no. Yet it is im- 
 possible not to perceive the great capabilities of Lake 
 George. 
 
 The gleam of marble palaces, or of summer retreats 
 of any genuine beauty, even a margin of grain- 
 goldened shore, or ranges of whispering rushes 
 beneath stately terraces indeed, any amelioration of 
 Nature by Art, would perfect the loveliness of Lake 
 George, and legitimate the Empress's praises. At 
 present it is invested with none of that enchanted 
 atmosphere of romance in which every landscape is 
 more alluring. Its interest and charm is the differ- 
 ence between an Indian and a Greek, between 
 pigments and a picture. 
 
 Do not suppose that I am maligning so fair an 
 object as the lake, even while I regard it as a good 
 type of the quality of our landscape, compared with 
 the European. Space and wildness are the proper 
 praises of American scenery. The American in 
 Europe, with the blood of a new race and the hope 
 of a proportioned future tingling in his veins, with a 
 profound conviction that Niagara annihilates all other 
 scenery in the world, and with a decided disposition
 
 Lake George 213 
 
 to assert that Niagara is the type of the country, 
 proclaims the extent of that country as the final 
 argument in the discussion of scenery and bears 
 down with inland seas and the Father of Waters, 
 and primeval forests and prairies and Andes, to 
 conclude his triumph. 
 
 In the general vague vastness of the impression 
 produced, this is a genuine triumph. But it is a 
 superiority 
 which ap- 
 peals more 
 to the mind 
 than to the 
 eye. The 
 moment 
 you travel 
 in America 
 the victory 
 of Europe 
 is sure. 
 
 For purposes of practical 
 pleasure we have no 
 mountains of an alpine 
 sublimity, no lakes of the 
 natural and artificial love- 
 liness of the European, although 
 one of ours may be large enough 
 to supply all the European lakes. 
 We have few rivers of any romantic 
 association, no quaint cities, no picturesque costume 
 and customs, no pictures or buildings. We have 
 none of the charms that follow long history. We 
 have only vast and unimproved extent, and the 
 interest with which the possible grandeur of a 
 mysterious future may invest it. One would be loth 
 to exhort a European to visit America for other 
 reasons than social and political observation, or 
 buffalo hunting. We have nothing so grand and 
 accessible as Switzerland, nothing so beautiful as 
 Italy, nothing so civilized as Paris, nothing so com-
 
 214 Lotus-Eating 
 
 fortable as England. The idea of the great western 
 rivers and of lakes as shoreless to the eye as the sea, 
 or of a magnificent monotony of grass or forest, is as 
 impressive and much less wearisome than the actual 
 sight of them. 
 
 But a charm which is in the variety and the detail, 
 as much as in the general character, is only appreci- 
 able by the eye, and that, of course, is the triumph of 
 European scenery. The green valleys of Switzerland 
 which relieve and heighten, by contrast, the snowy 
 sublimity of the mountains ; the Madonna shrines in 
 vineyards and the pretty paraphernalia of religion 
 in Italy; the cultivated comfort of the English land- 
 scape, in whose parks each tree stands as if it knew 
 itself to be the ornament and pride of ancestral 
 acres, and the artificial grotesqueness of the French 
 chateaux all these you must see if you would know, 
 and your final impression is of a fine aggregate with 
 beautiful and characteristic details. 
 
 Then we have no coast scenery. The Mediter- 
 ranean coast has a character which is unequalled. 
 The sea loves Italy and laves it with beauty. It has 
 an eternal feud with us. Our shores stretch, shrink- 
 ing in long, low flats, to the ocean, or recoil in bare, 
 gray, melancholy rocks. Our coast is monotonous 
 and tame in form, and sandy and dreary in sub- 
 stance. Trees reluct to grow ; fruit yearns for the 
 interior; a sad dry moss smooths the rocks and 
 solitary spires of grass shiver in the wind. But the 
 Italian sea is mountain-shored ; and all over the 
 mountain sides the oranges grow, and the tropical 
 cactus and vines wave, and a various foliage fringes 
 the water. You float at morning and evening on the 
 Gulf of Salerno, or the Bay of Naples, and breathe 
 an orange-odoured air. The vesper bell of the con- 
 vent on the steep sides of the Salerno mountains 
 showers with pious sound the mariners below. They 
 watch the campanile as they sail, and a sweetness of 
 which their own gardens make part, follows their 
 flight. You can fancy nothing more alluring than
 
 Lake George 215 
 
 these coasts, and nothing- more mysterious and im- 
 posing than the mountains of Granada looming large 
 through the luminous mist of the Spanish shore. 
 This last is the scenery of Ossian. 
 
 All this implies one of the grandest and most 
 beautiful natural impressions, and one of which our 
 own sea-coast is totally destitute. And it is only an 
 illustration of the absolute superiority of European 
 scenery, in very various ways. The tendency of 
 American artists toward Europe as a residence, is 
 based not only upon the desire of breathing- a social 
 atmosphere, in which Art is valued, or of beholding 
 the galleries of fame, but also upon the positive want 
 of the picturesque in American scenery and life. 
 Water, and woods, and sky are not necessarily pic- 
 turesque in form, or combination, or colour, and here 
 again, there must be beautiful details, and the human 
 impress of Art upon them, to satisfy the sense that 
 craves the picturesque. 
 
 I sat one evening on the cliffs at Newport with 
 Mot Notelpa, a friend who wears the onyx ring, of 
 which Sterling has written so good a story and as 
 we were discussing- America, Mot, the gentleman of 
 two hemispheres, said to me: "America is only a 
 splendid exile for the European race." The saying 
 was no less forcible than fine, but I have no room to 
 follow its meaning here. He did not say or mean 
 that it was a pity to be born an American, or deny 
 the compensation which gives us our advantages. 
 
 No man who has traversed Europe with his eyes 
 and mind open has failed to see that as our great 
 natural advantage is space, so our great social and 
 political advantage is opportunity, and every young 
 man's capital the chance of a career. But the race 
 as a unit, cultivated to the point of Art, is exiled, 
 wherever the laws of Nature postpone Art. 
 
 You may be sure that I said no such thing to the 
 Empress, as in the moonlight she provoked the 
 comparison. 
 
 But the "No" of my reply meant all that. And
 
 216 Lotus-Eating 
 
 when, the next morning 1 , we steamed in a stiff gale 
 from Caldwell to Crown Point, the unhumanized 
 solitude of the shores accorded well with the dusky 
 leg-ends of Indian wars that haunt the Lake. 
 
 Lake George should be the motto of a song rather 
 than the text of a sermon, I know. But it is beauti- 
 ful enough to make moralizing poetry. It is the 
 beauty of a country cousin, the diamond in the rough, 
 when compared with the absolute elegance and fas- 
 cination of Como. Nor will I quarrel with those 
 whom the peasant pleases most especially if they 
 have never been to court. 
 
 NAHANT 
 
 September. 
 
 " Oh ! which were best, to roam or rest ? 
 The land's lap or the water's breast ? 
 To sleep on yellow millet-sheaves, 
 Or swim in lucid shallows, just 
 
 Eluding water-lily leaves, 
 An inch from Death's black fingers, thrust 
 To lock you, whom release he must ; 
 Which life were best on Summer eves ?" 
 
 NAHANT is a shower of little brown cottages, fallen 
 upon the rocky promontory that terminates Lynn 
 Beach. 
 
 There is a hotel upon its finest, farthest point, 
 which was a fashionable resort a score of years since. 
 But the beaux and belles have long since retreated 
 into the pretty cottages whence they can contemplate 
 the hotel, which has the air of a quaint, broad- 
 piazzad, sea-side hostelry, with the naked ugliness 
 of a cotton factory added to it, and fancy it the 
 monument of merry, but dead old days. 
 
 The hotel is no longer fashionable. Nahant is 
 no more a thronged resort. Its own career has not
 
 Nahant 217 
 
 been unlike that of the belles who frequented it, for 
 although the hurry and glare and excitement of a 
 merely fashionable watering-place are past, there 
 has succeeded a quiet, genial enjoyment and satisfac- 
 tion, which are far pleasanter. Some sunny morning, 
 when your memory is busy with Willis's sparkling 
 stories of Nahant life a quarter of a century ago, and 
 with all the pleasant tales you may have collected in 
 your wanderings, from those who were a part of that 
 life, then step over with some friend, whose maturity 
 may well seem to you the flower of all that the poet 
 celebrated in the bud, and she will reanimate the 
 spacious and silent piazza with the forms that have 
 made it famous. And ever as you stroll and listen, 
 your eyes will wander across the irregular group of 
 cottages, and prohibit your fancying that the 
 romance is over. 
 
 This is a kind of sentiment inseparable from spots 
 like this. They concentrate, during a brief time, so 
 many and such various persons, and unite them so 
 closely in the constant worship and pursuit of a 
 common pleasure, that the personal association with 
 the spot becomes profound ; and when the space is 
 very limited, as at Nahant, even painful. It is not 
 surprising, therefore, that many who loved and fre- 
 quented Nahant years ago, now recoil from it, and 
 only visit it with the same fascinated reluctance with 
 which they regard the faded love-tokens of years so 
 removed that they seem to have detached themselves 
 from life. This will explain to you much of the sur- 
 prise with which Bostonians listen to your praises of 
 Nahant. "Is anything left?" say their smiles and 
 looks; "it is a cup we drained so long ago." 
 
 Yet no city has an ocean-gallery, so near, so 
 convenient and rapid of access, so complete and 
 satisfactory in characteristics of the sea, as Boston 
 in Nahant. 
 
 You step upon the steamer in the city and in less 
 than an hour you land at Nahant, and breathe the 
 untainted air from the "boreal pole," and gaze upon
 
 2i8 Lotus-Eating 
 
 a sublime sea-sweep, which refreshes the mind as 
 the air the lung's. You find no village, no dust, no 
 commotion. You encounter no crowds of carriages 
 or of curious and gossiping people. No fast men in 
 velvet coats are trotting fast horses. You meet none 
 of the disagreeable details of a fashionable watering- 
 place, but a sunny silence broods over the realm of 
 little brown cottages. They stand apart at easy dis- 
 tances, each with its rustic piazza, with vines climb- 
 ing and blooming about the columns, with windows 
 and doors looking upon the sea. 
 
 In the midst of the clusters, where roads meet, 
 stands a small Temple, a church of graceful propor- 
 tions, but unhappily clogged with wings. It is the 
 only Catholic Church I know, for all services are 
 held there in rotation, from the picturesque worship 
 of the Roman faith to the severest form of Protest- 
 antism. The green land slopes away behind the 
 Temple to a row of willows in a path across the 
 field, whence you cannot see the ocean, and it is so 
 warm and sheltered, like an inland dell, that the 
 sound of the sea comes to it only as a pleasant fancy. 
 
 This pretty path ends in the thickest part of the 
 settlement. But even here it has no village air. It 
 is still, and there are no shops, and the finest trees 
 upon the promontory shadow the road that gradually 
 climbs the hill, and then, descending, leads you across 
 little Nahant to Lynn Beach. The area of Nahant 
 is very small. From almost any cottage porch you 
 survey the whole scene. But it has these two great 
 advantages for a summer sojourn : an air of entire 
 repose, for there seems to be no opportunity or con- 
 venience for any other than a life of leisure, and the 
 perpetual presence of the sea. 
 
 At Nahant you cannot fancy poverty or labour. 
 Their appearance is elided from the landscape. Tak- 
 ing the tone of your reveries from the peaceful little 
 Temple and glancing over the simple little houses, 
 with the happy carelessness of order in their distribu- 
 tion, and the entire absence of smokej dust, or din,
 
 Nahant 219 
 
 you must needs dream that Pericles and Aspasia 
 have withdrawn from the capital, with a choice court 
 of friends and lovers, to pass a month of Grecian 
 gaiety upon the sea. The long day swims by nor 
 disturbs that dream. If haply upon the cliffs at sun- 
 set, straying by "the loud-sounding sea," you catch 
 glimpses of a figure, whose lofty loveliness would 
 have inspired a sweeter and statelier tone in that old 
 verse, you feel only that you have seen Aspasia, and 
 Aspasia as the imagination beholds her, and are not 
 surprised ; or a head wreathed with folds of black 
 splendour varies that pure Greek rhythm with a 
 Spanish strain, or cordial Saxon smiles and ringing 
 laughter dissolve your Grecian dream into a western 
 reality. 
 
 For its sea, too, Nahant is unsurpassed. You can- 
 not escape the Ocean here. It is in your eye and in 
 your ear for ever. At Newport the Ocean is a luxury. 
 You live away from it and drive to it as you drive 
 to the Lake at Saratoga, and in the silence of mid- 
 night as you withdraw from the polking parlour, you 
 hear it calling across the solitary fields, wailing over 
 your life and wondering at it. At Nahant the sea is 
 supreme. The place is so small that you cannot 
 build your house out of sight of the Ocean, and to 
 watch the splendid play of its life, is satisfaction and 
 enjoyment enough. Many of the cottages are built 
 directly on the rocks of the shore. Of course there 
 are few trees, except the silver poplar, which thrives 
 luxuriantly in the salt air, and which, waving in the 
 fresh wind and turning its glistening leaves to the 
 sun, is like a tree in perpetual blossom. Flowers are 
 cherished about some of the houses, and they have 
 an autumnal gorgeousness and are doubly dear and 
 beautiful on the edge of the salt sea waste. 
 
 The air which the ocean breathes over the spot is 
 electrical. No other ocean-air is so exhilarating. 
 After breakfast at Nahant, said Mot, I feel like 
 Cceur de Lion, and burn to give battle to the Sara- 
 cens. But the brave impulse ends in smoke, and
 
 22O Lotus-Eating 
 
 musing" and chatting", and building castles in the 
 clouds, you loiter away the day upon the piazza, end- 
 ing by climbing about the cliffs at sunset or galloping 
 over the beach. Thus the ocean and the cliffs are 
 the natural glories of Nahant, and the sky which you 
 see as from the deck of a ship, and which adequately 
 completes the simple outline of the world as seen 
 from those rocks. 
 
 The cliffs are imposing. They are the jagged 
 black edges of rock with which the promontory tears 
 
 the sea. Chased by the tempests beyond, the ocean 
 dashes in and leaping upon the rocks lashes them 
 with the fury of its scorn. In a great gale the whole 
 sea drives upon Nahant. 
 
 One day the storm came, sullen and showery from 
 the East, scudding in blinding mists over the sea, 
 breaking" towards the blue, struggling", wailing", 
 howling", losing the blue again, with a sharper chill 
 in its breath and a drearier dash of the surf. Then 
 an awful lull, an impenetrable mist, and the hoarse 
 g-athering roar of the ocean. The day darkened, and 
 sudden sprays of rain, like volleys of sharp arrows,
 
 Nahant 221 
 
 rattled gustily against the windows, and dull, boom- 
 ing thunder was flattened and dispersed in the thick 
 moisture of the air. But in the gust and pauses of 
 the wind and rain, the bodeful roar of the sea was 
 constant and increasing. The water was invisible, 
 except in the long flashing lines of surf that momently 
 plunged from out the gray gloom of the fog, and 
 that surf was like the advancing lines of an unknown 
 enemy flinging itself upon the shore. Behind was 
 the mighty rush of multitudinous waters, but more 
 awful to imagination than any mere natural sound 
 could be, for all the dead and lost, all who sailed 
 and never came to shore, all who dreamed, and 
 hoped, and struggled, and went down, and a world 
 of joy with them; all their woe was in the Ocean's 
 wail, the death shriek of as much happiness as lives. 
 So the storm gathered terribly over the sea, in terror 
 commensurate with the sea's vastness, and beat upon 
 Nahant like a hail of fire upon a besieged citadel. 
 
 The next day, as children seek upon a battle-field 
 the buttons and ornaments that adorned the heroes, 
 there were figures bending along the shore, to find 
 the delicate, almost impalpable mosses, which the 
 agony of the sea tosses up, as fragments of song 
 drop from the torture of the heart. The mosses are 
 pressed and cherished in volumes, each of which 
 is a book of songs of the airiest fancies of the 
 aptest symbols of the delicatest dreams of the sea. 
 Nothing in nature is more touching and surprising, 
 nothing more richly reveals her tenderness than these 
 fair-threaded and infinitely various sea-weeds and 
 mosses. They are the still, small voices, in which is 
 the Lord. 
 
 Longfellow has sung all this in wave-dancing 
 music : 
 
 " So when storms of wild emotion 
 
 Strike the Ocean 
 Of the poet's soul, ere long 
 From each cave and rocky fastness, 
 
 In its vastness, 
 Floats some fragment of a Son:j.
 
 222 Lotus-Eating 
 
 From the far off Isles enchanted, 
 
 Heaven has planted 
 With the golden fruit of Truth ; 
 From the flashing surf, whose vision 
 
 Gleams Elysian 
 In the tropic clime of Youth. 
 
 From the strong will and the endeavour, 
 
 That for ever 
 
 Wrestles with the tides of Fate ; 
 From the wreck of Hopes far-scattered, 
 
 Tempest-shattered, 
 Floating waste and desolate. 
 
 Ever-drifting, drifting, drifting, 
 
 On the shifting 
 Currents of the restless heart ; 
 Till at length in books recorded, 
 
 They, like hoarded 
 Household words, no more depart." 
 
 Nahant would not satisfy a New Yorker, nor, 
 indeed, a Bostonian, whose dreams of sea-side 
 summering are based upon Newport life. The two 
 places are entirely different. It is not quite true that 
 Newport has all of Nahant and something more. 
 For the repose, the freedom from the fury of fashion, 
 is precisely what endears Nahant to its lovers, and 
 the very opposite is the characteristic of Newport. 
 
 Nahant is northern in character, and Newport 
 is southern. The winds blow cool over Nahant, 
 and you think of the North Sea, and Norsemen, 
 and Vikings, and listen to the bracing winds as to 
 Sagas. 
 
 Yet, if a man had any work to do, Nahant opens 
 its arms to him, and folds him into the sweetest 
 silence and seclusion. It has no variety, I grant. 
 You stroll along the cliffs, and you gallop upon the 
 beach, and there is nothing more. But he is a Tyro 
 in the observation of Nature, who does not know 
 that, by the sea, it is the sky-scape and not the land- 
 scape in which enjoyment lies. If a man dwelt in the 
 vicinity of beautiful inland scenery, yet near the sea, 
 his horse's head would be turned daily to the ocean,
 
 Nahant 223 
 
 for the sea and sky are exhaustless in interest as in 
 beauty, while, in the comparison, you soon drink up 
 the little drop of satisfaction in fields and trees. The 
 sea externally fascinates by its infinite suggestion, 
 and every man upon the sea-shore is still a Julian or 
 a Maddalo : 
 
 "because the sea 
 
 Is boundless as we wish our souls to be/' 
 
 Besides, it is always the ocean which is the charm 
 of other shore resorts, that have more variety than 
 Nahant. Even at Newport the eye is unsatisfied 
 until it rests upon the sea, and as sea-side scenery 
 with us is monotonous, there is rather more of the 
 same thing at Newport than a greater variety. The 
 genuine objection to Nahant is the feeling of dull- 
 ness, on the part of the young, and of its intense 
 sadness of association with the elders. 
 
 The air is full of ghosts to them. At twilight they 
 see figures glide pallid along the cliffs, and hear 
 vague voices singing airy songs by moonlight in the 
 rocky caves of the shore. Every stone, every turn is 
 so familiar, that the absence of the look and the 
 word, which in memory are integral parts of every 
 rock and turn, sharpen the sense of change into acute 
 sorrow. 
 
 Nor to the visitor of to-day, who hears the stories 
 of old Nahant days as he reads romances, is it pos- 
 sible to watch without tenderness of thought, even 
 without a kind of sadness, if you will, the pleasant 
 evening promenade along the Lynn Beach. They 
 bound over the beach in the favouring sunset, those 
 graceful forms, fresh and unworn as the sea that 
 breaks languidly beside them and slips smoothly to 
 their horses' hoofs. I do not wonder that it slips so 
 softly toward them and touches their flight as with a 
 musing kiss. I do not wonder that it breaks balmily 
 upon their cheeks, and lifts their hair as lightly as 
 if twilight spirits were toying with their locks. I do 
 not wonder that as they turn homeward in the moon- 
 light and leave the sea alone, it calls gently after
 
 224. Lotus-Eating 
 
 them and fills the air with soft sounds as they retire, 
 nor that it rises and rises until it has gathered into 
 its bosom the light tracks they left upon the shore. 
 The sea knows the brevity of that glad bound along 
 the beach. These are not the first, they shall surely 
 not be the last, and while itself shall stay for ever 
 fresh and unworn as now, there shall be furrows 
 ploughed elsewhere which even its waves can never 
 smooth. 
 
 The evenings at Nahant have a strange fascina- 
 tion. There are no balls, no hops, no concerts, no 
 congregating under any pretence in hotel parlours. 
 The damp night air is still, or throbs with the beating 
 sea. The Nahanters sit upon their piazzas and watch 
 the distant lighthouse or the gleam of a lantern upon 
 a sail. Gradually they retire. Lights fade from the 
 windows. Before midnight, silence and darkness are 
 supreme. But we who remembered Sorrento loved 
 the midnight, and, singing barcaroles, dreamed our 
 dreams. 
 
 One night we sang no longer, but lost in silence 
 watched the bay as if it had been the bay of Naples, 
 when the sudden burst of a distant serenade filled 
 the midnight. It was the golden crown of delight. 
 The long, wailing, passionate strains floated around 
 us, as if our own thoughts had grown suddenly 
 audible, and the vague sadness, the nameless and 
 inexpressible fascination of midnight music utterly 
 enthralled us. Nothing but the music lived ; the 
 world was its own ; we floated upon it, drifted hither 
 and thither as it would. There was no moon, but 
 the serenade was moonlight. There were no gardens 
 to sweeten the night, but the music was a bower of 
 Persian roses thronged with nightingales. Songs of 
 Mendelssohn the Adelaide of Beethoven Irish 
 melodies, whatever was melancholy, and exquisite, 
 and meet for the hour and the spot, pulsed towards 
 us upon the night, and last of all, a wild, sweet, 
 pensive strain, for which surely Shelley meant his 
 lines :
 
 Nahant 225 
 
 " I arise from dreams of thee, 
 
 In the first sweet sleep of night, 
 When the winds are breathing low, 
 
 And the stars are shining bright. 
 I arise from dreams of thee, 
 
 And a spirit in my feet 
 Has led me who knows how ? 
 
 To thy chamber window, sweet ! 
 
 The wandering airs they faint 
 
 On the dark, the silent stream 
 The champak odours fail 
 
 Like sweet thoughts in a dream ; 
 The nightingale's complaint, 
 
 It dies upon her heart, 
 As I must on thine, 
 
 Beloved as thou art. 
 
 O lift me from the ground, 
 
 I die, I faint, I fail ! 
 Let thy Love in kisses rain 
 
 On my lips and eyelids pale. 
 My cheek is cold, and white, alas ! 
 
 My heart beats loud and fast, 
 Oh ! press it close to thine again, 
 
 Where it will break at last." 
 
 At Nahant you shall live with the sea and sky and 
 yet not lose that pleasant social intercourse, which 
 has a secret sweeter than the sea or the sky can 
 whisper. Society at Nahant does not imply the 
 Polka, indeed, that last perfection of civilization, but 
 regard it, if you choose, as the ante-chamber to the 
 ball-room of Newport, where you may breathe the 
 fresh air awhile, and collect your thoughts, and see 
 the ocean and the stars, and remember with regret 
 the days when happiness was in something else than 
 a dance, the days when you dared to dream. 
 
 Nor be surprised, if, as you linger on those cliffs, 
 remembering, one of the ghosts the elders see should 
 lay his light hand upon your shoulder, and whisper 
 as the sun sets. 
 
 " Break, break, break, 
 On thy cold gray stones, O Sea ! 
 
 And I would that my tongue could utter 
 The thoughts that arise in me.
 
 226 Lotus-Eating 
 
 O well for the fisher boy, 
 That he sings in his boat on the bay, 
 
 O well for the sailor lad, 
 That he shouts with his sister at play. 
 
 And the stately ships go on, 
 To their haven under the hill ; 
 
 But O for the touch of a vanished hand, 
 And the sound of a voice that is still. 
 
 Break, break, break, 
 At the foot of thy crags, O Sea ! 
 
 But the tender grace of a day that is fled 
 Will never come back to me." 
 
 NEWPORT 
 
 September. 
 
 THE Golden Rods beg-in to flame along the road- 
 sides, and in the pleasant gardens of Newport. The 
 gorgeous dahlias and crisp asters marshal the 
 autumnal splendour of the year. All day long, 
 Herrick's "Valedictory to the Summer" has been 
 singing itself in my mind : 
 
 " Fair daffodils, we weep to see 
 
 You haste away so soon, 
 As yet the early rising Sun 
 Has not attained his noon. 
 
 Stay, stay, 
 Until the hastening day 
 
 Has run ; 
 
 But to the even song, 
 And having prayed together, we 
 
 Will go with you along ! 
 We ha.ve short time to stay as you, 
 
 We have as short a Spring, 
 As quick a growth to meet decay, 
 As you or any thing. 
 
 We die 
 As your hours do ; and dry 
 
 Away 
 
 Like to the Summer's rain, 
 Or as the pearls of morning-dew, 
 Ne'er to be found again."
 
 Newport 227 
 
 The first chill breath of September has blown away 
 the froth of fashion, and the cottagers anticipate 
 with delight the cool serenity of the shortening days. 
 The glory has utterly gone from that huge, yellow 
 pagoda-factory, the Ocean House. ' The drop has 
 fallen, the audience is departed, the lights are ex- 
 tinguished, and it were only to be wished that the 
 house might vanish with the season, and not haunt 
 "the year's last Taours " with that melancholy aspect 
 of a shrineless, deserted temple. 
 
 I fear, however, that not only the glory of a season, 
 but of success, has left the "Ocean." The flame 
 of fashion which burned there a year or two since, 
 burned too intensely to last. The fickle goddess, 
 whose temple it is, is already weary of democratic, 
 congregational worship and affects the privacy of 
 separate oratories. They rise on every hand. For 
 fashion dwells in cottages now, and the hotel season 
 is brief and not brilliant. The cottagers will come, 
 indeed, and hear the Germania play, and hop in the 
 parlour ; but they come as from private palaces to a 
 public hall, and disappear again into the magnificent 
 mystery of "cottage life." 
 
 When I first knew Newport it was a southern 
 resort for the summer. The old Bellevue, and the 
 present Touro House, then Whitfield's, sufficed for 
 the strangers. It was before the Polka before the 
 days of music after dinner and when the word 
 " hop " was unknown even at Saratoga. Everybody 
 bathed in those days, and all bathed together. There 
 was a little bowling, some driving and riding, but no 
 fast horses or fast men above all, no fast women. 
 The area on the hill, of which the Ocean House is 
 the centre, was an unsettled region. There were not 
 a dozen cottages, and the quaint little town dozed 
 quietly along its bay, dreaming only of the southern 
 silence, which the character of the climate and of 
 the visitors, who were mainly southerners, naturally 
 suggested. 
 
 Newport was the synonym of repose. An in- 
 Q 2
 
 228 Lotus-Eating 
 
 genious commentator would surely have traced the 
 Van Winkles to a Newport origin, although as 
 surely, the " Rip " was a soubriquet of prophetic 
 omen. 
 
 In those good old days New York loved Saratoga, 
 and Newport was a name of no significance : but 
 the Diana of that Ephesus looked suddenly seaward, 
 and a flood tide of fashion rose along Narragansett 
 Bay, and overflowed Newport. 
 
 Singular are the deposits it left and is leaving. 
 This amorphous " Ocean " ; this Grecian " Atlantic " ; 
 this " Bellevue " enlarged out of all recognizable pro- 
 portions ; this whirl of fashionable equipages, these 
 hats and coats, this confused din of dancing music, 
 scandal, flirtation, serenades, and supreme voice of 
 the sea breaking through the fog and dust ; this sing- 
 ing, dancing, and dawdling incessantly ; this crush- 
 ing into a month in the country that which crowds 
 six months in town these are the foot-prints of 
 Fashion upon the sea-shore these the material with 
 which we build the golden statue to our Diana. 
 
 Beyond doubt, Newport is the great watering-place 
 of the country. And as such, as assembling yearly 
 the allied army of fashionable forces from every 
 quarter, it is the most satisfactory point from which 
 to review the host and mark the American aspect of 
 Fashion. 
 
 A very little time will reveal its characteristic to be 
 exaggeration. The intensity, which is the natural 
 attribute of a new race, and which finds in active 
 business its due direction, and achieves there its 
 truest present success, becomes ludicrous in the social 
 sphere, because it has no taste and no sense of 
 propriety. 
 
 Society is as much a sphere of art as any of the 
 more recognized spheres. To be rich, and to visit 
 certain persons, no more fits a man or woman for 
 society, than to be twenty years old and to have a 
 palette fits him to be an artist. When, therefore, a 
 boy embarks in business at ten years of age and
 
 Newport 229 
 
 retires a man at forty or fifty with a fortune, he is in 
 the situation of one who in the passionate pursuit of 
 the means has put the end out of his attainment. He 
 has been so long" making" his shoes that by inaction 
 his feet are withered, and he cannot walk. Yet the 
 same man, who can never be an addition or an 
 ornament to society, which demands the harmonious 
 play of rare gifts, shall be very eminent and useful 
 in that active life which requires the stern labour of 
 very different powers. 
 
 Thus, as wealth is a primal necessity of society, 
 because giving- it a pedestal, and allowing its 
 generous whims and fancies full play, so wherever 
 wealth is not an antecedent, but must be acquired, 
 the force and maturity of talent will always be 
 swallowed up in the pedestal, and the statue will 
 be light and imperfect, or, what is worse, an imbecile 
 imitation. In a society formed under such circum- 
 stances, wealth will always enjoy an unnatural and 
 undignified consideration. 
 
 Now the test of a man is his manner of using 
 means, not of acquiring them. Any adroit labourer 
 can quarry marble, but how many men could have 
 wrought the Apollo or the Venus? And how many 
 men who have made fortunes spend money well? 
 
 I do not imply that they are not generous, and even 
 lavish ; but how much does the expenditure advance 
 the great common interests of men ? In this country 
 where fortunes are yearly made and spent, what 
 results of that spending have we to show? We have 
 carriages, and upholstery, and dinners, and elaborate 
 houses, and the waistcoats of Young- America blaze 
 with charms, and it returns from "abroad" with a 
 knowledg-e of Parisian tailoring- and haberdashery, 
 which would be invaluable in the first Broadway 
 establishment interested in those matters. 
 
 But consider that we get few pictures, statues, 
 buildings, g-ardens, or parks, for the money we 
 spend ; consider that no rich man has yet thought to 
 endow this country with a museum of casts, like the
 
 230 Lotus-Eating 
 
 Meng's Museum in Dresden, by which we should 
 have all the finest sculptures of every age in the most 
 perfectly accurate copy, only differing from the 
 original in the material. 
 
 " I have made my money, and I am not going to 
 throw it away," is the response of Croesus to any 
 such suggestion ; and he builds a house in the most 
 fashionable street rather larger than his neighbour's, 
 but a reproduction of it in every unholstering detail. 
 
 Fine plate and glass, and Louis Quinze and Louis 
 Quatorze deformities follow, and Croesus, Jr., has a 
 pair of 2.40*5, and a wagon of weight proportioned 
 to the calibre of that young gentleman ; and, as he 
 dashes up the Newport dust, some cynical pedestrian 
 Timon, whitened and blinded by that dust, cannot 
 help inquiring if this is the best statue that could be 
 wrought out of all the marble old Croesus quarried ! 
 
 The houses, and horses, and carriages are not to 
 be derided ; for, as I said already, these are the 
 pedestal ; they are the matters of course. But to 
 the eye of the money-making genius, they are valu- 
 able for themselves, and not as means, and there is 
 the necessary mistake of a society so constituted. If 
 a man buys a luxurious carpet, not that his friends 
 may tread softly and their sense be soothed, but that 
 it may proclaim his ability to buy the carpet, that it 
 may say with green and red and yellow emphasis 
 "at least twenty thousand a year" it is no longer 
 beautiful, and you feel the presence of a man who is 
 mastered by his means, and to whom any other man 
 with a larger rent roll will be respectable and awful. 
 
 From all this spring the ludicrous details of our 
 society. We dress too well ; we dance too well : we 
 are too gracious and graceful ; our entertainments are 
 too elegant; our modesty degenerates into prudery 
 and bad taste; we are "smart," but not witty; flashy, 
 but not gay. Young America is too young. Its feet 
 are beautifully small, and the head is proportioned to 
 them. Society is only a ball. The heels have carried 
 it against the head ; and why not, since the education
 
 Newport 23 1 
 
 and daily life of the youth fits him for little else than 
 shaking his heels adroitly. 
 
 We dance because we are unable to talk. The 
 novels of foreign society fascinate us by their tales 
 of a new sphere. Where are such women, we say, 
 where such men? We fancy it is the despairing 
 dream of a romance, but it is really the fact of foreign 
 life. We are very chivalric ; no nation reaches our 
 point of courtly devotion to woman as woman. But 
 our chivalry is not entirely unfeudalized ; our courtli- 
 ness does not always indicate respectful intercourse. 
 
 When I say that we dance too well, I speak of the 
 disproportion of those performances to the rest of 
 our social achievements. A fool crowned is doubly 
 foolish. Fine dressing and dexterous dancing, when 
 not subsidiary to the effect of personal beauty and 
 character, are monstrous. Every girl who dances 
 gracefully, should, in speaking, show that she is of 
 graceful and winning nature. If she does not if 
 she is silly and simpers you instinctively feel that 
 her movement is artificial; that it is the gift of the 
 dancing school, not a grace of nature ; you have been 
 deceived, and it is never again a pleasure to watch 
 that dancing.
 
 232 Lotus-Eating 
 
 What is high society but the genial intercourse of 
 the highest intelligences with which we converse? 
 It is the festival of Wit and Beauty and Wisdom. 
 Its conversation is a lambent light playing over all 
 subjects, as the torch is turned upon each statue in 
 the gallery. It is not an arena for dispute. Courts 
 and Parliaments are for debate. Its hall of reunion, 
 whether Holland House, or Charles Lamb's parlour, 
 or Schiller's garret, or the Tuileries, is a palace of 
 pleasure. Wine, and flowers, and all successes of 
 art, delicate dresses studded with gems, and graceful 
 motion to passionate and festal music, are its orna- 
 ments and arabesqued outlines. It is a tournament 
 wherein the force of the hero is refined into the grace 
 of the gentleman a masque, in which womanly sen- 
 timent blends with manly thought. This is the noble 
 idea of society, a harmonious play of the purest 
 powers. Nothing less than this satisfies the demand 
 suggested by human genius and beauty, and the 
 splendid sphere of the world in which they are placed. 
 
 Yes, you say, and how much of all this have you 
 found in Newport? 
 
 At least I have found the form of it ; and he must 
 have travelled in vain, who could not see, on some 
 Grecian summer morning, even thus late in time, 
 Alcibiades heading, with silken sails, for the Peireus, 
 or here in Newport the features of a truly fine society 
 through the fog of fashion. 
 
 The very exaggeration we have remarked betrays 
 a tendency as well as a failure. When we have gone 
 through our present discipline of French and English 
 social bullying, from the shape of our shoes up to 
 that of our opinions, we shall be the stronger to take 
 the field for ourselves. Yet I doubt if in any country 
 in which wealth is not hereditary, so that a permanent 
 and large class is secure from the necessity of some 
 kind of gold digging, whereby man becomes of the 
 earth, earthy, there can ever be the simplest and 
 finest tone of society. The aggregate will be better, 
 but will the single specimens be as good?
 
 Newport 233 
 
 I do not insist upon it. It is a speculation. Yet, 
 perhaps, this perfection of the individual is the jewel 
 in the toad's head the real result of the elaborate 
 aristocratic organization of the old world, which, I 
 grant, was too cumbrous an operation for such a 
 result. 
 
 The old mystery, myth, fable, fancy, or whatever 
 else, that labour came by the fall, will still suggest 
 itself. We make the best of a bad case, and poets 
 and philosophers speculate how to make labour 
 "attractive." But the end of our labour is, all the 
 while, to dispense with labour. 
 
 "You lazy fellow," says the working merchant to 
 his friend who was an heir. " But why are you 
 working," retorts the heir upon the merchant, "but 
 to secure the laziness I enjoy? " 
 
 At all events, hard labour, in any fair sense of the 
 word, is incompatible with the finest beauty, whether 
 personal or intellectual, and therefore with the most 
 delicate bloom of society. But we Americans are 
 workers by the nature of the case, or sons of 
 labourers, who spend foolishly what they wisely won. 
 And, therefore, New York, as the social represent- 
 ative of the country, has more than the task of 
 Sisyphus. It aims, and hopes, and struggles, and 
 despairs, to make wealth stand for wit, wisdom and 
 beauty. In vain it seeks to create society by danc- 
 ing, dressing, and dining, by building fine houses and 
 avoiding the Bowery. Fine society is not exclusive, 
 does not avoid, but all that does not belong to it 
 drops away like water from a smooth statue. We 
 are still peasants and parvenues, although we call 
 each other princes and build palaces. Before we are 
 three centuries old we are endeavouring to surpass, 
 by imitating, the results of all art and civilization 
 and social genius beyond the sea. By elevating the 
 standard of expense, we hope to secure select society, 
 but have only aggravated the necessity of a labour 
 integrally fatal to the kind of society we seek. 
 
 It would be unfortunate if we were all drones, and
 
 234 ' Lotus-Eating 
 
 it is foolish for any man to speak of labour in general 
 as inimical to society. But I speak of that labour 
 which is really drudgery, which is unfair to a man's 
 intellectual nature. Hans Sachs was a shoemaker, 
 but it is no less true that incessant hammering of 
 sole leather also hammers the cobbler's just develop- 
 ment away. 
 
 One extreme is as bad as the other. The drudge 
 whose life is drained away in the inexorable toil of a 
 mine or a factory, is as sad an object as the prodigal, 
 whom wealth softens into imbecility. The polar zone 
 freezes, the tropics burn, the realms of the equator 
 sleep in golden calm between. 
 
 Fine Society is a fruit that ripens slowly. We 
 Americans fancy we can buy it. But you might as 
 well go to market for fresh peaches in January. 
 Noble aims and sincere devotion to them the high- 
 est development of mind and heart the fine aroma 
 of cultivation which springs from the intimacy with 
 all that human genius has achieved in every kind 
 simplicity and integrity a soul whose sweetness 
 overflows in the manner and makes the voice win- 
 ning and the movement graceful here is the recipe 
 for fine society, and although much of this is impos- 
 sible, as for instance, high and various cultivation, 
 without wealth, yet wealth of itself cannot supply the 
 lowest element. The wealth of a foolish man is a 
 pedestal which the more he accumulates elevates 
 him higher, and reveals his deformity to a broader 
 circle. 
 
 These most obvious facts are rarely remembered. 
 Gilded vulgarity believes itself to be gold. But in 
 vain we "cut" and discriminate and eschew, now 
 warmly here and coldly there, as if many a Marquis 
 of unsullied blood did not dine for ten cents in 
 Florence, and lie abed while his shirt was washed, 
 and then enter the saloons of fashion as a King his 
 Council Chamber. 
 
 We separate and exclude, as if some fine morning 
 the little blackamoor of a sweep would not climb 

 
 Newport, again 235 
 
 down the chimney, and fall naturally asleep on the- 
 best bed, soot and all, though he may never have 
 touched linen since the sheets of his cradle. 
 
 We Americans are gifted with the talent of getting 
 rich. But the money-making is not the money- 
 spending genius, and the former nourishes a love 
 of wealth as an end, which is a love fatal to society. 
 We are not peculiar in our regard for money, but 
 we are in the exclusiveness of our regard for it. 
 Wealth will socially befriend a man at Newport or 
 Saratoga, better than at any similar spot in the world, 
 and that is the severest censure that could be passed 
 upon those places. 
 
 But life at Newport is not all moralizing, even with 
 the cynical Timons of which I spoke, and if you will 
 regard this chapter as our chat after dinner, upon 
 the piazza, in the next we will stroll in the pleasant 
 places of Newport. 
 
 NEWPORT, AGAIN 
 
 September. 
 
 THIS Island was originally called Rhode Island 
 from some fancied resemblance in its climate to that 
 of the Isle of Rhodes. I do not wonder at the sug- 
 gestion, for Newport is washed by a southern sea and 
 the air that breathes over it is soft and warm. Its 
 climate is an Italian air. These are Mediterranean* 
 days. They have the luxurious languor of the South. 
 Only the monotonous and melancholy coast reminds- 
 you that you are not gazing upon Homer's sea, and 
 that the wind is not warmed by African sands. All 
 day if you have been in Italy and know its southern 
 shore, you look for the orange groves and vine- 
 yards ; all night you listen for the barcaroles. 
 
 I heard a simple and natural explanation of the
 
 236 
 
 Lotus-Eating 
 
 softness of the Newport climate, which attributed it 
 to the immediate neighbourhood of the Gulf Stream. 
 The current suddenly diverges westward near the 
 Island, and, according to the story, actually touches 
 it. Hence the warmer weather and softer airs here 
 
 than at spots not 
 far removed, es- 
 pecially Nahant. 
 Upon leaving 
 Newport the line 
 of the Gulf Stream 
 stretches west- 
 ward, leaving a 
 broad space of sea 
 between itself and 
 the Massachusetts 
 shore, into which 
 . r --i-'-'- " flows the cold wa- 
 """. ter from the north, by which 
 . the winds warmed over 
 the current are again chilled, 
 and blow into Massachusetts 
 Bay with the sharp sting that gives 
 a name to Boston east winds. Vast 
 quantities of sea-weed are driven in 
 upon the Newport coast, also indi- 
 cating the neighbourhood of the 
 Gulf Stream. If I do not mistake, 
 this course is laid down in Maury's 
 chart. 
 
 But from whatever cause, the 
 climate of Newport is very bland 
 and beautiful. It is called bracing, but it is only 
 pure. From the higher land of the interior of the 
 island you may see the ocean, any sunny day, bask- 
 ing and sparkling in the light, seemingly girding the 
 island with a broad visible belt of warmth. If you 
 see it across smooth, lawn-like slopes, with a cluster 
 of trees, as towards the Spouting Horn, it will 
 fascinate you no less than Undine was fascinated,
 
 Newport, again 237 
 
 and draw you to the shore. Follow it and incline 
 toward the Fort. Pass the numerous gates, gallop 
 along the hard avenue toward Bateman's, and push 
 on to the shore beyond. Then slowly pace along the 
 rocky marge. 
 
 The waves tumble in here, fresh and full from the 
 mid-sea. To the right is the southern shore of the 
 mainland, and by the lighthouse upon Beaver-Tail 
 pass the sloops and schooners heading toward Long 
 Island Sound. It is not a friendly coast; for at a 
 little distance in the sea the waves break and foam 
 over hidden rocks. That ledge is Brenton's Reef, 
 and here in the sand, on the very shore, stand two 
 head stones, side by side. Their silence tells the 
 same story as the fretfulness of the rock-rent waves 
 beyond. If you can cross a stream that intervenes, 
 and are not appalled by stone walls, you may still 
 keep the shore, and skirting Lily Pond which has 
 the stern aspect of a solitary mountain tarn, and is 
 only separated from the sea by a strip of sand, you 
 emerge upon the crescent beach of the Spouting 
 Horn, a throat of rock in the cliff, through which, 
 from a narrow cave below, the water, during storms, 
 is forced some forty or fifty feet into the air. 
 
 Just beyond the Spouting Horn is the southern 
 point of the Island. It is a rocky bluff, planted now 
 in corn, but from the highest point commanding an 
 unobstructed horizon, including the town removed 
 into picturesque distance, and the intermediate 
 reaches of green field, sprinkled with occasional 
 groups of trees. The cliffs around the Spouting 
 Horn are magnificent ocean features, and the shore 
 of the mainland is visible. The sea-sweep enfolds 
 all, satisfying eye and mind. 
 
 This is the true site of a Newport residence. The 
 situation suggests a cottage of the same general 
 character as the Nahant houses. No one could go 
 beyond you, no one could interfere, and, in the pre- 
 sent rapid settlement of the island, it will not be long 
 before it is occupied. A little farther on are the
 
 238 Lotus-Eating 
 
 finest cliffs in Newport, upon which, after southerly 
 storms, the sea dashes itself in magnificent surfs that 
 set the shore in flashing foam. These are the haunts 
 of the bass fishers. We have left our horses behind, 
 for there is only a foot-path along the cliffs, and walls 
 and fences must be scaled. But by a happy old con- 
 dition of the sale of these lands, the path will long 
 remain public. For when the colonists took the land 
 from the Indians, a right of way along the sea was 
 secured to them for ever, for fishing and the gather- 
 ing of sea-weed. At least so runs the tradition at 
 Newport, and the convenient stiles and holes in the 
 walls, even upon properties already settled, confirm 
 its practical truth. 
 
 Or is it only, perhaps, that no man upon this 
 pleasant island feels that he has the right to exclude 
 others from the sea-shore, the sea, like the air, 
 being the only unquestioned universal heritage in 
 Nature? The fields upon the cliffs are flat and" tree- 
 less. A dry, crisp grass carpets them quite to the 
 edge of the precipice. It is thus the finest ocean- 
 walk, for it is elevated sufficiently for the eye to 
 command the water, and is soft and grateful to the 
 feet, like inland pastures. No enterprise has yet 
 perceived that the true situation for a Newport hotel 
 is upon these cliffs. A broad piazza over the sea 
 would brook no rival in attraction, and the citizen 
 who sought the place for the ocean air, and the ocean 
 view, would not turn without a sigh, back into the 
 dusty road, upon which stands, out of the ocean's 
 sight and sound, the glaring, amorphous pile which 
 is his home for the nonce. 
 
 In the serene beauty of September weather, the 
 cliffs are doubly beautiful. Fashion, the Diana of 
 the Summer Solstice, is dethroned ; that golden statue 
 is shivered, and its fragments cast back into the 
 furnace of the city, to be again fused and moulded ; 
 and out of the whirring dust and din the loiterer 
 emerges into the meditative autumnal air. 
 
 "A feeling of sadness," says Coleridge, "a peculiar
 
 Newport, again 239 
 
 melancholy, is wont to take possession of me alike 
 in Spring- and in Autumn. But in Spring it is the 
 melancholy of hope ; in Autumn it is the melancholy 
 of resignation." Strolling among these dry fields, 
 upon the sea, you may perceive plainly enough the 
 difference. In the beginning of the month, a cluster 
 of days, like a troop of tropical birds, with fiery 
 breath and plumage, breathed torrid airs over the 
 island. It was the final ecstasy and festival of 
 summer. But a huge, black cloud gathered one 
 Saturday afternoon, and with lightning and flooding 
 rain dispersed those tropical estrays, and left us 
 cool and quiet, mind and body, in the rich, yellow, 
 autumnal light. 
 
 Among those dry fields I ramble in these delicious 
 but melancholy days, looking at the sea and again 
 babbling Herrick, whose few good verses, among all 
 that he wrote, are like the few drops of vino d'oro 
 wine of gold distilled from the must of Lebanon 
 Vineyards. What pastoral sweetness and genuine 
 personality of feeling in this poem. 
 
 "TO MEADOWS 
 "Ye have been fresh and green ; 
 
 Ye have been filled with flowers ; 
 And ye the walks have been, 
 
 Where maids have spent their hours. 
 You have beheld how they 
 
 With wicked arts did come, 
 To kiss and bear away 
 
 The richer cowslips home. 
 You've heard them sweetly sing, 
 
 And seen them in a round ; 
 Each virgin like a Spring 
 
 With honeysuckles crown'd. 
 But now we see none here, 
 
 Whose silv'ry feet did tread, 
 And with dishevelled hair 
 
 Adorn'd this smoother mead. 
 Like unthrifts, having spent 
 
 Your stock, and needy grown, 
 You're left here to lament 
 
 Your poor estates alone."
 
 240 Lotus-Eating 
 
 The tenderness of feeling" excited by the loveliness 
 of the waning year begets a sympathy for this season 
 more personal than for any other. It is the sympathy 
 with decline and death, the awe before the mystery 
 of which they are the avenue and gate. In the 
 journey of the year, the Autumn is Venice, Spring 
 is Naples certainly, and the majestic maturity of 
 Summer is Rome. Not dissimilar is the feeling with 
 which you glide through the shadows of crumbling 
 Venetian magnificence, and the sentiment with 
 which you tread the gorgeous bowers of Autumn. 
 What life, what hope, what illimitable promise, once 
 filled the eye here, and fed the imagination ! Venice 
 failed to fulfil that promise to experience. Has any 
 summer ever kept it to the life? 
 
 See in the radiance and flashing cloud-forms of 
 this sky, how the year repeats the story of June, 
 how it murmurs these dying spring songs ! Upon 
 pensive thought you drift through the splendours 
 of the decadent year, as in a black gondola through 
 Venice. 
 
 " Over the gleaming watery meadows, 
 Through the dusk of the palace shadows, 
 Like a dark beam mournfully sliding, 
 Steals the gondola, silently gliding. 
 
 And the gardener, this morn belated, 
 Urges his flower-hung barque, fruit-freighted, 
 Like a Summer-perfected vision 
 Through the dream of that sleep Elysian. 
 
 To these palaces ghostly glory 
 
 Clings, like the faintly remembered story 
 
 Of an old diamonded dowager, mumbling 
 
 Tales of her youth from her memory crumbling." 
 
 It is not possible to shun the influence of these 
 days. The deep dome of the sky frescoed by the 
 last sunbeams with delicate tracery of vapours and 
 luminous masses of cloud, the endless extent of the 
 sea, which only seems small when you are upon it, 
 the uniform line of the coast, simple, grand material 
 outlined as grandly these store your mind with
 
 Newport, again 241 
 
 sweet and solemn imagery, and indicate, even here, 
 where the wassail-worship of our Ephesian Diana 
 has but now reeled away, the altar of the unknown 
 God. 
 
 Nor can you avoid wondering what evidence you 
 shall find in the winter that the city has summered 
 upon the seaside. If yearly we are thus submitted 
 to the most beautiful and profound natural influences, 
 and the tone of our society remains still as fiercely 
 frivolous, it is not strange that the September mus- 
 ings of a cynical Timon make him still more cynical. 
 How can he help dreaming dreams of a race that 
 should show throughout their winter life the fresh- 
 ness and vigour of their summer neighbourhood? 
 
 If a young man passes a few years in Europe and 
 returns with nothing but the air of a figure in the 
 last print of fashions, he can only please the ninth 
 part of a man. He will pain and mortify all the 
 rest. His mien, and motion, and conversation should 
 show that he has seen, and heard, and felt, what so 
 many yearn to behold, because they could see to the 
 utmost, yet must die without seeing. 
 
 A travelled man should be painting and sculpture. 
 He should be radiant with art and informed with 
 experience : he should be a channel into the new 
 world of all the best influences of the old, or he has 
 defrauded his country, himself, and those who might 
 have been all that he has failed to be, by not relin- 
 quishing the opportunity to another. I look into his 
 eyes, but instead of the Alps and Italy, I see only 
 the Boulevards or Notre Dame de Lorette. I hear 
 him speak, and catch a fine French oath, but no 
 Miserere, no Campagna song or Barcarole. I mark 
 his manner with women, but I do not perceive that 
 he has seen Raphael's Madonnas; with men, but I 
 do not feel the presence of the Apollo or the manli- 
 ness of Michael Angelo. Ixion has come down from 
 heaven, having banqueted with all the Gods, and 
 remembers only the pattern of the table-cloth. 
 
 If this is our high requirement of the individual 
 R
 
 242 Lotus-Eating 
 
 who has enjoyed fine opportunities, what should we 
 not demand in the character of a society, which every 
 year repairs to the fountains of mental and physical 
 health? In its eye should be the clearness of the 
 sky, in its voice the sound of the sea, in its move- 
 ment the grace of woods and waves. 
 
 It is very well to carry the country to the city, but 
 is very ill to bring the city to the country. The 
 influence of the city is always to be resisted, because 
 its necessary spirit is belittling, personal, and selfish ; 
 that of the country, on the other hand, is to be fos- 
 tered, because it is impersonal and universal. The 
 exhilarating stimulus of the contact of men in the 
 city is useful, sometimes essential, but always dan- 
 gerous. The tranquilizing friendliness of the country 
 favours repose, perhaps inactivity and intellectual 
 rest, but is always humane and elevating. The city, 
 in its technical, social sense, is always ludicrous, and, 
 if it were possible, insulting in the country. There 
 is nothing finer in Nature and Art than the sublime 
 scorn inherent in their virginal purity. A great 
 picture will not be "seen," nor a grand landscape 
 "done." In the crowds of listless idlers who infest 
 Rome yearly, how many see the Transfiguration, or 
 hear the Miserere, or know the profound pathos of 
 the Campagna? Nature and Art are veiled god- 
 desses, and only Love and Humility draw the 
 curtains. 
 
 We must leave in the city, then, as far as possible, 
 the social fictions of the city, if we hope ever to 
 master them rather than to be mastered by them. 
 And that is precisely what is most rarely done, 
 precisely what we Americans do less than any other 
 people. 
 
 I remember, as we floated about the canals in 
 Venice, how we used to imagine a life and society 
 worthy the climate and the poetic city. The women 
 of those fancies were of beauty so rare, and of char- 
 acter at once so lofty and lovely, that the sumptuous 
 palaces and the superb portraits of Titian, and Tin-
 
 Newport, again 243 
 
 toret, and Giorgione, were the only natural homes 
 and ornaments of their life. The men of those 
 dreams were so grave and gracious, of such intel- 
 lectual sweep, of such subtle human sympathy, that 
 no portrait in the great council hall of the Doge's 
 palace quite suggested their mien. Life was a 
 festival worthy its sphere worthy the illimitable 
 splendour and capacity of the world. 
 
 They were but gondola dreams, those fancies, 
 the articulate song of the mystery and magnificence 
 of Venice. They were only pictures on the air the 
 evanescent mirage of romance that hovers about that 
 spot. Yet, was it strange that the pleasant dream 
 inspired by so singular a triumph of Art as the city 
 of Venice should return upon the cliffs at Newport, 
 in view of the possibilities and influences of a society 
 just beginning? 
 
 Will you think me captious if I confess, what we 
 all feel, that the life of Nature Nature, whose head 
 is Man censures our life more than any philosophy ? 
 If a man should pass suddenly from a regal mid- 
 summer day in Windsor Forest to a drawing-room at 
 St. James, would he feel that he had advanced from 
 the less to the greater? The trees and flowers fulfil 
 their utmost destiny ; but the Right Honourable Sir 
 Jabesh Windbag as Timon Carlyle dubs the courtier 
 does he impart a finer charm to the summer day? 
 
 It was not strange that the Venetian life recurred, 
 but it was sad. We shall never fulfil the destiny 
 that Hope has allotted us, since Hope always paints 
 human portraits with the colours of the Ideal. Even 
 upon these cliffs the spring promised a brighter 
 summer than was possible ; for the spring is a poet, 
 and sings to us in our speech the visions beheld in 
 another realm. Life is a rich strain of music sug- 
 gesting a realm too fair to be. How often we seem 
 to touch the edge of some high and poetic manner 
 of life; how we revenge ourselves upon drudgery 
 and Wall-street, by fancying an eternal summer in 
 Naples Bay, where the syrens should sing in the 
 R 2
 
 244 
 
 Lotus-Eating 
 
 moonlight and every fisher-girl upon the shore should 
 be Graziella. Our ancestral estates the possibilities 
 of hope of which we are heirs, all lie in the future. 
 In the golden tropics of distance flash their towers, 
 and their trees lean over singing streams. There our 
 coming is awaited, and the bells would fain chime 
 that we are of age. There, looking from the 
 
 
 windows, or deep retired in 
 interior chambers, the beautiful 
 who were our dream and our 
 despair await us. Over those tropic 
 lands the sun never sets those flashing 
 towers do never crumble, in those 
 ;7 palace gardens gush the fountains of 
 eternal youth, and all the wide horizon 
 for ever flames with summer. 
 
 So upon the most distant horizon of 
 life hope floats, a beautiful mirage. To 
 reach those pleasant places is the aim of all our en- 
 deavours. A man would be rich, that he may have 
 a fine house hung with pictures and adorned with 
 sculptures. Even the greatest drudge pays the 
 homage to his nature, of, at least, saying that. In 
 youth it seems that we could reach out our hands and 
 ourselves unlock the doors. But those golden gates
 
 Newport, again 245 
 
 shall never be unbarred. Gradually they recede, 
 clouds descend, and fog's rise, and at times obscure 
 the spectacle altogether. We resign ourselves to our 
 condition, we go about our work, but still that stately 
 domain of ours glimmers before our eyes a vision 
 in the shifting- clouds to the toiling husbandman. 
 Still, strains of its wild and winning music peal down 
 the wind, the sweet clang of court-revels to the lonely 
 wanderer. 
 
 Although we are thus defrauded of our rights, 
 royalty never dies from our hearts, and, living in 
 hovels, we are still the heirs of palaces. Strolling 
 in this mood beneath the September sunsets I can 
 yet see fair and graceful figures moving along the 
 cliffs fair and graceful enough to walk by the sea 
 and under the sky, as kings and queens their halls. 
 
 The great enjoyment at Newport is riding. The 
 hard, bleak beach is the most pleasant race-course, 
 and the heaving of the sea sympathizes with the 
 rider and inspires him. The finest beach in New- 
 port is the second, a mile beyond the crescent beach 
 by the town, but it always seems lonely and distant, 
 and can only be gained by plowing- along a sandy 
 road among the wan fields upon the shore. On a 
 pleasant afternoon the first beach is alive with run- 
 ning horses and light wagons. You know we are 
 dandies in our carriages as well as in our dress, and 
 while they play their little pranks upon the edge of 
 the sea, which plunges slowly and heavily along the 
 shore, the impression is that of the recumbent statue 
 of the Nile in the Vatican and the garden of the 
 Tuileries, covered and pleased with the gambols of 
 the little ones. 
 
 One evening in September I was returning with a 
 friend, from the southern shore by Bateman's. It 
 was one of the golden twilights which transfigure the 
 world. It seemed, in fact, as if we were very near 
 that domain which lies so deep in the future, and 
 our horses paced along cheerily, as if they shared 
 the exhilaration of the hour. We passed through
 
 246 Lotus-Eating 
 
 the town, by the groups sauntering" on the road and 
 sitting under the piazzas and at the windows of 
 houses, and descended to the first beach. The sun 
 was just gone and the sky was a dome of molten 
 lead, except toward the eastern horizon upon the 
 sea, where gray vapours gradually clouded the glory. 
 
 We turned our backs upon the sunset and facing 
 the sea and the gray east we leaned forward, and 
 our horses flew over the beach. They did not seem 
 to touch the earth, but we were borne on as if by the 
 sway of the sea. Faster and faster we flew, and the 
 cold line of the point before us, stretching far into 
 the ocean, and the dull night that lowered beyond it, 
 and the black beach beneath us, were as the stern 
 landscape of the extremest north contrasted with the 
 southern splendours we had left behind. It was wild 
 and elfish, and the hoofs of the horses rang like the 
 dumb cadence of an old saga. Our hair streamed 
 on the wind that began to curdle chill across the sea, 
 and gaining the end of the beach we reined up, 
 turned suddenly, and were in another zone, in another 
 world. 
 
 The west was gorgeous, still, and warm. The 
 little hill on which stands the town, and the fields 
 between it and us, were a belt of blackness drawn 
 between the glow of the west and the glossy, glitter- 
 ing smoothness of the beach, upon whose moist sur- 
 face the slant light of the late sunset blended with 
 the moonlight that quivered along the crumbling 
 ridges of the surf. The sea, beyond, heaved silvery 
 far into the nig-ht. The gorgeous west the black 
 land the glossy beach the silvery sea, these made 
 up the world in that moment, nor was the world ever 
 more beautiful and sublime. Along the way paved 
 with gleams of sunset and of moonrise, our horses 
 slowly paced. No realm of fairy was ever more sur- 
 prising and alluring ; no such scene was yet painted 
 on canvas or in print ; and though it faded every 
 moment and the world resumed its old expression, 
 that glance has bewildered me for ever, and I am not
 
 Newport, again 247 
 
 sure that it was not Undine who rode with me that 
 evening" and compelled the sun, moon, and sea to 
 offer her magnificent homage. 
 
 Like all seasides, Newport has those fogs and 
 mists which are the delight of artists which are 
 themselves artists of a fantastic fancy and to which 
 even the belles are not always averse, for what the 
 sun does the fog undoes, being- the rare cosmetic that 
 removes the brown scar of the sun's touch. These 
 fogs, however, are not always pleasant. They are 
 thick, drenching- clouds, and wet you through as 
 thoroughly as the most insinuating- rain. Moreover 
 they brood over your spirits with a dull gloom akin 
 to their effect in extinguishing the landscape. But 
 in coming and going, and wherever they are not too 
 dense, they are very welcome to the lover of the 
 picturesque. 
 
 In the morning, perhaps, and especially in June 
 and September, as you saunter under a cloudless 
 sky, you see a vag-ue roll of mist muffling the horizon 
 line of the sea. If you have been bounding over the 
 beach with Undine, the evening before, you are 
 acclimated to wonders, and fancy, simply, that a part 
 of the sky has fallen upon the sea. Toward dinner 
 you observe that it is nearer, that it advances, rolling- 
 over the sea and blotting out everything- in its path. 
 The sun strikes a sail between you and it there is 
 a momentary flash, lost in the dull darkness of the 
 mist. 
 
 By dinner-time it beleaguers the Island it over- 
 comes it it penetrates at windows and doors. Woe 
 to starched muslin ! Woe to cravats ! Woe to choice 
 note paper ! Woe to everything but India-rubber 
 shoes. The band may well play in the hall after 
 dinner. The world beyond the piazza is a vast white 
 opacity, the ghost of the ocean which thus asserts 
 the sea's sovereignty over the Island. It is damp 
 and chill. The music breathes winning- waltzes, 
 but who could dance here, save mermaids and 
 Undine, haply, who loves the mists, and clothes
 
 248 Lotus-Eating 
 
 herself with the grace of clouds? The horses must 
 be countermanded. A slight wind shivers through 
 the dampness and the boughs in the little green yard 
 by the piazza shed a string of diamonds. The gaiety 
 of Newport is suddenly quenched, and if you steal 
 quietly up to your room, and, opening your window, 
 listen, you will hear the invisible sea encompassing 
 the Island with its ceaseless dash, and booming soft 
 scorn through the fog. 
 
 It breaks suddenly, and in rounding masses 
 recedes. The sun bursts through the mist and shines 
 into our very hearts. The clouds roll away from our 
 spirits, we leap into the saddle and give galloping 
 chase to the skirts of the foe. Fold upon fold it 
 sweeps retreating over the Island embracing the 
 few melancholy trees and leaving them glittering; 
 nor pauses at the shore, but softly over the water 
 the flight of the fog continues, until our sky is rosy 
 again as in the morning, and only a vague roll of 
 mist muffles the horizon line of the sea. 
 
 I rode one afternoon with Undine along the south- 
 ern shore of the Island, by the lonely graves of which 
 I have spoken. We could see only a few feet over 
 the water, but the ocean constantly plunged sullenly 
 out of the heavy fog which was full of hoarse roars 
 and wailings the chaotic sound of the sea. We 
 took the homeward path through the solitary fields, 
 just unfamiliar enough to excite us with a vague 
 sense of going astray. At times, gleams of sun- 
 light, bewildered like ourselves, struggled, surprised, 
 through the mist and disappeared. But strange and 
 beautiful were those estrays; and I well understood 
 why Turner studied vapours so long and carefully. 
 
 Two grander figures are not in contemporary 
 biography than that of Coleridge, in Carlyle's 
 "Sterling," looking out from Highgate over the 
 mingled smoke and vapour which buries London, as 
 in lava Pompeii is buried, and that of Turner, in 
 some anonymous, but accurate, sketches of his latter 
 days, at his cottage on the edge of London, where,
 
 Newport, again 249 
 
 apart from his fame, and under a feigned name, he 
 sat by day and night upon the house-top, watching 
 the sun glorify the vapours and the smoke with the 
 same splendour that he lavishes upon the evening 
 west, and which we deemed the special privilege of 
 the sky. Those two men, greatest in their kind 
 among their companions, illustrate with happy force 
 what \Yordsworth sang : 
 
 " In common things that round us lie, 
 Some random truths he can impart, 
 
 The harvest of a quiet eye 
 That broods and sleeps on his own heart." 
 
 Gazing from his Highgate window with "large, 
 gray eye," did Coleridge see more than the image 
 of his own mind and his own career, in that limit- 
 less city, wide-sparkling, many-turreted, fading and 
 mingling in shining mist with strange voices call- 
 ing from its clouds the solemn peal of cathedral 
 chimes and the low voice of the vesper bell? And 
 out of that London fog with its irresistible splen- 
 dours, and out of the holy vapours which float serene 
 amid the Alps, has Turner quarried his colossal fame. 
 There is no grander lesson in any history of any art, 
 than the spectacle of the greatest painter of our time, 
 sitting upon his house-top, and from the mist which 
 to others was but a clog and inconvenience, and 
 associated in all men's minds only with link boys 
 and lanterns, plucking the heart of its mystery and 
 making it worshipped and remembered. 
 
 In the evening I found myself alone upon the 
 beach, surrounded by the fog. I seemed to be upon 
 the hard bottom of the sea, for nothing was visible 
 save occasionally the moon, as the fog thinned over 
 my head the seemingly circular spot of beach upon 
 which I stood and the long, white seething line of 
 surf that fell exhausted along the shore. The con- 
 fused moan of the sea was the only and constant 
 sound. Fascinated by the strangeness of the scene, 
 lost in the fog, whose murky chill lay damp upon 
 my hands and face, I wandered over the beach. I
 
 250 Lotus-Eating 
 
 ran, but could not escape the small round spot of 
 black beach the encompassing dead white cloud 
 the moon, blotted out and again revealed. I shouted 
 aloud, but my voice fell flat and lost, and the murmur 
 of the surf boomed in melancholy mockery. I stood 
 still, but the continuous sound did not destroy the 
 weird silence. I ran to the edge of the sea ; the 
 water broke over my feet and slid far up the beach 
 and washed my tracks away. I advanced constantly 
 with no sense of progress and saw suddenly a huge, 
 fantastic figure looming ominously through the fog- 
 cloud and confronting me. I stopped as if an army 
 had risen before me, then ran toward the figure which 
 dwindled into a shapeless block, left upon the sand, 
 and distorted by the mist into a goblin. 
 
 The wildness of the feeling passed. The constant 
 iteration of the sea's wail, that wandered through 
 the enchanted silence as if seeking sympathy, gradu- 
 ally possessed my heart with its own sadness, and 
 as the fog thinned slowly, and wreathed along the 
 beach, curling and falling skirts of the bowing 
 drapery of Ossian's ghosts that exquisite and 
 mournful song in "Alton Locke" came singing into 
 my mind. You remember the scene in which the 
 life of the young poet culminates in the parlour of 
 the Bishop and in the presence of the Lady Eleanor. 
 She has been singing a wild, melancholy air, of 
 which the words were poor, but whose meaning the 
 poet feels in his inmost soul, quickened as he is by 
 the exhilaration and intoxication of passion in which 
 he was reeling. Lady Eleanor asks for some words 
 fit for the melody, and struck by what he says, 
 appeals to him to write them. 
 
 At the same moment his eyes fall upon a water- 
 colour of Copley Fielding's, representing a long, 
 lonely reach of sea-beach a shroud of rain drifting 
 along the horizon, and straggling nets rising and 
 falling upon the surf. Its utter desolation, though 
 he little thinks it at the moment, images his own 
 life, and returning home, in the wild whirl of name-
 
 Newport, again 251 
 
 less regret and passionate sorrow, he writes the lines. 
 It is a rare fortune for the artist that his picture is 
 so perfectly translated into words. Who that feels 
 the penetrating pathos of the song but sees the rain- 
 shroud, the straggling nets and the loneliness of the 
 beach? There is no modern verse of more tragic 
 reality. 
 
 " ' O Mary, go and call the cattle home 
 And call the cattle home, 
 And call the cattle home, 
 Across the sands o' Dee.' 
 The Western wind was wild and dark wi' foam, 
 
 And all alone went she. 
 The creeping tide came up along the sand, 
 And o'er and o'er the sand, 
 And round and round the sand, 
 As far as eye could see ; 
 The blinding mist came down and hid the land, 
 
 And never home came she. 
 Oh ! is it weed, or fish, or floating hair 
 A tress o' golden hair,. 
 O' drowned maiden's hair 
 Above the nets at sea ? 
 Was never salmon yet that shone so fair, 
 
 Among the stakes on Dee. 
 They rowed her in across the rolling foam, 
 The cruel, crawling foam, 
 The cruel, hungry foam, 
 To her grave beside the sea ; 
 But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home 
 
 Across the sands o' Dee." 
 
 The night became more merciful as I sauntered 
 homeward from the beach. The fog rolled away, the 
 unclouded moon shone, and the air was warm and 
 still. The lights were extinguished in the cottages, 
 only in the great hotels some windows were yet bright. 
 I turned up a lane between two of the pleasantest 
 places upon the Island. Through the moonlit trees, 
 like ghosts of sound haunting the moonlight, stole 
 the faint tinkle of a guitar. A manly voice, rich and 
 full, chimed in unison and sang this song of Brown- 
 ing's, amid whose pauses the lessening murmur of 
 the sea wistfully repeated that other refrain 
 
 " Oh ! is it weed, or fish, or floating hair?"
 
 252 Lotus-Eating 
 
 The difference was that between the moon-misted 
 sea-beach and the moonlight garden. 
 
 "There's a woman like a de\v-drop, she's so purer than the 
 
 purest ; 
 And her noble heart's the noblest, yes, and her sure faith's the 
 
 surest ; 
 And her eyes are dark and humid, like the depth on depth of 
 
 lu>tre 
 Hid i' the harebell, while her tresses, sunnier than the wild grape's 
 
 cluster, 
 
 Gush in golden-tinted plenty down her neck's rose-misted maible, 
 And her voice's music call it the well's bubbling, the bird's 
 
 warble. 
 
 And this woman says, ' My days were sunless and my nights were 
 
 moonless, 
 Parched the pleasant April herbage, and the lark's heart's outbreak 
 
 tuneless, 
 If you love me not ' and I, who (ah, for words of flame !) adore 
 
 ' her! 
 
 Who am mad to lay my spirit prostrate palpably before her 
 I may enter at her portal soon, as now her lattice takes me, 
 And by noontide as by midnight make her mine as hers she makes 
 
 me." 
 
 I hoped to have told you of the Corso or semi- 
 weekly promenade at the Fort, which began gallantly 
 enough, but declined rapidly because velvet-coated 
 fast gentlemen would trot their fast horses over the 
 ground as if it had been a race-course, and because, 
 instead of forming two contrary lines of carriages, 
 to enable us to pass, and see, and chat, or stopping, 
 as at the Cascine in Florence, for conversation, we 
 all trotted meekly one way in each other's dust. 
 With our graceful carriages and the famed beauty of 
 American women, this should be one of the most 
 attractive features of Newport. But our exaggera- 
 tion spoiled it. What American is ever going 
 behind? What is the use of a 2.40, if you are to 
 walk in a ring? So we must wait a little, until 
 jockeys ripen into gentlemen and eagerness mellows 
 into elegance. I wonder if a wit from Mercury com- 
 ing to summer on the earth, would suspect that our 
 Newport aim was enjoyment?
 
 Newport, again 253 
 
 But there is another Fort, a circular ruin upon 
 the rocky point of an island at the entrance of the 
 harbour, which you can reach in a half-hour from 
 Newport, and is well worth an afternoon. Deere 
 recruited a party one day for the excursion. We went 
 into the town and put off from the wharf in a fleet 
 sail-boat. The harbour was white and alive with 
 similar craft, bending 1 in the wind and scudding to 
 and fro. We passed under the long, low embank- 
 ment of Fort Adams and across the mouth of the 
 harbour to a group of mound-like rocks. Crowning 
 the summit of one of them was our goal, called, 
 appropriately enough from the aspect of the rocks, 
 Fort Dumpling. 
 
 You glide from the beautiful harbour directly into 
 the smooth water of the cove-like reaches among the 
 rocks. The bright vegetation clinging to the crevices 
 of their sides is touched Turneresquely by the after- 
 noon sun, and as you land upon the island, its low, 
 bare, melancholy outline reminds you of days and 
 feelings upon the Roman Campagna. You climb 
 over the rocks, and pasture lands luxuriant with 
 scentless asters, crisp everlasting, and yellow golden 
 rods, and find them the only garrison of the ruined 
 old fort, which is perched upon a cliff over the sea. 
 They nod along the ramparts, and flame in the 
 crumbling walls. Girls toss pebbles through the 
 port-holes, and muse upon the distant sails at sea. 
 
 But best of all, quaint old Newport lies white 
 against its hill, and the sinking sun plays with it, 
 making it what city you will, of all the famous and 
 stately towns upon the sea. 
 
 Let us leave it so, the last picture of a pleasant 
 Summer, beneath which we will write this inscrip- 
 tion : 
 
 "THE REAPER 
 " I walked among the golden grain, 
 That bent and whispered to the plain, 
 ' How gaily the sweet Summer passes, 
 So gently treading o'er us grasses.'
 
 254 Lotus-Eating 
 
 A sad-eyed Reaper came that way, 
 But silent in the singing day 
 Laying the graceful grain along, 
 That met the sickle with a song. 
 The sad-eyed Reaper said to me, 
 ' Fair are the Summer fields you see ; 
 Golden to-day to-morrow gray ; 
 So dies young love from life away.' 
 ' 'Tis reaped, but it is garnered well,' 
 I ventured the sad man to tell : 
 ' Though Love declines, yet Heaven is kind- 
 God knows his sheaves of life to bind.' 
 More sadly then lie bowed his head, 
 And sadder were the words he said, 
 ' Tho' every Summer green the plain, 
 This harvest cannot bloom again.' " 
 
 THE END 
 
 Richard Clay ami Sons, Limited, Lomion and Bungay
 
 L 005 115 857 4