Part 28
‘Now, gratefully and very fervently do we hold in reverence the memory of the heroes of Seventy-six. Yet who but they founded this order? Did John Hancock withstand King George’s tea-tax in the spirit of John Hampden resisting King Charles’s impost of ship-money? Yes, so; but only so. Unto John Hancock the rich merchant, no more than to John Hampden the rich country gentleman of a prior generation, had any practical purpose revealed the gospel of man’s unconditioned equality. Urge not against this aught in the Declaration of Independence. For when the passage “All men are born free and equal,” when that passage was being written were not some of the signers legalised owners of slaves?
‘Too evident is it that in throwing off the British plush, the men of Seventy-six did not shed the colonial skin. In divers respects, social and political, they remained loyal to British tradition, though justified rebels to the British crown. Assuredly no, in the characterising significance of the word as now current, they can hardly be considered _Americans_. It is we, their posterity, that are Americans--we, the people, the sovereign American people, who from English and European colonists have in process of time, and under the special guidance of God, developed into _Americans_. And in view of all this, does not Major Gentian’s Society, the Society of the Cincinnati, lag among us as much out of place as would the old Spanish Order of the Knights of the Holy Ghost.
‘I said just now that Major Gentian is vastly proud of his insignia, and I will do him the justice of admitting that this is not altogether because it is an aristocratic one, but in part because of its historic significance. But ours is a practical age. Not altogether sentimentally do we determine the relative greatness of events present and past. Into such determinations, the elements of number, man, yea, and the no less weighty element of cost, enter in. Well, then, there is Bunker Hill. A famous good fight. Yes, indeed. But how much of a muster-roll? How much of a pay-roll? Why, in Virginia we fought battles where a hundred thousand and more would be engaged. While east, west, and south, our files under arms fell not short of a million. And our war-debt, arising in no small part from generous bounties and the regular army pay-roll, soared aloft into two or three thousand millions. Then there is the pension-roll. That, too, is on a scale commensurate with the colossal magnitude of the Great Republic. Why is the blue ribbon of Major Gentian’s badge bordered with white? Major Gentian will reply, very likely, “That is in compliment to our revolutionary ally.” Indeed? But is not white the heraldic colour of the Bourbons, one of whom still preposterously advances his claim to the throne of liberated France? What a fling, then, is this white border at the tricolour of our sister the French Republic! Yes, and what a left-handed slur coming home to ourselves. Men and brethren, for aught I know, an enlightened young Englishman in superannuated old England may be at liberty to speak up for democracy; but in energetic young America, much as we respect old age, shall a hoary-headed old American be tolerated as an advocate of monarchy, or, what is equivalent to that, parading under the Stars and Stripes the craven _white_ of the monarchical Bourbons, the beggars? And is such a man--I put it to your conscience--the sort of man to take place with the law-makers of a people, the chosen people, the advance-guard of progress, a friendly people, the Levite of the nations, to whose custody Jehovah has entrusted the sacred ark of human freedom? (Cries of “No, No,” and riotous applause.)
‘Thou laughest at this, Major, and, after laughing, pooh-poohest it: “Bless you, I divine who it was said all that. But how? Why, much as a blind musician infers who the unseen fiddler is by the twang of his fiddle. It was Colonel Bunkum--Colonel Josiah Bunkum. And, of course, he must have declaimed it at some political meeting--yes, I think I remember reading some report of it--during the canvas, when my insistent friends ran me for the legislature. Incidentally, I became acquainted with Colonel Bunkum in Virginia, now more than five-and-twenty years ago. A sunburnt whiskerando he was, whiskers bristling like a thorn hedge; valiant, indeed, but of a contorted sort of valour, quite at odds with the magnanimities and martial amenities. Ay, brave enough, you understand, but no Chevalier Bayard. Less mature, too, in mind than in muscle. Rash in opinion, very rash, headlong. Not a man of broad judicial temper, sir, nor replete with the sapient humour and wise patriarchal quality of our good old Father Abraham. You shall judge, sir. Quoting Scripture, ‘My people perish through ignorance,’ and applying it to the South, and chafing under McClellan’s Fabian tactics, he was forthwith marching from the Potomac to the Gulf with a wagon-train of Webster’s Spelling-Books, backed by another train of heavy artillery. Shot and shell and spelling-books were to be distributed broadcast and gratis, a sort of Mahommed, sir, of the Malthusian sort. Strange, how the coolest valour may go along with a hot brain-pan. Well, well, robust as ever, the colonel is now a distinguished officer in the Grand Army; and finding that I, a brother-veteran, refrain from joining it, and knowing naught of those scruples, patriotic scruples, sir, which sway me; and, unfortunately, without the intuition that might divine them, why, being more of a hero than a philosopher, it puzzles him, it irritates him--he can’t help it, it’s all natural enough--and so, dear me, for something tangible to bite at very conscientiously, doubtless he snaps at my poor little ribbon here. The good God enlighten and redeem him!”
‘That is charity, Major, Christian charity with a vengeance. But some of us ere now have thought that by such charitable construings (or, are they indolently stoical ones?) of words or actions not charitable, thy failing to take the trouble to resent them, however absurd they may be, and vindicate thyself, thou hast--and more than once or twice--been something of a loser.’
THE CINCINNATI
A NOTE
A member of the Burgundy, possessing an unusual library of Americana, which he is at the greatest pains and expense continually augmenting, thus evincing a singular interest in his country, but who, singularly enough, never votes, leaving that function to men wiser than himself (so he puts it), and who for this and the like eccentricities is familiarly known at the Burgundy as the philosopher; to this gentleman I submitted in manuscript my sketch of the Dean. He did not disapprove of the sketch, but pointed out one little oversight, as he civilly called it. ‘In your mention of the ribbon of the Society of the Cincinnati, or rather in Colonel Josiah Bunkum’s mention of it, you in your cursory way too severely tax the information of the general reader should you have any. Walk Broadway from Times Square to the Battery, and could you interrogate every man you should meet, with--“Excuse me, but pray, sir, would you be kind enough to tell me the reason why the blue ribbon of the Cincinnati is bordered with white?” I warrant you not ten of those tens of thousands would be able to answer you. You might as well interrogate them as to the exact form of the insignia of the old Spanish Order of the Knights of the Holy Ghost.’
‘I see your drift,’ said I, amused at his closing allusion; ‘some sort of note to the passage is needed. And who better qualified to supply it than yourself, my dear sir, with your fine library of Americana?’
He replied that he would be happy so to do, and the following somewhat simplified dissertation is the result, which is given, as I rather rashly engaged, without alteration or curtailment, and is very characteristic of the Burgundy’s eccentric philosopher.
In the ribbon of the Cincinnati, the white bounding the blue commemorates the French alliance during the War of Independence. At the founding of the Society, France was a monarchy, and its natural colour was that of the Bourbons--white. Eligible to the order were all commissioned officers of the Continental army and navy. Eligible to be life-members were also the admirals and captains of the French fleet, co-operating with the colonists in the war, as well as the generals and colonels of the allied French army, and to these in especial compliment was sent the medal of the Society. As to the Continental officers, membership was declared thereby.
Forthwith upon its establishment the Society encountered much adverse criticism, and from some noted public characters, who being civilians were ineligible to membership. Ere long the violent democratic crusade beginning in France, sympathy intensified this criticism into popular hostility. Some members of the order resigned; and even the staid mind of Washington, the General-President of the Society, was swayed on grounds of prudence to question the expediency of maintaining it. But, taking in sail, as it were, the Society rode out the tempest; and now for years has been the least demonstrative of bodies.
As at the outset, it intermeddled not with political parties, and refrained, among other things, from agitating for augmenting pensions, its members long content with the poor pittance the new government with difficulty at last provided; so throughout it has never deviated from its one main principle, the priestly one of keeping alive the sacred fire of patriotism.
If the Society of the Cincinnati, a heritage from the Fathers, be really worthy of a respect bordering upon reverence, it is of the sort that the Catholics pay to the bones of the saints; for, indeed, this venerable institution survives but as a relic.
It seems amid the bustle of another age like the Greek monolith, the Fire Column so called, in Constantinople, which unconsumed by the repeated conflagrations of that capital, and rising from among all sorts of lesser erections, attests a temper and an era that shall never be restored. It is a remarkable monument of the times when the British colonist in the spirit of John Hampden resisting the imposition of the tea-tax, and indirectly the Crown, developed in the process of time into a generation less impatient of imposts; pushing no quarrel, indeed, against fiscal arbitrariness, or any sort of power so it be but plural and domestic, wears a hat like the rest of us, and is careful to put on that same humble deference toward the People, which all kings and emperors scrupulously profess for Him Whom--with exemplary meekness ignoring themselves--they officially denominate the Supreme Arbiter of Events. In short, the Society is archaic, originating at a period before we became, to all practical purposes, a distinct People; a race which, though having various superficial traits in common with the English inheriting the same blood with ourselves, is nevertheless, at bottom, unlike; as is frequently observable in uterine brothers who, while in physical aspect a stranger can hardly tell them apart, yet brought to the test of essential character, may be even more than dissimilar.
FRAGMENT
Of such redundant natures can it be possible that any can at last be narrowed down to the bier? Yes, die, and in a sense, intestate, too, as leaving no intellectual estate? Nothing indeed but an imperfect memory that ages avow, and is gone? Is this the end of that splendour? But why not? According to authoritative interpreters, the evanescence, the nothingness of things glorious, redounds to the glory of Omnipotence. And with what other aim in view, the theologians would like to know, did the Magnanimous call out the worlds? Two or three hundred years ago, to the amazement of the telescopes, a strange star appeared in the constellation of Cassiopeia, and shining there like a planet for a brief term, abruptly disappeared, and was seen no more. Nor was any star-dust left to tell of the fleet passage. True, out of the same Unknown or Nothing, and back into it again, millions of small meteors come and go; but extinction is signalised in the instance of stars of magnitude; and in corresponding degree the glory of God is magnified, who can work such wonders, to whom the planets are of even less consideration than to the Grand Mogul his golden buttons.
FRAGMENTS FROM A WRITING-DESK
CLIPPING FROM THE ‘DEMOCRATIC PRESS AND LANSINGBURGH ADVERTISER’
No. 1
LANSINGBURGH, N.Y., _Saturday, May 4, 1839_.
MY DEAR M----, I can imagine you seated on that dear, delightful, old-fashioned sofa, your head supported by its luxurious padding, and with feet aloft on the aspiring back of that straight-limbed, stiff-necked, quaint old chair, which, as our facetious W---- assured me, was the identical seat in which old Burton composed his _Anatomy of Melancholy_. I see you reluctantly raise your optics from the ugh-clasped [_sic_] quarto which encumbers your lap, to receive the package which the servant hands you, and can almost imagine that I see those beloved features illumined for a moment with an expression of joy, as you read the superscription of your gentle protégé. Lay down, I beseech you, that odious black-lettered volume and let not its musty and withered leaves sully the virgin purity and whiteness of the sheet which is the vehicle of so much good sense, sterling thought, and chaste and elegant sentiment.
You remember how you used to rate me for my hang-dog modesty, my _mauvaise honte_, as my Lord Chesterfield would style it. Well! I have determined that hereafter you shall not have occasion again to inflict upon me those flattering appellations of ‘Fool!’ ‘Dolt!’ ‘Sheep!’ which in your indignation you used to shower upon me, with a vigour and a facility which excited my wonder, while it provoked my resentment.
And how do you imagine that I rid myself of this annoying hindrance? Why, truly, by coming to the conclusion that in this pretty corpus of mine was lodged every manly grace; that my limbs were modelled in the symmetry of the Phidian Jupiter; my countenance radiant with the beams of wit and intelligence, and my whole person the envy of the beaux, the idol of the women, and the admiration of the tailor. And then my mind! why, sir, I have discovered it to be endowed with the most rare and extraordinary powers, stored with universal knowledge, and embellished with every polite accomplishment.
Pollux! what a comfortable thing is a good opinion of one’s self when I walk the Broadway of our village with a certain air, that puts me down at once in the estimation of any intelligent stranger who may chance to meet me, as a _distingué_ of the purest water, a blade of the true temper, a blood of the first quality! Lord! how I despise the little sneaking vermin who dodge along the street as though they were so many footmen or errand-boys; who have never learned to carry the head erect in conscious importance, but hang that noblest of the human members as though it had been boxed by some virago of an Amazon; who shuffle along the walk, with a quick, uneasy step, a hasty, clownish motion, which by the magnitude of the contrast, set off to advantage my own slow and magisterial gait, which I can at pleasure vary to an easy, abandoned sort of carriage, or to the more engaging, alert, and lively walk, to suit the varieties of time, occasion, and company.
And in society, too, how often have I commiserated the poor wretches who stood aloof, in a corner, like a flock of scared sheep; while myself, beautiful as Apollo, dressed in a style which would extort admiration from a Brummell, and belted round with self-esteem as with a girdle, sallied up to the ladies--complimenting one, exchanging a repartee with another; tapping this one under the chin, and clasping this one round the waist; and finally, winding up the operation by kissing round the whole circle to the great edification of the fair, and to the unbounded horror, amazement, and ill-suppressed chagrin of the aforesaid sheepish multitude, who, with eyes wide open and mouths distended, afforded good subjects on whom to exercise my polished wit, which like the glittering edge of a Damascus sabre ‘dazzled all it shone upon.’
And then, when the folding-doors are thrown open, as the lacquey announces supper to be ready, how often have I stepped forward and with a profound obeisance to the ladies, bowing by the bow of Cupid, and appealing to Venus for my sincerity, when I wished I had an hundred arms at their service, escorted them right gallantly and merrily to the banquet; while those poor, bashful creatures, like a drove of dumb cattle, strayed into the apartment, stumbling, blushing, stammering, and alone.
Verily, by my elegant accomplishments and superior parts, by my graceful address, and above all by my easy self-possession, I have unwittingly provoked to an irreconcilable degree the resentment of half a score of these village beaux; whom, although I had rather have their esteem, I value too little to dread their malice.
By my halidome, sir, this same village of Lansingburgh contains within its pretty limits as fair a set of blushing damsels as one would wish to look upon on a dreamy summer day! When I traverse the broad pavements of my own metropolis, my eyes are arrested by beautiful forms flitting hither and thither; and I pause to admire the elegance of their attire, the taste displayed in their embellishments; the rich mesh of the material; and sometimes, it may be, the loveliness of the features, which no art can heighten and no negligence conceal.
But here, sir, here, where woman seems to have erected her throne, and established her empire; here, where all feel and acknowledge her sway, she blooms in unborrowed charms; and the eye, undazzled by the profusion of extraneous ornament, settles at once upon the loveliest faces which our clayey natures can assume. The poet has sung:--
‘When first the Rhodian’s mimic art array’d The queen of Beauty in her Cyprian shade, The happy master mingled on his piece Each look that charm’d him in the fair of Greece. To faultless nature true, he stole a grace From every finer form and sweeter face; And, as he sojourn’d on the Ægean isles, Woo’d all their love and treasured all their smiles; Then glow’d the tints, pure, precious, and refined, And mortal charms seemed heavenly when combined.’
Now, had this same Apelles flourished in our own enlightened day, and more particularly, had he taken up his domicile in this goodly village, I could with ease have presented him with many a Hebe, in whom were united all the requisite graces which make up the beau-ideal of female loveliness. Nor, my dear M----, does there reign in all this bright display that same monotony of feature, form, complexion, which elsewhere is beheld; no, here are all varieties, all the orders of Beauty’s architecture; the Doric, the Ionic, the Corinthian, all are here.
I have in ‘my mind’s eye, Horatio,’ three (the number of the Graces, you remember) who may stand, each at the head of their respective orders. The one, were she arrayed in sylvan garb, and did she in her hand carry her bow, might with equal justice and propriety stand, the picture of Diana herself. Her figure is bold, her stature erect and tall, her presence queenly and commanding, and her complexion is clear and fair as the face of heaven on a May day, through which sparkles an eye of that indefinable hue, which is beyond comparison the most striking that can garnish the human countenance. The vermilion in her cheeks perpetually wears that ruddy, healthful tint, which one is accustomed to behold illumine, but for a moment, alas! the face of a city belle when she takes her annual ramble in the country, to revel for a period in the retreats of rustic life.
If to these qualities you superadd that majesty of carriage and dignity of mien, which we would fancy the royal mistress of Antony to have possessed; together with that heroic and Grecian cast of countenance which the imagination unconsciously ascribes to the Jewess, Rebecca, when resisting the vile arts of the Templar--you have in my poor opinion the portraiture of ⸻.
When I venture to describe the second of this beautiful trinity, I feel my powers of delineation inadequate to the task; but nevertheless I will try my hand at the matter, although, like an unskilful limner, I am fearful I shall but scandalise the charms I endeavour to copy.
Come to my aid, ye guardian spirits of the Fair! Guide my awkward hand, and preserve from mutilation the features ye hover over and protect! Pour down whole floods of sparkling champagne, my dear M----, until your brain grows giddy with emotion; con over the latter portion of the first canto of _Childe Harold_, and ransack your intellectual repository for the liveliest visions of the Fairy Land, and you will be in a measure prepared to relish the epicurean banquet I shall spread.
The stature of this beautiful mortal (if she be indeed of earth) is of that perfect height, which, while it is freed from the charge of being low, cannot with propriety be denominated tall. Her figure is slender almost to fragility, but strikingly modelled in spiritual elegance, and is the only form I ever saw, which could bear the trial of a rigid criticism.
Every man who is gifted with the least particle of imagination, must in some of his reveries have conjured up from the realms of fancy, a being bright and beautiful beyond everything he had ever before apprehended, whose main and distinguishing attribute invariably proves to be a form the indescribable loveliness of which seems to
--‘Sail in liquid light, And float on seas of bliss.’
The realisation of these seraphic visions is seldom permitted us; but I can truly say that when my eyes for the first time fell upon this lovely creature, I thought myself transported to the land of dreams, where lay embodied the most brilliant conceptions of the wildest fancy. Indeed, could the Promethean spark throw life and animation into the Venus de’ Medici, it would but present the counterpart of ⸻.
Her complexion has the delicate tinge of the brunette, with a little of the roseate hue of the Circassian; and one would swear that none but the sunny skies of Spain had shone upon the infancy of the being, who looks so like her own ‘dark-glancing daughters.’
The outline of her head, together with the profile of her countenance, are sketched in classic purity, and while the one indicates refined and elegant sentiment, the other is not more chaste and regular than the mind which beams from every feature of the face. Her hair is black as the wing of the raven, and is parted _à la Madonna_ over a forehead where sits, girt round with her sister graces, the very genius of poetic beauty, hope, and love.