Part 18

There is another report circulating extensively in our neighborhood just now, relative to Delle’s movements in the coming spring. I will not vouch for its truth. I have not dared ask _her_ if it be true; but people _do_ say that a rich bachelor in our neighborhood, is then to relieve her of that odious name which is now so indisputably hers; and that at that happy time she will take up her abode, with the children who are her constant care, in his beautiful mansion. If this be true, it is hardly necessary for me to ask what kind of wife you think she’ll make. I _know_ your thoughts already on this subject; and if you be a gentleman, I fancy that I hear you “heaving a sigh,” and longing for just such a wife, because _you_ are, of course, far too sensible to think _there’s any thing in a name_!

Some say this is no love match—that Delle will only marry this bridegroom elect for the purpose of ridding herself of the fatigues of school-teaching, arguing from the fact, I suppose, that he is so _un_like Alfred Livingstone in all respects; and that he is so much older than she—and his hair is already tinged with gray; beside he is an odd sort of man, as is usually the case with old bachelors. Be this as it may, whether Delle is so foolish as to marry for love (which generally turns out to be such a delusion) or not, of this thing be convinced, reader, the marriage will be a happy one, for everybody knows he is as “kind as kind can be;” and she—but I’ve already said enough about her; and after all, if she derives but one benefit from the union, it will not be a small one—for will not that name, that horrid name of hers, be merged in partial forgetfulness? Don’t call names _trifles_! By hers she lost him whom she did truly love, and who, perhaps, was not, strange as it may seem that I should say so, wholly unworthy of her love; for in very deed and truth, he had but one weak side, and that was most mortally pierced by the sharp arrow pointed with _her name_.

If there be one whose eyes have followed the jottings of my pen thus far, let me say to such an one another word about _proper nouns in particular_. If with most philosophic indifference you have, after mighty struggles, brought yourself to repeat with the chiefest of bards, on thinking of your own high-sounding misfortune,

“What’s in a name?”

please let me advise you “lay your mouth in the dust,” remembering, my word for it, that there is something “considerable, if not more,” in a name—especially in such an one as Miss Delleparetta Hogg—poets and philosophers “to the contrary notwithstanding,” which I hope and pray for your edification and enlightenment I have satisfactorily proved.

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GAME-BIRDS OF AMERICA.—NO. XII.

The Dunlin, or Ox-bird, or Purre, is well entitled to the epithet “_variabilis_,” from the great difference between its summer and winter plumage. It is the Purre in summer and the Dunlin in winter in England, while in the United States it is called most commonly the Red-backed Sandpiper. In winter these birds assemble in small parties, following the tide on the oozy shores and estuaries near the sea. When undisturbed they run rather swiftly, and utter a sort of murmuring note, but when they are alarmed and forced to take wing, they utter a querulous and wailing scream. In the autumn they are seen around Vera Cruz, and may be bought in the markets of Mexico, while many, in their winter dress, remain throughout the winter within the limits of the Union. At times they frequent the coast of the Carolinas in great numbers about February, leading a vagabond life, and swayed hither and thither by every change in the temperature.

In the Middle States, the Dunlins arrive on their way to the North in April and May, and in September and October they are again seen pursuing the route to their hybernal retreat in the South. At these times, according to Nuttall, they mingle with the flocks of other strand birds, from which they are distinguishable by the rufous color of their upper plumage. They frequent the muddy flats and shores of the salt marshes, at the recess of the tide, feeding on the worms, insects and minute shell-fish which such places generally afford. They are very nimble on the strand, frequenting the sandy beaches which bound the ocean, running and gleaning up their prey with great activity on the reflux of the waves. When, says Nuttall, in their hybernal dress they are collected in flocks, so as to seem at a distance like a moving cloud, performing their circuitous waving and whirling evolutions along the shores with great rapidity, alternately bringing its dark and white plumage into view, it forms a very grand and imposing spectacle of the sublime instinct and power of Nature. At such times, however, the keen gunner, without losing much time in contemplation, makes prodigious slaughter in the timid ranks of the Purres, while, as the showers of their companions fall, the whole body often alight, or descend to the surface with them, until the greedy sportsman becomes satiated with destruction.

Length of the Dunlin is eight inches and a half; extent, fifteen inches; bill black, longer than the head, which would seem to rank it with the snipes, slightly bent, grooved on the upper mandible, and wrinkled at the base; crown, back, and scapulars bright reddish rust, spotted with black; wing coverts pale olive; quills darker; the first tipped, the latter crossed with white; front cheeks, hind head, and sides of the neck quite round; also the breast, grayish white, marked with small specks of black; belly white, marked with a small crescent of black; tail pale olive, the two middle feathers centered with black; legs and feet ashy black; toes divided to their origin, and bordered with a slightly scolloped membrane; irides very black.

The males and females are nearly alike in one respect, both differing greatly in color, even at the same season, probably owing to difference of age; some being of a much brighter red than others, and the plumage dotted with white. In the month of September many are found destitute of the black crescent on the belly; these have been conjectured to be young birds.

Willets breed in great numbers along the shores of New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland, and afford the sportsman an easy prey and excellent eating. The experienced gunners always select the young birds, which are recognized by the grayness of their plumage, in preference to the older and darker birds, which are not so tender and well flavored. In the month of October they generally pass on to their winter-quarters in the warmer parts of the continent. Their food consists chiefly of small shell-fish, aquatic insects, their larvæ and mollusca, searching for which they may be found on the muddy shores and estuaries at low water. The Willet is peculiarly an American bird, its appearance in the north of Europe being merely accidental, as is also that of the Ruff in America. The Willets wade more than most of their tribe, and when disabled by a wound they take to the water without hesitation, and swim with apparent ease.

The length of the Willet is about fifteen and a half inches; length of the bill to the rictus two and a half inches, much shorter in the young bird of the season; tarsus two inches eight lines. In the summer plumage, according to Nuttall, the general color above is brownish gray, striped faintly on the neck, more conspicuously on the head and back, with blackish brown; the scapulars, tertiaries and their coverts irregularly barred with the same; tail coverts white, tail even, whitish, thickly mottled with pale ashy brown, that color forming the ground of the central feathers, which are barred with dusky brown toward their extremities; spurious wing, primary coverts, a great portion of the anterior extremities of the primaries, the axillary feathers, and under-wing coverts black, with a shade of brown; the remaining lower and longer portion of the primaries, and the upper row of under-wing coverts white; the posterior primaries tipt with the same; secondaries and the outer webs of their greater coverts white, marbled with dusky; wings rather longer than the tail, the lower with a spotted liver-brown streak, bounded above by a spotted white one; eyelids, chin, belly and vent white; the rest of the under plumage brownish white, streaked on the throat and transversely barred, or waved on the breast, shoulders, flanks, and under tail coverts with clove-brown, the bars pointed in the middle. Female colored like male, but an inch longer. Legs and feet dark lead color, the soles inclining to olive, the toes broadly margined with a sort of continuation of the web; iris hazel. Winter dress with fainter spots on the upper plumage, and without the dark waving transverse bars below, only the fore part of the neck and breast of a cinereous tint, marked with small brown streaks.

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VISITANTS FROM SPIRIT-LAND.

BY E. CURTISS HINE, U. S. N.

Then the forms of the departed Enter at the open door, The loved ones, the true-hearted, Come to visit us once more. —LONGFELLOW.

They are ever hovering round us, A mysterious, shadowy band, Singing songs, low, soft and plaintive They have learned in Spirit-Land. Bright their wings as hues elysian, Blended on the sunset sky, By unseen, but angel-artists, That concealed behind it lie.

Sweet their soft and gentle voices Mingle with each passing breeze, And the sorrowing heart rejoices, As amid the leafy trees In the green and verdant summer, Tones long-hushed are heard again, And the quick ear some new-comer Catches joining in their strain.

Sceptics say ’tis but the breezes Wandering on their wayward way— That the souls of the departed Rest in peace and bliss for aye. But I know the fond, the loved ones, Cleansed from every earthly stain, Who have passed away before us, Come to visit us again!

True, our eyes may not behold them, Nor the glittering robes they wear. True, our arms may not enfold them, Radiant phantoms formed of air! But I often hear them round me, And each gentle voice is known, When some dreamy spell hath bound me, As I sit at eve alone!

Playmates of my joyous childhood, Wont to laugh the hours away, As they roamed with me the wildwood, In life’s beauteous break-of-day; They are spirits now, but hover On bright pinions round me still, Tender as some doting lover, Warning me of every ill.

And among them comes one, brighter, Fonder far than all beside, Sunlight of my young existence, Who in life’s green springtime died. Music from her lips is gushing, Like the wind-harps plaintive tune, When the breeze with soft wing brushes O’er its strings in flowery June.

O, thou white-browed peerless maiden, Holiest star that beams for me! Thou didst little dream how laden Was this heart with love for thee! Once fair garlands thou didst weave me, But to gem EMANUEL’S throne Thou didst soar away and leave me In this weary world alone!

But in dreams thou comest often, Hovering saint-like round my bed, Telling me in gentle whispers Of the loved and early dead! Once, methought, thou didst a letter Bring from one remembered well, Who has left this world of sorrow, In the Spirit-Land to dwell!

Strange the seal, and when ’twas broken, Strange the characters within, For ’twas penned in language spoken In a world devoid of SIN; Told, no doubt, of joys that wait them Who shall enter spotless there, But before I could translate them I awoke, and found them air!

Deem not that the soul reposes In its radiant home for aye, On the fragrant summer roses Sunset beams may sadly play; But they whisper “banish sorrow, And from bitter thoughts refrain, On the bright and glorious morrow We will gild your leaves again!”

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HISTORY OF THE COSTUME OF MEN,

DURING THE EIGHTEENTH AND THE BEGINNING OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

BY FAYETTE ROBINSON.

People grieve about the departure of the good old times, and prate of the days of chivalry, which Mr. Burke sixty years ago said were gone. That they are gone the world may well rejoice at, not only because they were times of ignorance and cruelty, but also of discomfort and inconvenience. In the diary of a court-officer of the days of Henry VII. is the note of a charge for cutting rushes, to strew on the floor of the Queen-closets; and another one mentions the number of under-garments belonging to Henri III. of France as considerably less than any one of the better orders in our own time would require. In those days, the downy couch meant a bed of goose-wing feathers; gloves were not; and when a gentleman needed a new doublet or head-piece, he went not to a tailor or the hatter of the day, but to a blacksmith. Let the lovers of romance talk as they please, there was little true poetry, and less feeling, in the minds of the heroes they wish to extol, than of the veriest apostles of commerce of our own age. Rightly enough do we date civilization from the times when men laid aside the rugged manners of old with the bronze and iron armor, and doffing the hammered helmet, assumed the cap of velvet and the hat of plush; when they laid aside the iron gauntlet for the chamois glove, and assumed the Cordovan boot in place of the leg-pieces of steel.

The feelings of chivalry yet lingered as late as the days of the English Charles I. and the French Louis XIII. in the minds of the nobility. A new series of ideas, however, had arisen in the breasts of the people at a date long previous to this. Printing had become general, and the learning previously the property of the priests had become the heir-loom of humanity: As a natural consequence, new ideas and new wants were unfolded, and these same ideas had become more general. At this crisis France took the lead, and not only in philosophy but in the minor things of life, French manners and habits were copied. Consequently, in describing costume, Paris will be perpetually referred to, from the fact that from that great city emanated the fashions which controlled the costume of the world.

It is true that other nations had their peculiar costume, handed down and preserved by the tradition of courts, as the Norman dress continues even now the court uniform of the state officials of the British kingdom; Spain had her peculiar doublet, hose and cloak, and Holland her own court apparel. If, however, we look nearer and closer, we shall discover each of these were dresses imported from France at some particular crisis, and retaining position and importance in their new home, when they were forgotten in the land whence they were adopted.

The most highly civilized of all the nations of Europe at the time that this supremacy over the costume of the world was exerted by France, it might have been expected that its selection would have been guided by good taste and propriety. This was not however the case, for in spite of the progress the world has made, the women of France and our own country, and the men also, are not to be compared to the members of the most savage tribes, either in gracefulness of form or propriety of dress. If the Chinese distort the foot, or the Indians of the North West Coast of America the forehead, the civilized women of to-day compress the waist, and men commit not less enormities.

These matters are, however, incontestable; and though we might regret we cannot prevent them. They simply therefore give us a clue in treating our subject, of which we will avail ourselves. They teach us, that to Paris belongs the incontestable empire of that mysterious power known in France as _la_ _mode_, and in our own land as FASHION. Possibly this may be a remnant, the sole _vestige_, of that tone of pretension which led France in other days to aspire to universal empire. If so, the pride of other nations which led them elsewhere to resist French assumption here has been silent. Though not the rulers of the world by the power of the sword; though the French idiom be not so universal as the English, even the denizens of “_Albion perfide_” submit to the behests of the controlling powers of the French _mode_. Let the French language be universal or not, is to us now of no importance; that French fleets will drive English and American squadrons from the seas, is doubtful, but it is very certain Englishmen and Americans for all time to come will wear French waist-coats, and Germans both in London and Philadelphia will call themselves French bootmakers. How fond soever a people may be of its national garb, ultimately it must submit to the trammels devised in Paris. Ultimately all men will wear that most inconvenient article called a hat, will insert their extremities into pantaloons, and put their arms into the sleeves of the garment, so short before and so long behind, they are pleased to call a coat. When all nations shall have come to this state of subserviency, the end of the world will certainly be at hand, whether because the _ultima perfectio_ has been reached, or because God, who created man after his own likeness, will be angry at the ridiculous figure they have made of his features, better theologians than I must decide. We certainly are not very near this crisis, for hundreds of yellow-skinned gentlemen are yet ignorant of the art and mystery of tying a cravat, and never saw a patent leather boot.

Like great epidemics, the passion for dress often leaps over territorial boundaries, and ships not unfrequently carry with the cholera and _vomito_ bales of articles destined to spread this infection among lands as yet ignorant of it; so that some day we may live to hear of Oakford sending a case of hats to the Feejees, and of Watson making an uniform for the general-in-chief of the King of the Cannibal Islands.

Possibly this passion for our costumes is to be attributed to the deterioration of the morals of the savages, and if so, even dress has its historical importance and significance, and is the true reflection of _morale_. It may be that the days of the iron garb were days of iron manners, and also of iron virtue, and that in adopting a silken costume we have put on, and they may be about to adopt a silken laxity of virtue and honor.

We will begin to treat of costume as it was in the days of Louis XIV., the solemn mood and ideas of whom exerted their influence even on dress, and the era which saw all other arts become pompous and labored, also saw costume assume the most complicated character. Costume naturally during this reign was permanent in its character, and when Louis XV. succeeded to the throne he found his courtiers dressed entirely as their fathers had done, and the young king, five years of age, dressed precisely like his great-grandfather, with peruke, cane and breeches. When he had reached the years of discretion, Louis XV. continued to devote himself more to the trifles of the court than to affairs of state.

The following engraving is an illustration taken from a portrait of a celebrated marquis of that day.

This, it will be remembered, was the era when women wore whalebone frame-works to their dresses and caps, or a kind of defensive armor over the chest and body. The fine gentlemen also encased themselves in wires, to distend the hips of their _culottes_ or breeches. This was the costume of the fine gentlemen, and in it kings and heroes appeared on the stage almost without interruption until the days of Talma, if we except the brief and unsuccessful attempt at reform, as far as theatres were concerned, by Le Kain and Mademoiselle Clairon.

The foregoing was the prevailing court costume, the next is the military garb of the day, recalling the costume of Charles XII. of Sweden, and not unlike that of our own Putnam or Mad Anthony Wayne. Thus the lowland gentlemen who fought in ’45, dressed after this mode, were the opposing parties of the armies at Ramilies. As a whole it is not _malapropos_, and altogether more suitable and proper than the uniforms of our own day. The following is the portrait of a mousquetaire just one century after the time of Athos, Porthos, Aramis and D’Artignan, whom Dumas made illustrious.

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MAPLE SUGAR.

BY ALFRED B. STREET.

Oh, the rich, dark maple sugar! how it tells me of the woods, Of bland south winds and melting snows, and budding solitudes! Oh, the melting maple sugar! as I taste its luscious sweets, Remembrance in my raptured ear her witching song repeats; Once more my heart is young and pure! once more my footsteps stray Amid the scenes, the lovely scenes, of childhood’s opening day.

A frosty night! the searching air made hearth-fires a delight, Stern Winter seemed as if again to rally in his might; But, oh, how pure and beautiful the morning has arisen! What glorious floods of sunshine! off! the dwelling is a prison! Off, off! run, leap, and drink the air! off! leave man’s roofs behind! Nature has more of pleasure now than haunts of human kind.

How free the blood is bounding! how soft the sunny glow! And, hearken! fairy tones are ringing underneath the snow! Slump, slump! the gauzy masses glide from hemlock, fence and rock, And yon low, marshy meadow seems as spotted with a flock; Drip, drip, the icicle sends its tears from its sparkling tip, and still With tinkle, tinkle, beneath the snow rings many a viewless rill.

We cross the upland pasture, robed with a brown and sodden pall, The maple ridge heaves up before—a sloping Titan wall! The maple ridge! how gloriously, in summer it pitches tent: Beneath, what a mossy floor is spread! above, what a roof is bent! What lofty pillars of fluted bark! what magical changeful tints As the leaves turn over and back again to the breeze’s flying prints.

Up, up, the beaten path I climb, with bosom of blithesome cheer, For the song, oft varied with whistle shrill of the woodsman Keene, I hear; The bold and hardy woodsman, whose rifle is certain death, Whose axe, when it rings in the wilderness, makes its glory depart like breath, Whose cabin is built in the neighboring dell, whose dress is the skin of the doe, And who tells long tales of his hunting deeds by the hearth-fire’s cheerful glow.