Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. V, No. XXIX., October, 1852

"Fiddlestick's ends," said Mr. R – . "Life has no end, but in consequence of fear. I am not the least afraid in the world; and hang me if I die, in spite of you all. Give me my coat and hat, John. I will go out and take a walk."

"By no means," cried the doctor. "You will only hasten the catastrophe, my dear sir, before any of your affairs are settled."

"Why, sir, you have hardly been able to walk across the room for this fortnight. You will never get half way up the hill;" said his faithful servant.

"Sir, you are at this moment in a dying state," said the provoked doctor.

"I will soon show you," cried Mr. R – ; and walking to the door in his dressing gown, without his hat, down the stairs he went, and out into the busy streets of Richmond. For a hundred yards he tottered on; but then he fell upon the pavement, and was carried into a pastry-cook's store, where he expired without uttering one word, even in defense of his favorite theory.

The small town of Landeck, in the Vorarlberg, is surrounded by mountains, which —

I am afraid they are too high for me to get over in the short space which remains of this sheet, though I have written as small as possible, in order to leave myself room to conclude the tale of the Bride of Landeck. I must therefore put it off until I can find time to write you another epistle, in which I trust to be able to conclude all I have to say upon the subject; and in the mean time, with many thanks for your polite attention in printing these gossiping letters, I must beg you to believe me,

Your faithful servant,

P.

Editor's Drawer

Perhaps no two of the "Mysteries of Science," as they are sometimes called, excite more interest among all classes of curiosity-mongers, than the Balloon and the Diving-bell. They are the very antipodes of each other, and yet the interest felt in each partakes of a very kindred character. To descend to the bottom of the sea, "where never plummet sounded;" to sink quietly and solemnly down into the chambers of the Great Deep; to see the "sea-fan" wave its delicate wings, and the coral groves, inhabited by the beautiful mer-men and maidens, who take their pastime therein; to gloat over rich argosies, the treasures of gold and silver, that brighten the caverns of the deep; to watch the deep, deep green waves of softened light that come shimmering and trembling down the dense watery walls – these make up much of the Poetry of the Diving-bell, of which all imaginative people are enamored, and which is not without a certain influence upon all sorts and conditions of men.

On the other hand, to rise suddenly above the earth; to look down upon the gradually lessening crowds and vanishing cities beneath; to glance over the tops of mountains upon the vast inland plains, sprinkled with villages and towns; to sail on and on, exhausting horizon after horizon; to look down upon even the clouds of heaven, and thunder-storms and rainbows rolling and flashing beneath your feet, and upon glimpses of the heaving bosom of the "Great and wide Sea" —these, again, are the elements of the aeronaut, that may well be termed the "Poetry of Ballooning."

But leaving the "Poetry of the Diving-bell" for another "Drawer," let us narrate an incident which we find in one of its compartments, or, rather, the synopsis of an incident, reduced from a more voluminous account, given at the time by a London writer of rare and varied accomplishments. It may, indeed, be termed, from the scanty materials preserved from the original record, a "Memory of Ballooning."

Mr. Green, the great London aeronaut, who has ascended some hundred and fifty times from Vauxhall Gardens, London; who has taken his air-journeys at all times of the day and night; who has sailed over a continent with passengers in his frail bark, when it was so dark, that, according to the testimony of one of his fellow-voyagers, it seemed as though the balloon was making its noiseless way through a mass of impenetrable black marble – this same Mr. Green – to come back from our long sentence – once gave out, by hand-bills and the public prints, that on a certain afternoon in July, he would ascend from Vauxhall Gardens, London, at four o'clock in the afternoon, with a distinguished lady and gentleman, who had volunteered to accompany him on that occasion.

The day and the hour at length arrived. The spacious inclosures of the Garden were crowded with an excited multitude, awaiting with the utmost impatience for the tossing, rolling globe to mount up and be lost in the blue creation that spread out far above the giant city, pavilioned by its clouds of smoke. But the hour passed by, and the "distinguished lady and gentleman" came not.

"It's an 'oax!" exclaimed hundreds, simultaneously among the crowd: "There isn't no sich persons."

Mr. Green assured them of his good faith; read the letter that he had received from "the parties," and his answer: but still the "madness of the people" increased, and still the "distinguished lady and gentleman" came not. Matters were growing more and more serious, and a "row" seemed inevitable.

At this crisis of affairs, a solemn-visaged man, dressed in black, with a white neckcloth, stepped forth from the dense crowd, to the edge of the boundary which inclosed the balloon, and beckoning to Mr. Green, said, in a very modest manner, and in a low tone:

"I will go with you, sir, with pleasure; I should be glad to go. I wish to escape, for a while, at least, from this infernal noisy town."

The aeronaut was only too glad to accept the proposition, as some sort of salvo to his disappointed auditory, whose denunciatory vociferations were increasing every moment.

Mr. Green, standing up in the car of his tossing and impatient vessel, now announced, that "a gentleman present, in the kindest manner, had volunteered to make the ascent with him," and that the "monster-balloon" would at once depart for the vague regions of the upper air.

This announcement was hailed with acclamations by the assembled multitudes; and giving some necessary orders to his assistants, who had become fatigued with holding the groaning ropes that had until now confined the "monster" to the earth, the balloon was liberated, and rose slowly and majestically over the vast crowd of spectators and the wilderness of brick and mortar, and towers and steeples, and spacious parks, that lay spread out below, and gradually melted into the celestial blue.

What followed is best represented by the partially remembered words of the aeronaut himself, as shadowed forth in the memorandum already referred to.

"As we rose above the metropolis, and its mighty mass began to melt into indistinctness, my companion, whose bearing and manner had hitherto most favorably impressed me, began to manifest symptoms of great uneasiness. As we were passing over Hanwell, dimly seen among the extended suburbs of the great city, his anxiety seemed to increase in an extraordinary degree. Pointing, with trembling finger, in that immediate direction, he said:

"'Can they see us from THERE? can they reach us in any way? can they telegraph us? – CAN they, I say?'

"Surprised at the excitement, and at the abrupt alarm of one who had been so remarkably cool and self-possessed at starting, I replied:

"'Certainly not, my dear sir; we are half a mile from the earth, at least.'

"'Ah, ha! then I am safe! they can't catch me now! I escaped from them only this morning!'

"With a vague sense of some impending evil, I asked:

"'Escaped! – how! – from where?'

"'From the lunatic asylum! They thought I was crazed, and sent me there to be confined. Crazed! Why, there's not a man in London so sane as I am, and they knew it. It was a trick, sir – a trick! A trick to get my estate! But I'll be even with 'em! I'll show 'em! I'll thwart em!'

"Good Heavens! I was now a mile from the earth, with a madman for my companion! – in a frail vessel, where the utmost caution and coolness were necessary, and where the least irregularity or carelessness would send us, through the intervening space with the speed of thought, to lie, crushed and bleeding masses of unrecognizable humanity, upon the earth.

"But I had not long to think of even this apparently inevitable fate; for my companion had seized upon the sand-bags, and, one after another, was throwing them over the side of the car.

"'Hold! rash man!' I exclaimed: 'what would you do? You are endangering both our lives!'

"All this time the balloon was ascending with such rapidity, that the rush of the air through the net-work was like the wild whistling of the wind in the cordage of a ship under bare poles, in a gale at sea.

"'What do I do?' repeated the madman; 'I am getting away! I am going to the moon! – I am going to the moon! – ha! ha! They can't catch us in the moon!'

"He had exhausted nearly all the ballast except what was under or near me, and we were rising at such an astounding speed that I expected every moment that the balloon would burst from the increasing expansion, when I observed him loosening his garments and taking off his coat.

"'It's two hundred thousand miles now to the moon!' said he, 'and we must throw over some more ballast or we shan't be home till morning.'

"So saying he tore off his coat and threw it over – next his waistcoat – and was fumbling at his pantaloons, evidently for a similar purpose. But a new thought seemed to strike him:

"'Two are too many for this little balloon,' he said; 'she's going too slow! We shall not reach the moon before morning at this rate. Get out of this!'

"I was wholly unnerved. I could have calmed the fears, or reasoned down the apprehensions of a reasonable companion; but my present compagnon du voyage 'lacked discourse of reason' as much as the brute that perisheth, and remonstrance was of no avail.

"'Get out of this!' he repeated, in tones strangely piercing, in the hush of the upper air; and thereupon I felt myself seized by a grasp, so often superhumanly powerful in madmen, and found myself suddenly poised over the side of the tilting car, and heard the hum of the tortured gas in its silken prison above us:

"'Good-night!' said the infuriated wretch; 'you'll hear from me by telegraph from the moon! They can't catch me now! Ha! ha! – not now! not now!'"

It was but a dream of an aeronaut, reader, after all, on the night before his ascension; and this sketch is but a dream of that dream; for it is from memory, and not "from the record."

As the fall rains may be expected, as the almanacs predict, "about these days" of autumn, we put on early record, for the next month, the fact, that umbrellas are not protected by the laws of the United States. They are not property, save that of the man of whom you buy them. They constitute an article which, by the morality of society, you may steal from friend or foe, and which, for the same reason, you should not lend to either. The coolest thing – the most doubly-iced impudence – we ever heard of, was in the case of a man who borrowed a new silk umbrella of a town-neighbor, which, as a matter of course, he forgot to return. One morning, in a heavy rain, he called on his neighbor for it. He found him on the steps, going out with the borrowed umbrella. He met him with that peculiar smile that one man gives another who suddenly claims his umbrella on a wet day, and said:

"Where are you going, Mr. B – ?"

"I came for my umbrella," was the brief reply.

"But don't you see I am going out with it at this moment? It's a very nasty morning."

"Going out with my umbrella! What am I to do, I should like to know?"

"Do?– do as I did —borrow one!" said the borrower, as he walked away, leaving the lender well-nigh paralyzed at the great height of his neighbor's impudence.

A church is the place, of a rainy Sunday, where many indifferent and valuable "exchanges" are made, in the article of umbrellas. Perhaps many of our readers will remember the remark made at the close of morning service, on a drizzly Sabbath, by a pious brother:

"My friends, there was taken from this place of worship this morning a large black silk-umbrella, nearly new; and in place of it was left a small blue cotton umbrella, much tattered and worn, and of a coarse texture. The black silk umbrella was undoubtedly taken by mistake, but such mistakes are getting a leetle too common!"6

As we shall very soon have a new President coming into office for a new four-year's lease of care and "glory," we venture to insinuate what he may expect from the throngs of office-seekers by whom he will be surrounded; and we shall take but a single instance out of many hundreds that might be offered. A man writing from Washington at the coming in of our last National Chief Magistrate, gave this graphic sketch of a "Sucker" office-seeker:

Dickens might draw some laughable sketches, or caricatures, from the live specimens of office-seekers now on hand here. The new President has just advised them all to go home and leave their papers behind them; and such a scattering you never saw! One fellow came here from Illinois, and was introduced to a wag who, he was told, had "great influence at court," and who, although destitute of any such pretensions, kept up the delusion for the sake of the joke. The "Sucker" addressed the man of influence something in this wise:

"Now, stranger, look at them papers. Them names is the first in our whole town. There's Deacon Styles – there ain't no piouser man in all the county; and then there's Rogers, our shoemaker – he made them boots I got on, and a better pair never tramped over these diggins. You wouldn't think them soles had walked over more than three hundred miles of Hoosier mud, but they hev though, and are sound yet. Every body in our town knows John Rogers. Just you go to Illinois, and ax about me. You'll find how I stand. Then you ask Jim Turner, our constable —he knows me; ask him what I did for the party. He'll tell you I was a screamer at the polls – nothing else. Now, I've come all the way from Illinois, and a-foot too, most of the way, to see if I can have justice. They even told me to take a town-office to – hum! but I must have something that pays aforehand – such as them 'char-gees,' as they call 'em. I hain't got only seven dollars left, and I can't wait. Jist git me one o' them 'char-gees,' will ye? Them'll do. Tell the old man how it is; he'll do it. Fact is, he must! I've airnt the office, and no mistake!"

Doubtless he had "airnt" it; few persons who go to Washington and wait for an office, but earn their office, whether they obtain it or not.

It is Horace Walpole, in his egotistical but very amusing correspondence, who narrates the following amusing anecdote:

"I must add a curious story, which I believe will surprise your Italian surgeons as much as it has amazed the faculty here. A sailor who had broken his leg was advised to communicate his case to the Royal Society. The account he gave was, that having fallen from the top of the mast and fractured his leg, he had dressed it with nothing but tar and oakum, and yet in three days was able to walk as well as before the accident. The story at first appeared quite incredible, as no such efficacious qualities were known in tar, and still less in oakum; nor was a poor sailor to be credited on his own bare assertion of so wonderful a cure. The society very reasonably demanded a fuller relation, and, I suppose, the corroboration of evidence. Many doubted whether the leg had been really broken. That part of the story had been amply verified. Still it was difficult to believe that the man had made use of no other applications than tar and oakum; and how they should cure a broken leg in three days, even if they could cure it at all, was a matter of the utmost wonder. Several letters passed between the society and the patient, who persevered in the most solemn asseverations of having used no other remedies, and it does appear beyond a doubt that the man speaks truth. It is a little uncharitable, but I fear there are surgeons who might not like this abbreviation of attendance and expense; but, on the other hand, you will be charmed with the plain, honest simplicity of the sailor. In a postscript to his last letter, he added these words:

"I forgot to tell your honors that the leg was a wooden one!"

There was great delicacy in the manner in which a foreigner, having a friend hung in this country, broke the intelligence to his relations on the other side of the water. He wrote as follows:

"Your brother had been addressing a large meeting of citizens, who had manifested the deepest interest in him, when the platform upon which he stood, being, as was subsequently ascertained, very insecure, gave way, owing to which, he fell and broke his neck!"

If you will take a bank-note, and while you are folding it up according to direction, peruse the following lines, you will arrive at their meaning, with no little admiration for the writer's cleverness:

"I will tell you a plan for gaining wealth,Better than banking, trading or leases;Take a bank-note and fold it up,And then you will find your wealth in-creases."This wonderful plan, without danger or loss,Keeps your cash in your hands, and with nothing to trouble it,And every time that you fold it across,'Tis plain as the light of the day that you double it."

If your "Editor's Drawer," writes a correspondent, is not already full, you may think the inclosed, although an old story, worthy of being squeezed in.

"Soon after the close of the American Revolution, a deputation of Indian chiefs having some business to transact with the Governor, were invited to dine with some of the officials in Philadelphia. During the repast, the eyes of a young chief were attracted to a castor of mustard, having in it a spoon ready for use. Tempted by its bright color, he gently drew it toward him, and soon had a brimming spoonful in his mouth. Instantly detecting his mistake, he nevertheless had the fortitude to swallow it, although it forced the tears from his eyes.

"A chief opposite, at the table, who had observed the consequence, but not the cause, asked him 'What he was crying for?' He replied that he was 'thinking of his father, who was killed in battle.' Soon after, the questioner himself, prompted by curiosity, made the same experiment, with the same result, and in turn was asked by the younger Sachem 'What he was crying for?' 'Because you were not killed when your father was,' was the prompt reply."

Old Matthews, the most comic of all modern comic raconteurs, when in this country used to relate the following illustration of the manner in which the cool assumption of a "flunkey" was rebuked by an eccentric English original, one Lord Eardley, whose especial antipathy was, to have his servants of the class called "fine gentlemen:"

"During breakfast one day, Lord Eardley was informed that a person had applied for a footman's place, then vacant. He was ordered into the room, and a double refined specimen of the genus so detested by his lordship made his appearance. The manner of the man was extremely affected and consequential, and it was evident that my lord understood him at a glance; moreover, it was as evident he determined to lower him a little.

"'Well, my good fellow,' said he, 'you want a lackey's place, do you?'

"'I came about an upper footman's situation, my lord,' said the gentleman, bridling up his head.

"'Oh, do ye, do ye?' replied Lord Eardley; 'I keep no upper servants; all alike, all alike here.'

"'Indeed, my lord!' exclaimed this upper footman, with an air of shocked dignity. 'What department then am I to consider myself expected to fill?'

"'Department! department!' quoth my lord, in a tone like inquiry.

"'In what capacity, my lord?'

"My lord repeated the word capacity, as if not understanding its application to the present subject.

"'I mean, my lord,' explained the man, 'what shall I be expected to do, if I take the situation?'

"'Oh, you mean if you take the place. I understand you now,' rejoined my lord; 'why, you're to do every thing but sweep the chimneys and clean the pig-sties, and those I do myself.'

"The gentleman stared, scarcely knowing what to make of this, and seemed to wish himself out of the room; he, however, grinned a ghastly smile, and, after a short pause, inquired what salary his lordship gave!

"'Salary, salary?' reiterated his incorrigible lord ship, 'don't know the word, don't know the word, my good man.'

"Again the gentleman explained; 'I mean what wages?'

"'Oh, wages,' echoed my lord; 'what d'ye ask? what d'ye ask?'

"Trip regained his self-possession at this question, which looked like business, and considering for a few moments, answered – first stipulating to be found in hair-powder, and (on state occasions) silk stockings, and gloves, bags and bouquets – that he should expect thirty pounds a year.

"'How much, how much?' demanded my lord rapidly.

"'Thirty pounds, my lord.'

"'Thirty pounds!' exclaimed Lord Eardley, in affected amazement; 'make it guineas, and I'll live with YOU;' then ringing the bell, said to the servant who answered it, 'Let out this gentleman, he's too good for me;' and then turning to Matthews, who was much amused, said, as the man made his exit, 'Conceited, impudent, scoundrel! Soon sent him off, soon sent him off, Master Matthews.'"

As specimens of the retort courteous and the retort uncourteous, observe the two which ensue:

"Two of the guests at a public dinner having got into an altercation, one of them, a blustering vulgarian, vociferated: 'Sir, you're no gentleman!' 'Sir,' said his opponent, in a calm voice, 'you are no judge!'"

Talleyrand, being questioned on one occasion by a man who squinted awfully, with several importunate questions, concerning his leg, recently broken, replied:

"It is quite crooked– as you see!"

If you have ever been a pic-nicking, reader, you will appreciate the annoyances set forth in these lively lines by a modern poet. We went on one of these excursions in August, not many years ago, and while addressing some words that we intended should be very agreeable, to a charming young lady in black, seated by our side, on the bank of a pleasant lake, in the upper region of the Ramapo mountains, a huge garter-snake crept forth at our feet, hissing at our intrusion upon his domain! How the young lady did scamper! – and how we did the same thing, for that matter! But we must not forget the lines we were speaking of:

Half-starved with hunger, parched with thirst,All haste to spread the dishes,When lo! we find the soda burst,Amid the loaves and fishes;Over the pie, a sudden sop,The grasshoppers are skipping,Each roll's a sponge, each loaf a mop,And all the meat is dripping.Bristling with broken glass you findSome cakes among the bottles,Which those may eat, who do not mindExcoriated throttles:The biscuits now are wiped and dried,When shrilly voices utter:"Look! look! a toad has got astrideOur only plate of butter!"Your solids in a liquid state,Your cooling liquids heated,And every promised joy by FateMost fatally defeated:All, save the serving-men, are soured,They smirk, the cunning sinners!Having, before they came, devouredMost comfortable dinners.Still you assume, in very spite,A grim and gloomy gladness;Pretend to laugh – affect delight —And scorn all show of sadnessWhile thus you smile, but storm within,A storm without comes faster,And down descends in deafening dinA deluge of disaster!So, friend, if you are sick of Home,Wanting a new sensation,And sigh for the unwonted easeOf un-accommodation;If you would taste, as amateur,And vagabond beginner,The painful pleasures of the poor,Get up a Pic-Nic Dinner!

There is a good deal of talk, in these latter days, about the article of guano: the right of discovery of the islands where it is obtained, and the like. We remember to have heard something about the discovery and occupation of the first of these islands, that of Ichaboe, which made us "laugh consumedly;" and we have been thinking that a thorough exploration of the Lobos islands might result in a similar discomfiture to the "grasping Britishers."