Chapter 37
To become intimate, as I did in time, during years in Brighton, off and on, with all the gypsies who roamed the south of England, to be beloved of the old fortune-tellers and the children and mothers as I was, and to be much in tents, involves a great deal of strangely picturesque rural life, night-scenes by firelight, in forests and by river-banks, and marvellously odd reminiscences of other days. There was a gypsy child who knew me so well that the very first words she could speak were "_O 'omany 'i_" (O Romany rye), to the great delight of her parents.
After a little while I found that the _Romany_ element was spread strangely and mysteriously round about among the rural population in many ways. I went one day with Francis H. Groome to Cobham Fair. As I was about to enter a tavern, there stood near by three men whose faces and general appearance had nothing of the gypsy, but as I passed one said to the other so that I could hear--
"_Dikk adovo rye_, _se o Romany rye_, _yuv_, _tacho_!" (Look at that gentleman; he is a gypsy gentleman, sure!)
I naturally turned my head hearing this, when he burst out laughing, and said--
"I told you I'd make him look round."
Once I was startled at hearing a well-dressed, I may say a gentlemanly- looking man, seated in a gig with a fine horse stopping by the road, say, as I passed with my wife--
"_Dikk adovo gorgio adoi_!" (Look at that Gentile, of no-gypsy!)
Not being accustomed to hear myself called a _gorgio_, I glanced up at him angrily, when he, perceiving that I understood him and was of the mysterious brotherhood, smiled, and touched his hat to me. One touch of nature makes the whole world grin.
But the drollest proposal ever made to me in serious earnest came from that indomitable incarnate old _gypssissimus Tsingarorum_, Matthew Cooper, who proposed that I should buy a donkey. He knew where to get one for a pound, but 2 pounds 10s. would buy a "stunner." He would borrow a small cart and a tent, and brown my face and hands so that I would be dark enough, and then on the _drum_--"over the hills." As for all the expenses of the journey, I need not spend anything, for he could provide a neat nut-brown maid, who would not only do all our cooking, but earn money enough by fortune-telling to support us all. I would be expected, however, to greatly aid by my superior knowledge of ladies and gentlemen; and so all would go merrily on, with unlimited bread and cheese, bacon and ale, and tobacco--into the blue away!
I regret to say that Matthew expected to inherit the donkey.
About this time, as all my friends went hunting once or twice a week, I determined to do the same. Now, as I had never been a good rider, and had anything but an English seat in the saddle, I went to a riding-school and underwent a thorough course both on the pig-skin and bare-backed. My teacher, Mr. Goodchild, said eventually of me that I was the only person whom he had ever known who had at my time of life learned to ride well. But to do this I gave my whole mind and soul to it; and Goodchild's standard, and still more that of his riding-master, who had been a captain in a cavalry regiment, was very high. I used to feel quite as if I were a boy again, and one under pretty severe discipline at that, when the Captain was drilling me. For his life he could not treat his pupils otherwise than as recruits. "Sit up straighter, sir! Do you call _that_ sitting up? _That's_ not the way to hold your arms! Knees in! Why, sir, when I was learning to ride I was made to put shillings between my knees and the side, and if I dropped one _I forfeited it_!"
Then in due time came the meets, and the fox and hare hunting, during which I found my way, I believe, into every village or nook for twenty miles round. By this time I had forgotten all my troubles, mental or physical, and after riding six or seven hours in a soft fog, would come home the picture of health.
I remember that one very cold morning I was riding alone to the meet on a monstrous high black horse which Goodchild had bought specially for me, when I met two gypsy women, full blood, selling wares, among them woollen mittens--just what I wanted, for my hands were almost frozen in Paris kids. The women did not know me, but I knew them by description, and great was the amazement of one when I addressed her by name and in Romany.
"_Pen a mandy_, _Priscilla Cooper_, _sa buti me sosti del tute for adovo pustini vashtini_?" (Tell me, Priscilla Cooper, how much should I give you for those woollen gloves?)
"Eighteen pence, master." The common price was ninepence.
"I will _not_ give you eighteen pence," I replied.
"Then how much _will_ you give, master?" asked Priscilla.
"_Four shillings_ will I give, and not a penny less--_miri pen_--you may take it or leave it."
I went off with the gloves, while the women roared out blessings in Romany. There was something in the whole style of the gift, or the _manner_ of giving it, which was specially gratifying to gypsies, and the account thereof soon spread far and wide over the roads as a beautiful deed.
The fraternity of the roads is a strange thing. Once when I lived at Walton there was an old gypsy woman named Lizzie Buckland who often camped near us. A good and winsome young lady named Lillie Doering had taken a liking to the old lady, and sent her a nice Christmas present of clothing, tea, &c., which was sent to me to give to the Egyptian mother. But when I went to seek her, she had flown over the hills and far away. It made no difference. I walked on till I met a perfect stranger to me, a woman, but "evidently a traveller." "Where is old Liz?" I asked. "Somewhere about four miles beyond Moulsey." "I've got a present for her; are you going that way?" "Not exactly, but I'll take it to her; a few miles don't signify." I learned that it had gone from hand to hand and been safely delivered. It seems a strange way to deliver valuables, to walk forth and give them to the first tramp whom you meet; but I knew my people.
I may here say that during this and the previous winter I had practised wood-carving. In which, as in studying Gypsy, I had certain ultimate aims, which were fully developed in later years. I have several times observed in this record that when I get an idea I cherish it, think it over, and work it up. Out of this wood-carving and _repousse_ and the designing which it involved I in time developed ideas which led to what I may fairly call a great result.
We remained at Brighton until February, when we went to London and stayed at the Langham Hotel. Then began the London life of visits, dinners, and for me, as usual, of literary work. In those days I began to meet and know Professor E. H. Palmer, Walter Besant, Walter H. Pollock, and many other men of the time of whom I shall anon have more to say. I arranged with Mr. Trubner as to the publication of "The English Gypsies." I think it was at this time that I dined one evening at Sir Charles Dilke's, where a droll incident took place. There was present a small Frenchman, to whom I had not been introduced, and whose name therefore I did not know. After dinner in the smoking-room I turned over with this gentleman a very curious collection of the works of Blake, which were new to him. Finding that he evidently knew something about art, I explained to him that Blake was a very strange visionary--that he believed that the spirits of the dead appeared to him, and that he took their portraits.
"_C'etait donc un fou_," remarked the Frenchman.
"_Non_, Monsieur," I replied, "he was not a madman. He was almost a genius. Indeed, _c'etait un Dore manque_" (he was all but a Dore).
There was a roar of laughter from all around, and I, innocently supposing that I had said something clever unawares, laughed too.
After all had departed, and I was smoking alone with Sir Charles, he said--
"Well, what did you think of Dore?"
"Dore!" I replied astonished, "why, I never saw Dore in all my life."
"That was Dore to whom you were talking," he answered.
"Ah! well," was my answer, "then it is all right."
I suppose that Dore believed that I knew at the time who he was. Had he been aware that I did not know who he was, the compliment would have seemed much stronger.
I have either been introduced to, conversed with, or been well acquainted at one time or another with Sir John Millais, Holman Hunt, the Rossettis, Frith, Whistler, Poynter, Du Maurier, Charles Keene, Boughton, Hodges, Tenniel (who set my motive of "Ping-Wing," as I may say, to music in a cartoon in _Punch_), the Hon. John Collier, Riviere, Walter Crane, and of course many more--or less--here and there in the club, or at receptions. Could I have then foreseen or imagined that I should ever become--albeit in a very humble grade--an artist myself, and that my works on design and the minor arts would form the principal portion of my writings and of my life's work, I should assuredly have made a greater specialty of such society. But at this time I could hardly draw, save in very humble fashion indeed, and little dreamed that I should execute for expensive works illustrations which would be praised by my critics, as strangely happened to my "Gypsy Sorcery." But we never know what may befall us.
"Oh, little did my mother think, The day she cradled me, The lands that I should travel in, Or the sights that I should see; Or gae rovin' about wi' gypsy carles, And sic like companie."
As the _Noctes_ varies it. For it actually came to pass that a very well- known man of letters, while he, with the refined politeness characteristic of his style, spoke of mine as "rigmarole," still praised my pictures.
In April we went to Leamington to pay a visit to a Mr. Field, where we also met his brother, my old friend Leonard Field, whom I had known in Paris in 1848. During this, journey we visited Kenilworth, the town and castle of Warwick, Stratford-on-Avon, and all therewith connected. At the Easter spring-tide, when primroses first flush by running waters, and there are many long bright sunny days in the land, while birdes' songs do ripple in the aire, it is good roaming or resting in such a country, among old castles, towers, and hamlets quaint and grey. To him who can think and feel, it is like the reading of marvellously pleasant old books, some in Elizabethan type, some in earlier black letter, and hearing as we read sweet music and far-distant chimes. And apropos of this, I would remark that while I was at Princeton an idea fixed itself so firmly in my mind that to this day I live on it and act on it. It is this:--There is a certain stage to be reached in reading and reflection, especially if it be aided by broad aesthetic culture and science, when every landscape, event, or human being is or may be to us exactly the same as a _book_. For everything in this world which can be understood and felt can be described, and whatever can be described may be written and printed. For ordinary people, no ideas are distinct or concentrated or "literary" till they are in black and white; but the scholar or artist in words puts thoughts into as clear a form in his own mind. Having deeply meditated on this idea for forty years, and been constantly occupied in realising it, I can say truly that I _often_ compose or think books or monographs which, though not translated into type, are as absolutely _literature_ to me as if they were. There is so _much_ more in this than will at first strike most readers, that I can not help dwelling on it. It once happened to me in Philadelphia, in 1850, to pass _all_ the year--in fact, nearly two years--"in dusky city pent," and during all that time I never got a glimpse of the country. As a director of the Art Union, I was continually studying pictures, landscapes by great artists, and the like. The second year, when I went up into Pennsylvania, I found that I had strangely developed what practically amounted to a kind of pseudophia. Every fragment of rural scenery, every rustic "bit," every group of shrubs or weeds, everything, in fact, which recalled pictures, or which could itself be pictured, appeared to me to be a picture perfectly executed. This lasted as a vivid or real perception for about a week, but the memory of it has been in my mind ever since. It was not so much the beautiful in all Nature which I saw, as that in Nature which was within the power of the skilled artist to execute. In like manner the practised reflector and writer reads books in everything to a degree which no other person can understand. Wordsworth attained this stage, and the object of the "Excursion" is to teach it.
In the "Letters of James Smetham" there is a passage to the effect that he felt extremely happy among English hedgerows, and found inexhaustible delight in English birds, trees, flowers, hills, and brooks, but could not appreciate his little back-garden with a copper-beech, a weeping-ash, nailed-up rose trees, and twisting creepers. After I had made a habit, till it became a passion, of seeking decorative motives, strange and novel curves--in short, began to detect the transcendent alphabet or written language of beauty and mystery in every plant whatever (of which the alphabet may be found in the works of Hulme), I found in every growth of every kind, yes, in every weed, enough to fill my soul with both art and poetry; I may say specially in weeds, since in them the wildest and most graceful motives are more abundant than in garden flowers. Unto me _now_ anything that grows is, in simple truth, more than what any landscape once was. This began in youth in much reading of, and long reflection on, the signatures, correspondences, and mystical fancies of the Paracelsian writers--especially of Gaffarel, of whom I have a Latin version by me as I write--and of late years I have carried its inspiration into decorative art. I have said so much of this because, as this is an autobiography, I cannot omit from it something which, unseen in actions, still forms a predominant motive in my life. It is something which, while it perfectly embraces _all_ landscaping or picture-making or dainty delicate cataloguing in poetry, _a la_ Morris at times, or like the Squyre of Lowe Degre, in detail, also involves a far more earnest feeling, and one which combines thought or _religion_ with emotion, just as a melody which we associate with a beautiful poem is worth more to us than one which we do not. Burne Jones is a higher example of this.
During this season we met at Mrs. Inwood Jones'--who was a niece of Lady Morgan and had many interesting souvenirs of her aunt--several people of note, among whom was Mme. Taglioni, now a very agreeable and graceful though naturally elderly lady. I was charmed with her many reminiscences of well-known characters, and as I had seen her as well as Ellsler and all the great _ballerine_ many times, we had many conferences. Somebody said to her one day, "So you know Mr. Leland?" "Yes," replied Taglioni in jest, "he was one of my old lovers." This was reported to me, when I said, "I wish she had told me that thirty years sooner." In 1846 Taglioni owned three palaces in Venice, one of them the Ca' d'oro, and in 1872 she was giving lessons in London. At Mrs. Frank Hill's I made the acquaintance of the marvellously clever Eugene Schuyler, and at Mr. Smalley's of the equally amazingly cheeky and gifted "Joaquin" Miller. Somewhere else I met several times another curious celebrity whom I had known in America, the Chevalier Wykoff. Though he was almost the type and proverb of an adventurer, I confess that I always liked him. He was gentlemanly and kind in his manner, and agreeable and intelligent in conversation. Though he had been Fanny Ellsler's agent or secretary, and written those two curiously cool works, "Souvenirs of a Roving Diplomatist" (he had been employed by Palmerston) and "My Courtship and its Consequences" (in reference to his having been imprisoned in Italy for attempting to carry off an elderly heiress), he was also the author of a really admirable work on the political system of the United States, which any man may read to advantage. A century ago or more he would have been a great man in his way. He knew everybody. I believe that as General Tevis formed his bold ideal of life from much reading of _condottieri_ or military adventurers, and Robert Hunt from Cooper's novels, so Wykoff got his inspiration for a career from studying and admiring the diplomatic _parvenus_ of Queen Anne's time. These _Bohemiens de la haute volee_, who drew their first motives from study, are by far more interesting and tolerable than those of an illiterate type.
One summer when I was at Bateman's, near Newport, with G. H. Boker, Robert Leroy, and our wives, Leroy reported one day that he had seen Wykoff, Hiram Fuller, a certain very dashing _prima donna_, and two other notorieties sitting side by side in a row on the steps of the Ocean House. I remarked that if there had only been with them the devil and Lola Montez, the party would have been complete. Leroy was famous for his quaint _mots_, in which he had a counterpart in "Tom Appleton," of Boston, whom I also knew very well. The Appletoniana and Leroyalties which were current in the Sixties would make a lively book.
I remember that one evening at a dinner at Trubner's in this year there were present M. Van der Weyer, G. H. Lewes, and M. Delepierre. I have rarely heard so much good talk in the same time. Thoughts so gay and flashes so refined, such a mingling of choice literature, brilliant anecdote, and happy jests, are seldom heard as I heard them. _Tempi passati_!
Apropos of George H. Boker and Leroy, I may here remark that they were both strikingly tall and _distingue_ men, but that when they dressed themselves for bass-fishing, and "put on mean attire," they seemed to be common fisher-folk. One day, while fishing on the rocks, there came up the elegant _prima donna_ referred to, who, seeing that they had very fine lobsters, ordered them to be taken to the hotel for her. "Can't do it, ma'am," answered Leroy brusquely; "we want them for bait." The lady swept away indignantly. To her succeeded Ralph Waldo Emerson, who did not know them personally, and who began to put to Mr. Boker questions as to his earnings and his manner of life, to all of which Mr. Boker replied with great _naivete_. Mr. B., however, had on his pole a silver reel, which had cost 30 pounds ($150), and at last Mr. Emerson's eye rested on that, and word no more spoke he, but, with a smile and bowing very politely, went his road. _Ultimam dixit salutem_.
One evening I was sitting in the smoking-room of the Langham Hotel, when an American said to me, "I hear that Charles Leland, who wrote 'Breitmann,' is staying here." "Yes, that is true," I replied. "Could you point him out to me?" asked the stranger. "I will do so with pleasure--in fact, if you will tell me your name, I think I can manage to introduce you." The American was very grateful for this, and asked when it would be. "_Now_ is the time," I said, "for I am he." On another occasion another stranger told me, that having heard that Mr. Leland was in the smoking-room, he had come in to see him, and asked me to point him out. I pointed to myself, at which he was much astonished, and then, apologetically and half ashamed, said, "Who do you really suppose, of all the men here present, I had settled on as being you?" I could not conjecture, when he pointed to a great broom-bearded, broad-shouldered, jovial, intemperate, German-looking man, and said, "There! I thought that must be the author of 'Hans Brietmann.'" Which suggested to me the idea, "Does the public, then, generally believe that poets look like their heroes?" One can indeed imagine Longfellow as Poor Henry of the "Golden Legend," but few would expect to find the counterpart of Biglow in a Lowell. And yet this belief or instinct is in every case a _great_ compliment, for it testifies that there is that in the poem which is inspired by Nature and originality, and that it is not all mere art-work or artificial. And it is true that by some strange law, name, body, and soul generally do preserve some kind of unity in the realm of literature. There has never been, as yet, a really great Gubbins or Podgers in poetry, or Boggs in romance; and if literature has its Hogg, let it be remembered that the wild boar in all Northern sagas and chronicles, like the Eber in Germany, or the Wolf, was a name of pride and honour, as seen in Eberstein. The Whistler of St. Leonard's is one of the most eccentric and original of Scott's characters, and the Whistler of St. Luke's, or the patron saint of painting, is in no respect deficient in these noble qualifications. The Seven Whistlers who fly unseen by night, ever piping a wild nocturne, are the most uncanny of birds, while there is, to my mind, something absolutely grotesquely awful (as in many of "Dreadful Jemmy's" pictures) in the narration that in ancient days the immense army of the Mexican Indians marched forth to battle all whistling in unison--probably a symphony in blood-colour. Fancy half a million of Whistlers on the war-path, about to do battle to the death with as many Ruskins--I mean red-skins! _Nomen est omen_.
One of the most charming persons whom I ever met in my life was the Hon. Mrs. Caroline Norton, and one of the most delightful dinners at which my wife and I were ever present was at her house. As I had been familiar with her poems from my boyhood, I was astonished to find her still so beautiful and young--if my memory does not deceive me, I thought her far younger looking than myself. I owe her this compliment, for I can recall her speaking with great admiration of Mrs. Leland to Lord Houghton and "Bulwer."
Mrs. Norton had not only a graceful, fascinating expression of figure and motion, but narrated everything so well as to cast a peculiar life and interest into the most trifling anecdote. I remember one of the latter.
"Lord Houghton," she said, "calls you, Mr. Leland, the poet of jargons." (He indeed introduced me to all his guests once by this term.) "Jargon is a confusion of language, and I have a maid who lives in a jargon of ideas--as to values. The other day she broke to utter ruin an antique vase"--(I do not accurately recall what the object was)--"which cost four hundred pounds, and when I said that it was such a grief to me to lose it, she replied, while weeping, 'Oh, do not mind it, my lady; _I'll_ buy you just such another,' as if it were worth tenpence."
Mrs. Norton had marvellously beautiful and expressive eyes, such as one seldom meets thrice in a life. As a harp well played inspires tears or the impulse to dance, so her glances conveyed, almost in the same instant, deep emotion and exquisite merriment. I remember that she was much amused with some of my American jests and reminiscences, and was always prompt to respond, _eodem genere_. So nightingale the wodewale answereth.
During this season in London I met Thomas Carlyle. Our mutual friend, Moncure Conway, had arranged that I should call on the great writer at the house of the latter in Chelsea. I went there at about eleven in the morning, and when Mr. Carlyle entered the room I was amazed--I may say almost awed--by something which was altogether unexpected, and this was his _extraordinary_ likeness to my late father. A slight resemblance to Carlyle may be seen in my own profile, but had he been with my father, the pair might have passed for twins; and in iron-grey grimness and the never-to-be-convinced expression of the eyes they were identity itself.