The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863

Yes; I have a few crumbs of time left to sit in the rustic arbor and give one lingering look behind, that I may carry a picture with me when I go to my work.

How fortunate it is for one that these flowers are Londoners in their habits, and pass August in the city! I can go to their receptions daily, if I choose; they are always at home to the poorest, the most unfashionable; they keep no 'visiting book' in their hall.

Hark! the bell rings seven o'clock. There is a 'knocking at the gate' of my fairy land; it warns me that I must be on my Washington-street way, to earn my bread.

Bien! my first meal of to-day has been satisfactory. Heaven hath sent me all manner of manna for breakfast—and for lunch? a banana. Yes; on my way 'down town' I shall pass the Studio Building, where the B.'s live; I will buy one of them, but shall also steal—many glances at the Hamburg grapes, those peachiest of peaches, bombastic blackberries, and, O Pomona! such pears.

I escape! purse uninjured, only bananared. I reach Winter street, where I must turn my back on the Common pleasures of Boston life—but yet, one glance at that seductive window of the corner store, which, indeed, is nearly all window. Flowers are there, of course,—flowers from January to January; any poor devil can have a temporary conservatory at that window, 'all for nothing;' I ought to pay a yearly tax for the pleasure I steal in that way. The woman who carries my portmonnaie, only permits me to open it for the 'necessaries' of life: the luxuries of hot-house grapes and flowers ever wear for me that fatal label: 'Touch not, taste not.' Bread and cologne are, of course, the first necessities of life; in rolls and religion I am a Parkerite; in cologne, I swear by 'Mrs. Taylor'! Beacon street, I beg that you won't faint at this horrible disclosure!

Who is 'Mrs. Taylor'? and echo answers, 'We haven't the faintest odor of an idea!' None know her but to praise, wherever she may be. With Sancho Panza we say, 'Blessings on the man who invented Mrs. Taylor at seventy-five cents per—the hock bottle. I catch a glimpse of her long neck, stretching up among the roses and Geraniums: my cologne nature can't resist that sight! I obey the syren's call, though it will leave me a beggar, but with Mrs. T. in my chaste-embrace.

'The man I work for' treats me, for some reason, with 'distinguished consideration.' Though I may sometimes be a little after the required hour, it's all right; and though he's a Yankee, no questions are asked! I still have a precious quarter remaining—not of a dollar, but of time. I have in my purse one postage stamp; but that will warrant a visit to Loring's! One must have books as well as bread and cologne. O Loring! what an institution art thou! Name dear to all classes, from Madame –, who steps from her carriage, to the pretty shop-girl, who always wants Mrs. Southworth's last—and worst—novel.

Who, indeed, 'so poor' as not 'to do him reverence,' and find two cents per day, when for that sublimely small sum one can get a companion for any and every mood,

'Grave to gay, from lively to severe?'

But will 'Loring's' be open at this early dawn? 'Open,' indeed! one does not catch him napping; yes, open and so inviting! A literary public garden so fresh and clean, as

'Just washed in a shower.'

In the rear, behind the desk, one is always sure of finding at least two roses, and on the desk a vase of flowers is certainly to be seen—the offering of some one of the hundreds of admirers who go to Loring's, nominally for some entertaining book—and they always find one!

'What book did you say, miss?' asks Fleur de Marie. ('Where does she get those lilies and roses? I saw none like them in the garden this morning. Ah! many of the dames who enter here from their carriages would also like to ask my question—since they do not seem to find them even at Newport!) 'If you please, what book?' again inquire the Roses.

'Oh!' I answer, 'I was looking, and forgot what I came for; is 'Out of his Head' in yet?'

The fair librarian evidently thinks I am out of mine. Ah! would that I were, and out of my whole body; but no! ingrate that I am, to-day I should be content—simply to be; even a cabbage ought to be happy in such perfect summer weather. T. B. Aldrich is in—as much as he ever is supposed to be; but I recall now that I read his sketchy book the other night, while I was brushing my hair, giving it a sort of 'good time generally,' letting it run wild a little before going to sleep. I read 'Pierre Antoine's Date Tree' quite through, and liked—the last part very much indeed. There are some people whom I am always very glad to have visit me, because I feel so 'dreadful glad' when they go away. So, also, it compensates one to read certain books for the sake of the delicious sensation one experiences on finishing them! What a pile of 'Les Misérables,' Fantine? C'est assez misérable. The 'Hunchback' is the least deformed of Hugo's offspring; but I read that last Sunday morn—no; I mean last Saturday evening; for I went to church on Tremont street, last Sunday. What's this? it looks as tempting as a banana, and is not unlike one in color. 'Melibæus in London,' in the summer, too: good! I'll take that, it shall 'assist' the banana at my lunch. I hurry out of this 'little heaven,' murmuring, as I depart: 'Loring, live forever!'

Lady Macbeth undoubtedly alluded to you when she says:

'We fail? there's no such word as fail!'

I believe the Macbeths, and, in fact, everybody but Loring, has failed during the war times. McClellan certainly has—not succeeded.

The police (those gentlemen of elegant leisure) do not even suspect how much I have stolen, and what treasures I am carrying off before nine o'clock A. M.! All the splendors of the early morning are mine; they will gild the dull grey of my working hours. What a stock of perfumes stolen from the garden! they will sweeten the 'business air' of Washington street. The fountain's glistening spray will sprinkle the dusty walk to 'the shop.'

I have not yet told you of the kisses taken—not from Féra's, but from the cherry-ripe lips of two lovely children, with whom I formed an intimacy in the garden by the pond; they were 'sailing' their mimic boats there. I almost wished

'I were a boy again,'

and had a boat to sail! These children had such a brave and haughty beauty, and their dress being of purple and fine linen, I supposed their name must be Berkeley or Clarendon, but was grieved to learn from the artless darlings that it was Muggins! However, their kisses were unexceptionable, whatever their origin may have been.

But what a 'heap' of Beauty I stole in my return walk through Beaconstreet mall! No wonder those magnificent elms are in love with each other, and embrace over the people's heads! When I come into my fortune, I intend, early the next morning, before breakfast, to make the first use of my 'funds' in purchasing Mr. George Ticknor's house. (Of course, he will not object.) I shall then laugh at the mill-dam principalities and powers when I look from my library windows down that long vista of noble trees. Come and see me when I am settled there! You shall have a warm welcome in winter, and a cool one in summer. And now, fare thee well, whoever thou art, who hast kindly walked with me to the door of—my 'place of business.' I will not ask you to enter there. I can worry through the day: unseen companions go with me to soothe and cheer; so do not pity me that I am what I am—'nobody,' living 'nowhere.' You have seen that the Angel of Beauty disdains not to appear in my humble path—and sometimes hovers so near, I can almost touch her wings!

And so God be w'ye! Little joys to you are great joys to me. There be those above you, 'kinges and princes and greate emperours,' to whom your luxuries and badges would seem as little as mine are to you. When you are beautiful, you adorn my street; when you are unlovely, I—pass you by. Bon jour la compagnie!

THE IVY

'Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.Fairies, begone, and be all ways away.So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckleGently entwist,—the female Ivy soEnrings the barky fingers of the elm.Oh, how I love thee; how I dote on thee!' Midsummer Night's Dream, act iv., scene 1.

'The bearers of the thyrsus (bound with Ivy) are many, but the Bacchantæ are few.'—Orphic saying.

If, among plants, the Rose is unmistakably feminine, from the delicate complexion of its flower, the Ivy is not less so from the tender sentiment of attachment expressed by its whole form and life. In her infinite array of poetic symbols, Nature has given us nothing so exquisitely typical of all that is best in woman, as that which may be found in the graceful curves and in the firm strength of this vine. In youth and beauty, she clings to the husband tree or parental wall for support, and, like a wife or daughter, conceals defects, and imparts a softer shadowing and contour to the support, without which she herself had never risen to light and life. Time passes on. The oak grows old, the wall is shattered by lightning; but the Ivy, now strong and firm, shelters the limbs or binds together the tottering walls with greater care than before, and covers decay and rifts with fresh care—aided by the younger daughter-vines.

This simile has occurred to poets in all lands, in all ages. In an old Chinese poem (Jolowicz, der Poetische Orient, s. 7) we are told that 'in the south there lives a tree, the Ivy Ko clings and winds around it, bringing the most excellent of joys and happiness in excess.' Owing to this natural and most palpable resemblance, the ancient Greeks caused the officiating priest in the temple to present to a bridal pair, on entering, a twig of Ivy, 'as a symbolical wish that their love, like it, might ever continue fresh.' It was a beautiful thought, and one which was not lost sight of in the ecclesiastical and architectural symbolism of the middle ages. 'It is,' says Friedreich (Symbolik und Mythologie der Natur, § 103), 'as an ever-greening plant, a type of life, of love, and of marriage.' It is, therefore, with both truth and propriety that the modern floral lexicons give the vitis hedera, or Ivy, as expressing 'Female affection—I have found one true heart.'

As with all plants, or, indeed, with all natural objects known to the ancients, the Ivy was the subject of a myth or religious allegory, and in investigating this myth, we find ourselves in a labyrinth of strange mystery. The ordinary works on mythology, indeed, inform the reader that it was the plant sacred to Bacchus, the god of wine, because, as Loudon states, 'this wine is found at Nyssa, the reputed birthplace of Bacchus, and in no other part of India.' 'It is related,' he continues, 'that when Alexander's army, after their conquest of Babylon, arrived at this mountain, and found it covered with laurel and Ivy, they were so transported with joy (especially when they recognized the latter plant, which is a native of Thebes), that they tore up the Ivy by the roots, and, twining it around their heads, burst forth into hymns to Bacchus, and prayers for their native country.'

But there is a deeper significance to the Ivy, even as there is a deeper and more solemn mystery and might around the primeval Bacchus. To us he is merely the wine-god, but to the ancient Initiated in the orgies and mysteries he was—as were each of the gods in their turn—the central divinity, the lord of light, and the giver of life. For, as it was concisely said in the spirit of pantheistic abstraction: 'Nothing can be imagined which is not an image of God;' so it was not possible to conceive a divinity who was not in himself all the other divinities. Thus we find that Bacchus was male, female, and at the same time an absolute ONE without regard to sex; or, in other words, he was the ancient trinity.

'Tibi enim inconsumpta juventus.Tu puer æternus, tu formosissimus altoConspiceris cœlo, tibi, cum sine cornibus adstasVirgineum caput est.'Ovid, Met. l. 4.

For, as the great mystery of all religion, or of all being, is life, and as life, like blood, is most aptly typified by reviving and inspiring wine, it was not wonderful that renewed strength, generation, and birth should gather around the incarnation of the vine, and that the cup should become the holiest of symbols. Like the ark, the chest or coffer, the egg, and a thousand other receptive or containing objects, the cup appeared to the ancient Initiated as a womb, or as the earth, taking in and giving forth life. It was in this spirit that Nonnus, in the fifth century, wrote The Dyonisiacs, a vast poem on Bacchus, in forty-eight books; 'a magnificent assemblage of the emblematical legends of Egypt,' and in which modern criticism has discovered a creative grandeur, a beautiful wildness of fancy, and a romantic spirit, such as were combined in no other one poem of antiquity.

Bacchus was thus the lord of life, and that in a vividly real sense—the sense of intoxication, of keenly thrilling pleasure, of wild delight, and headlong rushing joy. He was fabled to have given men the grape and wine—but to the Initiated of the mystery and orgie there was higher and more intoxicating wine than that of the grape—the wine of wild inspiration, drawn from the keenest relish of beauty, of nature, of knowledge, and of love. Drunk with this wine of the soul, the Mœnad and Bacchante rushed forth into lonely forests, amid rocks, by silent lake, and streamlet lone, and cried in frantic joy, bewildered with passion, to the Great Parent, or shouted in praise: 'Bacche, Evoe, Bacche!'

'Then chaunted roseThe song of Bacchic women: all the bandOf shaggy Satyrs howled with mystic voice,Preluding to the Phrygian minstrelsyOf nightly orgies. Earth around them laughed;The rocks reëchoed; shouts of revelling joyShrilled from the Naiads, and the river nymphsSent echoes from their whirlpool-circled tides,Flowing in silence; and beneath the rocksChanted Sicilian songs, like preludes sweet,That through the warbling throats of Syren nymphs,Most musical drop of honey from their tongues.'Nonnus.

For all this wild joy, all this exquisite union of all the pleasures known to man, whether in the mad embraces of passionate nymphs, in draining wine, in tasting the fresh honeycomb, in wild dances under green leaves, in feasting, or in song, Bacchus was the centre, and the Cup the symbol. And this cup—the absolutely feminine type—the Iona which forms the nucleus of so great and so curious a family of words in the Indo-Germanic and Shemitic languages—was fabled to have been formed from the wood of Ivy. Let the reader hear this double sex of Bacchus in mind; he will find it recurring again in the myth of Ivy. 'We must,' says Creuzer (Symbolik und Mythologie der Alten Völker), 'think of ALL things, if we would not see the Bacchic genii in their mysterious rites, from a one-sided point of view. Not only Bacchus himself, but his male and female companions must each, like their lord on earth, appear in different forms. For the mysteries loved the antique, the pregnant-with-meaning, i. e. that which has a really symbolical fulness, and supplies full food for thought.' And again: 'It would have been very strange if the Man-Woman had not also appeared in this mysterious array of forms. In his origin, Bacchus is an Indian god, and to the Hindus the world was bi-sexed.' Thus we find in the Ivy, as his sacred plant, a curious and beautiful symbol, in whose trailing embraces the ancient East and West are bound together.

If the Ivy cup was held to typify female nature, so too were the leaves of that plant emblematical of the receptive sex. The thyrsus, the distinctive object borne by the worshippers of Bacchus, was a phallic or male symbol, the characteristic portion of which was wreathed and buried in Ivy leaves; signifying the union of the sexes. It is curious to observe that this regarding the Ivy as characteristic of the feminine principle, found its way among the Druids, and was transmitted from them to the Christian and Christmas ceremonies of the middle ages. In these we always find that the thorned holly is spoken of as male, and the Ivy as female. In the Gentleman's Magazine for 1779, a correspondent relates a ceremony, which is still preserved in some parts of England. 'The girls, from five or six to eighteen years old, were assembled in a crowd, burning an uncouth effigy, which they called a holly-boy, and which they had stolen from the boys; while in another part of the village, the boys were burning what they called an Ivy-girl, which they had stolen from the girls. The ceremony of each burning was attended with huzzas and other acclamations, according to the receipt of custom in all such cases.'1

There is but one legend in all the legends of the gods; but one solution, though the enigmas be thousandfold; and the myth of the Ivy is only a repetition of that of Bacchus and of all the immortals—the endless allegory of birth and death, male and female, winter and spring. Kissos—the Greek word for Ivy—was a young faun beloved by Bacchus, who accompanied the god of the Cup and of life, in all his strange adventures. Mad with wine, Kissos once at an orgie danced until he fell dead. Then his lord, grieving bitterly, raised the beloved form in his arms, and, changing it to Ivy, wreathed it around his brow. It is the old story of death and revival.

But we may expect to find of course a feminine goddess, or demi-goddess, whose name includes the same root as Kissos—and she appears in Kiseis, one of the nymphs to whom Bacchus gave the infant Bacchus to be brought up. For her reward, she was placed by Bacchus among the stars—in the constellation of the weeping Hyades—that she might have a place in heaven. Apropos of which we may quote the words of the quaint old Jesuit Galtruchius, saying that 'Bacchus was brought up with the Nymphs, which teacheth us that we must mix Water with our Wine.'2

We also find that Kisæa, was, at Epidaurus, one of the names of Minerva. Notwithstanding the apparent dissimilarity between the wild god of wine and the goddess of calm wisdom, it was still taught in the mysteries that they had an affinity in more than one lower form, and, of course, an identity in their highest. 'The temple of Bacchus,' says Galtruchius, 'was next to Minerva's, to express how useful Wine is to revive the Spirits, and enable our Fancy to Invent.'3 In the older worship, Minerva was one with Venus, Diana, Proserpine—the generating female principle of love and of beauty being of course predominant. 'In this unity or identity of barbarian divinities,' says Creuzer (Symbolik, IV. Theil), ('to speak like the Greeks') 'we must, however, seek for the source of that variety which made the Greeks so rich in gods; and what had in Hellas been separated into so many, remained by the 'barbarians' single and undivided. Therefore the older a Greek local worship might be, so much the more did it in this resemble the barbarian. * * So we have truly learned in Argos, Laconia, Dodona, and Sicily, * * that Proserpine was one and the same with Venus and Diana, and the identity with Minerva may also be proved.' For the proof I refer the reader to his work. With Venus, however, Bacchus had amours, begetting Priapus. Certain it is that the Ivy Kissos appears in both male and female names.

But as the Ivy formed the cup—kissubion—into which life entered, and from which it was drained as wine; so, too, from its wood was made the sacred chest (kisté) in which, in the Dyonisiac mysteries, the same secret was preserved under the form of a serpent, while in the Eleusinian it hid the dread pomegranate which Persephone had tasted. For they were all one and the same, this wine and serpent and pomegranate—the type of life and of knowledge—of human birth, and human intellect—of the world's generation and of eternal wisdom. The fruit of which Adam ate, the bread and wine of the holy supper of the mysteries of all lands in all ages, the pomegranate, whose seeds, once eaten, kept the soul in another life beyond death, all have one meaning—and this meaning was that of infinite revival, endless begetting, the renewal of nature—and with this the knowledge of the great mystery which sets the soul free. 'Eritis sicut Deus.'

It was no small honor for a single plant to have furnished the wreath of Bacchus, the wood of his cup, emblematic of the human body containing his life-blood, and the material for the chest of the great mysteries—meaning also the body and the world. I think, however, that its philological root may also be possibly found in the Greek noun kissa, and the verb kissáo, implying strange and excessive passionate longing. Such yearning would well become the Bacchantæ, the wild children of desire and of Nature. It is longing or desire which leads to renewing life, which constitutes love, which flashes like fire and light through the beautiful, and pours forth the wine, and breaks the bread, and causes the rose-blush to bloom, and the nymphs to cry amid the mountains, Evoé Bacche!

Coming down from the pagan mysteries into lower and more literal forms, the Ivy preserved two meanings. It was already the vine of life, and the early Christians laid it in the coffins of their departed, as the emblem of a new life in Christ.4 It had hung upon the limbs of naked nymphs, convulsed in passionate orgies, as a type of vitality renewed by pleasure—it was now wreathed at Christmas-tide over quaint columns and tracery-laden Gothic windows and arches, as a sign—they knew not exactly of what—but guessed, naturally enough, and rightly, that it typified as an undying winter-plant the resurrection. And they sang its praises in many a brave carol:

Ivy, chief of trees it is,Veni coronaberis.The most worthy she is in town,—He who says other says amiss;Worthy is she to bear the crown;Veni coronaberis.Ivy is soft and meek of speech,Against all woe she bringeth bliss;Happy is he that may her reach:Veni coronaberis.Ivy is green, of color bright,Of all trees the chief she is;And that I prove will now be right:Veni coronaberis.Ivy, she beareth berries black;God grant to all of us his bliss,For then we shall nothing lack:Veni coronaberis.Very quaint is the following fragment:Holly and Ivy made a great party,Who should have the masteryIn lands where they go.Then spake Holly, 'I am fierce and jolly,I will have the masteryIn lands where we go.'Then spake Ivy, 'I am loud and proud,And I will have the masteryIn lands where we go.'Then spake Holly, and bent him down on his knee,'I pray thee, gentle Ivy,Essay me no villanyIn lands where we go.'Old Christmas Carol.

'Good wine needs no bush,' says an old proverb; but is it generally known that the 'bush' in question, used as a sign for wine, was a bunch of Ivy? The custom went from Greece to Italy, from Italy to Germany, and so on westward. Very different is this use of the evergreen vine in taverns, from that of adorning churches—the one meaning a mere invitation to drink, while the other reminds the believer that, as the Ivy lives through the bitter winter, so shall our souls endure through cold death and live again in Christ, even as He passed through the grave to live in 'eternal bloom.' Yet to those who have mastered the legend of Bacchus, there is no absolute difference between the two, when studied with regard to their origin. It is worth remarking that among the ancients the impression prevailed that the Ivy was the plant of joyousness, of triumphant strength, and of life, even as Bacchus was the lord of joy. And at a later day, long after the association with genial Bacchus was forgotten, the Ivy in popular lay and legend, and quaint custom and holiday rite, still by some inexplicable association always seemed to the multitude to be sweet and gentle, noble and dear. It is such a feeling of love, derived from old traditions and old worships, long forgotten, which makes the stork and the house-cricket and the robin and dragon-fly and swallow so dear to children and grown people in many parts of Europe. The rose is gone, but the perfume still lingers in the old leaves of the manuscript. And the reader who comprehends this may also comprehend the tender affection for the Ivy expressed in the old Christmas carols which I have quoted, and which, without such comprehension, seem absurd enough; while with it, they appear truly beautiful and touching.