The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 11, September, 1858

"The Lady Angelica," I quietly said.

"Sir!" he exclaimed, quickly changing color, and assuming his most frigid expression and manner. But as quickly, and before I could speak, his sad smile and friendly tone returned, and he said,—

"Ah! I see,—Ferdy has been babbling of his visions and his dreams. Yes, the Lady Angelica. 'Very charming,' my uncle granted, 'but very poor; less of the angel and more of the heiress was desirable,' he said,—'less heaven and more land. A decayed family was only a little worse than an obscure one,—a poor knight not a whit more respectable than a rich merchant. I must relinquish my little romance,—I had not time for it; I had occupation enough for the scant leisure my family duties'—and he laid stress on the words—'left me in the duties of my post. He would endeavor to find arguments for the lady and employment for me.'

"It was in vain for me to remonstrate,—I was too familiar with my uncle's temper to waste my time and breath so. I would be silent, I resolved, and pursue my honorable and gallant course without regard to his scandalous schemes. I wrote to the 'Lady Angelica,'—since Ferdy's name for her is so well chosen,—telling her all, giving her solemn assurances of my unchangeable purpose toward her, and scorn of my uncle's mercenary ambition. She replied very quietly: 'She, also, was not without pride; she would come and see for herself';—and she came at once.

"The family arrived in London in the evening. Within two hours I was sent—after the fashion of an old-time courier, 'Ride! ride! ride!—for your life! for your life! for your life!'—to Turin with despatches, and sealed instructions for my own conduct, not to be opened till I arrived; then I found my orders were, to remain at Turin until it should be my uncle's pleasure to recall me.

"I had not been in Turin a month when a letter came from–the Lady Angelica. 'It was her wish that all intercourse between us, by interview or correspondence, should cease at once and forever. She assumed this position of her own free will, and she was resolute to maintain it. She trusted that I would not inquire obtrusively into her motives,—she had no fear that I would doubt that they were worthy of her. Her respect for me was unabated,—her faith in me perfect. I had her blessing and her anxious prayers. I must go on my way in brave silence and patience, nor ever for one moment be so weak as to fool myself into a hope that she would change her purpose.'

"What should I do? I had no one to advise with; my mother, whose faith in her brother's wisdom was sure, was in Madrid, and my father had been dead some years. At first my heart was full of bitter curses, and my uncle had not at his heels a heartier hater than I. Then came the merely romantic thought, that this might be but a test she would put me to,—that he might be innocent and ignorant of my misfortune. With the thought I flung my heart into writing, and madly plied her with one long, passionate letter after another. I got no answers; but by his spies my uncle was apprised of all I did.

"About this time,—it was in 1832,—Zea-Bermudez was recalled to Madrid in a grave crisis, and appointed to the administration of foreign affairs. Ferdinand VII. was apparently approaching the end of his reign and his life. The Apostolical party, exulting in their strength, and confiding in those well-laid plans which, with mice and men, 'gang aft agley,' imprudently showed their hand, and suffered their favorite project to transpire; which was, to set aside the ordinance by which the King had made null the Salic law, in favor of his infant daughter, and to support the pretensions of the King's brother, Carlos, to the throne.

"By this stupid flourish the Apostolical party threw themselves bound at the feet of Zea. All of their persuasion who filled high places under government were without ceremony removed, and their seats filled by Liberals. Many of them did not escape without more crippling blows. As for me, I looked on with indifference, or at most some philosophic sneers. What had I to fear or care? In my uncle's estimation, my politics had been always healthy, no doubt; and although he had on more than one occasion hinted, with sarcastic wit, that such a lady's-man must, of his devoir, be a 'gallant champion of the Salic law,' and dropped something rude and ill-natured about my English blood,—still, that was only in his dyspeptic moods; his temper was sure to improve, I fancied, with his political and material digestion.

"But I deceived myself. When, in the name of the infant Queen, Isabella Segunda, and in honor of the reestablishment of order and public safety, the pleasant duty devolved upon Zea-Bermudez of awarding approbation and encouragement to all the officers, from an ambassador to the youngest attaché of foreign legations, and presenting them with tokens of the nation's happiness in the shape of stars, and seals with heraldic devices, and curious chains of historic significance, not even a paltry ribbon fell to my share, but only a few curt lines of advice, 'to look well to my opinions, and be modest,—obediently to discharge the duties prescribed to me, and remember that presumption was a fault most intolerable in a young gentleman so favored by chance as to be honored with the confidence of government.'

"That exhausted the little patience I had left. Savagely I tore the note into contemptible fragments, tossed into my travelling-boxes as much of my wardrobe as happened to be at hand, consigned to a sealed case my diplomatic instructions and all other documents pertaining to my office, placed them in the hands of a confidential friend, Mr. Ballard, the British Agent, and secretly took passage for England, where, without losing an hour, I made the best of my way to the abode of an ambitious cockney wine-merchant, to whose daughter I had not been disagreeable in other days, and within a fortnight married her. You have seen the lady, Sir," he said, eyeing me searchingly as he spoke, with a sardonic smile,—the only ugly expression I ever saw him wear.

"Certain title-deeds and certificates of stock, part of my father's legacy, which, as if foreseeing the present emergency, I had brought away with me, were easily converted into cash. I had then twenty thousand sterling pounds, to which my father-in-law generously added ten thousand more, by way of portion with his daughter.

"And now to what should I betake myself? I had small time to cast about me, and was easy to please; any tolerably promising enterprise, so the field of it were remote, would serve my purpose. The papers were full of Australian speculations, the wonderful prosperity of the several colonies there, the great fortunes suddenly made in wool. Good! I would go to Australia, and be a gentle shepherd on an imposing scale. But first I sought out my father's old friends, my Lords Palmerston and Brougham, and the Bishop of Dublin, and besought the aid of their wisdom. With but slight prudential hesitation they with one accord approved my project. Observe: a first-rate Minister, especially if he be a very busy one, always likes the plan that pleases his young friend best,—that is, if it be not an affair of State, and all the risks lie with his young friend. They would have spoken of Turin and Zea-Bermudez; but I had been bred a diplomat and knew how to stick to my point, which, this time, was wool. In another fortnight I had sailed for Sydney with my shekels and my wife. But first, and for the first time, I caused the announcement of my marriage to appear in the principal papers of London, Paris, St. Petersburg, and Madrid.

"Arrived in Australia, I at once made myself the proprietor of a considerable farm, and stocked it abundantly with sheep. Speculation had not yet burst itself, like the frog in the fable; and large successes, as in water-lot and steamboat operations here, to-day, were the rule. On the third anniversary of my landing at Sydney, I was worth three hundred thousand pounds, and my commercial name was among the best in the colony. Six months after that, the rot, the infernal rot, had turned my thriving populous pastures into shambles for carrion-mutton, and I had not sixpence of my own in the wide world. A few of the more generous of my creditors left me a hundred pounds with which to make my miserable way to some South American port on the Pacific.

"So I chose Valparaiso, to paint miniatures, and teach English, French, Italian, and German in. But earthquakes shook my poor house, and the storm-fiend shook my soul with fear;—for skies in lightning and thunder are to me as the panorama and hurly-burly of the Day of Wrath, in all the stupid rushing to and fro and dazed stumbling of Martin's great picture. I shall surely die by lightning; I have not had that live shadow of a sky-reaching fear hanging over me, with its black wings and awful mutterings, so long for nothing; in every flash my eyes are scathed by the full blaze of hell. If I had been deaf and blind, I might have lived in Valparaiso. As it was, I must go somewhere where I need not sit all day and night stopping my ears and with my face covered, fearing that the rocks would fall upon me too soon.

"So, with my wife and the child,—we have had no other, thank God!—I got round Cape Horn—Heaven knows how! I dare not think of that time—to the United States. We were making for Boston; but the ship, strained by long stress of heavy weather, sprung a leak, and we put in at Baltimore. I was pleased with the place; it is picturesque, and has a kindly look; and as all places were alike to me then, save by the choice of a whim, I let go my weary anchor there.

"But the Baltimoreans only admired my pictures,—they did not buy them; they only wondered at my polyglot accomplishment, and were content with ringing silly-kind changes on an Encyclopaedic compliment about the Admirable Crichton, and other well-educated personages, to be found alphabetically embalmed in Conversations-Lexicons,—they did not inquire into my system of teaching, or have quarterly knowledge of my charges. So I fled from Baltimore, pretty speeches, and starvation, to San Francisco, plain talk, and pure gold. And now—see here, Sir!—I carry these always about with me, lest the pretty pickings of this Tom Tiddler's ground should make my experience forget."

He drew from his pocket an "illuminated" card, bearing a likeness of Queen Victoria, and a creased and soiled bit of yellow paper. The one was, by royal favor, a complimentary pass to a reserved place in Westminster Abbey, on the occasion of the coronation of her Britannic Majesty, "For the Señor Camillo Alvarez y Pintal, Chevalier of the Noble Order of the Cid, Secretary to His Catholic Majesty's Legation near the Court of St. James,"—the other, a Sydney pawnbroker's ticket for books pledged by "Mr. Camilla Allverris i Pintal." He held these contrasted certificates of Fortune,—her mocking visiting-cards, when she called on him in palace and in cabin,—one in each hand for a moment; and bitterly smiling, and shaking his head, turned from one to the other. Then suddenly he let them fall to the ground, and, burying his face in his hands, was roughly shaken through all his frame by a great gust of agony.

I laid my hand tenderly on his shoulder: "But, Pintal," I said,—"the Lady Angelica,—tell me why she chose that course."

In a moment the man was fiercely aroused. "Ah, true! I had forgotten that delectable passage in my story. Why, man, Bermudez went to her, told her that my aspirations and my prospects were so and so,—faring, brilliant,—that she, only she, stood in the way, an impassable stumbling-block to my glorious advancement,—told her, (devil!) that, with all my fine passion for her, he was aware that I was not without embarrassment on this score,—appealed to her disinterested love, to her pride,—don't you see?—to her pride."

"And where is she now, Pintal?"

No anger now, no flush of excitement;—the man, all softened as by an angel's touch, arose, and, with clasped hands and eyes upturned devoutly, smiled through big tears, and without a word answered me.

I, too, was silent. Whittier had not yet written,—

  "Of all sad words of tongue or pen  The saddest are these: 'It might have been!'  "Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies  Deeply buried from human eyes;  "And, in the hereafter, angels may  Roll the stone from its grave away!"

Then Pintal paced briskly to and fro a few turns across the narrow floor of his tent, and presently stopping, said,—his first cheerfulness, with its unwonted smile, returning,—

"But I must tell you why I should be happy today. I have a letter from my brother Miguel, who is Secretary to the Legation at the Porte. He has leave of absence, and is happy with his dearest friends in Florence. He shared my disgrace until lately, but bore it patiently; and now is reinstated in his office and his honors, a large portion of his property restored, which had been temporarily confiscated, while he was under suspicion as a Carlist. He is authorized to offer me pardon, and all these pretty things, if I will return and take a new oath of allegiance."

"And you will accept, Pintal?"

"Why, in God's name, what do you take me for?—Pardon! I forgot myself, Sir. Your question is a natural one. But no, I shall surely not accept. Zea-Bermudez is dead, but there is a part of me which can never die; and I am happy today because I feel that I am not so poor as I thought I was."

Ferdy entered, alone. He went straight to his father and whispered something in his ear,—about the mother, I suspected, for both blushed, and Pintal said, with a vexed look,—"Ah, very well! never mind that, my boy."

Then Ferdy threw off his cap and cloak, and, seating himself on a pile of books at his father's feet, quietly rested his head upon his knee. I observed that his face was vividly flushed, and his eyes looked weary. I felt his pulse,—it indicated high fever; and to our anxious questions he answered, that his head ached terribly, and he was "every minute hot or cold." I persuaded him to go to bed at once, and left anxious instructions for his treatment, for I saw that he was going to be seriously ill.

In three days little Ferdy was with the Lady Angelica in heaven. He died in my arms, of scarlet fever. In the delirium of his last moments he saw her, and he departed with strange words on his lips: "I am coming, Lady, I am coming!—my father will be ready presently!"

Some strangers from the neighborhood helped me to bury him; we laid him near the grave of the First Lady; but very soon his pretty bones were scattered, and there's a busy street there now.

Pintal, when I told him that the boy was dead, only bowed and smiled. He did not go to the grave, he never again named the child, nor by the least word or look confessed the change. But when, a little later, a fire swept down Dupont Street and laid the poor tent in ashes, spoiling the desolate house whose beautiful lar had flitted,—when his wife went moaning maudlinly among the yet warm ashes, and groping, in mean misery, with a stick, for some charred nothing she would cheat the Spoiler of, there was a dangerous quality in Pintal's look, as, with folded arms and vacant eyes, he seemed to stare upon, yet not to see, the shocking scene. Presently the woman, poking with the stick, found something under the ashes. With her naked hands she greedily dug it out;—it was a tin shaving-case. Another moment, and Pintal had snatched it from her grasp, torn it open, and had a naked razor in his hand. I wrested it from him, as he fairly foamed, and dragged him from the place.

A few days after that, I took leave of them on board a merchant ship bound for England, and with a heavy-hearted prayer sped them on their way. On the voyage, as Pintal stood once, trembling in a storm, near the mainmast, a flash of lightning transfixed him.—That was well! He had been distinguished by his sorrows, and was worthy of that special messenger.

* * * * *

That picture,—it was the first and last he painted in California. I kept it long, rejoicing in the admiration it excited, and only grieved that the poor comfort of the praises I daily heard lavished upon it could never reach him.

Once, when I was ill in Sacramento, my San Francisco house was burned, but not before its contents had been removed. In the hopeless scattering of furniture and trunks, this picture disappeared,—no one knew whither. I sought it everywhere, and advertised for it, but in vain. About a year afterward, I sailed for Honolulu. I had letters of introduction to some young American merchants there, one of whom hospitably made me his guest for several weeks. On the second day of my stay with him, he was showing me over his house, where, hanging against the wall in a spare room, I found,—not the Pintal picture, but a Chinese copy of it, faithful in its every detail. There were the several alterations I had suggested, and there the rich, warm colors that Pintal's taste had chosen. Of course, it was a copy. No doubt, my picture had been stolen at the fire, or found its way by mistake among the "traps" of other people. Then it had been sold at auction,—some Chinaman had bought it,—it had been shipped to Canton or Hong Kong,—some one of the thousand "artists" of China Street or the Victoria Road had copied it for the American market. A ship-load of Chinese goods—Canton crape shawls, camphor-boxes, carved toys, curiosities, and pictures—had been sold in Honolulu,—and here it was.

* * * * *

THE HOUSE THAT WAS JUST LIKE ITS NEIGHBORS

    Oh, the houses are all alike, you know,—    All the houses alike, in a row!  You'll see a hat-stand in the hall,  Against the painted and polished wall;  And the threaded sunbeams softly fall    On the long stairs, winding up, away    Up to the garret, lone and gray:  And you can hear, if you wait awhile,  Odd little noises to make you smile;  And minutes will be as long as a mile;—    Just as they would in the house below,    Were you in the entry waiting to go.    Oh, the houses are all alike, you know,—    All the houses alike, in a row!  And the world swings sadly to and fro,—  Mayhap the shining, but sure the woe!  For in the sunlight the shadows grow    Over the new name on the door,    Over the face unseen before.  Yet who shall number, by any art,  The chasms that keep so wide apart  The dancing step and the weary heart?    Oh, who shall guess that the polished wall    Is a headstone over his neighbor's hall?    Yet the houses are just alike, you know,—    All the houses alike, in a row!  And solemn sounds are heard at night,  And solemn forms shut out the light,  And hideous thoughts the soul affright:    Death and despair, in solemn state,    In the silent, vaulted chambers wait;  And up the stairs as your children go,  Spectres follow them, to and fro,—  Only a wall between them, oh!    And the darkest demons, grinning, see    The fairest angels that dwell with thee!    For the houses are all alike, you know,—    All the houses alike, in a row!  My chariot waited, gold and gay:  "I'll ride," I said, "to the woods to-day,—  Out to the blithesome woods away,—    Where the old trees, swaying thoughtfully,    Watch the breeze and the shadow's glee."  I smiled but once, with my joy elate,  For a chariot stood at my neighbor's gate,—  A grim old chariot, dark as fate.    "Oh, where are you taking my neighbor?" I cried.    And the gray old driver thus replied:—    "Where the houses are all alike, you know,—    Narrow houses, all in a row!  Unto a populous city," he saith:  "The road lies steep through the Vale of Death  Oh, it makes the old steeds gasp for breath!    There'll be a new name over the door,In a place where he's never been before,—  Where the neighbors never visit, they say,—  Where the streets are echoless, night and day,  And the children forget their childish play.    And if you should live next door, I doubt    If you'd ever hear what they were about  Who lived in the next house in the row,—  Though the houses are all alike, you know!"

DAPHNAIDES:

OR THE ENGLISH LAUREL, FROM CHAUCER TO TENNYSON

[Concluded.]

Dorset was still Lord Chamberlain when the death of Shadwell placed the laurel again at his disposal. Had he listened to Dryden, William Congreve would have received it. Of all the throng of young gentlemen who gathered about the chair of the old poet at Wills's, Congreve was his prime favorite. That his advice was not heeded was long a matter of pensive regret:—

  "Oh that your brows my laurel had sustained!  Well had I been deposed, if you had reigned!  The father had descended for the son;  For only you are lineal to the throne.  Thus, when the state one Edward did depose,  A greater Edward in his room arose."2

The choice fell upon Nahum Tate:—

  "But now not I, but poetry is cursed;  For Tom the Second reigns like Tom the First."

What particular quality recommended Tate we are not wholly able to explain. Dryden alleges "charity" as the single impulse of the appointment,—not the merit or aptitude of the candidate. But throughout life Dorset continued to countenance Nahum, serving as standing dedicatee of his works, and the prompter of several of them. We have remarked the want of judgment which Lord Dorset exhibited in his anxious patronage of the scholars and scribblers of his time,—a trait which stood the Blackmores, Bradys, and Tates in good stead.

But there was still another reason why Tate was preferred to Congreve. Dorset was too practised a courtier not to study the tastes of his master to good purpose. A liking for the stage, or a lively sense of poetic excellence, was not among the preferences of King William. The Laureate was sub-purveyor of amusement for the court; but there was no longer a court to amuse, and the King himself never once in his reign entered a theatre. The piety of Queen Mary rendered her a rare attendant at the play-house. Plays were therefore no longer wanted. A playwright could not amuse. Congreve was a dramatist who had never exhibited even passable talent for other forms of poetical composition. But Tate's limited gifts, displayed to Dorset's satisfaction in various encomiastic verses addressed to himself, were fully equal to the exigencies of the office under the new order of things; he was by profession a eulogist, not a dramatist. He was a Tory; and the King was out of humor with the Whigs. He was pretentiously moral and exemplary of life and pen, and so suited the Queen. The duties of the office were conformed, as far as practicable, to the royal tastes. Their scene was transferred from the play-house to the church. On the anniversaries of the birthdays of the two sovereigns, and upon New Year's day, the Laureate was expected to have ready congratulatory odes befitting the occasion, set to music by the royal organist, and sung after service in the Chapel Royal of St. James. Similar duties were required when great victories were to be celebrated, or national calamities to be deplored. In short, from writing dramas to amuse a merry monarch and his courtiers, an office not without dignity, the Laureate sunk into a hired writer of adulatory odes; a change in which originated that prevalent contempt for the laurel which descended from the era of Tate to that of Southey.

And yet the odes were in no sense more thoroughly Pindaric than in the circumstance of their flatteries being bought and paid for at a stated market value. The triumphal lyrics of Pindar himself were very far from being those spontaneous and enthusiastic tributes to the prowess of his heroes, which the vulgar receive them for. Hear the painful truth, as revealed by the Scholiast.3 Pytheas of AEgina had conquered in rough-and-tumble fight all antagonists in the Pancratium. Casting about for the best means of perpetuating his fame, he found the alternative to lie between a statuette to be erected in the temple of the hero-god, or one of the odes of the learned Theban. Choosing the latter, he proceeded to the poet's shop, cheapened the article, and would have secured it without hesitation, had not the extortionate bard demanded the sum of three drachmas,4 nearly equal to half a dollar, for the poem, and refused to bate a fraction. The disappointed bargainer left, and was for some days decided in favor of the brazen image, which could be had at half the price. But reflecting that what Pindar would give for his money was a draft upon universal fame and immortality, while the statue might presently be lost, or melted down, or its identity destroyed, his final determination was in favor of the ode,—a conclusion which time has justified. Nor was the Bard of the Victors ashamed of his mercenary Muse. In the Second Isthmian Ode, we find an elaborate justification of his practice of praising for pay,—a practice, he admits, unknown to primitive poets, but rendered inevitable, in his time, by the poverty of the craft, and the degeneracy of the many, with whom, in the language of the Spartan sage, "money made the man." With this Pindaric precedent, therefore, for selling Pindaric verses, it is no wonder, if the children of the Muse, in an age still more degenerate than that of their great original, found ample excuse for dealing out their wares at the best market. When such as Dryden and Pope lavished in preface and dedication their encomiums upon wealth and power, and waited eagerly for the golden guineas the bait might bring them, we have no right to complain of the Tates and Eusdens for prostituting their neglected Muses for a splendid sum certain per annum. Surely, if royalty, thus periodically and mercenarily eulogized, were content, the poet might well be so. And quite as certainly, the Laureate stipend never extracted from poet panegyric more fulsome, ill-placed, and degrading, than that which Laureate Dryden volunteered over the pall of Charles II.5