Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 15, No. 85, January, 1875

Commencing with the worship of the sun, and of fire as his emblem, the Parsee grew into a sort of reverence for the elements of air, earth and water. The air must not be contaminated by foul odors, and of necessity no filth could be tolerated anywhere in house, street or suburb; and to this reverence for the purity of the atmosphere may be traced the absolute cleanliness for which Fire-worshipers are everywhere noted. As the earth must receive no defilement, the Parsees would deem it sacrilege to deposit therein their dead for corruption and decay; and hence have doubtless originated their strange rites of sepulture, as they believe that the body is thus more readily and rapidly reduced to its original elements. Streams of water, even the tiniest rivulets, are deemed too holy to be desecrated by washing or spitting in them, and still less would they make the water the receptacle of offal of any sort. To each of these elements, as well as to the fire, the Parsees still make oblations on their high-days. It is true that their ceremonies now are less imposing than those described by Xenophon, when a thousand head of cattle were immolated at a single festival, four beautiful bulls presented to Jupiter, or the sky, and a magnificent chariot, drawn by white horses crowned with flowers and wearing a golden yoke, was offered to the sun; while the king in his chariot was escorted by princes and great nobles, two thousand spearmen marching on either side, and three hundred sceptre-bearers, armed with javelins and mounted on splendidly-caparisoned horses, bringing up the rear. But those jubilant days have passed: the Fire-worshipers are in exile, and have no king to lead them, either in battle against their foes or in triumphal processions in honor of their gods. Yet is Parseeism not dead, nor even on the decrease. Sacrifices, numerous and costly, are still piled upon their altars, the finest cattle are dedicated to their gods, the flesh being cut up and roasted for the people, while the Magi cast the caul and a portion of the fat into the fire as emblematic of the souls of the victims being imbibed by the gods, while the grosser portions are rejected.

The sacrifices and those who offer them are always crowned with flowers, but the pontifical robes of the Magi, though of pure white silk, are severely plain in style and utterly devoid of ornament. In their lives the Magi claim to practice a rigid asceticism, making the earth their bed and subsisting wholly on fruit, vegetables and bread, besides submitting to frequent painful penances from fasting, scourging and the endurance of fatiguing exercises. "Wine, women and flesh" they are commanded to eschew as "special abominations to those who aspire to minister before the gods." The most remarkable feast of the ancient Parsees was one called by them the "sack-feast." On the appointed day a condemned malefactor was clothed in royal robes, seated on a kingly throne and the sceptre of regal power placed in his hand. Princes and people bowed the knee in mock homage before this king of a day, and he was suffered to glut his appetite with all manner of sensual delights till the sun went down, and then he was cruelly beaten with rods, and forthwith executed. (Were the crown and sceptre, the purple robe and mock reverence, that were the antecedents of the Redeemer's crucifixion, a reproduction of this barbarous custom?) The modern Parsees, though recognizing this feast as a legitimate part of their worship, say that they have not observed it since their flight from Persia in the eighth century, because since then, being under a foreign yoke, they have had no jurisdiction over human life, and durst not sacrifice even those who chanced to be in their power. This may be one reason for the renunciation of this barbarous practice of the olden time, but there has been wonderful progress in civilization during the last twelve hundred years; and certain it is that scenes of cruelty that suited the ferocious tastes of the eighth century could not possibly be repeated in the nineteenth.

FANNIE ROPER FEUDGE.

OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP

A SWEDISH PROVINCIAL THEATRE

It is not so magnificent as the Scala and San Carlo, and still, after seeing both those famous theatres, I must confess I preferred that of Carlstad to either. It is small and different in form from the generality: it reminded me, in fact, of a hall in a certain New England town where I used to go to the panorama as a child. There was a gallery like that in which the men and boys sat who tramped the loudest and kissed their hands, to the confusion of their neighbors, when the lights were turned down to enhance the effect of the burning of Moscow; only, at my panorama the gallery was unfashionable on account of the noisy male element, whereas at Carlstad it was the dress-circle. We—a party of Americans, the only foreigners in the house that night—occupied orchestra-stalls, as I presume the two or three front benches in the parquet may be called. There was a white cape in our vicinity, as well as one in the balcony; so our seats were probably as fashionable as those in the first and only circle; but behind us, stretching out to the doors and in under the gallery, was a dense mass unrelieved by opera-cloaks of any description; and that was the region of the unpretending–of those who came simply to enjoy, to see and not to be seen.

As we spent a good part of a day at Carlstad, I should, perhaps, relate something more of the place than merely how we went to the theatre there; but that delightful evening effaced all other impressions, and after the interval that has since elapsed Fleur de Thé and our commissioner are the only things that have retained somewhat of their original savor.

The railway from Stockholm to Christiania ceased at Carlstad on Lake Wener, which gave us a day's drive to Arvika to strike the track again; and while we stood consulting where we were to get carriages, and whether we should go directly on, there came up a flourishing specimen of the genus valet de place, who took possession of us and laid out a plan that he had apparently prepared over night for our especial benefit. It is a way those persons have, and one that gives them a tremendous advantage over travelers weakened by a long journey, that they act as if they were there by appointment to meet you, or as if you had telegraphed precisely what you wished to do, and they were merely carrying out your intentions. "You want to go to the Black Eagle Hotel: I take you there. You would like to dine: you can have dinner at the hotel, or I shall show you a nice restaurant." We had not expected to find a member of the great European brotherhood just there in a little town in the heart of Sweden, and, taken unawares, fell an easy prey. However, they do not invariably succeed in that way: sometimes, if their officiousness is excessive, their English very exasperating and the traveler a little fractious as well as tired, they get the tables turned on them. A lady just arrived at Genoa, when halfway to the hotel with one of these persuasive personages snatched her bag out of his hand and walked into the rival albergo because he said with an aggravating accent, "I sall get you a ticket for de steam-er." "No you sha'n't, either: I have got it myself," she said; and so they parted company, to his infinite amazement. My friend—it was a friend of mine—turned back, on second thoughts, to offer the man something for having carried her belongings, but he put on offended dignity and declared that he didn't want her money. She was rather sorry afterward that he didn't do violence to his feelings and take it; and so, no doubt, was he.

Our Carlstad commissioner beguiled the length of the way to the inn, at which we were a little inclined to grumble, by pointing out everything of note in our walk through the town. We had been reading up in the train, and knew that Carlstad was the capital of a district, had five thousand inhabitants, and was nearly destroyed by fire in 1865; but he, a son of the place, and seeing in his mind's eye its rising glory when the railroad should be completed, did not let us off with that. We had to look and admire just where he told us. "Wide streets," he would say in his finely-chopped English. "Houses all very high—new since the fire. See here! there's the telegraph-office."

At which, to answer in the style he understood best, we must have responded, "Oh, I say! Well. Very good! All right!"

"You shall go to the theatre if you want to," he remarked at last, in that sweet, protecting way peculiar to his class from the habitual confounding of can, shall and will, and that put us into good humor directly. To go to the theatre would be just the thing.

"Oh yes, everybody goes," he said. It was a Danish company—very good actors—very pretty piece; but we rather expected to care more for the everybody than either the piece or the actors; and so it proved.

We went early, and established ourselves in the orchestra-stalls, as already stated, while our guardian accepted an unpretending seat for himself, where he remained in readiness to tow us home after the performance. And then the spectators began to come in, and positively some of the very people who used to be at the panorama. I know there was a lady in front of me, in Mechanic Hall, who wore her hair in just such a little knot—pug is, I think, the classic name for that coiffure—and her dress cut as low in the throat and adorned with precisely such a self-embroidered collar as the lady rejoiced in who occupied the seat before me at the theatre. That she was one of the fashionables of Carlstad could be seen in the lofty pose of that pug, and in the curious structure of ribbon and lace that sat astride of it and hung down at each side. Her husband, a small, rather dried-up gentleman, had the look of a town oracle who was oppressed at home, and her daughter was one of the prettiest girls in the house. The overgrown boy, the son and heir, was not pretty: he sat beside his sister and kept nudging her. I could not exactly understand what he said in Swedish, but I know it must have been of this nature: "There's Jim Davis over there. Look, sister, look!"

Sister only glanced at him with a reproving air of "Don't push me so," and then gazed steadfastly in the other direction; but she was not left long in peace. Tom's elbow began again in a minute: "He's looking right at you, all the time. You'd better turn round and bow to him." And the color would creep up in her cheeks, do all she could to prevent it, so that she had to lean across mamma and say something to her father, just so as not to bow to Mr. Davis, which would have been such a simple thing to do, after all.

Everybody who came in nodded and spoke to everybody else, and then shook hands across the seats; and we felt quite out of our element under the inquiring but superior glances that fell to our lot. It was all very well for us to make our little observations and smile at each other on the sly: we had the consciousness all the while of not belonging to the first society in Carlstad, and of being viewed as intruders in that select circle.

We had been studying one family party after another as the seats filled around us, for the audience collected by families, when, with a little rustle and stir attending her progress, and a whispering behind her as she advanced, the Bride appeared, for she had arrived from Stockholm by our train. It was the first time any one had seen her since she started on the wedding-tour, and the bows and smiles she dealt out on every side were not to be numbered. Our pretty girl got one—they were school-friends—and the horrid boy another, which he barely answered with a solemn nod of his head, being as shy of her, apparently, in her blue silk and white cape, as his sister was of Mr. Davis. It was really a very pretty dress of the Bride's, and one that made our traveling costumes look uncommonly shabby: it was taken up behind in the approved style, and only needed a bustle to have been truly effective. Doubtless she had seen plenty of those articles in Stockholm, only her husband said, "I hope, dear, you will never put on one of those horrid things;" and she told him certainly not if he did not like them; but I think she found afterward she needed one for that blue dress, and sent for it at the first opportunity. The young husband was not got up for show, knowing very well that no one would mind him, but he looked beamingly happy; and if he was not in a dress-coat with a flower in his buttonhole, like the habitués of the Comédie Française or the Italiens, he understood how they use an opera-glass there. The glass was a new acquisition that he had brought home with him, and after practicing with it at the Royal Theatre in the capital, he was fully prepared to stand up between the acts, with his arm behind him in a negligently graceful attitude, and study the balcony. His acquaintances there must have found it rather embarrassing, for it was not a usual thing in Carlstad to look at one's friends through an opera-glass: he was the only person who did it, and they probably all talked about it when they went home.

We were so occupied with our surroundings that we hardly thought of the piece, though it was given with considerable spirit, if I remember rightly. The sailors were fine, jolly tars, and the Chinese ladies and gentlemen toddled about in flowered dressing-gowns and talked with their thumbs, as it would appear the inhabitants of the Celestial Empire usually do; but the house did not allow itself to be betrayed into unseemly enthusiasm. There was an involuntary laugh now and then, and once somebody said bravo, but as a general thing a discreet reticence prevailed, and the actors might have gone through the piece on their heads in an extravagant desire to elicit signs of approval: they would only have received a cool little round of applause when the curtain fell.

We, at all events, had no hesitation in telling the commissioner that we had enjoyed ourselves immensely; and so, it appeared, had he. He was even bold enough to call it a very fine company, and as we walked back to the hotel at half-past nine in broad daylight, he told us what they were going to play the next evening, possibly in the hope that we should stay for it and he should get another seat. That was out of the question, however, sorry as we were to disappoint him. He had to tuck us into the carriage the following day, and let us drive away and leave him bereft of his charges. "You shall have a good ride," were his parting words, kind and fatherly as he was to the last; and so we had. But we found no one again to care for us so tenderly as our old friend, nor did any one take us to the theatre throughout the remainder of the journey. G.H.

VENETIAN CAFFÈS

It is years since so lovely an autumn as that of 1874 has been seen in Europe: people say not since the last great comet year, and they credit the erratic visitor of last summer with the exceptional beauty of the weather. As in the case of other marked comet years, the vintages of which still bring extraordinary prices, Italy has had exceptionally fine harvests of all kinds this year. The grain has been abundant, the vintage has been superb, the olives have escaped the danger of unseasonable frosts, and the still more important crop of foreigners seems to be pretty well assured. The charming weather in October and November made the interesting blossoms sprout plentifully; and boat-loads and train-loads came in with an abundance promising an unusually fine winter for la bella Italia. Venice, indeed, may be said to have pretty well housed her crop in this kind already. It has been a magnificent one, and the Queen of the Adriatic admits that due homage has been done to her. The forestieri season sets in earlier in her case than in her sister cities. The real "Carnival de Venice" is in August, September and October now-a-days, let the calendar say what it may. Some flaunting of gaudy-colored calico, some dancing on the Piazza of St. Mark, there may be on the eve of Lent in obedience to old usages, but the dancing that really glads the Italian heart is the dancing for which the forestiere pays the piper, and the true Lenten time is that when his beneficent presence is wanting.

Venice, then, has already brought her Carnival to a conclusion; and it has been a splendid one. English, Americans, Germans, all came in shoals—all thronged the galleries, the churches and the palaces in the morning, sauntered or bathed on the outer shore of the Lido in the afternoon, and met at Florian's in the evening. "What is Florian's?" will be asked by those who have never been at Venice—by some such, at least. For probably the fame of the celebrated caffè may have traveled across the Atlantic, just as many who have never crossed it westward are no strangers to the name of Delmonico. Florian's, however, in any case, deserves a word of recognition. It is the principal, largest and most fashionable caffè on the Piazza di San Marco. But the singular and curious specialty of the place is that it has never been closed—no, not for five minutes—day or night, for a period of more than a hundred and thirty years! Probably it is the only human habitation of any sort on the face of the globe of which that could be said.

But the caffè in itself is in many respects a specialty of Venetian life, and has been so since the days of Goldoni. The readers of his comedies, so abundantly rich in local coloring, will not have failed to observe that the caffè plays a larger part in the life of Venice than is the case in any other city. Probably no Venetian passes a single day without visiting once at least, if not oftener, his accustomed caffè. Men of business write their letters and arrange their meetings there. Men of pleasure know that they shall find their peers there. Mere loafers take their seats there, and gaze at the stream of life, as it flows past them, for hours together. And, most marked specialty of all, Venice is the only city in Italy where the native female aristocracy frequents the caffè. Indeed, I know no place in all the Peninsula where so large an amount of Italian beauty may be seen as among the fashionable crowd at Florian's on a brilliant midsummer moonlight night.

Venice is of all the cities in the world the one which those who have never seen it know best. The peculiarities of it are so marked and so unlike anything else in the world, and the graphic representations of every part of the city are so numerous and so admirably accurate, that every traveler finds it to be exactly what he was prepared to see, and can hardly fancy that he sees the Queen of the Adriatic for the first time. I may therefore assume, perhaps, that my readers are acquainted with the appearance of that most matchless of city spaces, the Piazza di San Marco. They will readily call to mind the long series of arcades that form the two long sides of the parallellogram which has the gorgeous front of St. Mark's church occupying the entirety of one of the shorter sides. Well, about halfway up the length of the piazza six of the arches on the right hand of one facing St. Mark's church are occupied by the celebrated caffè. The six never-closed rooms, corresponding each with one of the arches of the arcade, are very small, and would not suffice to accommodate a twentieth part of the throng which finds itself at Florian's quite as a matter of course every fine summer's night. But nobody thinks of entering these smartly-furnished little cabinets save for breakfast or during the hours of the day. Some take their evening ice or coffee on the seats under the arcade, either immediately in front of the cabinets or around the pillars which support the arches, and thus have an opportunity of observing the never-ceasing and ever-varying stream of life that flows by them under the arcade. But the vast majority of the crowd place themselves on chairs arranged around little tables set out on the flags of the piazza. A hundred or so of these little tables are placed in long rows extending far out into the piazza, and far on either side beyond the extent of the six arches which are occupied by the caffè itself. A London or New York policeman would have his very soul revolted, and conclude that there must be something very rotten indeed in the state of a city in which the public way could be thus encumbered and no cry of "move on" ever heard. Assuredly, it is public ground which Florian, in the person of his nineteenth-century representative, thus occupies with his tables and chairs. Probably, if a Venetian were asked by what right he does so, the question would seem to him much as if one asked by what right the tide covers the shallows of the lagoon. It always has been so. It is in the natural order of things. And how could Venice live without Florian's?

But it is not Florian's alone which is thus a trespasser on the domain of the public. The other less celebrated caffès do the same thing. One immediately opposite to Florian's, on the other side of the piazza—Quadri's—has almost as large a spread of chairs and tables as Florian himself. But it is a curious instance of the permanence of habits at Venice, that though at Quadri's the articles supplied are quite as good, and the prices exactly the same, the fashionable world never deserts Florian's. The only difference between the two establishments, except this one of their customers, that is perceptible to the naked eye, is that at Quadri's beer is served, while Florian ignores the existence of that plebeian beverage, which assuredly was never heard of in Venice in the days when he began his career and formed his habitudes.

I am tempted to endeavor to give the reader some picture of the scene on the piazza on a night when (as is the case almost every other evening) a military band is playing in the middle of the open space, and the cosmopolitan crowd is assembled in force—to describe the wonderful surroundings of the scene, the charm of the quietude broken by no sound of hoof or of wheel, the soft and tempered light, the gay clatter, athwart which comes every fifteen minutes the solemn mellow tone of the great clock of St. Mark with importunate warning that another pleasant quarter of an hour has drifted away down the stream of time. It is a scene that tempts the pen. But the well-dressed portion of mankind is very similar in all countries and under all circumstances, and perhaps my readers may be more interested in a few traits of the popular life of Venice, which the magnificent Piazza of St. Mark is not the best place for studying, for some of the most characteristic phases of it are absolutely banished thence. The strolling musician or singer, who may be heard every night in other parts of the city, never plies his trade on the piazza. Mendicancy, which is more rife at Venice, I am sorry to say, than in any other Italian city, except perhaps Naples, is not tolerated on the piazza.

But if we wish for a good specimen of the truly popular life of Venice, it will not be necessary to wander far from the great centre of the piazza. Coming down the Piazzetta, or Little Piazza, which opens out of the great square at one end, and abuts on the open lagoon opposite the island of St. George at the other, and turning round the corner of the ducal palace, we cross the bridge over the canal, which above our heads is bridged by the "Bridge of Sighs," with its "palace and a prison on each hand," as Byron sings, and find ourselves on the "Riva dei Schiavoni"—the quay at which the Slavonic vessels arrived, and arrive still. The quay is a very broad one, by far the broadest in Venice, paved with flagstones, and teeming with every characteristic form of Venetian life from early morning till late into the night. There are two or three hotels frequented by foreigners on the Riva, for the situation facing the open lagoon is an exceptionally good one; and there are three or four caffès at which the cosmopolitan and not too aristocratic visitor may get an excellent cup of coffee (for the Venetians, thanks to their long connection with the East, know what coffee is, and will not take chiccory or other such detestable substitutes in lieu of it) for the modest charge of thirteen centimes—just over two cents—and study as he drinks it the moving and ever-amusing scenes enacted before his eyes. His neighbor perhaps will be an old gentleman, the very type of the old "pantaloon" whose mask was in the old comedy supposed to be the impersonation of Venice. There are the long, slender and rather delicately-cut features terminating in a long, narrow and somewhat protruding chin; the high cheek-bones, the lank and sombre cheeks, the high nose, the dark bright eye under its bushy brow. He is very thin, very seedy, and evidently very poor. But he salutes you, as you take your seat beside him, with the air of an ex-member of "The Ten;" his ancient hat and napless coat are carefully brushed; his outrageously high shirt-collar and voluminous unstarched neckcloth, after the fashion of a former generation, though as yellow as saffron, are clean; and his poor old boots as irreproachable as blacking—which can do much, but, alas! not all things—can make them. His expenditure of a penny will entitle him not only to a cup of coffee, as aforesaid, but also to a glass of fresh water, which has been turned to an opaline color by the shaking into it of a few drops of something which the waiter drops from a bottle with some contrivance at its mouth, the effect of which is to cause only a drop or two of the liquor, whatever it may be, to come out at each shake. Our old friend is also entitled, in virtue of his expenditure, to occupy the chair he sits on for as many hours as he shall see fit to remain in it. And after the coffee, which must be drunk while hot, has been despatched, the sippings of the opaline mixture aforesaid may be protracted indefinitely while he enjoys the cool evening-breezes from the lagoon, the perfection of dolce far niente, and the amusement the life of the Riva never fails to afford him. An itinerant vender of little models of gondolas and bracelets and toys made out of shells comes by, seeking a customer among the folk assembled at the caffè. He does not address Pantaloon, for of course he knows that there is nothing to be done in that line with him. But spying with a hawk's glance a forestiere among the crowd, he strolls up to him, holding up one of his gimcrack bracelets daintily—and he thinks temptingly, poor fellow!—between his finger and thumb. "Un franco! Un sol franco! è una beleza per una contesa!" ("One franc! only one franc! It would be beautiful on the arm of a countess!") he murmurs in his soft lisping Venetian, which abolishes all double consonants, and supplies their place by prolonging the soft liquid sound of the preceding vowel. One franc! It is wonderful how the thing, worthless as it is, can be made even by the most starving fingers for such a price. Yet after dangling his toy for a minute, and gazing, oh, so wistfully! the while out of his big haggard eyes, he says, "Seventy-five centimes! half a franc!" and still lingers ere he turns away with a sigh, a weary movement of his emaciated figure and a longing look on his poor hollow face that make one feel that the drama we are witnessing is not all comedy. But it is all supremely interesting to our neighbor, Si'or Pantaleone. He has been keenly watching the attempted deal, and no doubt wished that his countryman might succeed. But there was no element of tragedy in the matter for him, a condition of semi-starvation is too much an ordinary, every-day and normal spectacle. He looked on more as a retired merchant might look on at the progress of a bargain for the delivery of a shipload of grain. Presently, a middle-aged woman and a girl of some fourteen years station themselves in front of the audience seated outside the caffè. The elder woman has a guitar, and the girl a violin and some sheets of music in her hand. The woman has her wonderful wealth of black hair grandly dressed and as shining as oil can make it. She has large gilt earrings in her ears, a heavy coral necklace, and a gaudy-colored shawl in good condition. Whatever might be beneath and below this is in dark shadow—"et sic melius situm." She is not starved, however, for, as she prepares to finger her guitar, she shows a well-nourished and not ill-formed arm. The young girl has one of those pale, delicate, oval faces so common in Venice: she also has a good shawl—an amber-colored one—which so sets off the olive-colored complexion of her face as to make her a perfect picture. This couple do not in any degree assume an attitude of appealing ad misericordiam. They pose themselves en artistes. The girl sets about arranging her music in a business-like way, and then they play the well-known air of "La Stella Confidente," the little violinist really playing remarkably well. Then the elder woman comes round with a little tin saucer for our contributions. No slightest word or look of disappointment or displeasure follows the refusal of those who give nothing. The saucer is presented to each in turn. I supposed that the application to Si'or Pantaleone was an empty form. But no. That retired gentleman could still find wherewithal to patronize the fine arts, and dropped a centime—the fifth part of a cent—into the dish with the air of a prince bestowing the grand cross of the Golden Fleece. Then comes a dealer in ready-made trousers, which Pantaloon examines curiously and cheapens. Then a body of men singing part-songs, not badly, but to some disadvantage, as they utterly ignore the braying of half a dozen trumpets which are coming along the Riva in advance of a body of soldiers returning to some neighboring barracks. Then there are fruit-sellers and fish-sellers and hot-chestnut dealers, and, most vociferous of all, the cryers of "Acqua! acqua! acqua fresca!" There, making its way among the numerous small vessels from Dalmatia, Greece, etc. moored to the quay of the Schiavoni, comes a boat from the Peninsular and Oriental steamer, which arrived this morning from Alexandria, with four or five Orientals on board. They come on shore, and proceed to saunter along the Riva toward the Grand Piazza, while their dark faces and brightly-colored garments add an element to the motley scene which is perfectly in keeping with old Venetian reminiscences.