dictionary, to see how they were spelt;–and parsing! and doing sums!– oh, gracious! she never could teach school,–that was out of the question!
At last, after a long fit of silent musing, during which she had bit her lips, and frowned, and gazed abstractedly at the wall, a gleam of hope lit up her face, soon brightening into a smile. She had hit upon a plan! She could learn the milliner’s trade! She had always been handy with her needle, and liked nothing better than to arrange laces and ribbons and flowers. She could easily learn to make and trim a bonnet, she thought; at least, she could try. At first it would come hard to sit cooped up in those little back shops, sewing and stitching from morning till night; but it was better than marrying Elam Hunt, or than eating other people’s bread. Then she began to build castles in the air, as her custom was. She fancied herself a milliner’s apprentice, working away at bonnets and caps, among a group of other girls,–sometimes rising to attend upon a customer, or peeping out between the folds of a curtain at people in the front shop. She wondered whether Cornelia and Helen would be ashamed of knowing a milliner’s apprentice, if they should chance to see her in Hartford.
What would her schoolmates say? and would her hero despise a girl that worked for a livelihood? Then she whimpered a little, thinking how lonesome she would be, for a while, among strangers; but it was a kind of lamentation that differed widely from the frantic weeping of the morning. Then, all at once, a doubt began to depress her new-born hopes. Could she get a place? She was a stranger in Hartford, and beyond that city she dared not send her thoughts. Could Tira get a place for her? She feared not, for Tira herself seldom went to the city. But there was Doctor Bugbee, who knew a great many people there, and who was so rich and powerful, that even in Hartford, though it was a city, his word must have great influence. Besides, the firm of Bugbee Brothers purchased large quantities of goods at some of the great millinery shops. The Doctor’s own private custom was not small, for Cornelia dressed as became her condition, and even little Helen scorned to wear a bonnet unless it came from Hartford. Doctor Bugbee could help her to find a place. Doubtless he would be willing, nay, even glad, to assist her in her trouble. At any rate, she would ask him. But how was she to see him? He was not likely to call upon her, unless she feigned sickness, and sent for him; for her sister would not permit her to go to his house, where she would be sure to see Tira. Besides, the Doctor’s manner had of late grown so distant and forbidding, that she was a little fearful of obtruding herself upon his notice. Though sorry for this change, she had never laid it so much to heart as to be grieved or affronted; for even his children complained of his altered behavior, and all his friends had noticed the gloomy expression which his face sometimes wore. But now she troubled herself with wondering whether she had given him any cause to be offended with her. Perhaps her giddy nonsense and thoughtless gayety, which when he himself was cheerful and happy he had listened to without displeasure, had vexed and annoyed him in his moods of sadness and dejection. But what else could she do than solicit his aid? The favor, though small for him to grant, would be of immense benefit to her, and the good-hearted Doctor would not be likely to refuse. She would tell him how friendless she was, and beg him to help the fatherless in her distress. She knew that he would not turn her away. At all events, she could try.
Coming at last to this conclusion, and wonderfully cheered and strengthened by the purpose she had formed, she washed her face, arranged her dishevelled hair, and smoothed her rumpled dress. Then sitting down behind the window-curtain, she began to watch for Cornelia, hoping her friend would not long delay her accustomed visit to the parsonage. But it happened that Cornelia had that very day begun a novel, in three volumes, the heroine of which was represented to be a young lady whose extreme beauty and amiable temper made her deserving of better treatment than she received at the hands of the hard-hearted author, who suffered her to be cheated and bullied by a scheming and brutal guardian, to be slandered by his envious daughter, persecuted by a dissolute nobleman, haunted by a spectre, shut up in a tower, exposed to manifold dangers, beset by robbers, abducted, assaulted, barely rescued, and, finally, even teased and tormented by the chosen lover of her heart, a jealous-pated fellow, who was always making her miserable and himself ridiculous by his absurd suspicions and fractious behavior.
Sympathizing deeply with this distressed young woman, whose unexampled misfortunes and troubles would have touched the heart of even a marble statue, Cornelia was weeping dolefully over a page near the end of the second volume, where the lady’s lover, in a fit of senseless jealousy, tears her miniature from his bosom, renounces her affection, and leaves her swooning upon the floor. Just then Helen rushed into her chamber, with a summons from Laura to hasten at once to her side. For Laura, after long watching, had caught sight of Helen jumping the rope on the grassplot, and by means of coughing and waving her handkerchief from the window had attracted the notice of the child, who, coming to the paling, had received the message she forthwith bore to Cornelia, adding to it the information that Laura’s eyes appeared to be almost as red as Cornelia’s own.
Staying only to finish the volume, Cornelia repaired to comfort and console her friend, to whose chamber she found ready access in spite of some vague misgivings in Mrs. Jaynes’s mind. But, shrewd as this lady was by nature, and apprehensive as she felt that some untoward accident would prevent the accomplishment of her cherished plans, she never dreamed of the momentous results that were to follow this interview, apparently so harmless, between Laura and her friend; nor would it be fitting to suffer an account of so important a conference to appear at the end of a chapter.
[To be continued in the next Number.]
* * * * *
SPARTACUS.
The Romans had many virtues, and conspicuous amongst these was the virtue of impartiality. They treated everybody with equal inhumanity. They were as pitiless towards the humble as towards the proud. The quality of mercy was utterly unknown to them. Their motto,
“Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos,”
Powell Buxton has happily translated, “They murdered all who resisted them, and enslaved the rest.”
But it was as slaveholders that the Romans most clearly exhibited their impartiality. They were above those miserable subterfuges that are so common with Americans. They made slaves of all, of the high as well as the low,–of Thracians as well as Sardinians, of Greeks and Syrians as readily as of Scythians and Cappadocians.
The consequence of the modes by which the Romans obtained their bondmen,–by war, by purchase, and by kidnapping,–affecting as they did the most cultivated and the bravest races, necessarily made slavery a very dangerous institution. Greeks and Gauls, Thracians and Syrians, Germans and Spaniards were not likely to submit their necks readily to the yoke. They rose several times in great masses, and contended for years on equal terms with the legions. Some of their number exhibited the talents of statesmen and soldiers, at the head of armies more numerous than both those which fought at Cannae. One of them showed himself to be a born soldier, and caused the greatest terror to be felt at Rome that had been known there since that day on which Hannibal rode up to the Colline Gate, and cast his javelin defiantly into that city which he himself never could enter.
The treatment of their slaves by the Romans was not unlike that which slaves now experience. Some masters were kind, and there are many facts which show that the relations between master and slave were occasionally of the most amiable nature. But these were exceptional cases, the general rule being cruelty, as it must be where so much power is lodged in the hands of one class of men, and the other has only a nominal protection from the law. Even where cruelty takes no other form than that involved in hard labor, the slave must experience intolerable oppression. Now the Romans were the most avaricious people that ever lived. They had a hearty love of money for money’s sake. They would do anything for gold. Such men were not likely to let their slaves grow fat from light tasks and abundant food; their food was light, and their tasks were heavy. So ill-fed were they that they were compelled to rob on the highway, and were encouraged to do so by their owners. Indeed, much of the private economy of the Romans was founded on cruelty to their slaves. Some, who have come down to us as model men, were infamous for their maltreatment of their bondmen. The life of any foreigner was of but little account with any Roman, but enslaved foreigners were regarded as on a level with brutes. Many anecdotes are related of the ferocious disregard of all humanity which the world’s masters manifested towards the servile classes. There is a story told by Cicero, in one of the Verrine Orations, which peculiarly illustrates this feature of the Roman character. The praetorian edicts forbade slaves to carry arms. There were no exceptions. A boar of great size was once given to Lucius Domitius, who was a Sicilian Praetor. Its size caused him to ask by whom it was slain; and on being informed that the hunter was a shepherd and slave, he sent for him. The slave, not doubting that he should be rewarded for his bravery, hastened to present himself before the Praetor, who asked him what he killed the animal with, “With a spear,” was the answer; whereupon the Praetor ordered that he should be immediately crucified. This was but one of thousands of similar acts that were perpetrated by Romans through many generations.
The slaves, as we have remarked, occasionally revolted, and the efforts that were found necessary to subdue them rose sometimes to the dignity of wars. The first Servile War of the Romans occurred in Sicily. There were various reasons why this fine island should become the scene of servile wars sooner than other portions of the Roman dominions. Upon the final expulsion of the Carthaginians, about the middle of the second Punic War, great changes of property ensued. Speculators from Italy rushed into the island, “who,” says Arnold, “in the general distress of the Sicilians, bought up large tracts of land at a low price, or became the occupiers of estates which had belonged to Sicilians of the Carthaginian party, and had been forfeited to Rome after the execution or flight of their owners. The Sicilians of the Roman party followed the example, and became rich out of the distress of their countrymen. Slaves were to be had cheap; and corn was likely to find a sure market whilst Italy was suffering from the ravages of war. Accordingly, Sicily was crowded with slaves, employed to grow corn for the great landed proprietors, whether Sicilian or Italian, and so ill-fed by their masters that they soon began to provide for themselves by robbery. The poorer Sicilians were the sufferers from this evil; and as the masters were well content that their slaves should be maintained at the expense of others, they were at no pains to restrain their outrages. Thus, although nominally at peace, though full of wealthy proprietors, and though exporting corn largely every year, yet Sicily was teeming with evils, which, seventy or eighty years after, broke out in the horrible atrocities of the Servile War.” [2]
[Footnote 2: Arnold, _History of Rome_, Vol. III. pp. 317-318, London edition.]
The Sicilian Servile War began B.C. 133, only a few years after the destruction of Carthage and Corinth, and when the military power of the republic was probably at its height, though military discipline may have been somewhat relaxed from the old standard. It lasted two or three years. The chief of the slaves had at one time two hundred thousand followers, inclusive, probably, of women and children. He was a Syrian of Apamea, named Eunus, and had been a prophet and conjurer among the slaves. To his prophecies and tricks he owed his elevation when the rebellion broke out. According to some accounts, he was rather a cunning than an able man; but it should be recollected that his enemies only have drawn his portrait. The victories he so often won over the Roman forces are placed to the credit of his lieutenant, a Cilician of the name of Cleon; but he must have been a man of considerable ability to have maintained his position so long, and to have commanded the services of those said to have been his superiors. Cleon’s superiority was probably only that of the soldier. He fell in battle, and Eunus was made prisoner, but died before he could be brought to punishment,–no doubt, to the vast regret of his savage captors.
In the year B.C. 103, another Servile War broke out in Sicily, and was not brought to an end until after four years of hard fighting. The leaders were Salvius, or Tryphon, an Italian, and Athenion, a Cilician, or Greek. Both showed considerable talent, but owed their leadership, Salvius to his knowledge of divination, and Athenion to his pretensions to astrology. They were often successful, and it was not until a Consul had taken the field against them that the slaves were subdued, the chiefs having successively fallen, and no one arising to make their place good.
The next great Servile War was on a grander scale, though briefer, than either of the Sicilian contests. Its scene was Italy, and it was conducted, on the part of the rebels, by the profoundest military genius ever encountered by the Romans, with the exception, perhaps, of Hannibal. We speak of SPARTACUS, who defeated many Roman armies, and disputed with the all-conquering republic the dominion of the Italian Peninsula, and with it that of the civilized world. This war took place B.C. 73-71, while Rome was engaged in hostilities with Sertorius and Mithridates; and it was brought to an end only by the exertions of the ablest generals the republic then had,–the great Pompeius having been summoned from Spain, and it being in contemplation to order home Lucullus from the East. In the war with Hannibal the Romans showed their fearlessness by sending troops to Spain while the Carthaginian with his army was lying under their walls; but they called troops and generals from Spain to their assistance against the Thracian gladiator. He must have been a man of extraordinary powers to have accomplished so much with the means at his disposal. It has been regarded as a proof of the astonishing powers of Hannibal as a commander, that he could keep together, and in effective condition, an army composed of the outcasts, as it were, of many nations, and win with it great victories, scattered over a long period of time; yet this was less than was done by Spartacus. The Carthaginian, like Alexander, succeeded to an army formed by his father, next after himself the ablest man of the age. The Thracian, without country or home, and an outlaw from the beginning of his enterprise, had to create an army, and that out of the most heterogeneous and apparently the most unpromising materials. The palm must be aligned to the latter.
To what race did Spartacus belong? We are told that he was a Thracian, his family being shepherds. The Thracians were a brave people, but by no means remarkable for the highest intellectual superiority; yet Spartacus was eminently a man of mind, with large views, and an original genius for organization and war. Plutarch pays him the highest compliment in his power, by admitting that he deserved to be regarded as belonging to the Hellenic race. He was, says the old Lifemaker, “a man not only of great courage and strength, but, in judgment and mildness of character, superior to his condition, and more like a Greek than one would expect from his nation.” It is not impossible that he had Greek blood in his veins. Thrace was hard by Greece, had many Greek cities, and its full proportion of those Greek adventurers, military and civil, who were to be found in every country and city, from Spain to Persia, from Gades to Ecbatana. What more probable than that among his ancestors were Greeks? At the same time it must be admitted that the Thracians themselves were capable of producing eminent men, being a superior physical race, and prevented only by the force of circumstances from attaining to a respectable position. They were renowned for soldierlike qualities, which caused the Romans to give them the preference as gladiators,–a dubious honor, to say the best of it.
How, and under what circumstances, Spartacus became a gladiator, is a point by no means clear. We cannot trust the Roman accounts, as it was a meritorious thing, in the opinion of a Roman, for a man to lie for his country, as well as to die for it. Florus states, that he was first a Thracian mercenary, then a Roman soldier, then a deserter and robber, and then, because of his strength, a gladiator from choice. But, to say nothing of the national prejudices of Florus, he writes like a man who felt it to be a particular grievance that Romans should have been compelled to fight slaves, and particularly gladiators. This is in striking contrast with Plutarch, who was a contemporary of Florus, but whose patriotic pride was not wounded by the victories which the Thracian gladiator won over Roman generals. Indeed, as he was willing to admit that Spartacus ought to have been a Greek, we may suppose that he was pleased to read of his victories,– a not unnatural thing in a provincial, and particularly in a Greek, who knew so well what his country had once been. Plutarch says not a word about the Thracian having been a soldier and a thief, but introduces him with one of his good stories. “They say,” he tells us, “that when Spartacus was first taken to Rome to be sold, a snake was seen folded over his face while he was sleeping, and a woman, of the same tribe with Spartacus, who was skilled in divination, and possessed by the mysterious rites of Dionysus, declared that this was a sign of a great and formidable power, which would attend him to a happy termination.” She was the Thracian’s wife, or mistress, being connected with him by some tender tie, and was with him when he subsequently escaped from Capua. In the bloody drama of the War of Spartacus hers is the sole relieving figure, and we would fain know more of her, for it could have been no ordinary woman who was loved by such a man.
The passion of the Romans for gladiatorial combats is well known. Not a few persons followed the calling of gladiator-trainers, and had whole corps of these doomed men, whom they let to those who wished to get up such shows. There were several schools of gladiators, the chief of which were at Ravenna and Capua, where garrisons were maintained to keep the pupils in subjection. According to one account, Spartacus, while on a predatory incursion, was made prisoner, and afterwards sold to Cneius Lentulus Batiatus, a trainer of gladiators, who sent him to his school at Capua. He was to have fought at Rome. But he had higher thoughts than of submitting to so degrading a destiny as the being “butchered to make a Roman holiday.” Most of his companions were Gauls and Thracians, the bravest of men, who bore confinement with small patience. They conspired to make their escape,–the chief conspirators being Spartacus and two others, who were subsequently made his lieutenants,–Crixus, a Gaul, and Oenomaus, a Greek. Some two hundred persons were in the conspiracy, but only a portion of them succeeded in breaking the school bounds. Florus says that not more than thirty got out, while Velleius makes the number to have been sixty-four, and Plutarch seventy-eight. Having armed themselves with spits, knives, and cleavers, from a cook’s shop, they hastened out of Capua. Passing along the Appian Way, they fell in with a number of wagons loaded with gladiators’ weapons, which they seized, and were thus placed in good fighting condition. Shortly after this they encountered a small body of soldiers, whom they routed, and whose arms they substituted for the gladiatorial, deeming these no longer worthy of them.
They were now joined by a few others, fugitives and mountaineers, with whom they took refuge in the crater of Vesuvius, then, as from time immemorial, and for nearly a century and a half later, inactive. Thence, under the leadership of Spartacus and his lieutenants, Crixus and Oedomaus, they ravaged the country; but it is not probable that they caused much alarm, their number being only two hundred, and such collections of slaves being by no means uncommon. The Romans little dreamed that they were on the eve of one of the most terrible of their many wars. Claudius Pulcher, one of the Praetors, was sent against the “robbers,” as they were considered to be. He found them so advantageously posted on the mountain, that, though superior to them in numbers in the ratio of fifteen to one, he resolved to blockade them, and so compel them to descend to the plain and fight at disadvantage, or starve. But he was contending with a man of genius, against whom even Rome’s military system could not then succeed. He despised his enemy,–a sort of gratification which to those indulging in it generally costs very dear. Spartacus caused ropes to be made of vine branches, with the aid of which he and his followers lowered themselves to the base of the mountain, at a point which had been left unguarded by the Romans because considered inaccessible by the red-tapist who commanded them, and consequently affording a capital outlet for bold men under a daring leader. In the dead of night the gladiators stole round to the rear of the Roman camp, and assailed it. Taken by surprise and heavy with sleep, the Romans were routed like sheep, and their arms and baggage passed into the hands of the despised enemy.
Spartacus saw now that it was time for him and his comrades to assume a higher character than had hitherto belonged to them. Instead of a leader of outlaws, he aspired to be the liberator of the servile population of Italy. He issued a proclamation, in which, while calling upon his followers to remember the multitudes who groaned in chains, he urged the slaves to rise, pointing out how strong they were and how weak were their oppressors, maintaining that the strength of the masters lay in the blind and disgraceful submission of the slaves, at the same time declaring that the land belonged of right to the bravest,–a sentiment as natural and proper when uttered by a man in his situation as it is base when proceeding from a modern buccaneer, who has taken up arms, not to obtain his own freedom, but to enslave others. The whole address is contemptuous towards the Romans, though somewhat too rhetorical for a man in the situation of Spartacus. It is the composition of Sallust, but we may believe that it expresses the sentiments of Spartacus, as Sallust was not only his contemporary, but was too good an artist to disregard keeping in what he wrote.
Italy was at this time full of slaves, many of whom must have been men of quite as much intelligence as the Romans, having been made captives in war. The free population of the Peninsula had almost entirely disappeared. Two generations before, Tiberius Gracchus had pointed to the miserable condition of Italy, and to the fact that the increase of the slave population had caused the Italian yeomanry to become almost extinct. In the years that had passed since his murder the work of extinction had gone on at an accelerated rate, the Social War and the Wars of Sulla and Marius having aided slavery to do its perfect work. In this way had perished that splendid rural population from which the Roman legionary infantry had been conscribed, and which had enabled the aristocratical republic to baffle the valor of Samnium, the skill of Pyrrhus, and the genius of Hannibal. Even so early as in the first of the Eastern wars of the Romans, immediately after the second defeat of Carthage, there were indications that the supply of Roman soldiers was giving out. An anecdote of the younger Scipio shows what must have been the character of a large part of the Roman population more than sixty years before the War of Spartacus. When he declared that Tiberius Gracchus had rightly been put to death, and an angry shout at the brutal speech came from the people, he turned to them and exclaimed, “Peace, ye stepsons of Italy! Remember who it was that brought you in chains to Rome!”
The country being full of slaves and the children of slaves, Spartacus had little difficulty in obtaining recruits. Apulia was particularly fruitful of insurgents. In that country the vices of Roman slavery were displayed in all their naked hideousness, and the Apulian shepherds and herdsmen had a reputation for lawlessness that has never been surpassed. Yet this was the consequence, not the cause, of their bondage. It is related that some of them having asked their master for clothing, he exclaimed, “What! are there no travellers with clothes on?” “The atrocious hint,” says Liddell, “was soon taken; the shepherd slaves of Lower Italy became banditti, and to travel through Apulia without an armed retinue was a perilous adventure. From assailing travellers, the marauders began to plunder the smaller country-houses; and all but the rich were obliged to desert the country, and Hock into the towns. So early as the year 185 B.C., seven thousand slaves in Apulia were condemned for brigandage by a Praetor sent specially to restore order in that land of pasturage. When they were not employed upon the hills, they were shut up in large, prison-like buildings, (_ergastula_) where they talked over their wrongs, and formed schemes of vengeance.” [3] The century and more between this date and the appearance of Spartacus had not improved the condition of the Apulian slaves. He found them ripe for revolt, and was soon joined by thousands of their number, men whose modes of life rendered them the very best possible material for soldiers, provided they could be induced to submit to the restraints of discipline. They were strong, hardy, athletic, and active, and full of hatred of their masters. It shows the superiority of the Thracian that he could prevail upon them to act in a regular manner. He formed them into an army, the chief officers being the men who had escaped from Capua in his company. This army had some discipline, which was the more easily acquired because many of the men were originally soldiers, captives of the Roman sword. But the hatred of all in it to the Romans, and their knowledge that they had to choose between victory and the crudest forms of death known to the crudest of conquerors, made them the most reliable military force then to be found in the world.
[Footnote 3: Liddell, _History of Rome_, Vol. II, p. 144]
With such an army, thus composed, thus animated, and thus led, Spartacus commenced that war to which he has given his name. Bursting upon Lower Italy, the most horrible atrocities were perpetrated, the rich landholders being subjected to every species of indignity and cruelty, in accordance with that law of retaliation which was accepted and recognized by all the ancient world, and which the modern has not entirely abrogated. Towns were captured and destroyed, [4] and the slaves everywhere liberated to swell the conquering force. Spartacus is said to have sought to moderate the fury of his followers, and we can believe that he did so without supposing that he was much above his age in humane sentiment. He saw that excesses were likely to demoralize his army, and so render it unfit to meet the legions which it must sooner or later encounter.
[Footnote 4: These ravages seem to have made a great impression on the Romans, and were by them long remembered. Forty years later Horace alludes to them, in that Ode which he wrote on the return of Augustus from Spain (Carm. III. xiv. 19). He calls to his young slave to fetch him a jar of wine that had seen the Marsiaii War, “If there could be found one that had escaped the vagabond Spartacus.” The manner in which he, the son of a _libertinus_, speaks of Spartacus, is not only amusing as an instance of foolish pride, but is curious as illustrating a change in Roman ideas that was working out more important results than could have followed from all the acts of the first two Caesars, though, perhaps it was in some sense connected with, if not dependent upon, their legislation.]
Much as Spartacus had done, and signal as had been his successes, it was not yet the opinion at Rome that he was a formidable foe. The government despatched Publius Varinius Glaber to act against him, at the head of ten thousand men. This seems a small force, yet it was not much smaller than the army with which, three or four years later, Lucullus overthrew the whole military power of the Armenian monarchy; and it was half as large as that with which Caesar changed the fate of the world at Pharsalia. The Romans probably thought it strong enough to subdue all the slaves in Italy, and Varinius sufficiently skilful to defeat their leaders and send them to Rome in chains. But they were to have a rough awakening from their dreams of invincibility, though some early successes of Varinius for a time apparently justified their confidence.
The army of Spartacus numbered forty thousand men, but it was poorly armed, and its discipline was very imperfect. It still lacked, to use a modern term, “the baptism of fire,”–never yet having been matched in the open field against a regular force. Its arms were chiefly agricultural implements, and wooden pikes that had been made by hardening the points of stakes with fire. Spartacus resolved upon retreating into Lucania; but the Gauls in his army, headed by his lieutenant Crixus, pronounced this decision cowardly, separated themselves from the main body, attacked the Romans, and were utterly routed. The retreat to Lucania was then made in perfect safety, and even with glory, apart from the skill with which it was conducted. Watching his opportunity, and showing that he understood the military principle of cutting up an enemy in detail, Spartacus fell upon a Roman detachment, two thousand strong, and destroyed it. Shortly after this, the Roman general succeeded, as he thought, in getting him into a trap. The servile encampment was upon a piece of ground hemmed in on one side by mountains, on the other by impassable waters, and the Romans were about to close up the only outlets with some of those grand works to which they owed so many of their conquests, when, one night, Spartacus silently retreated, leaving his camp in such a state as completely deceived the enemy, who did not discover what had happened until the next morning, when the gladiators were beyond their reach.
This masterly retreat was followed up by a brilliant surprise of a division of the Roman army under the command of Cossinius. The night was just getting in, and the soldiers were resting from their day’s march and from the labors of forming the encampment, when the Thracian fell upon them. Thus suddenly attacked, they fled, without making any show of resistance,–abandoning everything to the assailants. Cossinius himself, who was bathing, had time only to escape with his life. The Romans rallied, a battle ensued, and they were routed, Cossinius being among the slain. This action took place not far from the Aufidus, which had witnessed the slaughter of Cannae.
Spartacus now considered his army fairly “blooded.” It had routed a Roman detachment, and defeated a small army. Two Roman camps had fallen into its hands, under circumstances that gave indications of superior generalship, and several towns had been stormed. Though still deficient in arms, he resolved to attack Varinius. Sallust represents him as addressing his army before the battle, and telling them that they were about to enter, not upon a single action, but upon a long war,–that from success, then, would follow a series of victories,–and that therein lay their only salvation from a death at once excruciating and infamous. They must, he said, live upon victory after victory,–an expression that showed he had a clear comprehension of the nature of his situation. In the battle that followed, Varinius was beaten, unhorsed, and compelled to fly for his life. All his personal goods fell into the hands of Spartacus. His lictors, with the _fasces_, shared the same fate. Spartacus assumed the dress of the Roman, and all the ensigns of authority. He has been censured for this; but a little reflection ought to convince every one that he did not act from vanity, but from a profound appreciation of the state of things in Italy. The slaves, of which his army was composed, were accustomed to see the emblems of authority with which he was now clothed and surrounded in the possession of their masters alone; and when they beheld them on and about their chief, they were not only reminded of the governing power, but also of the overthrow of those who had therefore monopolized it. Spartacus was a statesman; and knew how to operate on the minds of the rude masses who followed him and obeyed his orders.
The defeat of Varinius left the whole of Lower Lucania at the mercy of the gladiators. Spartacus now established posts at Metapontum and at Thurii. Here he labored, with unceasing energy and industry, to organize and discipline his men. Adopting various measures to prevent them from becoming enervated through the abundance in which they were revelling, he prohibited the use of money among them, and gave all that he himself had to relieve those who had suffered from the war. Some of his officers are said to have followed his example in making so great a sacrifice for the common good.
Towards the close of the year Varinius had succeeded in getting another army on foot. With this he resolved to watch the enemy,– repeated defeats having made the Romans cautious, though they were not even yet seriously alarmed. He formed and fortified a camp, whence he kept a look-out. There was some skirmishing, but no fighting on a large scale. This did not suit Spartacus, who had become confident in himself and his men. He desired battle, but wished the Romans should take the initiative, and was convinced that the near approach of winter would compel them soon to fight or to retreat. To encourage them, he feigned fear, and commenced a retrograde movement; but no sooner had the elated Romans advanced in pursuit than he turned upon them, and they were compelled to fight under circumstances that made defeat certain. This second rout of Varinius was total, and we hear no more of him.
Never had there been a more successful campaign than that which Spartacus had just closed. His force had been increased from less than one hundred men to nearly one hundred thousand. He had proved himself more than the equal of the generals who had been sent against him, both in strategy and in arms. He had fought three great battles, and numerous lesser actions, and had been uniformly successful. Like Carnot, he had “organized victory.” A large part of Italy was at his command, and, under any other circumstances than those which existed, or against any other foe than Rome, he would probably have found little difficulty in establishing a powerful state, the origin of which would have been far more respectable than of that with which he was contending. But he was a statesman, and knew, that, brilliant as were his successes, he had no chance of accomplishing anything permanent within the Peninsula. He was fighting, too, for freedom, not for dominion. His plan was to get out of Italy. Two courses were open to him. He might retreat to the extremity of the Peninsula, cross the strait that separates it from Sicily, and renew the servile wars of that island; or he might march north, force his way out of Italy, and so with most of his followers reach their homes in Gaul and Thrace. The latter course was determined upon; but the more hot-headed portion of his men, the Gauls, were opposed to it, and resolved to march upon Rome. A division of the victorious army ensued. The larger number, under Spartacus, proceeded to carry out the wise plan of their leader, but the minority refused to obey him. We have seen, that, at the very outset of his enterprise, Spartacus encountered opposition from the Gauls in his army, who were ever for rash measures, and that, separating themselves from their associates, under the lead of Crixus, they had been defeated. Crixus rejoined his old chieftain, and did good service; but he and his countrymen, untaught by experience, and inflated with a notion of invincibility,–on what founded, it would be hard to say,–would not aid Spartacus in his prudent attempt to lead his followers out of Italy. Rome was their object, and, to the number of thirty thousand, they separated themselves from the main army. At first, the event seemed to justify their decision. Meeting a Roman army, commanded by the Prettier Arrays, on the borders of Samnium, the Gauls put it to rout, and the victory of Crixus was not less decisive than any of those which had been won by Spartacus. But this splendid dawn was soon overcast. Crixus was a drunkard, and, while sleeping off one of his fits of intoxication, he was set upon by a Roman army under the Consul Jellies. He was killed, and his followers either shared his fate or were totally dispersed. This was the first great victory won by the Romans in the war.
The defeat of Varinius aroused the Roman government to see that their enemy was not to be despised, and, revolted slave though he was, they were compelled to pay him the respect of making prodigious efforts to effect his destruction. The Consuls Jellies and Lentulus were charged with the conduct of the war. The former overthrew the Gauls. The latter followed Spartacus, and came up with him in Etruria. Here a contest of pure generalship took place. Lentulus was determined not to fight until Gellius–whose victory he knew of– should have come up; and Spartacus was equally determined that fight he should before the junction could be effected. He succeeded in blocking up the road by which Gellias was advancing, unknown to Lentulus, and then offered the latter battle. Supposing that his colleague would join him in the course of the action, the Roman accepted the challenge and was beaten. The victors then marched to meet Gellius, who was served after the same manner as Lentulus. Spartacus was the only general who ever defeated two great Roman armies, each headed by a Consul, on the same day, and in different battles. Hannibal’s Austerlitz, Cannae, approaches nearest to this exploit of the Thracian; but on that field the two consular armies were united under the command of Varro.
These great successes were soon followed by the defeat of two lesser Roman armies, combined under the lead of the Praetor Manlius and the Proconsul Cassius. This last victory not only left the whole open country at the command of Spartacus, but also the road to Rome, upon which city he now resolved to march. It would have been wiser, had he persevered in his original plan, the execution of which his victories must have made it easy to carry out. But perhaps success had its usual effect, even on his mind, and blinded him to the impossibility of permanent triumph in Italy. He winnowed his army, dismissing all his soldiers except such as were distinguished by their bravery, their strength, and their intelligence. In order that his march might be swift, he caused all the superfluous baggage to be destroyed. Every beast of burden that could be dispensed with was slain. His prisoners were disposed of after the same fashion. In a modern general such an act would be utterly without excuse. But it was strictly in accordance with the laws of ancient warfare, and Spartacus probably felt far more regret at sacrificing his beasts of Burden than he experienced in consenting to, if he did not order, the butchery of some thousands of men whom he must have looked upon as so many brutes.
Proceeding to the south, Spartacus fell in with a great Roman army led by Arrius, and a battle was fought near Ancona, in which victory was true to the gladiator. The Romans were not only beaten, their army was utterly destroyed; a result which they seem to have felt to be so shameful, that they made no apologies for it. Why, after this signal victory, Spartacus did not forthwith carry out his grand design of attacking Rome,–a design every way so worthy of his genius, and which alone could give him a chance of achieving permanent success after he had abandoned the idea of forcing his way out of Italy by a northern march,–can never be known. It is supposed to have been in consequence of information that circumstances had now placed it in his power to effect a passage into Sicily, a project which he had regarded with favor at an earlier period.
At this time the Cilician pirates had the command of the Mediterranean, which they held until they were conquered, some years later, by Pompeius. It was by the aid of these men that Spartacus expected to carry his army into Sicily. They had shipping in abundance, and in a few days they could have conveyed a hundred thousand men across the narrow strait that separates Sicily from Italy. This they agreed to do, and were paid in advance by Spartacus, though it is probable that he relied less upon that payment for their assistance than upon the palpable fact that their interests were the same as his own. The pirates were on the sea what the gladiatorial army was on land. They were the victims of Roman oppression, and had become outlaws because the world’s law was against them. A union of their fleets, which numbered more than a thousand vessels, with the army of Spartacus, in the harbors and on the fields of Sicily, would perhaps have been more than a match for the whole power of Rome, contending as the republic then was with Mithridates, and bleeding still from the wounds inflicted by Marius and Sulla, as well as from the blows of Spartacus. Sicily, too, was then in a state which promised well for the design of the Thracian. Verres was ruling over the island,–and how he ruled it Cicero has told us. Had the victorious Thracian entered the island, both the free population and the slaves would have risen against the Romans. A new state might have been formed, strong both in fleets and in armies, and compelled from the very nature of its origin to contend to the death with its old oppressors. Whatever the result, it is certain that a long Sicilian war, like that which the Romans had been compelled to wage with the Carthaginians, would have changed the course of history, by directing the attention and the energies of such men as Crassus, Pompeius, and Caesar to very different fields from those on which their fame and power were won.
But it was not to be. There was work for Rome to do, which could be done by no other nation. The power that had been found superior to Hannibal was not to fall before Spartacus, or even to have its course stayed materially by his victories. He marched to the foot of Italy, on the shore of the strait, where he expected to find his supposed naval allies. He was disappointed. They, impolitic no less than faithless, broke their engagement after they had pocketed the sum agreed upon for their services. It was impossible for Spartacus to carry out his design; for not only had he no vessels, but his followers were, it is altogether probable, incapable of building them. The Romans, too, must have had ships in the strait, and a very few would have been found enough to keep it clear of the unskilful gladiators, even had the latter had the time and the means to construct boats.
After the defeat of the Romans under Arrius, the Senate had called Crassus to the chief command, resolving to make an herculean effort to destroy their terrible enemy. The accounts are somewhat confused, but, according to Plutarch, Crassus commenced operations against Spartacus before the latter marched for Sicily. He sent one of his lieutenants, Mummius, to follow and harass the gladiators, but with orders to avoid a general engagement. The lieutenant disobeyed his orders, fought a battle, and was defeated. Not a few of his men threw away their arms, and fled,–an uncommon thing with a Roman army. The victors continued their march, but, as we have seen, failed in their main object. Spartacus then took up a position in the territory of Rhegium, which is over against Sicily. He must have been convinced by this time that the crisis of his fortune had arrived, and though he would not even then entirely give up all idea of crossing over into the island that lay within sight of his camp, he prepared to meet the coming storm, which had been for some time gathering in his rear. Accordingly he faced about, and commenced a game of generalship with Crassus, who was now in person at the head of the Roman army. [5]
[Footnote 5: It is probable that justice has never been done to Crassus as a military man. Roman writers were not likely to deal fairly with a man who closed his career so fatally to himself, and so disgracefully in every way to his country. It was his misfortune– a misfortune of his own creating–to lead the finest Roman army that had ever been seen in the East to destruction, in an unjust attack on the Parthians. Had he succeeded, the injustice of his course would have been overlooked by his countrymen; but they never could forgive his defeat. Yet it is certain that this man, who has come down to us as a contemptible creature, having small claim to consideration beyond what he derived from his enormous possessions, not only exhibited eminent military ability in the War of Spartacus, but, when a young man, won that great battle which takes its name from the Colline Gate, and which laid the Roman world at the feet of Sulla. Pontius Telesious had marched upon Rome, with the intention of “destroying the den of the wolves of Italy,” and Sulla arrived to the city’s rescue but just in time. In the battle that immediately followed, Sulla, at the head of the left wing of his army, was completely defeated, while the right wing, commanded by Crassus, was as completely victorious. Talent must have had something to do with Crassus’s success, which enabled Sulla to retrieve his fortunes, and to triumph over the Marius party. One hundred thousand men are said to have fallen in this battle. The avarice of Crassus and his want of popular manners were fatal to him in life, and his defeat left him no friends in death.]
Of all men then living, Crassus was best entitled to command an army employed in fighting revolted slaves. If not the greatest slaveholder in Rome, he was the most systematic of the class of owners, and knew best how to turn the industry of slaves to account. He was the wealthiest citizen of the republic. One can understand how indignant such a person must have felt at the audacity of the gladiator and his followers. As a slaveholder, as a man of property, as a lover of law and order, he was concerned at so very disorderly a spectacle as that of slaves subverting all the laws of the republic; as a Roman, he felt that abhorrence for slaves which was common to the character. Here were motives enough to bring out the powers of any man, if powers he had in him; and it does not follow that because Crassus was very rich he was therefore a fool. He was a man of consummate talents, and at this particular time was probably the most influential citizen of Rome. The Romans had confidence in him, as the embodiment of the spirit of supremacy by which they were so completely animated. The event showed that their confidence was not misplaced.
The army of Crassus was two hundred thousand strong, and having restored its discipline by examples of great severity, he marched to meet Spartacus; but on arriving in front of the latter’s position, he would not attack it, while Spartacus showed an equal unwillingness to fight. The Roman determined to blockade the enemy. As they had the sea on one side, and that was held by a fleet, he commenced a line of works, the completion of which would have rendered it impossible for the gladiators to escape. These works were on the usual Roman scale, and consisted principally of walls and ditches, a hundred thousand men being employed in their construction. So cleverly did Crassus conceal what he was about, that it was not until he had almost accomplished his design that Spartacus discovered the intention of his foe. The emergency was suited to his genius, and he was not unequal to it. He began a series of attacks on the Romans, harassing them perpetually, retarding their labors, and drawing their attention from that point of their line by which he purposed to extricate his army. At last, on a night when a terrible snow-storm was raging, he led his men to a place where the Roman works were yet incomplete, the snow enabling them to march noiselessly. When they reached the line, the immense ditches seemed to bar their further advance; but they set resolutely at work to fill them. Earth, snow, fagots, and dead bodies of men and beasts were hastily thrown into them; and across this singular bridge the whole army poured into the country, leaving the Roman camp behind, and having rendered nugatory all the laborious digging and trenching of the legions.
It was not until the next morning that Crassus discovered what had been done, and how thoroughly he had been out-generalled by Spartacus. But he had no room for vexation in his mind. He was so frightened as a Roman citizen, that he could not feel mortified as a Roman soldier. He took counsel of his fears, and did that which he had cause both to be ashamed of and to regret in after days. He wrote to the Senate, stating that in his opinion not only should Pompeius be summoned home from Spain, but Lucullus also from the East, to aid in putting down an enemy who was unconquerable by ordinary means. A short time sufficed to show how indiscreetly for his own fame he had acted; for Spartacus was unable to follow up his success, in consequence of mutinies in his army. The Gauls again rebelled against his authority, and left him. Crassus concentrated his whole force in an attack on the seceders, and a battle followed which Plutarch says was the most severely contested of the war. The Romans remained masters of the field, more than twelve thousand of the Gauls being slain, of whom only two were wounded in the back, the rest falling in the ranks. Spartacus retreated to the mountains of Petelia, closely followed by Roman detachments. Turning upon them, he drove them back; but this last gleam of success led to his destruction. His policy was to avoid a battle, but his men would not listen to his prudent counsels, and compelled him to face about and march against Crassus. This was what the Roman desired; for Pompeius was bringing up an army from Spain, and would be sure to reap all the honors of the war, were it to be prolonged.
Some accounts represent Spartacus as anxious for battle. Whether he was so or not, he made every preparation that became a good general. The armies met on the Silarus, in the northern part of Lucania; and the battle which followed, and which was to finish this remarkable war, was fought not far from where the traveller now sees the noble ruins of Paestum. Spartacus made his last speech to his soldiers, warning them of what they would have to expect, if they should fall alive into the hands of their old masters. By way of practical commentary on his text, he caused a cross to be erected on a height, and to that cross was nailed a living Roman, whose agonies were visible to the whole army. Spartacus then ordered his horse to be brought to him in front of the army, and slew the animal with his own hands. “I am determined,” he said to his men, “to share all your dangers. Our positions shall be the same. If we are victorious, I shall get horses enough from the foe. If we are beaten, I shall need a horse no more.” [6]
[Footnote 6: When the Earl of Warwick, the King-maker, killed his horse in front of the Yorkist army, at the battle of Towton, (fought on Palm Sunday, 1461,) he little knew that he was imitating the action of a general of revolted slaves, more than fifteen centuries earlier. Warwick is said to have done the same thing at the battle of Barnet, the last of his fields, where he was defeated and slain, fighting for the House of Lancaster.]
The battle that followed was the most severely contested action of that warlike period, which, extending through two generations, saw the victories of Marius over the Northern barbarians at its commencement, and Pharsalia and Munda and Philippi at its close. The insurgents attacked with great fury, but with method, Spartacus leading the way at the head of a band of select followers, thus acting the part of a soldier as well as of a general. The Romans steadily resisted,–and the slaughter was great on both sides. At last, victory began to incline towards the gladiators, when Spartacus fell, and the fortune of the day was changed. He had made a fierce charge on the Romans, with the intention of cutting his way to Crassus. Two centurions had fallen by his sword, and a number of inferior men, when he was himself wounded in one of his thighs. Falling upon one knee, he still continued to fight, until he was overpowered and slain. The battle was maintained for some time longer, and ended only with the destruction of the insurgents, thirty thousand of whom were killed;–Livy puts their killed at forty thousand. The Roman slain numbered twenty thousand, and they had as many more wounded. Only six thousand prisoners fell into the hands of Crassus, who caused the whole of them to be crucified,–the crosses being placed at intervals on both sides of the Appian Way, between Capua and Rome, and the whole Roman army being marched through the horrible lines. A body of five thousand fugitives, who sought refuge in the north, were intercepted by Pompeius on his homeward march from Spain, and slaughtered to a man.
Thus fell Spartacus, and far more nobly than either of the great republican chiefs whose deaths were so soon to follow. Pompeius, who boasted that he had cut up the war by the roots, ran away from Pharsalia, without an effort to retrieve his fortunes, though the force opposed to him in the battle was only half as large as his own, and he had still abundant resources for future operations. Crassus, who claimed to have conquered Spartacus, and who not unreasonably resented the pretensions of Pompeius, fell miserably in Parthia, after having led the Romans to the most fatal of their fields except Cannae. Wanting the nerve to die sword in hand in the midst of his foes, like Spartacus, he consented to adorn the triumph of those foes, and perished as ignominiously as the great gladiator gloriously.
* * * * *
WHO PAID FOR THE PRIMA DONNA?
I.
“If anything could make a man forgive himself for being sixty years old,” said the Consul, holding up his wine-glass between his eye and the setting sun,–for it was summer-time, “it would be that he can remember M. —- in her divine sixteenity at the Park Theatre, thirty odd years ago. Egad, Sir, one couldn’t help making great allowances for _Don Giovanni_, after seeing her in _Zerlina_. She was beyond imagination _piquante_ and delicious.”
The Consul, as my readers may have partly inferred, was not a Roman Consul, nor yet a French one. He had had the honor of representing this great republic at one of the Hanse Towns,–I forget which,–in President Monroe’s time. I don’t recollect how long he held the office, but it was long enough to make the title stick to him for the rest of his life with the tenacity of a militia colonelcy or village diaconate. The country people round about used to call him “the _Counsel_” which, I believe,–for I am not very fresh from my school-books,–was etymologically correct enough, however orthoepically erroneous. He had not limited his European life, however, within the precinct of his Hanseatic consulship, but had dispersed himself very promiscuously over the Continent, and had seen many cities, and the manners of many men–and of some women,– singing-women, I mean, in their public character; for the Consul, correct of life as of ear, never sought to undeify his divinities by pursuing them from the heaven of the stage to the purgatorial intermediacy of the _coulisses_, still less to the lower depth of disenchantment into which too many of them sunk in their private life.
“Yes, Sir,” he went on, “I have seen and heard them all,–Catalani, Pasta, Pezzaroni, Grisi, and all the rest of them, even Sonntag,– though not in her very best estate; but I give you my word there is none that has taken lodgings here,” tapping his forehead, “so permanently as the Signorina G—-, or that I can see and hear so distinctly, when I am in the mood of it, by myself. _Rosina, Desdemona, Cinderella_, and, as I said just now, _Zerlina_,–she is as fresh in them all to my mind’s eye and ear, as if the Park Theatre had not given way to a cursed shoe-shop, and I had been hearing her there only last night. Let’s drink her memory,” the Consul added, half in mirth and half in melancholy,–a mood to which he was not unused, and which did not ill become him.
Now no intelligent person, who knew the excellence of the Consul’s wine, could refuse to pay this posthumous honor to the harmonious shade of the lost Muse. The Consul was an old-fashioned man in his tastes, to be sure, and held to the old religion of Madeira which divided the faith of our fathers with the Cambridge Platform, and had never given in to the later heresies which have crept into the communion of good-fellowship from the South of France and the Rhine.
“A glass of Champagne,” he would say, “is all well enough at the end of dinner, just to take the grease out of one’s throat, and get the palate ready for the more serious vintages ordained for the solemn and deliberate drinking by which man justifies his creation; but Madeira, Sir, Madeira is the only stand-by that never fails a man and can always be depended upon as something sure and steadfast.”
I confess to having fallen away myself from the gracious doctrine and works to which he had held so fast; but I am no bigot,–which for a heretic is something remarkable,–and had no scruple about uniting with him in the service he proposed, without demur or protestation as to form or substance. Indeed, he disarmed fanaticism by the curious care he bestowed on making his works conformable to the faith that was in him; for, partly by inheritance and partly by industrious pains, his old house was undermined by a cellar of wine such as is seldom seen in these days of modern degeneracy. He is the last gentleman, that I know of, of that old school that used to import their own wine and lay it down annually themselves,–their bins forming a kind of vinous calendar suggestive of great events. Their degenerate sons are content to be furnished, as they want it, from the dubious stores of the vintner, by retail.
“I suppose it was her youth and beauty, Sir,” I suggested, “that made her so rememberable to you. You know she was barely turned seventeen when she sung in this country.”
“Partly that, no doubt,” replied the Consul, “but not altogether, nor chiefly. No, Sir, it was her genius which made her beauty so glorious. She was wonderfully handsome, though. She was a phantom of delight, as that Lake fellow says,”–it was thus profanely that the Consul designated the poet Wordsworth, whom he could not abide,– “and the best thing he ever said, by Jove!”
“And did you never see her again?” I inquired.
“Once, only,” he answered,–“eight or nine years afterwards, a year or two before she died. It was at Venice, and in _Norma_. She was different, and yet not changed for the worse. There was an indescribable look of sadness out of her eyes, that touched one oddly and fixed itself in the memory. But she was something apart and by herself, and stamped herself on one’s mind as Rachel did in _Camille_ or _Phedre_. It was true genius, and no imitation, that made both of them what they were. But she actually had the physical beauty which Rachel only compelled you to think she had by the force of her genius and consummate dramatic skill, while she was on the scene before you.”
“But do you rank M. —- with Rachel as a dramatic artist?” I asked.
“I cannot tell,” he answered; “but if she had not the studied perfection of Rachel, which was always the same and could not be altered without harm, she had at least a capacity of impulsive self-adaptation about her which made her for the time the character she personated,–not always the same, but such as the woman she represented might have been in the shifting phases of the passion that possessed her. And to think that she died at eight-and-twenty! What might not ten years more have made her!”
“It is odd,” I observed, “that her fame should be forever connected with the name she got by her first unlucky marriage in New York. For it was unlucky enough, I believe,–was it not?”
“You may say that,” responded the Consul, “without fear of denial or qualification. It was disgraceful in its beginning and in its ending. It was a swindle on a large scale; and poor Maria G—- was the one who suffered the most by the operation.”
“I have always heard,” said I, “that old G—- was cheated out of the price for which he had sold his daughter, and that M. M. —- got his wife on false pretences.”
“Not altogether so,” returned the Consul. “I happen to know all about that matter from the best authority. She was obtained on false pretences, to be sure, but it was not G—- that suffered by them. M. M. —-, moreover, never paid the price agreed upon, and yet G—- got it for all that.”
“Indeed!” I exclaimed, “it must have been a neat operation. I cannot exactly see how the thing was done; but I have no doubt a tale hangs thereby, and a good one. Is it tellable?”
“I see no reason why not,” said the Consul; “the sufferer made no secret of it, and I know of no reason why I should. Mynheer Van Holland told me the story himself, in Amsterdam, in the year ‘Thirty-five.”
“And who was he?” I inquired, “and what had he to do with it?”
“I’ll tell you,” responded the Consul, filling his glass and passing the bottle, “if you will have the goodness to shut the window behind you and ring for candles; for it gets chilly here among the mountains as soon as the sun is down.”
I beg your pardon,–did you make a remark?–Oh, _what mountains_? You must really pardon me; I cannot give you such a clue as that to the identity of my dear Consul, just now, for excellent and sufficient reasons. But if you have paid your money for the sight of this Number, you may take your choice of all the mountain ranges on the continent, from the Rocky to the White, and settle him just where you like. Only you must leave a gap to the westward, through which the river–also anonymous for the present distress–breaks its way, and which gives him half an hour’s more sunshine than he would otherwise be entitled to, and slope the fields down to its margin near a mile off, with their native timber thinned so skilfully as to have the effect of the best landscape-gardening. It is a grand and lovely scene; and when I look at it, I do not wonder at one of the Consul’s apophthegms, namely, that the chief advantage of foreign travel is, that it teaches you that one place is just as good to live in as another. Imagine that the one place he had in his mind at the time was just this one. But that is neither here nor there. When candles came, we drew our chairs together, and he told me in substance the following story. I will tell it in my own words,–not that they are so good as his, but because they come more readily to the nib of my pen.
II.
New York has grown considerably since she was New Amsterdam, and has almost forgotten her whilom dependence on her first godmother. Indeed, had it not been for the historic industry of the erudite Diedrich Knickerbocker, very few of her sons would know much about the obligations of their nursing mother to their old grandame beyond sea, in the days of the Dutch dynasty. Still, though the old monopoly has been dead these two hundred years, or thereabout, there is I know not how many fold more traffic with her than in the days when it was in full life and force. Doth not that benefactor of his species, Mr. Udolpho Wolfe, derive thence his immortal, or immortalizing, Schiedam Schnapps, the virtues whereof, according to his advertisements, are fast transferring dram-drinking from the domain of pleasure to that of positive duty? Tobacco-pipes, too, and toys, such as the friendly saint, whom Protestant children have been taught by Dutch tradition to invoke, delights to drop into the votive stocking,–they come from the mother city, where she sits upon the waters, quite as much a Sea-Cybele as Venice herself. And linens, too, fair and fresh and pure as the maidens that weave them, come forth from Dutch looms ready to grace our tables or to deck our beds. And the mention of these brings me back to my story,–though the immediate connection between Holland linen and M. —-‘s marriage may not at first view be palpable to sight. Still, it is a fact that the web of this part of her variegated destiny was spun and woven out of threads of flax that took the substantial shape of fine Hollands;–and this is the way in which it came to pass.
Mynheer Van Holland, of whom the Consul spoke just now, you must understand to have been one of the chief merchants of Amsterdam, a city whose merchants are princes and have been kings. His transactions extended to all parts of the Old World and did not skip over the New. His ships visited the harbor of New York as well as of London; and as he died two or three years ago a very rich man, his adventures in general must have been more remunerative than the one I am going to relate. In the autumn of the year 1825, it seemed good to this worthy merchant to despatch a vessel with a cargo chiefly made up of linens to the market of New York. The honest man little dreamed with what a fate his ship was fraught, wrapped up in those flaxen folds. He happened to be in London the Winter before, and was present at the _debut_ of Maria G—- at the King’s Theatre. He must have admired the beauty, grace, and promise of the youthful _Rosina_, had he been ten times a Dutchman; and if he heard of her intended emigration to America, as he possibly might have done, it most likely excited no particular emotion in his phlegmatic bosom. He could not have imagined that the exportation of a little singing-girl to New York should interfere with a potential venture of his own in fair linen. The gods kindly hid the future from his eyes, so that he might enjoy the comic vexation her lively sallies caused to _Doctor Bartolo_ in the play, unknowing that she would be the innocent cause of a more serious provocation to himself, in downright earnest. He thought of this, himself, after it had all happened.
Well, the good ship _Steenbok_ had prosperous gales and fair weather across the ocean, and dropped anchor off the Battery with some days to spare from the amount due to the voyage. The consignee came off and took possession of the cargo, and duly transferred it to his own warehouse. Though the advantages of advertising were not as fully understood in those days of comparative ignorance as they have been since, he duly announced the goods which he had received, and waited for a customer. He did not have to wait long. It was but a day or two after the appearance of the advertisement in the newspapers that he had prime Holland linens on hand, just received from Amsterdam, when he was waited upon by a gentleman of good address and evidently of French extraction, who inquired of the consignee, whom we will call Mr. Schulemberg for the nonce, “whether he had the linens he had advertised yet on hand.”
“They are still on hand and on sale,” said Mr. Schulemberg.
“What is the price of the entire consignment?” inquired the customer.
“Fifty thousand dollars,” responded Mr. Schulemberg.
“And the terms?”
“Cash, on delivery.”
“Very good,” replied the obliging buyer, “if they be of the quality you describe in your advertisement, I will take them on those terms. Send them down to my warehouse, No. 118. Pearl Street, tomorrow morning, and I will send you the money.”
“And your name?” inquired Mr. Schulemberg.
“Is M. —-,” responded the courteous purchaser.
The two merchants bowed politely, the one to the other, mutually well pleased with the morning’s work, and bade each other good day.
Mr. Schulemberg knew but little, if anything, about his new customer; but as the transaction was to be a cash one, he did not mind that. He calculated his commissions, gave orders to his head clerk to see the goods duly delivered the next morning, and went on change and thence to dinner in the enjoyment of a complacent mind and a good appetite.
It is to be supposed that M. M. —- did the same. At any rate, he had the most reason,–at least, according to his probable notions of mercantile morality and success.
III.
The next day came, and with it came, betimes, the packages of linens to M. M. —-‘s warehouse in Pearl Street; but the price for the same did not come as punctually to Mr. Schulemberg’s counting-room, according to the contract under which they were delivered. In point of fact, M. M. —- was not in at the time; but there was no doubt that he would attend to the matter without delay, as soon as he came in. A cash transaction does not necessarily imply so much the instant presence of coin as the unequivocal absence of credit. A day or two more or less is of no material consequence, only there is to be no delay for sales and returns before payment. So Mr. Schulemberg gave himself no uneasiness about the matter when two, three, and even five and six days had slid away without producing the apparition of the current money of the merchant. A man who transacted affairs on so large a scale as M. M. —-, and conducted them on the sound basis of ready money, might safely be trusted for so short a time. But when a week had elapsed and no tidings had been received either of purchaser or purchase-money, Mr. Schulemberg thought it time for himself to interfere in his own proper person. Accordingly, he incontinently proceeded to the counting-house of M. M. —- to receive the promised price or to know the reason why. If he failed to obtain the one satisfaction, he at least could not complain of being disappointed of the other. Matters seemed to be in some little unbusiness-like confusion, and the clerks in a high state of gleeful excitement. Addressing himself to the chief among them, Mr. Schulemberg asked the pertinent question,–
“Is M. M. —- in?”
“No, Sir,” was the answer, “he is not; and he will not be just at present.”
“But when will he be in? for I must see him on some pressing business of importance.”
“Not to-day, Sir,” replied the clerk, smiling expressively; “he cannot be interrupted to-day on any business of any kind whatever.”
“The deuce he can’t!” returned Mr. Schulemberg. “I’ll see about that very soon, I can tell you. He promised to pay me cash for fifty thousand dollars’ worth of Holland linens a week ago; I have not seen the color of his money yet, and I mean to wait no longer. Where does he live? for if he be alive, I will see him and hear what he has to say for himself, and that speedily.”
“Indeed, Sir,” pleasantly expostulated the clerk, “I think when you understand the circumstances of the case, you will forbear disturbing M. M. —- this day of all others in his life.”
“Why, what the devil ails this day above all others,” said Mr. Schulemberg, somewhat testily, “that he can’t see his creditors and pay his debts on it?”
“Why, Sir, the fact is,” the clerk replied, with an air of interest and importance, “it is M. M. —-‘s wedding-day. He marries this morning the Signorina G—-, and I am sure you would not molest him with business on such an occasion as that.”
“But my fifty thousand dollars!” persisted the consignee, “and why have they not been paid?”
“Oh, give yourself no uneasiness at all about that, Sir,” replied the clerk, with the air of one to whom the handling of such trifles was a daily occurrence; “M. M. —- will, of course, attend to that matter the moment he is a little at leisure. In fact, I imagine, that, in the hurry and bustle inseparable from an event of this nature, the circumstance has entirely escaped his mind; but as soon as he returns to business again, I will recall it to his recollection, and you will hear from him without delay.”
The clerk was right in his augury as to the effect his intelligence would have upon the creditor. It was not a clerical error on his part when he supposed that Mr. Schulemberg would not choose to enact the part of skeleton at the wedding breakfast of the young _Prima Donna_. There is something about the great events of life, which cannot happen a great many times to anybody,–
“A wedding or a funeral,
A mourning or a festival,–“
that touches the strings of the one human? heart of us all and makes it return no uncertain sound. _Shylock_ himself would hardly have demanded his pound of flesh on the wedding-day, had it been _Antonio_ that was to espouse the fair _Portia_. Even he would have allowed three days of grace before demanding the specific performance of his bond. Now Mr. Schulemberg was very far from being a Shylock, and he was also a constant attendant upon the opera, and a devoted admirer of the lovely G—-. So he could not wonder that a man on the eve of marriage with that divine creature should forget every other consideration in the immediate contemplation of his happiness,–even if it were the consideration for a cargo of prime linens, and one to the tune of fifty thousand dollars. And it is altogether likely that the mundane reflection occurred to him, and made him easier in his mind under the delay, that old G—- was by no means the kind of man to give away a daughter who dropped gold and silver from her sweet lips whenever she opened them in public, as the princess in the fairy-tale did pearls and diamonds, to any man who could not give him a solid equivalent in return. So that, in fact, he regarded the notes of the Signorina G—- as so much collateral security for his debt.
So Mr. Schulemberg was content to bide his reasonable time for the discharge of M. M. —-‘s indebtedness–to his principal. He had advised Mynheer Van Holland of the speedy sale of his consignment, and given him hopes of a quick return of the proceeds. But as days wore away, it seemed to him that the time he was called on to bide was growing into an unreasonable one. I cannot state with precision exactly how long he waited. Whether he disturbed the sweet influences of the honey-moon by his intrusive presence, or permitted that nectareous satellite to fill her horns and wax and wane in peace before he sought to bring the bridegroom down to the things of earth, are questions which I must leave to the discretion of my readers to settle, each for himself or herself, according to their own notions of the proprieties of the case. But at the proper time, after patience had thrown up in disgust the office of a virtue, he took his hat and cane one fine morning and walked down to No. 118, Pearl Street, for the double purpose of wishing M. M. —- joy of his marriage and of receiving the price, promised long and long withheld, of the linens which form the tissue of my story.
“The gods gave ear and granted half his prayer; The rest the winds dispersed in empty air.”
There was not the slightest difficulty about his imparting his epithalamic congratulation,–but as to his receiving the numismatic consideration for which he hoped in return, that was an entirely different affair. He found matters in the Pearl-Street counting-house again apparently something out of joint, but with a less smiling and sunny atmosphere pervading them than he had remarked on his last visit. He was received by M. M. —- with courtesy, a little over-strained, perhaps, and not as flowing and gracious as at their first interview. Preliminaries over, Mr. Schulemberg, plunging with epic energy into the midst of things, said, “I have called, M. M. —-, to receive the fifty thousand dollars, which, you will remember, you engaged to pay down for the linens I sold you on such a day. I can make allowance for the interruption which has prevented your attending to this business sooner, but it is now high time that it were settled.”
“I consent to it all, Monsieur,” replied M. M. —-, with a deprecatory gesture; “you have reason, and I am desolated that it is the impossible that you ask of me to do.”
“How, Sir!” demanded the creditor; “what do you mean by the impossible? You do not mean to deny that you agreed to pay cash for the goods?”
“My faith, no, Monsieur,” shruggingly responded M. M. —-; “I avow it; you have reason; I promised to pay the money, as you say it; but if I have not the money to pay you, how can I pay you the money? What to do?”
“I don’t; understand you, Sir,” returned Mr. Schulemberg. “You have not the money? And you do not mean to pay me according to agreement?”
“But, Monsieur, how can I when I have not money? Have you not heard that I have made–what you call it?–failure, yesterday? I am grieved of it, thrice sensibly; but if it went of my life, I could not pay you for your fine linens, which were of a good market at the price.”
“Indeed, Sir,” replied Mr. Schulemberg, “I had not heard of your misfortunes; and I am heartily sorry for them, on my own account and yours, but still more on account of your charming wife. But there is no great harm done, after all. Send the linens back to me and accounts shall be square between us, and I will submit to the loss of the interest.”
“Ah, but, Monsieur, you are too good, and Madame will be recognizant to you forever for your gracious politeness. But, my God, it is impossible that I return to you the linen. I have sold it, Monsieur, I have sold it all!”
“Sold It?” reiterated Mr. Schulemberg, regardless of the rules of etiquette, “Sold it? And to whom, pray? And when?”
“To M. G—-, my father-in-the-law”, answered the catechumen, blandly; “and it is a week that he has received it.”
“Then I must bid you a good morning, Sir,” said Mr. Schulemberg, rising hastily and collecting his hat and gloves, “for I must lose no time in taking measures to recover the goods before they have changed hands again.”
“Pardon, Monsieur,” interrupted the poor, but honest M. —-, “but it is too late! One cannot regain them. M. G—- embarked himself for Mexico yesterday morning, and carried them all with him!”
Imagine the consternation and rage of poor Mr. Schulemberg at finding that he was sold, though the goods were not! I decline reporting the conversation any farther, lest its strength of expression and force of expletive might be too much for the more queasy of my readers. Suffice it to say, that the _swindlee_, if I may be allowed the royalty of coining a word, at once freed his own mind and imprisoned the body of M. M. —-; for in those days imprisonment for debt was a recognized institution, and I think few of its strongest opponents will deny that this was a case to which it was no abuse to apply it.
IV.
I regret that I am compelled to leave this exemplary merchant in captivity; but the exigencies of my story, the moral of which beckons me away to the distant coast of Mexico, require it at my hands. The reader may be consoled, however, by the knowledge that he obtained his liberation in due time, his Dutch creditor being entirely satisfied that nothing whatsoever could be squeezed out of him by passing him between the bars of the debtor’s prison, though that was all the satisfaction he ever did get. How he accompanied his young wife to Europe and there lived by the coining of her voice into drachmas, as her father had done before him, needs not to be told here; nor yet how she was divorced from him, and made another matrimonial venture in partnership with De B—-. I have nothing to do with him or her, after the bargain and sale of which she was the object, and the consequences which immediately resulted from it; and here, accordingly, I take my leave of them. But my story is not quite done yet; it must now pursue the fortunes of the enterprising _impresario_, Signor G—-, who had so deftly turned his daughter into a ship-load of fine linens.
This excellent person sailed, as M. M. —- told Mr. Schulemberg, for Vera Cruz, with an assorted cargo, consisting of singers, fiddlers, and, as aforesaid, of Mynheer Van Holland’s fine linens. The voyage was as prosperous as was due to such an argosy. If a single Amphion could not be drowned by the utmost malice of gods and men, so long as he kept his voice in order, what possible mishap could befall a whole ship-load of them? The vessel arrived safely under the shadow of San Juan de Ulua, and her precious freight in all its varieties was welcomed with a tropical enthusiasm. The market was bare of linen and of song, and it was hard to say which found the readiest sale. Competition raised the price of both articles to a fabulous height. So the good G—- had the benevolent satisfaction of clothing the naked and making the ears that heard him to bless him at the same time. After selling his linens at a great advance on the cost price, considering he had only paid his daughter for them, and having given a series of the most successful concerts ever known in those latitudes, Signor G—- set forth for the Aztec City. As the relations of _meum_ and _tuum_ were not upon the most satisfactory fooling just then at Vera Cruz, he thought it most prudent to carry his well-won treasure with him to the capital. His progress thither was a triumphal procession. Not Cortes, not General Scott, himself. marched more gloriously along the steep and rugged road that leads from the sea-coast to the table-land, than did this son of song. Every city on his line of march was the monument of a victory, and from each one he levied tribute and bore spoils away. And the vanquished thanked him for this spoiling of their goods.
Arrived at the splendid city, at that time the largest and most populous on the North American continent, he speedily made himself master of it, a welcome conqueror. The Mexicans, with the genuine love for song of their Southern ancestors, had had but few opportunities for gratifying it such as that now offered to them. G—- was a tenor of great compass, and a most skilful and accomplished singer. The artists who accompanied him were of a high order of merit, if not of the very first class. Mexico had never heard the like, and, though a hard-money country, was glad to take their notes and give them gold in return. They were feasted and flattered in the intervals of the concerts, and the bright eyes of Senoras and Senoritas rained influence upon them on the off nights, as their fair hands rained flowers upon the _on_ ones. And they have a very pleasant way, in those golden realms, of giving ornaments of diamonds and other precious stones to virtuous singers, as we give pencil-cases and gold watches to meritorious railway conductors and hotel clerks, as a testimonial of the sense we entertain of their private characters and public services. The gorgeous East herself never showered on her kings barbaric pearl and gold with a richer hand than the city of Mexico poured out the glittering rain over the portly person of the happy G—-. Saturated at length with the golden flood and its foam of pearl and diamond,–if, indeed, singer were ever capable of such saturation, and were not rather permeable forever like a sieve of the Danaides,–saturated, or satisfied that it was all run out, he prepared to take up his line of march back again to the City of the True Cross. Mexico mourned over his going, and sent him forth upon his way with blessings and prayers for his safe return.
But, alas! the blessings and the prayers were alike vain. The saints were either deaf or busy, or had gone a journey, and either did not hear or did not mind the vows that were sent up to them. At any rate, they did not take that care of the worthy G—- which their devotees had a right to expect of them. Turning his back on the Halls of the Montezumas, where he had revelled so sumptuously, he proceeded on his way towards the Atlantic coast, as fast as his mules thought fit to carry him and his beloved treasure. With the proceeds of his linens and his lungs, he was rich enough to retire from the vicissitudes of operatic life, to some safe retreat in his native Spain or his adoptive Italy. Filled with happy imaginings, he fared onward, the bells of his mules keeping time with the melodious joy of his heart, until he had descended from the _tierra caliente_ to the wilder region on the hither side of Jalapa. As the narrow road turned sharply, at the foot of a steeper descent than common, into a dreary valley, made yet more gloomy by the shadow of the hill behind intercepting the sun, though the afternoon was not far advanced, the _impresario_ was made unpleasantly aware of the transitory nature of man’s hopes and the vanity of his joys. When his train wound into the rough open space, it found itself surrounded by a troop of men whose looks and gestures bespoke their function without the intermediation of an interpreter. But no interpreter was needed in this case, as Signor G—- was a Spaniard by birth, and their expressive pantomime was a sufficiently eloquent substitute for speech. In plain English, he had fallen among thieves, with very little chance of any good Samaritan coming by to help him.
Now Signor G—- had had dealings with brigands and banditti all his operatic life. Indeed, he had often drilled them till they were perfect in their exercises, and got them up regardless of expense. Under his direction they had often rushed forward to the footlights, pouring into the helpless mass before them repeated volleys of explosive crotchets. But this was a very different chorus that now saluted his eyes. It was the real thing, instead of the make-believe, and, in the opinion of Signor G—-, at least, very much inferior to it. Instead of the steeple-crowned hat, jauntily feathered and looped, these irregulars wore huge _sombreros_, much the worse for time and weather, flapped over their faces. For the velvet jacket with the two-inch tail, which had nearly broken up the friendship between Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Tupman, when the latter gentleman proposed induing himself with one, on the occasion of Mrs. Leo Hunter’s fancy-dress breakfast,–for this integument, I say, these minions of the moon had blankets round their shoulders, thrown back in preparation for actual service. Instead of those authentic cross-garterings in which your true bandit rejoices, like a new Malvolio, to tie up his legs, perhaps to keep them from running away, these false knaves wore, some of them, ragged boots up to their thighs, while others had no crural coverings at all, and only rough sandals, such as the Indians there use, between their feet and the ground. They were picturesque, perhaps, but not attractive to wealthy travellers. But the wealthy travellers were attractive to them; so they came together, all the same. Such as they were, however, there they were, fierce, sad, and sallow, with vicious-looking knives in their belts, and guns of various parentage in their hands, while their Captain bade our good man stand and deliver.
There was no room for choice. He had an escort, to be sure; but it was entirely unequal to the emergency,–even if it were not, as was afterwards shrewdly suspected, in league with the robbers. The enemy had the advantage of arms, position, and numbers; and there was nothing for him to do but to disgorge his hoarded gains at once, or to have his breath stripped first and his estate summarily administered upon afterwards by these his casual heirs,–as the King of France, by virtue of his–_Droit d’Aubaine_, would have confiscated Yorick’s six shirts and pair of black silk breeches, in spite of his eloquent protest against such injustice, had he chanced to die in his Most Christian Majesty’s dominions. As Signor G—- had an estate in his breath, from which he could draw a larger yearly rent than the rolls of many a Spanish grandee could boast, he wisely chose the part of discretion and surrendered at the same. His new acquaintances showed themselves expert practitioners in the breaking open of trunks and the rifling of treasure-boxes. All his beloved doubloons, all his cherished dollars, for the which no Yankee ever felt a stronger passion, took swift wings and flew from his coffers to alight in the hands of the adversary. The sacred recesses of his pockets, and those of his companions, were sacred no longer from the sacrilegious hands of the spoilers. The breast-pins were ravished from the shirt-frills,–for in those days studs were not,–and the rings snatched from the reluctant fingers. All the shining testimonials of Mexican admiration were transferred with the celerity of magic into the possession of the chivalry of the road. Not Faulconbridge himself could have been more resolved to come on at the beckoning of gold and silver than were they, and, good Catholics though they were, it is most likely that Bell, Book, and Candle would have had as little restraining influence over them as he professed to feel.
At last they rested from their labors. To the victors belonged the spoils, as they discovered with instinctive sagacity that they should do, though the apophthegm had not yet received the authentic seal of American statesmanship. Science and skill had done their utmost, and poor G—- and his companions in misery stood in the centre of the ring stripped of everything but the clothes on their backs. The duty of the day being satisfactorily performed, the victors felt that they had a right to some relaxation after their toils. And now a change came over them which might have reminded Signor G—- of the banditti of the green-room, with whose habits he had been so long familiar and whose operations he had himself directed. Some one of the troop, who, however fit for stratagems and spoils, had yet music in his soul, called aloud for a song. The idea was hailed with acclamations. Not satisfied with the capitalized results of his voice to which they had helped themselves, they were unwilling to let their prey go until they had also ravished from him some specimens of the airy mintage whence they had issued. Accordingly the Catholic vagabonds seated themselves on the ground, a fuliginous parterre to look upon, and called upon G—- for a song. A rock which projected itself from the side of the hill served for a stage as well as the “green plat” in the wood near Athens did for the company of Manager Quince, and there was no need of “a tyring-room,” as poor G—- had no clothes to change for those he stood in. Not the Hebrews by the waters of Babylon, when their captors demanded of them a song of Zion, had less stomach for the task. But the prime tenor was now before an audience that would brook neither denial nor excuse. Nor hoarseness, nor catarrh, nor sudden illness, certified unto by the friendly physician, would avail him now. The demand was irresistible; for when he hesitated, the persuasive though stern mouth of a musket hinted to him in expressive silence that he had better prevent its speech with song.
So he had to make his first appearance upon that “unworthy scaffold,” before an audience which, multifold as his experience had been, was one such as he had never sung to yet. As the shadows of evening began to fall, rough torches of pine wood were lighted and shed a glare such as Salvator Rosa loved to kindle, upon a scene such as he delighted to paint. The rascals had taste,–that the tenor himself could not deny. They knew the choice bits of the operas which held the stage forty years ago, and they called for them wisely and applauded his efforts vociferously. Nay, more, in the height of their enthusiasm, they would toss him one of his own doubloons or dollars, instead of the bouquets usually hurled at well-deserving singers. They well judged that these flowers that never fade would be the tribute he would value most, and so they rewarded his meritorious strains out of his own stores, as Claude Du Val or Richard Tarpin, in the golden days of highway robbery, would sometimes generously return a guinea to a traveller he had just lightened of his purse, to enable him to continue his journey. It was lucky for the unfortunate G—- that their approbation took this solid shape, or he would have been badly off indeed; for it was all he had to begin the world with over again. After his appreciating audience had exhausted their musical repertory and had as many encores as they thought good, they broke up the concert and betook themselves to their fastnesses among the mountains, leaving their patient to find his way to the coast as best he might, with a pocket as light as his soul was heavy. At Vera Cruz a concert or two furnished him with the means of embarking himself and his troupe for Europe, and leaving the New World forever behind him.
And here I must leave him, for my story is done. The reader hungering for a moral may discern, that, though Signor G—- received the price he asked for his lovely daughter, it advantaged him nothing, and that he not only lost it all, but it was the occasion of his losing everything else he had. This is very well as far as it goes; but then it is equally true that M. M. —- actually obtained his wife, and that Mynheer Van Holland paid for her. I dare say all this can be reconciled with the eternal fitness of things; but I protest I don’t see how it is to be done. It is “all a muddle,” in my mind. I cannot even affirm that the banditti were ever hanged; and I am quite sure that the unlucky Dutch merchant, whose goods were so comically mixed up with this whole history, never had any poetical or material justice for his loss of them. But it is as much the reader’s business as mine to settle these casuistries. I only undertook to tell him who it was that paid for the _Prima Donna_,– and I have done it.
V.
“I consider that a good story,” said the Consul, when he had finished the narration out of which I have compounded the foregoing,– “and, what is not always the case with a good story, it is a true one.”
I cordially concurred with my honored friend in this opinion, and if the reader should unfortunately differ from me on this point, I beg him to believe that it is entirely my fault. As the Consul told it to me, it was an excellent good story.
“Poor Mynheer Van Holland,” he added, laughing, “never got over that adventure. Not that the loss was material to him; he was too rich for that; but the provocation of his fifty thousand dollars going to a parcel of Mexican _ladrones_, after buying an opera-singer for a Frenchman on its way, was enough to rouse even Dutch human-nature to the swearing-point. He could not abide either Frenchmen or opera-singers, all the rest of his life. And, by Jove, I don’t wonder at it!”
Nor I, neither, for the matter of that.
* * * * *
TWO RIVERS.
Thy summer voice, Musketaquit,
Repeats the music of the rain;
But sweeter rivers pulsing flit
Through thee, as thou through Concord Plain.
Thou in thy narrow banks art pent:
The stream I love unbounded goes
Through flood and sea and firmament; Through light, through life, it forward flows.
I see the inundation sweet,
I hear the spending of the stream
Through years, through men, through nature fleet, Through passion, thought, through power and dream.
Musketaquit, a goblin strong,
Of shard and flint makes jewels gay; They lose their grief who hear his song, And where he winds is the day of day.
So forth and brighter fares my stream,– Who drink it shall not thirst again;
No darkness stains its equal gleam, And ages drop in it like rain.
THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE.
EVERY MAN HIS OWN BOSWELL.
[The “Atlantic” obeys the moon, and its LUNIVERSARY has come round again. I have gathered up some hasty notes of my remarks made since the last high tides, which I respectfully submit. Please to remember this is _talk_; just as easy and just as formal as I choose to make it.]
–I never saw an author in my life–saving, perhaps, one–that did not purr as audibly as a full-grown domestic cat, (_Felis Catus_, LINN.,) on having his fur smoothed in the right way by a skilful hand.
But let me give you a caution. Be very careful how you tell an author he is _droll_. Ten to one he will hate you; and if he does, be sure he can do you a mischief, and very probably will. Say you _cried_ over his romance or his verses, and he will love you and send you a copy. You can laugh over that as much as you like–in private.
–Wonder why authors and actors are ashamed of being funny?– Why, there are obvious reasons, and deep philosophical ones. The clown knows very well that the women are not in love with him, but with Hamlet, the fellow in the black cloak and plumed hat. Passion never laughs. The wit knows that his place is at the tail of a procession.
If you want the deep underlying reason, I must take more time to tell it. There is a perfect consciousness in every form of wit– using that term in its general sense–that its essence consists in a partial and incomplete view of whatever it touches. It throws a single ray, separated from the rest,–red, yellow, blue, or any intermediate shade,–upon an object; never white light; that is the province of wisdom. We get beautiful effects from wit,–all the prismatic colors,–but never the object as it is in fair daylight. A pun, which is a kind of wit, is a different and much shallower trick in mental optics; throwing the _shadows_ of two objects so that one overlies the other. Poetry uses the rainbow tints for special effects, but always keeps its essential object in the purest white light of truth.–Will you allow me to pursue this subject a little further?
[They didn’t allow me at that time, for somebody happened to scrape the floor with his chair just then; which accidental sound, as all must have noticed, has the instantaneous effect that Proserpina’s cutting the yellow hair had upon infelix Dido. It broke the charm, and that breakfast was over.]
–Don’t flatter yourselves that friendship authorizes you to say disagreeable things to your intimates. On the contrary, the nearer you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact and courtesy become. Except in cases of necessity, which are rare, leave your friend to learn unpleasant truths from his enemies; they are ready enough to tell them. Good-breeding _never_ forgets that _amour-propre_ is universal. When you read the story of the Archbishop and Gil Blas, you may laugh, if you will, at the poor old man’s delusion; but don’t forget that the youth was the greater fool of the two, and that his master served such a booby rightly in turning him out of doors.
–You need not get up a rebellion against what I say, if you find everything in my sayings is not exactly new. You can’t possibly mistake a man who means to be honest for a literary pickpocket I once read an introductory lecture that looked to me too learned for its latitude. On examination, I found all its erudition was taken ready-made from D’Israeli. If I had been ill-natured, I should have shown up the Professor, who had once belabored me in his feeble way. but one can generally tell these wholesale thieves easily enough, and they are not worth the trouble of putting them in the pillory. I doubt the entire novelty of my remarks just made on telling unpleasant truths, yet I am not conscious of any larceny.
Neither make too much of flaws and occasional overstatements. Some persons seem to think that absolute truth, in the form of rigidly stated propositions, is all that conversation admits. This is precisely as if a musician should insist on having nothing but perfect chords and simple melodies,–no diminished fifths, no flat sevenths, no flourishes, on any account. Now it is fair to say, that, just as music must have all these, so conversation must have its partial truths, its embellished truths, its exaggerated truths. It is in its higher forms an artistic product, and admits the ideal element as much as pictures or statues. One man who is a little too literal can spoil the talk of a whole tableful of men of _esprit_.– “Yes,” you say, “but who wants to hear fanciful people’s nonsense? Put the facts to it, and then see where it is!”–Certainly, if a man is too fond of paradox,–if he is flighty and empty,–if, instead of striking those fifths and sevenths, those harmonious discords, often so much better than the twinned octaves, in the music of thought,–if, instead of striking these, he jangles the chords, stick a fact into him like a stiletto. But remember that talking is one of the fine arts,–the noblest, the most important, and the most difficult,–and that its fluent harmonies may be spoiled by the intrusion of a single harsh note. Therefore conversation which is suggestive rather than argumentative, which lets out the most of each talker’s results of thought, is commonly the pleasantest and the most profitable. It is not easy, at the best, for two persons talking together to make the most of each other’s thoughts, there are so many of them.
[The company looked as if they wanted an explanation.]
When John and Thomas, for instance, are talking together, it is natural enough that among the six there should be more or less confusion and misapprehension.
[Our landlady turned pale;–no doubt she thought there was a screw loose in my intellects,–and that involved the probable loss of a boarder. A severe-looking person, who wears a Spanish cloak and a sad cheek, fluted by the passions of the melodrama, whom I understand to be the professional ruffian of the neighboring theatre, alluded, with a certain lifting of the brow, drawing down of the corners of the mouth, and somewhat rasping _voce di petto_, to Falstaff’s nine men in buckram. Everybody looked up. I believe the old gentleman opposite was afraid I should seize the carving-knife; at any rate, he slid it to one side, as it were carelessly.]
I think, I said, I can make it plain to Benjamin Franklin here, that there are at least six personalities distinctly to be recognized as taking part in that dialogue between John and Thomas.
{1. The real John; known Only { to his Maker.
{
{2. John’s ideal John; never the Three Johns { real one, and often very unlike him. {
{3. Thomas’s ideal John; never { the real John, nor John’s
{ John, but often very unlike { either.
{1. The real Thomas.
Three Thomases. {2. Thomas’s ideal Thomas. {3. John’s ideal Thomas
Only one of the three Johns is taxed; only one can be weighed on a platform-balance; but the other two are just as important in the conversation. Let us suppose the real John to be old, dull, and ill-looking. But as the Higher Powers have not conferred on men the gift of seeing themselves in the true light, John very possibly conceives himself to be youthful, witty, and fascinating, and talks from the point of view of this ideal. Thomas, again, believes him to be an artful rogue, we will say; therefore he _is_, so far as Thomas’s attitude in the conversation is concerned, an artful rogue, though really simple and stupid. The same conditions apply to the three Thomases. It follows, that, until a man can be found who knows himself as his Maker knows him, or who sees himself as others see him, there must be at least six persons engaged in every dialogue between two. Of these, the least important, philosophically speaking, is the one that we have called the real person. No wonder two disputants often get angry, when there are six of them talking and listening all at the same time.
[A very unphilosophical application of the above remarks was made by a young fellow, answering to the name of John, who sits near me at table. A certain basket of peaches, a rare vegetable, little known to boarding-houses, was on its way to me _via_ this unlettered Johannes. He appropriated the three that remained in the basket, remarking that there was just one apiece for him. I convinced him that his practical inference was hasty and illogical, but in the mean time he had eaten the peaches.]
–The opinions of relatives as to a man’s powers are very commonly of little value; not merely because they overrate their own flesh and blood, as some may suppose; on the contrary, they are quite as likely to underrate those whom they have grown into the habit of considering like themselves. The advent of genius is like what florists style the _breaking_ of a seedling tulip into what we may call high-caste colors,–ten thousand dingy flowers, then one with the divine streak; or, if you prefer it, like the coming up in old Jacob’s garden of that most gentlemanly little fruit, the seckel pear, which I have sometimes seen in shop-windows. It is a surprise,– there is nothing to account for it. All at once we find that twice two make _five_. Nature is fond of what are called “gift-enterprises.” This little book of life which she has given into the hands of its joint possessors is commonly one of the old story-books bound over again. Only once in a great while there is a stately poem in it, or its leaves are illuminated with the glories of art, or they enfold a draft for untold values signed by the millionfold millionnaire old mother herself. But strangers are commonly the first to find the “gift” that came with the little book.
It may be questioned whether anything can be conscious of its own flavor. Whether the musk-deer, or the civet-cat, or even a still more eloquently silent animal that might be mentioned, is aware of any personal peculiarity, may well be doubted. No man knows his own voice; many men do not know their own profiles. Every one remembers Carlyle’s famous “Characteristics” article; allow for exaggerations, and there is a great deal in his doctrine of the self-unconsciousness of genius. It comes under the great law just stated. This incapacity of knowing its own traits is often found in the family as well as in the individual. So never mind what your cousins, brothers, sister, uncles, aunts, and the rest, say about the fine poem you have written, but send it (postage paid) to the editors, if there are any, of the “Atlantic,”–which, by the way, is not so called because it is a _notion_, as some dull wits wish they had said, but are too late.
–Scientific knowledge, even in the most modest persons, has mingled with it a something which partakes of insolence. Absolute, peremptory facts are bullies, and those who keep company with them are apt to get a bullying habit of mind;–not of manners, perhaps; they may be soft and smooth, but the smile they carry has a quiet assertion in it, such as the Champion of the Heavy Weights, commonly the best-natured, but not the most diffident of men, wears upon what he very inelegantly calls his “mug.” Take the man, for instance, who deals in the mathematical sciences. There is no elasticity in a mathematical fact; if you bring up against it, it never yields a hair’s breadth; everything must go to pieces that comes in collision with it. What the mathematician knows being absolute, unconditional, incapable of suffering question, it should tend, in the nature of things, to breed a despotic way of thinking. So of those who deal with the palpable and often unmistakable facts of external nature; only in a less degree. Every probability–and most of our common, working beliefs are probabilities–is provided with _buffers_ at both ends, which break the force of opposite opinions clashing against it; but scientific certainty has no spring in it, no courtesy, no possibility of yielding. All this must react on the minds that handle, these forms of truth.
–Oh, you need not tell me that Messrs. A. and B. are the most gracious, unassuming people in the world, and yet preeminent in the ranges of science I am referring to. I know that as well as you. But mark this which I am going to say once for all: If I had not force enough to project a principle full in the face of the half dozen most obvious facts which seem to contradict it, I would think only in single file from this day forward. A rash man, once visiting a certain noted institution at South Boston, ventured to express the sentiment, that man is a rational being. An old woman who was an attendant in the Idiot School contradicted the statement, and appealed to the facts before the speaker to disprove it. The rash man stuck to his hasty generalization, notwithstanding.
[–It is my desire to be useful to those with whom I am associated in my daily relations. I not unfrequently practise the divine art of music in company with our landlady’s daughter, who, as I mentioned before, is the owner of an accordion. Having myself a well-marked barytone voice of more than half an octave in compass, I sometimes add my vocal powers to her execution of:
“Thou, thou reign’st in this bosom,”–
not, however, unless her mother or some other discreet female is present, to prevent misinterpretation or remark. I have also taken a good deal of interest in Benjamin Franklin, before referred to, sometimes called B.F. or more frequently Frank, in imitation of that felicitous abbreviation, combining dignity and convenience, adopted by some of his betters. My acquaintance with the French language is very imperfect, I having never studied it anywhere but in Paris, which is awkward, as B.F. devoted himself to it with the peculiar advantage of an Alsacian teacher. The boy, I think, is doing well, between us, notwithstanding. The following is an _uncorrected_ French exercise, written by this young gentleman. His mother thinks it very creditable to his abilities; though, being unacquainted with the French language, her judgment cannot be considered final.
LE RAT DES SALONS A LECTURE.
Ce rat ci est un animal fort singulier. Il a deux pattes de derriere sur lesquelles il marche, et deux pattes de devant dont il fait usage pour tenir les journaux. Cet animal a le peau noir pour le plupart, et porte un cercle blanchatre autour de son cou. On le trouve tous les jours aux dits salons, on il demeure, digere, s’it y a de quoi dans son interieur, respire, tousse, eternue, dort, et ronfle quelquetfois, ayant toujours le semblance de lire. On ne sait pas s’il a une autre gite que cela. II a l’air d’une bete tres stupide, mais il est d’une sagacite et d’une vitesse extraordinaire quand il s’agit de saisir un journal nouveau. On ne sait pas pourquoi il lit, parcequ’il ne parait pas avoir des idees. Il vocalise rarement, mais en revanche, il fait des bruits nasaux divers. Il porte un crayon dans une de ses poches pectorales, avec le-quel il fait des marques sur les bords des journaux et des livres, semblable aux suivans!!!–Bah! Pooh! II ne faut pas cependant les preudre pour des signes d’intelligence. Il ne vole pas, ordinairement; il fait rarement meme des schanges de parapluie, et jamais de chapeau, parceque son chapeau a toujours un caractere specifique. On ne sait pas au juste ce dont il so nourrit. Feu Cuvier etait d’avis que c’etait de l’odeur du cuir des reliures; ce qu’on dit d’etre une nourriture animale fort saine, et peu chere. Il vit bien longtems. Enfin il meure, en laissant a ses heritiers une carte du Salon a Lecture ou il avail existe pendant sa vie. On pretend qu’il revient toutes les nuits, apres la mort, visiter le Salon. On peut le voir, dit on, a minuit, dans sa place habituelle, tenant le journal du soir, et ayant a sa main un crayon de charbon. Le lendemain on trouve des caracteres inconnus sur les bords du journal. Ce qui prouve que le spiritulisme est vrai, et que Messieurs les Professors de Cambridge sont des imbeciles qui ne saveut rien du tout, du tout.
I think this exercise, which I have not corrected, or allowed to be touched in any way, is very creditable to B.F. You observe that he is acquiring a knowledge of zooelogy at the same time that he is learning French. Fathers of families who take this periodical will find it profitable to their children, and an economical mode of instruction, to set them to revising and amending this boy’s exercise. The passage was originally taken from the “Histoire Naturelle des Betes Ruminans et Rougeurs, Bipedes et Autres,” lately published in Paris. This was translated into English and published in London. It was republished at Great Pedlington, with notes and additions by the American editor. The notes consist of an interrogation-mark on page 53d, and a reference (p. 127th) to another book “edited” by the same hand. The additions consist of the editor’s name on the title-page and back, with a complete and authentic list of said editor’s honorary titles in the first of these localities. Our boy translated the translation back into French. This may be compared with the original, to be found on Shelf 13, Division X, of the Public Library of this metropolis.]
–Some of you boarders ask me from time to time why I don’t write a story, or a novel, or something of that kind. Instead of answering each one of you separately, I will thank you to step up into the wholesale department for a few moments, where I deal in answers by the piece and by the bale.
That every articulately-speaking human being has in him stuff for one novel in three volumes duodecimo has long been with me a