Chapter 7

About midway the terrace, and conspicuous from its size and height, rises a mound of earth shaped into the semblance of an urn or vase, crusted thickly with bits of rock, moss, and pebbles, and overgrown with a tangle of tiny vines. Surmounting this picturesque pedestal is an obelisk of black-veined marble on a granite base, the whole rising some seven feet from the ground. On the polished surface of this memorial pillar is inscribed, in large black capitals, the following classic and touching tribute to the venerable departed who sleeps in peace below:

IN MEMORIAM TOMMY FELINI GENERIS OPTIMUS. DECESSIT A VITA MENSE NOVEMBRIS ANNO ÆTATIS 19.

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_Quid me ploras? Nonne decessi gravis senectute? Nonne vivo amicorum ardentium memoria?_

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On the reverse side of the column appears an inscription even more pathetic and poetic, to yet another departed favorite, who seems, not like Tommy to have been gathered to his fathers ripe in years and honors but to have been cut down in the bloom of youth by some untimely and tragic fate. He is all the more felin'ly lamented:

HIC JACET PUSSY SUI GENERIS PULCHERRIMUS. OCCISUS EST MENSE APRILIS ÆTAT. 9.

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"_Vixi, et quum dederat cursum fortuna, peregi. Felix! heu nimium felix! si litora ista nunquam tetigissem!_"

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Thanks to certain by no means homoeopathic doses of the Latin grammar in my early years, I was able to gather the meaning of these elegiac effusions, and when the last stanza embodying poor Pussy's posthumous wail was discovered to be none other than the despairing death-cry of the "infelix Dido" as immortalized by Virgil--the one step from the sublime to the ridiculous seemed to have been passed.

I looked at Nannette, and Nannette looked at me, and we burst into silent but irrepressible laughter. Nannette was the first to recover herself.

"We ought to be ashamed of ourselves," said she severely: "Honest grief is always respectable; and a fitting tribute to departed worth, no more than what is due from the survivors. I have no doubt but that Tommy and Pussy were most esteemed members of society, and that their loss has left an aching void in the family of which they were the youngest and most petted darlings. I have heard the history of this monument, and the village that has grown up around it, and if you will comport yourself more as a Christian being should in the presence of a solemn memorial, I will relate to you the interesting facts in my possession."

I immediately signified a due contrition and full purpose of amendment; when Nannette continued, still speaking with the gravity befitting the subject.

"This estate then, this large and respectable mansion, and these pleasant grounds in which we now sit, are the property in common of three most estimable ladies, all past their first youth, and all possessed of sufficient good sense and strength of mind to remain their own mistresses, which has procured for the very remarkable specimen of ingenuity now before us, from some ignorant townspeople, the sobriquet of the 'Old Maid's Village.'

"There is only one of the ladies, however, I am informed, who interests herself in the construction of these most ingenious toys. Possessed of ample means, and more than ample leisure, she amuses herself in hours which might otherwise be devoted to gossip and tea, in putting together these various models of buildings, all differing in style, and of most singular materials. The church, for instance, is built of fragments of clinker, gathered from stove and grate, and held firmly together by cement. Nothing could have reproduced so exactly the rough reddish stone of which the old Sleepy Hollow Church is built. The window-glass is represented by carefully framed pieces of tin foil; the gray stone of the gate-posts is imitated by sand rubbed on wooden pillars with a coating of cement. The streets are paved in much the same clever fashion. The well, the pond, the stream, are filled with water each day by the chatelaine's own careful hands. Many of the mimic creatures, human and otherwise, are automata, manufactured to order; the others are wooden or china figures selected with extreme care as to their fitness for their purpose. So rare and so exceedingly pretty are some of these little figures, that they have become objects of unlawful desire to certain soulless curiosity-mongers, who have rewarded an open and confiding hospitality with base attempts at spoliation; and now a person is employed to live in the cottage just beyond us, and do little else than take care of these unique possessions.

"No, you need not start. The woman is probably there at her post, and surveying our operations from time to time. But we have behaved like decent people. We are taking away nothing but a remembrance of a singularly interesting hour, and an admiring impression of the originality, the ingenuity, the industry, and the independence of one of our own sex.

"Is it not so, my friend? And now, by the length of those cedar shadows, it is time for us to rise up and be gone. Else the moonlight will have met and parted with the sunset ere we reach home."

There was nothing to be said; the tale had been told, and with one last, lingering glance, one parting smile, half amused, half touched, I rose, and together we walked home in somewhat pensive mood. Was it not our last day in Fairyland?--_Kate J. Hill_.

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_WINE AND KISSES._

TRANSLATED FROM THE PERSIAN OF MIRTSA SCHAFFY.

The lover may be shy-- His bashfulness goes by When first he kisses.

The bibber, though so staid, Gets bravely unafraid When wine his bliss is.

Yet he who, in his youth, No wine nor kiss hath tasted. Will some day think, in truth, That half his joys were wasted.

--_Joel Benton_.

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I have heard it asked why we speak of the dead with unqualified praise: of the living, always with certain reservations. It may be answered, because we have nothing to fear from the former, while the latter may stand in our way: so impure is our boasted solicitude for the memory of the dead. If it were the sacred and earnest feeling we pretend, it would strengthen and animate our intercourse with the living.--_Goethe_.

_THE QUEEN'S CLOSET._

Did anybody ever see a fairy in the city? Was a glimpse ever caught of Fairyland there? I say _No_. But I was in the country this summer where a great number of mushrooms grew, and one day when I was walking in a grassy lane I met a little, old queen, who was fanning herself with the leaf of the poor-man's-weather-glass; she had taken off her crown, and it was lying on the top of a lovely red mushroom. I poked the mushroom with my parasol, and instantly felt on my face a faint puff of air, and heard a hum no louder than the buzz of an angry fly.

I sat down on the grass, and then my eyes fell on the queen.

"You have let my crown fall in the dirt," she said, tossing a wisp of hair from her forehead; "but you great, insensible beings are always in mischief when you are in the country. Why don't you stay at home, in your brick cages that stand on heaps of flat stones? You are watched there all the time by creatures with clubs in their leather belts, so you cannot tear and crush things to pieces as you do here."

"Oh, I am so sorry, madam," I answered; "if you knew how unhappy I felt this morning when I started on my last walk, you would pity me. I must go home at once, and my home is in the city--shut in by houses before and behind it. If I look out of the window, I only see a strip of sky above me, where neither sun nor moon passes on its journey round the world; and below me, only the stone pavement over which goes an endless procession of men and women, upon a hundred errands I never guess at."

The queen tapped her head with a white stick like a peeled twig, and made such a noise that I examined it, and saw an ivory knob, which reminded me of the budding horns of a young deer. As if in answer to my thought, she said:

"It drops off every year. In the fairy-nature all elements are united. We partake of the animal and vegetable kingdoms, and add our own; this makes us what we are. We do not suffer, but we experience, without suffering, of course; our long lives glide along like dreams. As you are in sleep, so are we awake. If you love the country, which contains our kingdom, as the filbert-shell contains the kernel, I will endow you with power. I will give you something to take back with you."

What do you think she gave me? A little closet with shelves; on each shelf were laid away all my remembrances of the summer, for me to unfold at leisure. When she gave me the key, which looked exactly like a steel pen, she said: "When you turn the key you will understand my power. All things will be alive, will know as much, and talk as fast as you do. The closet, in short, is but a wee corner of my kingdom, where to-day and to-morrow are the same--past and present one. A maid-of-honor wishes to go to town. I'll send her in the closet. My slave, the geometrical spider, must spin her a warm cobweb--and when you open the closet, be sure and not disturb my little Fancie."

Some way Queen Imagin disappeared then. To any person less knowing than myself, it would have seemed as if a dandelion ball was floating in the air; but I knew better, and I watched her sailing, sailing away till lost behind the trees. The crown was gone, too; I discovered nothing in the neighborhood of the red mushroom, except a tiny yellow blossom already wilted by the heat of the sun.

Well, I am at home. I sit down this misty autumn morning in my lonely room, and wish for some work or if not that, for something to play with. I am too old for dolls, but very young in the way of amusement. Ah--the closet! I'll unlock that; the key is at hand--in my writing-desk.

Open Sesame! On the top shelf sits little Fancie, her eyes shining like diamonds in her soft, dusky cobweb. She nods, so do I, and we are in Greenside again--on a summer evening. How the crickets sing; and the tree-toads harp in the trees as if they were a picket guard entirely surrounding us. Hueston's big dog barks in the lane at just the right distance. What security I used to feel when I was a little child, tucked away in my bed, and heard a dog bark a mile away; too far off ever to come up and bite, and yet near enough to frighten prowling robbers!

"When in the breeze the distant watch-dog bayed," I was about to say; but Polly, who is at Greenside with me, calls, "Just hear the mosquitoes."

The blinds must be closed. What a delicious smell comes in! The dew wetting all the shrubs and flowers distils sweet odors. What a family of moths have rushed in; this big, brown one, with white and red markings, is very enterprising. He has voyaged twice down the lamp chimney, as if it were the funnel of a steamship.

Get out, moth!

"Sho," she answers in a husky voice, as if very dry, "It is my nature to; that's all you know, turning us to moral purposes, and making us a tiresome metaphor. We are much like you human creatures--only we don't compare ourselves continually with others. We just scorch ourselves as we please. My cousin, Noctilia Glow-worm, who is out late o' nights on the grass-bank in poor company--the Katydids, who board for the season with the widow Poplar--a two-sided, deceitful woman--she does not care where I go, and never shrieks out, 'A burnt moth dreads the lamp chimney.' If she sees me wingless, she coughs, and throws out a green light, but says nothing. Don't mind me; there's more coming."

It can't be moths making such a noise on the second shelf. It is Tom, who calls out to us, from his room, to come, and help him catch a bat.

"Now air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wings."

"Always mouthing something," somebody mutters. But we rush into Tom's room, and behold him in the middle of the floor, flopping north and south, east and west, with a towel. No bat is to be seen. I hear a pretty singing, however, and declare it to be from a young swallow fallen down the chimney; but as there is no fire-place in the room, my opinion goes for nothing. Tom maintains that it is a bat; that it flew in by the window; and that it is behind the bureau. He is right, for the bat whirrs up to the ceiling and from that height accosts us in a squeaking voice:

"I am weak-eyed, am I? and my wings are leathery? Catch me, and you will find my wings are like down, my eyes as bright as diamonds. How much you know, writing yourselves down in books as Naturalists! My name is Vespertila; my family are from Servia, at your service. Could you offer me a fly, or a beetle? I was chasing Judge Blue Bottle, or I should not have been trapped. Go to sleep, dears, and leave me to fan you. When you are asleep, I'll bite a hole in your ear, and sup bountifully on your red blood."

Flop went our towels, and down went Miss Vespertila behind the bed crying. Polly crept up to her; and caught her in a towel. What black beads of eyes had Miss Vespertila from Servia, where her grandfather, General Vampire, still commands a brigade of rascals! Her teeth were sharp, and white as pearls. Polly held her up, and she cunningly combed her furry wings with her hind feet, and said:

"Polly, dear, I itch dreadfully; do you mind plain speaking? I am full of bat lice. Ariel caught them, and the folks say that Queen Mab often buys fine combs--"

"Slanderer!" cried Polly, "fly to your witch home!"

She shook the towel out of the window, and the bat soared away.

"What's coming next?" we all asked. "There are the rabbits to hear from, the pigeons, the sparrows, the mole, and the striped snake who lives by the garden gate?"

Slap, Bang! Fancie has pulled the door to. The cunning Queen Imagin placed her in the closet, perhaps for this purpose. But I have the key. I shall unlock it to-morrow, for I must have the picnic over again, under the beech tree, where the brown thrush built her nest, and reared her young ones, who ate our crumbs, and chirped merrily when we laughed.--_Lolly Dinks's Mother_.

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Doth a man reproach thee for being proud or ill-natured, envious or conceited, ignorant or detractive, consider with thyself whether his reproaches be true. If they are not, consider that thou art not the person whom he reproaches, but that he reviles an imaginary being, and perhaps loves what thou really art, although he hates what thou appearest to be. If his reproaches are true, if thou art the envious, ill-natured man he takes thee for, give thyself another turn, become mild, affable and obliging, and his reproaches of thee naturally cease. His reproaches may indeed continue, but thou art no longer the person he reproaches.--_Epictetus_.

_LITERATURE._

"Of the making of many books there is no end," said the Wise Man of old. Of the making of good books there is frequently an end, say we. The good books of one year may be counted on the fingers of one hand. Among those of the present year none ranks higher than Taine's "Art in Greece," a translation of which, by Mr. John Durand, is published by Messrs. Holt & Williams. The French are a nation of critics, and Taine is the critic of the French. This could not have been said with truth during the lifetime of Sainte-Beuve, but since his death it is true. There is nothing, apparently, which Taine is not competent to criticise, so subtle is his intellect, and so wide the range of his studies, but what he is most competent to criticise is Art. We have heard great things of a History of English Literature by him, but as it has not yet appeared in an English dress (although Messrs. Holt & Williams have a translation of it in press) we shall reserve our decision until it appears. Art, it seems to us, is the specialty to which Taine has devoted himself, with the enthusiasm peculiar to his countrymen, and a thoroughness peculiar to himself. Others may have accumulated greater stores of art-knowledge--the knowledge indispensable to the historian of Art, and the biographer of artists--but none has so saturated himself with the spirit of Art as Taine. We may not always agree with him, but he is always worth listening to, and what he says is worthy of our serious consideration. We think he is _too_ philosophical sometimes, but then the fault may be in us. It may be that we are so accustomed to the materialism of the English critics that we fail, at first, to apprehend the spirituality of this most refined and refining of Frenchmen. No English critic could have written his "Art in Greece," because no English critic could put himself in his place. We know what the English think of Greek Art, or may, with a little reading: what Taine thinks of it is--that it is what it is, simply because the Greeks were what they were. Before he tells us what Greek Art is, he tells us what the Greeks were. Nor does he stop here, but goes on to tell us, or rather begins by telling us, what kind of a country it was in which they dwelt, what skies shone over them, what mountains looked down upon them, in the shadow of what trees they walked within sight of the wine-dark sea. He begins at the beginning, as the children say. Whether he succeeds in convincing us that it was Greece alone which made the Greeks what they were, depends somewhat upon the cast of our minds, and somewhat upon our power to resist his eloquence. We think, ourselves, that he lays too much stress upon the mere outward environment of the Grecian people. The influence exercised over their lives, by the Institutions which grew up out of these lives--the influence, in short, of their purely physical culture--is admirably described, as is also the difference between this culture and ours:

"Modern people are Christian, and Christianity is a religion of second growth which opposes natural instinct. We may liken it to a violent contraction which has inflected the primitive attitude of the human mind. It proclaims, in effect, that the world is sinful, and that man is depraved--which certainly is indisputable in the century in which it was born. According to it, man must change his ways. Life here below is simply an exile; let us turn our eyes upward to our celestial home. Our natural character is vicious; let us stifle natural desires and mortify the flesh. The experience of our senses and the knowledge of the wise are inadequate and delusive; let us accept the light of revelation, faith and divine illumination. Through penitence, renunciation and meditation let us develop within ourselves the spiritual man; let our life be an ardent awaiting of deliverance, a constant sacrifice of will, an undying yearning for God, a revery of sublime love, occasionally rewarded with ecstasy and a vision of the infinite. For fourteen centuries the ideal of this life was the anchorite or monk. If you would estimate the power of such a conception and the grandeur of the transformation it imposes on human faculties and habits, read, in turn, the great Christian poem and the great pagan poem, one the 'Divine Comedy' and the other the 'Odyssey' and the 'Iliad.' Dante has a vision and is transported out of our little ephemeral sphere into eternal regions; he beholds its tortures, its expiations and its felicities; he is affected by superhuman anguish and horror; all that the infuriate and subtle imagination of the lover of justice and the executioner can conceive of he sees, suffers and sinks under. He then ascends into light; his body loses its gravity; he floats involuntarily, led by the smile of a radiant woman; he listens to souls in the shape of voices and to passing melodies; he sees choirs of angels, a vast rose of living brightness representing the virtues and the celestial powers; sacred utterances and the dogmas of truth reverberate in ethereal space. At this fervid height, where reason melts like wax, both symbol and apparition, one effacing the other, merge into mystic bewilderment, the entire poem, infernal or divine, being a dream which begins with horrors and ends in ravishment. How much more natural and healthy is the spectacle which Homer presents! We have the Troad, the isle of Ithica and the coasts of Greece; still at the present day we follow in his track; we recognize the forms of mountains, the color of the sea; the jutting fountains, the cypress and the alders in which the sea-birds perched; he copied a steadfast and persistent nature: with him throughout we plant our feet on the firm ground of truth. His book is a historical document; the manners and customs of his contemporaries were such as he describes; his Olympus itself is a Greek family."

The manifest inferiority of our mixed languages to their one simple language is stated in the following paragraph, with which we must leave Taine for the present: