The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 12, October, 1858

"This card is yours, I presume, Miss Splurge?"

Madeline turned upon her with a surprised air, inquiringly,—looked in her own hands, and shook her handkerchief with the quick, nervous, alarmed movement of one who suddenly discovers a very particular loss,—became, in an instant, pale as death, stared for a moment at Miss Wimple with fixed eyes, and slightly shivered. Then, quickly and fiercely, she snatched the card from Miss Wimple's hand,—

"Where—where did you find this? Did—did I leave—drop—?"

"You left it on my counter," Miss Wimple quietly replied, with a considerate self-possession that admirably counterfeited unconsciousness of Madeline's consternation.

"Come hither, into the shop,—a word with you,"—and Madeline entered quickly, and closed the door behind her. For a moment she leaned with her elbow on the counter, and pressed her eyes with her fingers.

"Are you ill, Miss Splurge?" Miss Wimple gently inquired.

"No. Did you read what is on this card?"

"Yes."

"You—you—you read"–Madeline's hands were clenched, her face red and distorted; she gnashed her teeth, and seemed choking.

"Why, Miss Splurge, what is the matter with you? Yes, I read the name,—Mr. Philip Withers. The card lay on the counter,—I could not know it was yours,—I read the name, and immediately brought it to you. What excites you so? Sit down, and calm yourself; surely you are ill."

Madeline did not accept the stool Miss Wimple offered her, but, availing herself of the pause to assume a forced calmness which left her paler than at first, she fixed her flashing eyes steadily on the deep, still eyes of her companion, and asked,—

"You did not turn this card, then?—you did not look on the other side?"

"On my honor, I did not."

"On your honor! You are not lying, girl?"—Miss Splurge thrust the card into the newly-purchased pocket-book, and hid that in her bosom.

"Miss Splurge," said Miss Wimple, very simply, and with no excitement of tone or expression, "when you feel sufficiently recovered to appear on the street, without exposing yourself there as you have done in here, go out!"

And Miss Wimple turned from Madeline and would have resumed her sewing; but Madeline cried,—

"Stay, stay, Miss Wimple, I beseech you! I knew not what I said; forgive me, ah, forgive me!—for you are merciful, as you are pure and true. If you were aware of all, you would know that I could not insult you, if I would. Trouble, distraction, have made me coarse,—false, too, to myself as unjust and injurious to you; for I know your virtues, and believe in them as I believe in little else in this world or the next. If in my hour of agony and shame I could implore the help of any human being, I would come to you—dear, honest, brave girl!—before all others, to fling myself at your feet, and kiss your hands, and beseech you to pity me and save me from myself, to hold my hot head on your gentle bosom, and your soothing hand on my fierce heart. Good-by! Good-by! I need not ask your pardon again,—you have no anger for such as I. But if your blessed loneliness is ever disturbed by vulgar, chattering visitors, you will not name me to them, or confess that you have seen me." And ere Miss Wimple could utter the gentle words that were already on her lips, Madeline was gone.

For a while Miss Wimple remained standing on the spot, gazing anxiously, but vacantly, toward the door by which the half-mad lady had departed,—her soft, deep eyes full of painful apprehension. Then she resumed her little rocking-chair, and, as she gathered up her work from the floor where she had dropped it, tears trickled down her cheeks; she sighed and shook her head, in utter sorrow.

"They were always strange women," she thought, "those Splurges,—not a sound heart nor a healthy mind among them. Could their false, barren life have maddened this proud Madeline? Else what did she mean by her 'hot head' and her 'fierce heart'? And what had that Philip Withers to do with her trouble and her distraction? She recollected now that Simon had once said, in his odd, significant way, that Mr. Withers was a charming person to contemplate from a safe distance,—Simon, who never lent himself to idle detraction. She remembered, too, that she had often reproached herself for her irrational prejudice against the man,—that she was forever finding something false and sinister in the face that every one else said was eminently handsome, and ugly dissonance in the voice that all Hendrik praised for its music. Was he on both sides of that card?—Ah, well! it might be just nothing, after all; the poor lady might be ill, or vexed past endurance at home; or some unhappy love affair might have come to fret her proud, impatient, defiant temper. But not Withers,—oh, of course not Withers!—for was it not well known that Adelaide was his choice, that his assiduous and graceful attentions to her silenced even his loudest enemies, who could no longer accuse him of duplicity and disloyalty to women? But she would feel less disturbed, and sleep better, perhaps, if she knew that Madeline was safe at home, and tranquil again."

Thinking of sleep reminded Miss Wimple that she had a pious task to perform before she could betake her to her sweet little cot. A superannuated and bedridden woman, who had nursed her mother in her last illness, lived on the northern outskirts of the town; and she must cross the long covered bridge that spanned the Hendrik River to take a basket full of comforting trifles to old Hetty that night.

About nine o'clock Miss Wimple had done her charitable errand, and was on her way home again, with a light step and a happy heart, an empty basket and old Hetty's abundant blessings. She was alone, but feared nothing,—the streets of Hendrik at night were familiar to her and she to them; and although her shy and quiet traits were not sufficiently understood to make her universally beloved, not a loafing ruffian in town but knew her modest face, her odd attire, and her straightforward walk; and the rudest respected her.

As she approached the covered bridge, the moon was shining brightly at the entrance, making the gloom within profounder. It was a long, wooden structure, of a kind common enough on the turnpikes of the Atlantic States, where they cross the broader streams. Stout posts and cross-beams, and an arch that stretched from end to end, divided the bridge into two longitudinal compartments, for travellers going and coming respectively; there were small windows on each side, and at either end, on a conspicuous signboard, were the Company's "Rules,"—"Walk your Horses over this Bridge, or be subject to a Fine of not less than Five nor exceeding Twenty Dollars"—"Keep to the Right, as the Law directs."

As Miss Wimple entered the shadow of the bridge on the right hand, she was startled by hearing excited voices, which seemed to come from the other side of the central arch, and about the middle of the bridge, where the darkness was deepest:—

"Speak low, I say, or be silent! Some one will be coming presently;—I heard steps approaching even now"—Miss Wimple instinctively stopped, and stood motionless, almost holding her breath, at the end of the arch where the moonlight did not reach. She was no eavesdropper, mark you,—the meannesses she scorned included that character in a special clause. But she had recognised the voice, and with her own true delicacy would spare the speaker the shame of discovery and the dread of exposure.—"Speak low, or I will leave you. If you are indifferent for yourself, you shall not toss me to the geese of Hendrik."

"You are right";—it was a woman's voice; but, whatever her tone had been before, she spoke so low now, and with a voice so hoarse with suppressed emotion, so altered by a sort of choking whisper, that Miss Wimple, if she had ever heard it before, could not recognize it;—"You are right; the time for that has not come;—I could not stay to enjoy it;—I am going now, but we will meet again."

"What would you have? I have said I would marry you,—and leave you,—so soon as I can shake myself clear of that other stupid infatuation."

"Now, Philip Withers, what a weak, pusillanimous wretch you must be, having known me so long, and tried my temper so well, to hope to find me such a fool, after all,—that kind of fool, I mean! My deepest shame, in this unutterably shameful hour, is that I chose such a cowardly ass to besot myself with.—There, the subject sickens me, and I am going. Dare to follow me, and the geese of Hendrik shall have you. I go scot-free, fearing nothing, having nothing to lose; but I hold you, my exquisite Joseph Surface—oh, the wit of my sister! oh, the wisdom of fools!—by your fine sentiments; and when I want you I shall find you. I can take care of me and mine; but beware how you dare to claim lot or portion in what I choose to call my own, even though your brand be on it,—Joseph!"

She hissed the name, and, with hurried steps, and a low, scornful laugh, departed. As Miss Wimple, all aghast, leaned forward with quick breath and tumultuous heart, and peered through the gloom toward where the silver moonlight lay across the further end of the bridge, she saw a white dress flash across a bright space and disappear. Then Philip Withers stepped forth into the moonlight, stood there for a minute or two, and gazed in the direction of a branch road which made off from the turnpike close to the bridge, and led, at right angles to it, to the railroad station on the right; then slowly, and without once looking back, he followed the turnpike to the town.

All astonished, bewildered, full of strange, vague fears, Miss Wimple remained in the now awful gloom and stillness of the bridge till he had quite disappeared. Then gathering up her wits with an effort, she resumed her homeward way. As she emerged from the shadows into the same bright place which Withers and his mysterious companion had just passed, she spied something dark lying on the ground. She stooped and picked it up; it was a small morocco pocket-book lined with pink silk.

Good Heaven! She remembered,—the one she had sold to Miss Madeline Splurge that afternoon,—the very same! So, then, that was her voice, her dress; she had, indeed, dimly thought of Madeline more than once, while that woman was speaking so bitterly,—but had not recognized her tones, nor once fancied it might be she. Now she easily recalled her words, and understood some of her allusions. And her wild, distracted, incoherent speech in the shop, too,—ah! it was all too plain; that was surely she; but what might be the nature or degree of her trouble Miss Wimple dared not try to guess. This Philip Withers,—was he a villain, after all? "Had he—this poor lady—Oh, God forbid! No, no, no!"

She opened the pocket-book;—a visiting-card was all it contained. She drew it forth,—"Mr. Philip Withers,"—yes, she knew it by that broken corner, as though it had been marked so for a purpose. She held it up before her eyes where the moon was brightest, and—turned the other side.

"Ah, me!" exclaimed that Chevalier Bayard in shabby, skimped delaine, "what was I going to do?"

Blushing, she returned the card to its place, and hiding the pocket-book in her honorable bosom, hurried homeward. But her soul was troubled as she went; sometimes she sobbed aloud, and more than once she stood still and wrung her hands.

"Ah! if Simon Blount would but come now to advise me what is safest and best to do!"

Should she go to Mrs. Splurge and tell her all? No,—what right had she? That would but precipitate an exposure which might not be necessary. The case was not clear enough to justify so officious a step. Madeline was in no immediate danger. Perhaps she had only taken a different road to avoid the odious companionship of Withers. No doubt she was half-way home already. She would wait till morning, for clearer judgment and information. Till then she would hope for the best.

When Miss Wimple reached her humble little nest, she knelt beside her bed and prayed, tearfully, to the God who averts danger and forgives sin; but she did not sleep all night.

In the morning a gossiping neighbor came with the news;—"that little cooped-up Wimple never hears anything," she thought.

Miss Madeline Splurge had disappeared. Mr. Philip Withers was searching for her high and low. She had not been seen since yesterday afternoon,—had not returned home last night. It was feared she had drowned herself in the river for spite. She, the knowing neighbor, "had always said so,—had always said that Madeline Splurge was a quare girl,—sich high and mighty airs, and sich a temper. Now here it was, and what would people say,—specially them as had always turned up their nose at her opinion?"

Miss Wimple said nothing; but she treated Pity to two poor little lies;—one she told, and the other she looked:—She was not well, she said, which was the reason why she was so pale; and then she looked surprised at the news of Madeline's flitting.

Later in the day another report:—A letter left by Madeline had been found at home. She had taken offence at some sharp thing that sarcastic Mr. Withers, who always did hate her, had said; and had gone off in a miff, without even good-by or a carpet-bag, and taken the night train to New York, where she had an uncle on the mother's side.—And a good riddance! Now Miss Addy and Mr. Withers would have some peace of their time. Such a sweet couple, too!

Madeline had left a note:—"I was sick of you all, and I have escaped from you. You will be foolish to take any trouble about it."

[To be continued.]

THE CUP

The cup I sing is a cup of gold,Many and many a century old,Sculptured fair, and over-filledWith wine of a generous vintage, spilledIn crystal currents and foaming tidesAll round its luminous, pictured sides.Old Time enamelled and embossedThis ancient cup at an infinite cost.Its frame he wrought of metal that runRed from the furnace of the sun.Ages on ages slowly rolledBefore the glowing mass was cold,And still he toiled at the antique mould,Turning it fast in his fashioning hand,Tracing circle, layer, and band,Carving figures quaint and strange,Pursuing, through many a wondrous change,The symmetry of a plan divine.At last he poured the lustrous wine,Crowned high the radiant wave with light,And held aloft the goblet bright,Half in shadow, and wreathed in mistOf purple, amber, and amethyst.This is the goblet from whose brinkAll creatures that have life must drink:Foemen and lovers, haughty lordAnd sallow beggar with lips abhorred.The new-born infant, ere it gainThe mother's breast, this wine must drain.The oak with its subtile juice is fed,The rose drinks till her cheeks are red,And the dimpled, dainty violet sipsThe limpid stream with loving lips.It holds the blood of sun and star,And all pure essences that are:No fruit so high on the heavenly vine,Whose golden hanging clusters shineOn the far-off shadowy midnight hills,But some sweet influence it distilsThat slideth down the silvery rills.Here Wisdom drowned her dangerous thought,The early gods their secrets brought;Beauty, in quivering lines of light,Ripples before the ravished sight;And the unseen mystic spheres combineTo charm the cup and drug the wine.All day I drink of the wine and deepIn its stainless waves my senses steep;All night my peaceful soul lies drownedIn hollows of the cup profound;Again each morn I clamber upThe emerald crater of the cup,On massive knobs of jasper standAnd view the azure ring expand:I watch the foam-wreaths toss and swimIn the wine that o'erruns the jewelled rim,Edges of chrysolite emerge,Dawn-tinted, from the misty surge;My thrilled, uncovered front I lave,My eager senses kiss the wave,And drain, with its viewless draught, the loreThat warmeth the bosom's secret core,And the fire that maddens the poet's brainWith wild sweet ardor and heavenly pain.

THE LANGUAGE OF THE SEA

Every calling has something of a special dialect. Even where there is, one would think, no necessity for it, as in the conversation of Sophomores, sporting men, and reporters for the press, a dialect is forthwith partly invented, partly suffered to grow, and the sturdy stem of original English exhibits a new crop of parasitic weeds which often partake of the nature of fungi and betoken the decay of the trunk whence they spring.

Is this the case with the language of the sea? Has the sea any language? or has each national tongue grafted into it the technology of the maritime calling?

The sea has its own laws,—the common and unwritten law of the forecastle, of which Admiralty Courts take infrequent cognizance, and the law of the quarter-deck, which is to be read in acts of Parliament and statutes of Congress. The sea has its own customs, superstitions, traditions, architecture, and government; wherefore not its own language? We maintain that it has, and that this tongue, which is not enumerated by Adelung, which possesses no grammar and barely a lexicon of its own, and which is not numbered among the polyglot achievements of Mezzofanti or Burritt, has yet a right to its place among the world's languages.

Like everything else which is used at sea,—except salt-water,—its materials came from shore. As the ship is originally wrought from the live-oak forests of Florida and the pine mountains of Norway, the iron mines of England, the hemp and flax fields of Russia, so the language current upon her deck is the composite gift of all sea-loving peoples. But as all these physical elements of construction suffer a sea-change on passing into the service of Poseidon, so again the landward phrases are metamorphosed by their contact with the main. But no one set of them is allowed exclusive predominance. For the ocean is the only true, grand, federative commonwealth which has never owned a single master. The cloud-compelling Zeus might do as he pleased on land; but far beyond the range of outlook from the white watch-tower of Olympus rolled the immeasurable waves of the wine-purple deep, acknowledging only the Enosigaios Poseidon. Consequently, while Zeus allotted to this and that hero and demigod Argos and Mycene and the woody Zacynthus, each to each, the ocean remained unbounded and unmeted. Nation after nation, race after race, has tried its temporary lordship, but only at the pleasure of the sea itself. Sometimes the ensign of sovereignty has been an eagle, sometimes a winged lion,—now a black raven, then a broom,—to-day St. Andrew's Cross, to-morrow St George's, perhaps the next a starry cluster. There is no permanent architecture of the main by which to certify the triumphs of these past invaders. Their ruined castles are lying "fifty fathom deep,"—Carthaginian galley and Roman trireme, the argosy of Spain, the "White Ship" of Fitz Stephen, the "Ville de Paris," down to the latest "non-arrival" whispered at Lloyd's,—all are gone out of sight into the forgotten silences of the green underworld. Upon the land we can trace Roman and Celt, Saxon and Norman, by names and places, by minster, keep, and palace. This one gave the battlement, that the pinnacle, the other the arch. But the fluent surface of the sea takes no such permanent impression. Gone are the quaint stern-galleries, gone the high top-gallant fore-castles, gone the mighty banks of oars of the olden time. It is only in the language that we are able to trace the successive nations in their march along the mountain waves; for to that each has from time to time given its contribution, and of each it has worn the seeming stamp, till some Actium or Lepanto or Cape Trafalgar has compelled its reluctant transfer to another's hands.

Or rather, we may say, the language of the sea comes and makes a part, as it were, of the speech of many different nations, as the sailor abides for a season in Naples, Smyrna, Valparaiso, Canton, and New York,—and from each it borrows, as the sailor does, from this a silk handkerchief, from that a cap, here a brooch, and there a scrap of tattooing, but still remains inhabitant of all and citizen of none,—the language of the seas.

What do we mean by this? It is that curious nomenclature which from truck to keelson clothes the ship with strange but fitting phrases,—which has its proverbs, idioms, and forms of expression that are of the sea, salt, and never of the land, earthy. Wherever tidewater flows, goes also some portion of this speech. It is "understanded of the people" among all truly nautical races. It dominates over their own languages, so that the Fin and Mowree, (Maori,) the Lascar and the Armorican, meeting on the same deck, find a common tongue whereby to carry on the ship's work,—the language in which to "hand, reef, and steer."

Whence did it come? From all nautical peoples. Not from the Hebrew race. To them the possession of the soil was a fixed idea. The sea itself had nothing wherewith to tempt them; they were not adventurers or colonizers; they had none of that accommodating temper as to creed, customs, and diet, which is the necessary characteristic of the sailor. But the nations they expelled from Canaan, the worshippers of the fish-tailed Dagon, who fled westward to build Tartessus (Tarshish) on the Gaditanian peninsula, or who clung with precarious footing to the sea-shore of Philistia and the rocky steeps of Tyre and Sidon,—these were seafarers. From them their Greek off-shoots, the Ionian islanders, inherited something of the maritime faculty. There are traces in the "Odyssey" of a nautical language, of a technology exclusively belonging to the world "off soundings," and an exceeding delight in the rush and spray-flinging of a vessel's motion,—

"The purple wave hissed from the bow of the bark in its going."

Hence the Greek is somewhat of a sailor to this day, and in many a Mediterranean port lie sharp and smartly-rigged brigantines with classic names of old Heathendom gilt in pure Greek type upon their sterns.

But the Greek and Carthaginian elements of the ocean language must now lie buried very deep in it, and it is hard to recognize their original image and superscription in those smooth-worn current coins which form the basis of the sea-speech. It is not within the limits of a cursory paper like this to enter into too deep an investigation, or to trace perhaps a fanciful lineage for such principal words as "mast," and "sail," and "rope." In one word, "anchor," the Greek plainly survives,—and doubtless many others might be made out by a skilful philologist.

The Roman, to whom the empire of the sea, or, more properly speaking, the petty principality of the Mediterranean, was transferred, had little liking for that sceptre. He was driven to the water by sheer necessity, but he never took to it kindly. He was at best a sea-soldier, a marine, not brought up from the start in the merchant-service and then polished into the complete blue-jacket and able seaman of the navy. Nobody can think of those ponderous old Romans, whose comedies were all borrowed from Attica, whose poems were feeble echoes of the Greek, and whose architecture, art, and domestic culture were at best the work of foreign artists,—nobody can think of them at sea without a quiet chuckle at the inevitable consequences of the first "reef-topsail breeze." Fancy those solemn, stately Patricians, whose very puns are ponderous enough to set their galleys a streak deeper in the water, fancy them in a brisk sea with a nor'wester brewing to windward, watching off the port of Carthage for Admiral Hasdrubal and his fleet to come out. They were good hand-to-hand fighters,—none better; and so they won their victories, no doubt; but, having won them, they dropped sea-going, and made the conquered nations transport their corn and troops, while they went back to their congenial camps and solemn Senate-debates.

But Italy was not settled by the Roman alone. A black-haired, fire-eyed, daring, flexible race had colonized the Sicilian Islands, and settled thickly around the Tarentine Gulf, and built their cities up the fringes of the Apennines as far as the lovely Bay of Parthenope. Greek they were,—by tradition the descendants of those who took Troy-town,—Greek they are to this day, as any one may see who will linger on the Mole or by the Santa Lucia Stairs at Naples. At Salerno, at Amalfi, were cradled those fishing-hamlets which were to nurse seamen, and not soldiers. Far up the Adriatic, the storm of Northern invasion had forced a fair-haired and violet-eyed folk into the fastnesses of the lagoons, to drive their piles and lay their keels upon the reedy islets of San Giorgio and San Marco; while on the western side an ancient Celtic colony was rising into prominence, and rearing at the foot of the Ligurian Alps the palaces of Genoa the Proud.