The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 04, No. 21, July, 1859

You have lived in this house some time?—I said,—with a note of interrogation at the end of the statement.

Do I look as if I'd lost much flesh?—said he,—answering my question by another.

No,—said I;—for that matter, I think you do credit to "the bountifully furnished table of the excellent lady who provides so liberally for the company that meets around her hospitable board."

[The sentence in quotation-marks was from one of those disinterested editorials in small type, which I suspect to have been furnished by a friend of the landlady's, and paid for as an advertisement. This impartial testimony to the superior qualities of the establishment and its head attracted a number of applicants for admission, and a couple of new boarders made a brief appearance at the table. One of them was of the class of people who grumble if they don't get canvasbacks and woodcocks every day, for three-fifty per week. The other was subject to somnambulism, or walking in the night, when he ought to have been asleep in his bed. In this state he walked into several of the boarders' chambers, his eyes wide open, as is usual with somnambulists, and, from some odd instinct or other, wishing to know what the hour was, got together a number of their watches, for the purpose of comparing them, as it would seem. Among them was a repeater, belonging to our young Marylander. He happened to wake up while the somnambulist was in his chamber, and, not knowing his infirmity, caught hold of him and gave him a dreadful shaking, after which he tied his hands and feet, and then went to sleep till morning, when he introduced him to a gentleman used to taking care of such cases of somnambulism.]

If you, my reader, will please to skip backward, over this parenthesis, you will come to our conversation,—which it has interrupted.

It a'n't the feed,—said the young man John,—it's the old woman's looks when a fellah lays it in too strong. The feed's well enough. After geese have got tough, 'n' turkeys have got strong, 'n' lamb's got old, 'n' veal's pretty nigh beef, 'n' sparragrass's growin' tall 'n' slim 'n' scattery about the head, 'n' green peas gettin' so big 'n' hard they'd be dangerous if you fired 'em out of a revolver, we get hold of all them delicacies of the season. But it's too much like feedin' on live folks and devourin' widdah's substance, to lay yourself out in the eatin' way, when a fellah's as hungry as the chap that said a turkey was too much for one 'n' not enough for two. I can't help lookin' at the old woman. Corned-beef-days she's tolerable calm. Roastin'-days she worries some, 'n' keeps a sharp eye on the chap that carves. But when there's anything in the poultry line, it seems to hurt her feelin's so to see the knife goin' into the breast and joints comin' to pieces, that there's no comfort in eatin'. When I cut up an old fowl and help the boarders, I always feel as if I ought to say, Won't you have a slice of widdah?—instead of chicken.

The young man John fell into a train of reflections which ended in his producing a Bologna sausage, a plate of "crackers," as we Boston folks call certain biscuits, and the bottle of whiskey described as being A.1.

Under the influence of the crackers and sausage, he grew cordial and communicative.

It was time, I thought, to sound him as to those of our boarders who had excited my curiosity.

What do you think of our young Iris?—I began.

Fust-rate little filly;—he said.—Pootiest and nicest little chap I've seen since the schoolma'am left. Schoolma'am was a brown-haired one,—eyes coffee-color. This one has got wine-colored eyes,—'n' that's the reason they turn a fellah's head, I suppose.

This is a splendid blonde,—I said,—the other was a brunette. Which style do you like best?

Which do I like best, boiled mutton or roast mutton?—said the young man John. Like 'em both,—it a'n't the color of 'em makes the goodness. I've been kind of lonely since schoolma'am went away. Used to like to look at her. I never said anything particular to her, that I remember, but—

I don't know whether it was the cracker and sausage, or that the young fellow's feet were treading on the hot ashes of some longing that had not had time to cool, but his eye glistened as he stopped.

I suppose she wouldn't have looked at a fellah like me,—he said,—but I come pretty near tryin'. If she had said, Yes, though, I shouldn't have known what to have done with her. Can't marry a woman now-a-days till you're so deaf you have to cock your head like a parrot to hear what she says, and so long-sighted you can't see what she looks like nearer than arm's-length.

Here is another chance for you,—I said.—What do you want nicer than such a young lady as Iris?

It's no use,—he answered.—I look at them girls and feel as the fellah did when he missed catchin' the trout.—'To'od 'a' cost more butter to cook him 'n' he's worth,—says the fellah.—Takes a whole piece o' goods to cover a girl up now-a-days. I'd as lief undertake to keep a span of elephants,—and take an ostrich to board, too,—as to marry one of 'em. What's the use? Clerks and counter-jumpers a'n't anything. Sparragrass and green peas a'n't for them,—not while they're young and tender. Hossback-ridin' a'n't for them,—except once a year,—on Fast-day. And marryin' a'n't for them. Sometimes a fellah feels lonely, and would like to have a nice young woman, to tell her how lonely he feels. And sometimes a fellah,—here the young man John looked very confidential, and, perhaps, as if a little ashamed of his weakness,—sometimes a fellah would like to have one o' them small young ones to trot on his knee and push about in a little wagon,—a kind of a little Johnny, you know;—it's odd enough, but, it seems to me, nobody can afford them little articles, except the folks that are so rich they can buy everything, and the folks that are so poor they don't want anything. It makes nice boys of us young fellahs, no doubt! And it's pleasant to see fine young girls sittin', like shopkeepers behind their goods, waitin', and waitin', and waitin', 'n' no customers,—and the men lingerin' round and lookin' at the goods, like folks that want to be customers, but haven't got the money!

Do you think the deformed gentleman means to make love to Iris?—I said.

What! Little Boston ask that girl to marry him! Well, now, that's comin' of it a little too strong. Yes, I guess she will marry him and carry him round in a basket, like a lame bantam! Look here!—he said, mysteriously;—one of the boarders swears there's a woman comes to see him, and that he has heard her singin' and screechin'. I should like to know what he's about in that den of his. He lays low 'n' keeps dark,—and, I tell you, there's a good many of the boarders would like to get into his chamber, but he don't seem to want 'em. Biddy could tell somethin' about what she's seen when she's been to put his room to rights. She's a Paddy 'n' a fool, but she knows enough to keep her tongue still. All I know is, I saw her crossin' herself one day when she came out of that room. She looked pale enough, 'n' I heard her mutterin' somethin' or other about the Blessed Virgin. If it hadn't been for the double doors to that chamber of his, I'd have had a squint inside before this; but, somehow or other, it never seems to happen that they're both open at once.

What do you think he employs himself about?—said I.

The young man John winked.

I waited patiently for the thought, of which this wink was the blossom, to come to fruit in words.

I don't believe in witches,—said the young man John.

Nor I.

We were both silent for a few minutes.

–Did you ever see the young girl's drawing-books,—I said, presently.

All but one,—he answered;—she keeps a lock on that, and won't show it. Ma'am Allen, (the young rogue sticks to that name, in speaking of the gentleman with the diamond,) Ma'am Allen tried to peek into it one day when she left it on the sideboard. "If you please," says she,—'n' took it from him, 'n' gave him a look that made him curl up like a caterpillar on a hot shovel. I only wished he hadn't, and had jest given her a little saas, for I've been takin' boxin'-lessons, 'n' I've got a new way of counterin' I want to try on to somebody.

–The end of all this was, that I came away from the young fellow's room, feeling that there were two principal things that I had to live for, for the next six weeks or six months, if it should take so long. These were, to get a sight of the young girl's drawing-book, which I suspected had her heart shut up in it, and to get a look into the little gentleman's room.

I don't doubt you think it rather absurd that I should trouble myself about these matters. You tell me, with some show of reason, that all I shall find in the young girl's book will be some outlines of angels with immense eyes, traceries of flowers, rural sketches, and caricatures, among which I shall probably have the pleasure of seeing my own features figuring. Very likely. But I'll tell you what I think I shall find. If this child has idealized the strange little bit of humanity over which she seems to have spread her wings like a brooding dove,—if, in one of those wild vagaries that passionate natures are so liable to, she has fairly sprung upon him with her clasping nature, as the sea-flowers fold about the first stray shell-fish that brushes their outspread tentacles, depend upon it, I shall find the marks of it in this drawing-book of hers,—if I can ever get a look at it,—fairly, of course, for I would not play tricks to satisfy my curiosity.

Then, if I can get into this little gentleman's room under any fair pretext, I shall, no doubt, satisfy myself in five minutes that he is just like other people, and that there is no particular mystery about him.

The night after my visit to the young man John, I made all these and many more reflections. It was about two o'clock in the morning,—bright starlight,—so light that I could make out the time on my alarm-clock,—when I woke up trembling and very moist. It was the heavy, dragging sound, as I had often heard it before, that waked me. Presently a window was softly closed. I had just begun to get over the agitation with which we always awake from nightmare dreams, when I heard the sound which seemed to me as of a woman's voice,—the clearest, purest soprano which one could well conceive of. It was not loud, and I could not distinguish a word, if it was a woman's voice; but there were recurring phrases of sound and snatches of rhythm that reached me, which suggested the idea of complaint, and sometimes, I thought, of passionate grief and despair. It died away at last,—and then I heard the opening of a door, followed by a low, monotonous sound, as of one talking,—and then the closing of a door,—and presently the light on the opposite wall disappeared and all was still for the night.

By George! this gets interesting,—I said, as I got out of bed for a change of night-clothes.

I had this in my pocket the other day, but thought I wouldn't read it. So I read it to the boarders instead, and print it to finish off this record with.

ROBINSON OF LEYDENHe sleeps not here; in hope and prayerHis wandering flock had gone before,But he, the shepherd, might not shareTheir sorrows on the wintry shore.Before the Speedwell's anchor swung,Ere yet the Mayflower's sail was spread,While round his feet the Pilgrims clung,The pastor spake, and thus he said:—"Men, brethren, sisters, children dear!God calls you hence from over sea;Ye may not build by Haerlem Meer,Nor yet along the Zuyder-Zee."Ye go to bear the saving wordTo tribes unnamed and shores untrod:Heed well the lessons ye have heardFrom those old teachers taught of God."Yet think not unto them was lentAll light for all the coming days,And Heaven's eternal wisdom spentIn making straight the ancient ways."The living fountain overflowsFor every flock, for every lamb,Nor heeds, though angry creeds opposeWith Luther's dike or Calvin's dam."He spake; with lingering, long embrace,With tears of love and partings fond,They floated down the creeping Maas,Along the isle of Ysselmond.They passed the frowning towers of Briel,The "Hook of Holland's" shelf of sand,And grated soon with lifting keelThe sullen shores of Fatherland.No home for these!—too well they knewThe mitred king behind the throne;—The sails were set, the pennons flew,And westward ho! for worlds unknown.—And these were they who gave us birth,The Pilgrims of the sunset wave,Who won for us this virgin earth,And freedom with the soil they gave.The pastor slumbers by the Rhine,—In alien earth the exiles lie,—Their nameless graves our holiest shrine,His words our noblest battle-cry!Still cry them, and the world shall hear,Ye dwellers by the storm-swept sea!Ye have not built by Haerlem Meer,Nor on the land-locked Zuyder-Zee!

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ARTTHE HEART OF THE ANDES

We Americans, amidst the confusion and stir of material interests, are not inattentive to the progress of those claims whose growth is as silent as that of the leaves around us, and whose values find no echo in Wall Street.

With the spring there has bloomed in New York a flower of no common beauty. All the fashion and influence there have been to hail this growth of our soil at its cloistered home in Tenth Street. There is but one opinion of the beauty and novelty of the stranger. It is of the "Heart of the Andes," by Mr. Frederick E. Church, we speak. This artist, now known for some years as he who has with most daring tracked to its depths the witchery and wonder of our summer skies, and the results of whose two visits to South America have ere this shown how sensitive and sure the photograph of his memory is, gives us from the trop-plein of his souvenirs this last and crowning page.

We hold the merit and charm of Mr. Church's works to be, that they are so American in feeling and treatment. What chiefly distinguishes America from Europe, as the object of landscape, is, that Europe is the region of "bits," of picturesque compositions, of sunflecked lanes, of nestling villages, and castle-crowned steeps,—while with us everything is less condensed, on a wider scale, and with vaster spaces.

Mr. Church has the eagle eye to measure this vastness. He loves a wide expanse, a boundless horizon. He does not, gypsy-like, hide with Gainsborough beneath a hedge, but his glance sweeps across a continent, and no detail escapes him. This is what makes the "Andes" a really marvellous picture. In intellectual grasp, clear and vivid apprehension of what he wants and where to put it, we think Mr. Church without an equal. Quite a characteristic of his is a love of detail and finish without injury to breadth and general effect. You look into his picture with an opera-glass as you would into the next field from an open window. His power is not so much one of suggestion, an appeal to the beauty and grandeur in yourself, as the ability to become a colorless medium to beauty and grandeur from without; hence the impression is at first hand, and such as Nature herself produces.

The world abounds in pictures where loving human faculty has lifted ordinary motives into our sympathy; but where the subject is the grandest landscape affluence of the world, effect, in the ordinary sense, ceases to be of value. We need the thing, and no human ennobling of it. In this picture we have it; no spectral cloud-pile, but a real Chimborazo, with the hoar of eternity upon its scalp, looks down upon the happy New-Yorker in his first May perspiration. And as the wind sets east, no yellow hint at something warming, but whole dales and plains still in the real sunshine, take the chill from off his heart. No wonder he, his wife, and his quietly enthusiastic girls throng and sit there. They are proud in their hearts of the handsome young painter. And well they may be! Never has the New World sent so native a flavor to the Old. Unlike so many others of our good artists, there is no saturation from the past in Mr. Church. No souvenir of what once was warm and new in the heart of Claude or Poussin ages the fresh work. It has a relish of our soil; its almost Yankee knowingness, its placid, clear, intellectual power, with its delicate sentiment and strong self-reliance, are ours; we delightfully feel that it belongs to us, and that we are of it.

Such is the last great work of the New York school of landscape,—a living school, and destined to long triumphs,—already appreciated and nobly encouraged. Its members are men as individual and various in their gifts, as they are harmonious and manly in their mutual recognition and fellowship.

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REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES

Love Me Little, Love Me Long. By CHARLES READE, Author of "It is Never too Late to Mend," "White Lies," etc. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1859.

This is the last, and in many respects the best, of Mr. Charles Reade's literary achievements. Its popularity, we are informed, exceeds that of any of his former works, excepting the first two published by him, "Peg Woffington," and "Christie Johnstone," which a few years ago startled the novel-reading world by their eccentricity of style, their ingenious novelty of construction, and also by their freshness of sentiment,—comet-books, pursuing one another in erratic orbits of thought, now close upon the central light of Truth, now distantly remote from it, but always brilliant, and generally leaving a sparkling train of recollection behind. The author's subsequent productions, until the present, have been less successful; some by reason of their positive inferiority; some because of their extraordinary affectations of expression, repelling the multitude, who do not choose to risk their brains through unlimited pages of labyrinthine rhetoric; some, perhaps, because of their doubtful paternity, evidences of French origin being in many places discernible. Here, however, there appears a manifest improvement. This story is exquisitely simple in conception, and the narration is mostly full of ease and grace, although the unfolding of the plot is less direct than might have been expected from an author who professes so deep a regard for the dramatic order of development. There is, for instance, an episodical chapter of upwards of thirty pages, describing commercial England in a state of panic, which is very nearly as appropriate as a disquisition on the Primary Rocks, or an inquiry into the origin of the Cabala would be, but which is so palpably introduced for the purpose of displaying the author's financial erudition, that he feels himself called upon to apologize in a brief preface for its intrusion. In the concluding chapters, too, the various threads of interest are gathered together with very little artistic compactness. The reader is disappointed at the tameness of the culmination, compared with the vigor of the approach thereto. But otherwise there is much to be charmed with, and not a little to admire.

Mr. Reade has renounced a good number of the odd fancies which at one time pervaded him. We find no traces of the [Greek: stigmatophobia] with which he was formerly afflicted. Nouns are wedded to obedient adjectives, adverbs to their willing verbs, by the lawful mediation of the recognized authorities of punctuation, the illegitimate and licentious disregard of which, as recklessly manifested in "It is Never too Late to Mend," indicated a disposition to entirely subvert the established morals of the language. It is pleasant to see how unreservedly Mr. Reade has abandoned his functions as apostle of grammatical free-love. Of tricks of typography there are also fewer, although these yet remain in an excess which good taste can hardly sanction. We often find whole platoons of admiration-points stretching out in line, to give extraordinary emphasis to sentences already sufficiently forcible. We sometimes encounter extravagant varieties of type, humorously intended, but the use of which seems a game hardly worth Mr. Reade's candle, which certainly possesses enough illuminating power of its own, without seeking additional refulgence by such commonplace expedients.

In one of his pet peculiarities, the selection of a name for his work, the author has surpassed himself. It is a good thing to have an imposing name. In literature, as in society, a sounding title makes its way with delicious freedom. But it is also well to see to it, that, in the matter of title, some connection with the book to which it is applied shall be maintained. We are accustomed to approach a title somewhat as we do a finger-post,—not hoping that it will reveal the nature of the road we are to follow, the character of the scenery we are to gaze upon, or the general disposition of the impending population, but anticipating that it will at least enable us to start in the right direction. Now every reader of "Love me Little, Love me Long" is apt to consider himself or herself justified in entertaining acrimonious sentiments towards Mr. Reade for the non-fulfilment of his titular hint. If, in the process of binding, the leaves of this story had accidentally found their way into covers bearing other and various appellations, we imagine that very little injury would have been done to the author's meaning or the purchaser's understanding. It is, indeed, interesting to look forward to the progress of Mr. Reade's ideas on the subject of titles. We have already enjoyed a couple of pleasing nursery platitudes; perhaps it would not be altogether out of order to expect in future a series something like the following:—

"Oh, Dear, What Can the Matter Be!!??!?!""One, Two, Buckle My Shoe!""Sing a Song of Sixpence, a Bag Full of Rye!""Hiccory, Diccory, Dock!!!"etc., etc.

Let us not forget, in laughing at the author's weaknesses, to acknowledge his strength. He shows in this work an inventive fancy equal to that of any writer of light fiction in the English language, and hardly surpassed by those of the French,—from which latter, it is fair to suppose, much of his inspiration is drawn, since his style is undisguisedly that of modern French romancers, though often made the vehicle of thoughts far nobler than any they are wont to convey. His portraits of character are capital, especially those of feminine character, which are peculiarly vivid and spirituels. He represents infantile imagination with Pre-Raphaelitic accuracy. And his descriptions are frequently of enormous power. A story of a sailor's perils on a whaling voyage is told in a manner almost as forcible as that of the "frigate fight," by Walt. Whitman, and in a manner strikingly similar, too. A night adventure in the English channel—a pleasure excursion diverted by a storm from its original intention into a life-and-death struggle—is related with unsurpassed effect. The whole work is as sprightly and agreeable a love-story as any English writer has produced,—always amusing, often flashing with genuine wit, sometimes inspiring in its eloquent energy. And this ought to be sufficient to secure the abundant success of any book of its class, and to cause its successor to be awaited with interest.

The Choral Harmony. By B.F. BAKER and W.O. PERKINS. Boston: Phillips, Sampson, & Co. pp. 378.

The great number of music-books published, and the immense editions annually sold, are the best proof of the demand for variety on the part of choirs and singing-societies. Nearly all the popular collections will be found to have about the same proportions of the permanent and the transient elements,—on the one hand, the old chorals and hymn-tunes consecrated by centuries of solemn worship,—on the other, the compositions and "arrangements" of the editors. Here and there a modern tune strikes the public taste or sinks deeper to the heart, and it takes its place thenceforward with the "Old Hundredth," with "Martyrs," and "Mear"; but the greater number of these compositions are as ephemeral as newspaper stories. Every conductor of a choir knows, however, that, to maintain an interest among singers, it is necessary to give them new music for practice, especially new pieces for the opening of public worship,—that they will not improve while singing familiar tunes, any more than children will read with proper expression lessons which have become wearisome by repetition. Masses and oratorios are beyond the capacity of all but the most cultivated singers; and we suppose that the very prevalence of these collections which aim to please an average order of taste may, after all, furnish to large numbers a pleasure which the rigid classicists would deny them, without in any way filling the void.

This collection has a goodly number of the favorite old tunes, and they are given with the harmonies to which the people are accustomed. The new tunes are of various degrees of excellence, but most of them are constructed with a due regard to form, and those which we take to be Mr. Baker's are exceedingly well harmonized. There is an unusual number of anthems, motets, etc.,—many of them at once solid and attractive. The elementary portion contains a full and intelligible exposition of the science. To those choirs who wish to increase their stock of music, and to singing-societies who desire the opportunity of practising new and brilliant anthems and sentences, the "Choral Harmony" may be commended, as equal, at least, to any work of the kind now before the public.