Part 7

My favorite way of getting out of bed is to wake up, bid good morning to the newly created day, quietly turn over and go to sleep again without disturbing any one, and sleep the sleep of the just. In that second nap, I visit my Spanish castles. Their architecture is more elaborate and ethereal than ever Wren dreamed of, and they float always in an amber haze just over the Pyrenees. I have leased them all to a goodly company of ladies and gentlemen, and they are the best of pay. Among them are the fair Rosamund; poor Beatrice Cenci; that other Beatrice, who has come down from her shining beatitudes and occupies one of the best of them with Dante; the yellow-haired Gretchen and Faust; the rare and radiant Countess Irma; Spenser's Fairy Queen and Titania; Aspasia, still reclining on beds of roses; Dame Durden, whose house is no longer bleak; Cinderella, with her tiny slipper; Joan of Domremy, still talking with the angels; Undine, bathing in eternal streams; Colonel Newcome, and that prince of good fellows, George Warrington; Wilkins Micawber and Samuel Weller, who are living together--(Uriah Heep and Mr. Chadband made application for one castle, but their references were not good)--Wilhelm Meister and Nathan the Wise; the Lady of Shallott and Hiawatha, who have become firm friends; the fair Florinda and the Princess Scherezade, who amuse each other with rare stories; Sinbad and Aladdin and Rasselas; and Donatello, who never can agree with Werter. When I arrive, they hang out the banners, and such music as Malibran and Sontag sing, which Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Schubert have been writing for them, you don't hear in our concert halls. All the charming women and good fellows, of all times, come in to breakfast and we drink ambrosial wines, sweeter than the honey of Hymettus, and breakfast on fruits which have mellowed in the hanging gardens. There is no such lotus, by the bye, on the Nile banks as grows in those gardens. Time would fail me to narrate the sonnets that Dante is writing; the good jokes that George Warrington and Sam Weller have with each other over Wilkins, who is still waiting for something to turn up; the philosophical speculations of Rasselas, and the Munchausenisms of Sinbad; to tell you of a magnificent Spanish symphony that Beethoven has just finished, and the delight with which he listens to a new Ave Maria by Schubert, for the grand old master's hearing has been restored; the songs of Irma, as she looks down upon the mountains of her transfiguration; and the great joy of Faust and Gretchen, who have deciphered the vital problem they could not solve in the baneful shadow of Mephisto. The most beautiful castle is reserved for the friend who died years ago and passed away from me, but who is now like the living, because he greets me every morning in my castle with the warm grip of the hand and the cheery voice and the pleasant face of old times. He has not grown old since then, and I....

February 15, 1868.

_THE TEAPOT._

We were all sitting at the table together. All told, we were ten, viz: Celeste and her maiden aunt, who had a sorrow when she was young, a blighted affection, or something of that sort; Aurelia, now Mrs. Peplum; Mr. Peplum, who has become much more sedate since his family affair with Aurelia; Aurelia's mother, who is getting old and rather fussy; Blanche, and young Boosey, who is sweet on Blanche; Old Blobbs, the Water street indigo merchant, and Mrs. Blobbs; and myself.

"As I was about to say when I was interrupted, the teapot...."

Here I was again interrupted by young Boosey, who was filling himself to repletion with brandied peaches, and who rather scornfully remarked to Old Blobbs that tea might do well enough for old women, but that, for a steady diet, he preferred champagne punches. Old Blobbs silenced him by telling him that if he spent less for champagne punches, it would be for the interest of his landlady.

The rebuke was severe, but just.

As I was about to say when I was interrupted the second time, the teapot is one of the strongest links in the chain of society. If my friend Blobbs, across the way, will recall his youthful days, he will confess that all his subsequent prosperity and happiness are due to the teapot. He will remember that in those days, when, strange as it may seem, he was addicted to Byronic collars and bad rhymes, he accompanied the future Mrs. Blobbs home from singing-school one June night, and that, as they went across the fields instead of by the straight road, he felt excessively foolish at the manner in which the stars winked and blinked at each other. You see, my friend Blobbs thought that he was the first man in the world who had ever done that sort of thing; and my dear Mrs. Blobbs will pardon me if I say that she was excessively sheepish also over the fancy that, for the first time in the world, she was receiving the attentions of a young man. But the stars were used to it, and knew what would come of it. Ever since they peeped through the branches of the Tree of Knowledge and saw Adam sitting up with Eve, they had been looking at a young man and a young woman rehearsing this same old story, and, my dear Blobbs, long after you and I are under the daisies, they will shine down upon young men and young women, going across the fields and telling the same old story. It is the only story which can't be printed fast enough to supply the demand.

And my friend Blobbs will also remember that when they reached the gate, the air was full of the perfume of apple-blossoms and roses; that the bell of the village church over on the hill was striking eleven, and that its tones were borne on the night air, across the meadows, as softly and soothingly as if they were the audible pulsations of the moonlight; that an officious little insect, shrouded in the gloom of the fir tree in the front yard, was continually informing him that Katy-did; that, before they parted, they chose a mutual star which should ever be their symbol and souvenir; and that when at last he took her little white hand in his--it _was_ a pretty hand in those days, you know, Blobbs--she said: "Won't you come over to tea to-morrow night, Mr. Blobbs?" Did you refuse, Mr. Blobbs?

He will furthermore be so good as to remember that he walked on air as he went home; that he whistled as he went; that all the stars in Heaven, except that particular one, were laughing at him, and that he wouldn't have taken a thousand dollars for himself.

Now I put it to you, Mr. Blobbs, as a man of honor, if that teapot, the next evening, did not do the business and make a man of you all the rest of your life.

Blobbs looked rather uncomfortable, but I thought I detected some of the brilliancy of those days shining through all the conventionalities and financial callouses of his life, as he assented; and if a tear stood in the corner of Mrs. B.'s eye, as she looked at her consort in the indigo trade, it dropped immediately into the quince sauce and dissolved into sweetness.

And as I passed my cup to Aurelia's mother the second time, with a deprecating look at Boosey, I continued: I know of no pleasanter sight in the world than a steaming teapot upon the tray and five or six old ladies gathered about it, who have just dropped over and brought their knitting. They have all made the voyage of life, weathered the storms and gone into old age's winter quarters. Life's spring will never come for them again. The roses will not bloom for them, and the birds will miss them, but the frosts and the keen winter winds touch them kindly; and if they sometimes regard the blue, lichen-covered slate stones with the unutterable thoughts of old age, it is only because they feel the first breath of the gales blowing from the eternal springs, inhale the faint perfumes of the asphodels and the lilies on the banks of the River of Life, and hear, as in a dream, the sounds of music from the golden harps over the battlements of Heaven.

And as the cups go round and the dear old creatures become inspired with the delicate aroma, how they will compare their rheumatisms, and backaches, and headaches, and neuralgias--those inevitable signs that the silver cords are growing looser, and that the pitchers will soon be broken at the fountains! How they will yearn after the days when they were young, and lament the decadence of the present! How they will recall the scenes of fifty years ago! (Here the maiden aunt let her eyes fall, and I fancied her lips quivered some). How they will indulge in just the slightest gossip in the world, meantime mysteriously shaking their frosty heads, but just as harmless as the rage of Mignon's canary! How they will analyze and dissect the last new baby in the neighborhood, and lament over the weakness of its mother who will allow it to eat anything and everything! How they will deprecate the new-fangled notions of the young pastor who has just succeeded old Parson Tenthly, lately called home!

It is a mortifying fact that young Pastor Primrose _does_ prefer to visit Blanche and Celeste, who dote upon him and make book-marks and slippers for him, rather than be obliged to listen to the catalogues of the old ladies' physical and theological complaints. You see, Blanche and Celeste are not a severe tax upon his theological resources, while the old ladies are. Neither can the old ladies see why it is necessary that the young clergyman should be so particular about his back hair and the immaculateness of his neck-tie.

February 22, 1868.

_A MASQUE._

Did you ask me if the Masquerade, this week, was a success?

Considering that nine-tenths of the people who go to balls are idiots; that carnival folly without carnival license is Hamlet without Hamlet; that only they in whose veins the blood is tropical understand the real _esprit_ of the _bal masque_; and that among our masques every man insists upon being a Harlequin and every woman a nondescript, showing the inevitable tendency of human nature;--it was a success.

It is impossible for Boosey in a masque to feel tropical. Champagne, and not blood, is the natural current through his veins. Disguised as a gorgeous Harlequin, in cap and bells, he is not at home. He is inchoate, crude and lonesome. He may talk soft things to the unknown Blanche, hanging upon his arm in the black tarletan, gold stars and crescent, but the liquid eyes and beaming face tell no story through the grinning, goggle-eyed pasteboard, and do not disturb the placidity of the manly breast of Harlequin, or make any intellectual impression upon him, further than to confirm us in our original statement that he is an idiot. What Boosey may do when the masques are off and church-yards begin to yawn, as he and the unknown Blanche say matins at the shrine of the jolly King Gambrinus, concerns us not.

Neither does it concern you who are reading these lines, who never take your masque off at all.

Although my German friends sandwiched their carnival into a funny place, making sin follow repentance, and mixing up scarlet Mardi Gras and gray Ash Wednesday with a frightful negligence of proprieties, it was enjoyable and delightfully sinful. Celeste, when she came to my confessional the other day, complained of it. She was clad in russet and serge, had sprinkled herself with ashes, was mortifying the flesh by concealing those white shoulders and marble arms, which are the envy of our set, and eating lentils as if she liked them. Could I do anything but pity her when she cried _peccavi, mea culpa, mea culpa_. And as she told me, with those pretty lips, of her melon-colored dress, how superbly it hung; of her pearl neck-lace, which actually looked dark on her neck; of an unknown cavalier, who whispered something transporting over his bouquet, and then vanished; of the wild waltz with Mephisto, whose sneering gibes were alchemized into delicious flattery--and as the Dear Creature told me that she had followed too much the devices and desires of her own heart, and that all was vanity, was it a wonder that I, even in the garb of the confessor, cheered and consoled her, and said:

My dear young friend, the only trouble with you is that Divine Providence, instead of Canova, made you, and, in making you, gave you a human nature. He was also at fault in making flowers that die of their own sweetness, and grapes that burst of their own voluptuousness, and swans that expire in their own melody. The moralists have got hold of you, my dear, and, with their mallets and chisels, are trying to make you into a cold, senseless, white statue of virtue, while all the while the blood is bounding to your finger-tips, and every pulsation of your heart is in waltz _tempo_. Enjoy your carnivals, my dear, for soon come the snow and the chilling winds, which will wrinkle your pretty face, and film your bright eyes, and turn those white shoulders to parchment, and deaden all the fire of life. Then may you wrap yourself in your black robes and weep over the dead carnivals in the gray ashes.

And if you know of any of your friends who are so miserably unfortunate as to be without fault, let them cast stones at you. I may say, _entre nous_, that I do not think you will be much hurt. The stone-throwing will be the feeblest you ever saw.

And the Dear Creature went away, as one not utterly bereft of consolation.

March 7, 1868.

_THE MIRACLE OF CREATION._

We were sitting at the opera the other evening, Celeste and I. Celeste was _ennuyee_. Not even the Garden music of Faust--music which so deftly pictures the grand struggle between the Angel and the Fiend, which is waged on the battle-field of each man's soul--music which so vividly paints the lapse from guilelessness to guilt; not even the closing duo, an outburst of sensuous rapture with an under-tone of the wildest despair, seemed to have any effect upon her. So she twirled her fan impatiently, flirted with Fitz-Herbert opposite, through her lorgnette, and listlessly pulled the waxen petals out of the camelia in her bouquet.

And she turned to me and said: "Don't you think this is very stupid? Everything is so _blase_. I would give a year of my life for a new sensation. How happy Eve must have been, when everything was bright and fresh and new, and for the first time;" and, the camelia destroyed, she commenced upon roses and heliotropes.

And, after the opera, I freed my mind to the Dear Creature, upon the foolish idea--which not only she but the majority of people have--that the world was any brighter or fresher, or any more for the first time, in the days of Adam and Eve than now, speaking somewhat after the following fashion:

My dear Celeste, the fault is not in the world, but in yourself, that nothing seems bright, and fresh, and new. The miracle of creation and the process of life are new every morning and every evening, and are performed for the first time for each human being, yourself included. But you have allowed conventionality and form and artificiality to dim your eyes, destroy your taste, and blunt all your sensibilities. The world is just as beautiful, the mountains just as grand, the flowers just as lovely, the streams just as sparkling, the songs of the birds just as sweet, this spring day of 1868, _Anno Domini_, as they were on the same spring day of the year 1, _Ante Christum_. Adam and Eve saw them for the first time, and you are seeing them for the first time. The first sunrise which Adam and Eve saw, as they took their morning walk in the garden, was not a whit more beautiful than the sunrise this morning; and if that was given to them for the first time, this was given to you for the first time--only your eyes, albeit they are very pretty, are totally blind to the fact; and, equally, the light of the sunset which filtered through the leaves of the trees, and stained the whole flowery floor of the Garden with golden glory, what time the first man and woman said vespers in God's grand temple of Nature, was not more golden than that which flooded the earth last evening, what time, my dear, you were yawningly doing up your back-hair, preparatory to Mrs. Fitz-Boodle's hop, utterly unconscious that there was a sun in the heavens, or that Nature was painting for you for the first time the miracle of a sunset, which she did for Adam for the first time.

The same analogy holds good in all the operations of life. Eve, holding the wicked Cain in the cradle of her arms, experienced the same joys and griefs of maternity; the same concentration of all that is beautiful in the world, in the blue eyes of the nestling; the same mysterious yearnings; the same strong, deep love; the same foreboding pain that is experienced by the last fair-browed mother "in marble halls," or by some tawny, wild-eyed Indian mother, crooning weird songs to her little one under torrid palms.

And when, my dear Madame, you laid your little Johnny or Susie, all covered with immortelles and rosebuds, under the violets; or when you received a letter, written in a strange hand, that your first and only one, who had grown to man's estate, and who went sailing over the seas, was down among the sea-tangles and the corals; when, as by a sudden breath, every light of joy was blown out; when that terrible silence of death lay on the household; when, in the night watches, you listened for some tidings from that far-off shore of the To Be, whither the child had sailed all alone, without your watchful care over him; when it seemed to you that the heavens should be hung with black, and you wondered that the sun could shine, and the birds sing, and men and women come and go as if nothing had occurred--when all this happened, you were experiencing, for the first time, the same feelings that Eve experienced for the first time, as she looked into the stark face of Abel.

March 24, 1868.

_FASHIONABLE WEDDINGS._

I was sitting last evening in the library, absorbed in that wonderful book of Auerbach's--"On the Heights"--a book which always has the charm of being new whenever I take it up, and always gives me some fresh insight into the beauties of this world, and the sublimity of human nature. It was twilight, the time to read it. Minerva on the one shelf was drowsily nodding at Clytie on the other, and Dante on his bracket was looking out of the window into the sky, as if momentarily expecting Beatrice to float luminously down in shining garments. The flowers in the window were shutting up their petals for the night. And thus we sat there--Auerbach, Clytie, Minerva, Dante, the flowers, and I; and as the lines of the book dimmed over in the receding light, our star appeared goldening in the Western sky, just over the crimson of the dying day.

When who should walk in but the Dear Children, Boosey and Celeste, arm in arm! Minerva at once woke up and looked wisely at B., and my calla, which always recognizes Celeste as a butterfly, leaned lovingly towards her, as if inviting her to fly into her milk-white bosom and sleep there for the night.

They cautiously and modestly informed me of their engagement, and had come to ask me for some advice relative to the wedding and how it should be celebrated. Whereupon I laid Auerbach down, and spoke to them somewhat after the following manner:

My Dear Children, I will give you some views on weddings in general, which you may apply to your own case. While it is eminently proper to invite personal friends to a wedding, and the more the merrier, avoid publicity. Publicity in private matters inevitably tends towards snobbishness, and often towards vulgarity. You may lay the gilt on vulgarity just as thickly as you please and it will only make it the more glaring, just as the process of varnishing a poor picture makes its defects more obvious. A wedding will always be public enough without any courting of publicity, and it is a very poor way of starting off in life, by trying to outdo some one else in the way of show and expense. It is like throwing out your ace of trumps without stopping to see whether you have got suit in your hand to win the game with. The lavish expenditure of money on a wedding, merely to outdo some one else, is only for popular effect, and what is done only for popular effect is very apt to be vulgar. By vulgarity, of course I do not mean anything that is morally wrong, but simply common and snobbish. The motive is a very cheap one, and is apparent to the most superficial observer; and the least justifiable occasion for the exercise of that motive is a wedding, which should be free from tinsel and frippery. An event so important, and in a certain degree so sacred, should be celebrated with a delicacy and dignity befitting its character. It is the turning-point for weal or wo in two lives, and it is not well to make it a public show. The occasions in society-life for display of gilt and gingerbread, sugar candy and gewgaws, are amply sufficient, without seizing upon the hymeneal altar and exhibiting the sacred fire to a curious public, with blare of trumpets and glare of trappings.

One of the worst features of our fashionable weddings is the insane desire of the parties to it to make their appearance in the public prints, and figure with stunning head-lines among the announcements of the last raid upon gamblers, police court trials, sensational divorces, murders, rapes and suicides. The avidity with which this publicity is sought will be astonishing to the general reader. In some instances printed, and in others written invitations, have been sent to the reporters of the daily press, stating the exact time and place when and where they can visit the dressmaker and have the mysteries of the bridal toilet explained to them, when and where they can inspect other toilets, and when and where they can see the wedding gifts and be informed of their nature and cost; all of which, of course, will be unfolded in due time to the admiring public, and small female vanity and large female curiosity will be gratified.

Unless, as is always the case, reporters are human and printers capricious; whereupon it happens that great expectations are not always realized--as, for instance, when that diamond pin, which cost $2,000, appears in print at the ridiculously small figure of $200; when Mrs. Croesus, who has devoted days of toil and nights of anxiety, and has distracted her dressmakers over her superb silk--who has flattered herself upon the sensation her point lace will make, and the universal admiration which will greet her diamond set--appears in print clad in blue tarletan, with Brussels lace and pearl jewelry; when the two thousand invitations appear on paper as two hundred; when the reporter, who came late, mistakes a bridesmaid for the bride, and goes into glowing raptures over the loveliness of the young creature; when another reporter, who has not had an opportunity of writing up the gifts beforehand, gets into a chaos of ormolu clocks, bronzes, and silverware, and mixes them up indiscriminately; when John Thomas, the family driver, who is not free from the failings of human nature any more than his superiors, by a quiet little reportorial bribe, or a secret visit to the place so dear to every well-organized reporter--the wine cellar--gets his name mentioned for the graceful manner in which he presided over the white ribbons and the rosetted steeds; when all these things happen, as happen they will, and people laugh, then the great expectations are not realized; and Mrs. Midas, who lives next door to Mrs. Croesus, had a small difficulty with her and was not invited to the wedding, has her revenge.