The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859

V >> Various >> The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859

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_Mrs. Grey_. Fall things?

_Tomes_. But society has little to hope for from you, who would brand
callings and conditions with a distinctive costume. That was a part of
the essay that surprised me much. For the mere sake of a picturesque
variety, would you perpetuate the degradation of labor, the segregation
of professions, and set up again one of the social barriers between man
and man? Your doctrine is fitter for Hindostan than for America. This
uniformity of costume, of which you complain, is the great outward and
visible sign of the present political, and future social, equality of
the race.

_Grey_. You forget that the essay expressly recognizes, not only the
connection between social progress and the abandonment of distinction
in professional costume, but admits, perhaps somewhat hastily, that it
cannot be arrested, and deplores it only on the score of the beauty and
fitness of external life. If we must give up social progress or variety
of costume, who could doubt which to choose? But I do not hesitate to
assert that this uniform phase of costume is not a logical consequence
of social advancement, that it is the result of vanity and petty pride,
and in its spirit at variance with the very doctrine of equality,
irrespective of occupation or condition, from which it seems to spring.
For the carpenter, the smith, the physician, the lawyer, who, when not
engaged in his calling, makes it a point not to be known as belonging to
it, contemns it and puts it to open shame; and so this endeavor of all
men to dress on every possible occasion in a uniform style unsuited to
labor, so far from elevating labor, degrades it, and demoralizes the
laborer. This is exemplified every day, and especially on Sunday, when
nine-tenths of our population do all in their power, at cost of cash
and stretch of credit, at sacrifice of future comfort and present
self-respect and peace of mind, to look as unlike their real selves On
other days as possible. Our very maid-servants, who were brought up
shoeless, stockingless, and bonnetless, and who work day and night for
a few dollars a month, spend those dollars in providing themselves with
hoops, flounced silk dresses, and variegated bonnets for Sunday wearing.

_Tomes_. Do you grudge the poor creatures their holiday and their
holiday-dress?

_Grey_. Far from it! Let them, let us all, have more holidays, and
holiday-dresses as beautiful as may be. But I cannot see why a
holiday-dress should be so entirely unlike the dress they wear on other
days. I have a respect as well as an admiration for the white-capped,
bonnetless head of the French maid, which I cannot feel for my own
wife's nurse, when I meet her flaunting along the streets on Sunday
afternoon in a bonnet which is a cheap and vulgar imitation of that
which my wife wears, and really like it only in affording no protection
to her head, and requiring huge pins to keep it in the place where
a bonnet is least required. I have seen a farmer, whose worth,
intelligence, and manly dignity found fitting expression in the dress
that he daily wore, sacrifice this harmonious outward seeming in an
hour, and sink into insignificance, if not vulgarity, by putting on a
dress-coat and a shiny stove-pipe hat to go to meeting or to "York." A
dress-coat and a fashionable hat are such hideous habits in themselves,
that he must be unmistakably a man bred to wearing them, and on whom
they sit easily, if not a well-looking and distinguished man, who can
don them with impunity, especially if we have been accustomed to see him
in a less exacting costume.

_Mr. Key_. The very reason why every man will, at sacrifice of his
comfort and his last five dollars, exercise his right to wear them
whenever he can do so. But your idea of a beautiful costume, Mr. Grey,
seems to be a blue, red, or yellow bag, or bolster-case, drawn over the
head, mouth downwards, with a hole in the middle of the bottom for the
neck and two at the corners for the arms, and bound about the waist with
a cord; for I observe that you insist upon a girdle.

_Grey_. I don't scout your pattern so much as you probably expected.
Costumes worse in every respect have been often worn.--And the girdle?
Is it not, in female dress, at least, the most charming accessory of
costume? that which most defines the peculiar beauties of woman's form?
that to which the tenderest associations cling? Its knot has ever had
a sweet significance that makes it sacred. What token could a lover
receive that he would prize so dearly as the girdle whose office he has
so often envied? "That," cries Waller,--

"That which her slender waist confin'd
Shall now my joyful temples bind.

* * * * *

Give me but what this ribbon bound,
Take all the rest the sun goes round."

Have women taste? and can they put off this cestus with which the least
attractive of them puts on some of Venus's beauty? Have they sentiment?
and can they discard so true a type of their tender power that its mere
lengthening makes every man their servant?

_Tomes_. Your bringing up the poets to your aid reminds me that you have
the greatest of them against you, as to the importance of richness in
dress. What do you say to Shakespeare's "Costly thy habit as thy purse
can buy, but not expressed in fancy"?

_Grey_. That it is often quoted as Shakespeare's advice in dress by
people who know nothing else that he wrote, and who would have his
support for their extravagance, when, in fact, we do not know what
Shakespeare would have thought upon the subject, had he lived now. It is
the advice of a worldly-minded old courtier to his son, given as a mere
prudential maxim, at a time when, to make an impression and get on at
court, a man had need to be richly dressed. That need has entirely
passed away.

_Miss Larches_. But, Mr. Grey, I remember your finding fault with
the powder on the head-dress of that _marquise_ costume, because it
concealed the red hair of the wearer. In such a case I should consider
powder a blessing. Do you really admire red hair?

_Grey_. When it is beautiful, I do, and prefer it to that of any other
tint. I don't mean golden hair, or flaxen, or yellow, but red,--the
color of dark red amber, or, nearer yet, of freshly cut copper. There is
ugly red hair, as there is ugly hair of black and brown, and every other
hue. It is not the mere name of the color of the hair that makes it
beautiful or not, but its tint and texture. I have seen black hair that
was hideous to the sight and repulsive to the touch,--other, also black,
that charmed the eyes and wooed the fingers. Fashion has asserted
herself even in this particular. There have been times when the really
fortunate possessor of such brown tresses as Miss Larches's would have
been deemed unfortunate. No troubadour would have sung her praises; or
if he did, he would either have left her hair unpraised, or else lied
and called it golden, meaning red, as we know by the illuminated books
of the Middle Ages. Had she lived in Venice, that great school of color,
two or three hundred years ago, in the days of Titian and Giorgione, its
greatest masters, she would probably have sat upon a balcony with her
locks drawn through a crownless broad-brimmed hat, and covered with dye,
to remove some of their rich chestnut hue, and substitute a reddish
tinge;--just as this lady is represented as doing in this Venetian book
of costumes of that date.

_Key_. Oh that two little nephews of mine, that the boys call Carroty
Bill and Brickdust Ben, were here! How these comfortable words would
edify them!

_Grey_. I'm afraid not, if they understood me, or the poets, who, as
well as the painters, are with me, Horace's Pyrrha had red hair,--

"Cui flavam religas comam
Simplex munditiis?"

which, if Tomes will not be severely critical, I will translate,--

"For whom bind'st back thy amber hair
In neat simplicity?"

_Mrs. Grey_. The poets are always raving about neat simplicity, or
something else that is not the fashion. I suppose they sustain you in
your condemnation of perfumes, too.

_Tomes_. There I'm with Grey,--and the poets, too, I think.

_Mrs. Grey_. What say you, Mr. Key?

_Tomes_. At least, Grey, [_turning to him_,] Plautus says, "_Mulier
recte olet ubi nihil olet_" which you may translate for the ladies, if
you choose. I always distrust a woman steeped in perfumes upon the very
point as to which she seeks to impress me favorably.

_Grey_ [_as if to himself and Tomes_]--

"Still to be powder'd, still perfum'd,
Lady, it is to be presum'd,
Though Art's hid causes are not found,
All is not sweet, all is not sound."

_Mrs. Grey_. What is that you are having to yourselves, there?

_Grey_. Only a verse or two _a-propos_ from rare Ben.

_Mrs. Grey_. What do poets know about dress, even when they are
poetesses? Look at your friend, the authoress of the "Willow Wreath."
What a spook that woman is! Where does she get those dresses? I've often
wondered--

* * * * *

Here the glass door opened, and a neat, fresh-looking maid-servant said,
"Please, Ma'am, dinner is served."

_Grey_. Dinner! Have we been talking here two mortal hours? You'll
all stop, of course: don't think of declining. Nelly blushes, yonder,
doubtful, on "hospitable thoughts intent," I don't believe "our general
mother," though she had Eden for her larder, heard Adam announce the
Archangel's unexpected visit about dinner-time without a momentary qualm
as to whether the peaches would go round twice. There'll be enough for
Miss Larches and you, Nelly; and we gentlemen will beam smiles upon you
as we mince our modest share. Let us go in. Mr. Key, will you commit
yourself to Mrs. Grey? Miss Larches, will you lay aside your bonnet? Oh,
it's off already! One can't see, unless one stands behind you; and
I prefer the front view. Pray, take my arm. And, Tomes, keep at a
respectful distance in the rear, for the safety of Miss Larches's
skirts, or she will be for excluding you, if we should have a talk about
another phase of Daily Beauty, or stay away herself; and neither of you
could be spared.

THE ARTIST-PRISONER.

Here, in this vacant cell of mine,
I picture and paint my Apennine.

In spite of walls and gyved wrist,
I gather my gold and amethyst.

The muffled footsteps' ebb and swell,
Immutable tramp of sentinel,

The clenched lip, the gaze of doom,
The hollow-resounding dungeon-gloom,

All fade and cease, as, mass and line,
I shadow the sweep of Apennine,

And from my olive palette take
The marvellous pigments, flake by flake.

With azure, pearl, and silver white,
The purple of bloom and malachite,

Ceiling, wall, and iron door,
When the grim guard goes, I picture o'er.

E'en where his shadow falls athwart
The sunlight of noon, I've a glory wrought,--

Have shaped the gloom and golden shine
To image my gleaming Apennine.

No cruel Alpine heights are there,
Dividing the depths of pallid air;

But sea-blue liftings, far and fine,
With driftings of pearl and coralline;

And domes of marble, every one
All ambered o'er by setting sun;--

Yes, marble realms, that, clear and high,
So float in the purple-azure sky,

We all have deemed them, o'er and o'er,
Miraculous isles of madrepore;

Nor marvel made that hither floods
Bore wonderful forms of hero-gods.
Oh, can you see, as spirit sees,
Yon silvery sheen of olive-trees?

To me a sound of murmuring doves
Comes wandering up from olive-groves,

And lingers near me, while I dwell
On yonder fair field of asphodel,

Half-lost in sultry songs of bees,
As, touching my chaliced anemones,

I prank their leaves with dusty sheen
To show where the golden bees have been.

On granite wall I paint the June
With emerald grape and wild festoon,--

Its chestnut-trees with open palms
Beseeching the sun for daily alms,--

In sloping valley, veiled with vines,
A violet path beneath the pines,--

The way one goes to find old Rome,
Its far away sign a purple dome.

But not for me the glittering shrine:
I worship my God in the Apennine!

To all save those of artist eyes,
The listeners to silent symphonies,

Only a cottage small is mine,
With poppied pasture, sombre pine.

But _they_ hear anthems, prayer, and bell,
And sometimes they hear an organ swell;

They see what seems--so saintly fair--
Madonna herself a-wandering there,

Bearing baby so divine
They speak of the Child in Palestine!

Yet I, who threw my palette down
To fight on the walls of yonder town,

Know them for wife and baby mine,
As, weeping, I trace them, line by line,
In far-off glen of Apennine!

THE MINISTER'S WOOING.

[Continued.]

CHAPTER XXV.

A GUEST AT THE COTTAGE.

Nothing is more striking, in the light and shadow of the human drama,
than to compare the inner life and thoughts of elevated and silent
natures with the thoughts and plans which those by whom they are
surrounded have of and for them. Little thought Mary of any of the
speculations that busied the friendly head of Miss Prissy, or that lay
in the provident forecastings of her prudent mother. When a life into
which all our life-nerves have run is cut suddenly away, there follows,
after the first long bleeding is stanched, an internal paralysis of
certain portions of our nature. It was so with Mary: the thousand fibres
that bind youth and womanhood to earthly love and life were all in her
as still as the grave, and only the spiritual and divine part of her
being was active. Her hopes, desires, and aspirations were all such as
she could have had in greater perfection as a disembodied spirit than as
a mortal woman. The small stake for self which she had invested in
life was gone,--and henceforward all personal matters were to her so
indifferent that she scarce was conscious of a wish in relation to
her own individual happiness. Through the sudden crush of a great
affliction, she was in that state of self-abnegation to which the
mystics brought themselves by fastings and self-imposed penances,--a
state not purely healthy, nor realizing the divine ideal of a perfect
human being made to exist in the relations of human life,--but one of
those exceptional conditions, which, like the hours that often precede
dissolution, seem to impart to the subject of them a peculiar aptitude
for delicate and refined spiritual impressions. We could not afford to
have it always night,--and we must think that the broad, gay morning
light, when meadow-lark and robin and bobolink are singing in chorus
with a thousand insects and the waving of a thousand breezes, is on the
whole the most in accordance with the average wants of those who have
a material life to live and material work to do. But then we reverence
that clear-obscure of midnight, when everything is still and dewy;--then
sing the nightingales, which cannot be heard by day; then shine the
mysterious stars. So when all earthly voices are hushed in the soul, all
earthly lights darkened, music and color float in from a higher sphere.

No veiled nun, with her shrouded forehead and downcast eyes, ever moved
about a convent with a spirit more utterly divided from the world, than
Mary moved about her daily employments. Her care about the details of
life seemed more than ever minute; she was always anticipating
her mother in every direction, and striving by a thousand gentle
preveniences to save her from fatigue and care; there was even a
tenderness about her ministrations, as if the daughter had changed
feelings and places with the mother.

The Doctor, too, felt a change in her manner towards him, which, always
considerate and kind, was now invested with a tender thoughtfulness and
anxious solicitude to serve which often brought tears to his eyes.
All the neighbors who had been in the habit of visiting at the house
received from her, almost daily, in one little form or another, some
proof of her thoughtful remembrance.

She seemed in particular to attach herself to Mrs. Marvyn,--throwing her
care around that fragile and wounded nature, as a generous vine will
sometimes embrace with tender leaves and flowers a dying tree.

But her heart seemed to have yearnings beyond even the circle of home
and friends. She longed for the sorrowful and the afflicted,--she would
go down to the forgotten and the oppressed,--and made herself the
companion of the Doctor's secret walks and explorings among the poor
victims of the slave-ships, and entered with zeal as teacher among his
African catechumens.

Nothing but the limits of bodily strength could confine her zeal to do
and suffer for others; a river of love had suddenly been checked in her
heart, and it needed all these channels to drain off the waters
that must otherwise have drowned her in the suffocating agonies of
repression.

Sometimes, indeed, there would be a returning thrill of the old
wound,--one of those overpowering moments when some turn in life brings
back anew a great anguish. She would find unexpectedly in a book a mark
that he had placed there,--or a turn in conversation would bring back
a tone of his voice,--or she would see on some thoughtless young head
curls just like those which were swaying to and fro down among the
wavering seaweeds,--and then her heart gave one great throb of pain, and
turned for relief to some immediate act of love to some living being.
They who saw her in one of these moments felt a surging of her heart
towards them, a moisture of the eye, a sense of some inexpressible
yearning, and knew not from what pain that love was wrung, nor how that
poor heart was seeking to still its own throbbings in blessing them.

By what name shall we call this beautiful twilight, this night of
the soul, so starry with heavenly mysteries? _Not_ happiness,--but
blessedness. They who have it walk among men "as sorrowful, yet alway
rejoicing,--as poor, yet making many rich,--as having nothing, and yet
possessing all things."

The Doctor, as we have seen, had always that reverential spirit towards
women which accompanies a healthy and great nature; but in the constant
converse which he now held with a beautiful being, from whom every
particle of selfish feeling or mortal weakness seemed sublimed, he
appeared to yield his soul up to her leading with a wondering humility,
as to some fair, miraculous messenger of Heaven. All questions of
internal experience, all delicate shadings of the spiritual history,
with which his pastoral communings in his flock made him conversant, he
brought to her to be resolved with the purest simplicity of trust.

"She is one of the Lord's rarities," he said, one day, to Mrs.
Scudder, "and I find it difficult to maintain the bounds of Christian
faithfulness in talking with her. It is a charm of the Lord's hidden
ones that they know not their own beauty; and God forbid that I should
tempt a creature made so perfect by divine grace to self-exaltation,
or lay my hand unadvisedly, as Uzzah did, upon the ark of God, by my
inconsiderate praises!"

"Well, Doctor," said Miss Prissy, who sat in the corner, sewing on the
dove-colored silk, "I do wish you could come into one of our meetings
and hear those blessed prayers. I don't think you nor anybody else ever
heard anything like 'em."

"I would, indeed, that I might with propriety enjoy the privilege," said
the Doctor.

"Well, I'll tell you what," said Miss Prissy; "next week they're going
to meet here; and I'll leave the door just ajar, and you can hear every
word, just by standing in the entry."

"Thank you, Madam," said the Doctor; "it would certainly be a blessed
privilege, but I cannot persuade myself that such an act would be
consistent with Christian propriety."

"Ah, now do hear that good man!" said Miss Prissy, after he had left the
room; "if he ha'n't got the making of a real gentleman in him, as well
as a real Christian!--though I always did say, for my part, that a real
Christian will be a gentleman. But I don't believe all the temptations
in the world could stir that blessed man one jot or grain to do the
least thing that he thinks is wrong or out of the way. Well, I must say,
I never saw such a good man; he is the only man I ever saw good enough
for our Mary." Another spring came round, and brought its roses, and the
apple-trees blossomed for the third time since the commencement of our
story; and the robins had rebuilt their nest, and began to lay their
blue eggs in it; and Mary still walked her calm course, as a sanctified
priestess of the great worship of sorrow. Many were the hearts now
dependent on her, the spiritual histories, the threads of which were
held in her loving hand,--many the souls burdened with sins, or
oppressed with sorrow, who found in her bosom at once confessional and
sanctuary. So many sought her prayers, that her hours of intercession
were full, and often needed to be lengthened to embrace all for whom
she would plead. United to the good Doctor by a constant friendship and
fellowship, she had gradually grown accustomed to the more and more
intimate manner in which he regarded her,--which had risen from a simple
"dear child," and "dear Mary," to "dear friend," and at last "dearest of
all friends," which he frequently called her, encouraged by the calm,
confiding sweetness of those still, blue eyes, and that gentle smile,
which came without one varying flutter of the pulse or the rising of the
slightest flush on the marble cheek.

One day a letter was brought in, postmarked "Philadelphia." It was from
Madame de Frontignac; it was in French, and ran as follows:---

"MY DEAR LITTLE WHITE ROSE:--

"I am longing to see you once more, and before long [ shall be in
Newport. Dear little Mary, I am sad, very sad;--the days seem all of
them too long; and every morning I look out of my window and wonder why
I was born. I am not so happy as I used to be, when I cared for nothing
but to sing and smooth my feathers like the birds. That is the best kind
of life for us women;--if we love anything better than our clothes, it
is sure to bring us great sorrow. For all that, I can't help thinking it
is very noble and beautiful to love;--love is very beautiful, but very,
very sad. My poor dear little white cat, I should like to hold you a
little while to my heart;--it is so cold all the time, and aches so, I
wish I were dead; but then I am not good enough to die. The Abbe says,
we must offer up our sorrow to God as a satisfaction for our sins. I
have a good deal to offer, because my nature is strong and I can feel a
great deal.

"But I am very selfish, dear little Mary, to think only of myself, when
I know how you must suffer. Ah! but you knew he loved you truly, the
poor dear boy!--that is something. I pray daily for his soul; don't
think it wrong of me; you know it is our religion;--we should all do our
best for each other.

"Remember me tenderly to Mrs. Marvyn. Poor mother!--the bleeding heart
of the Mother of God alone can understand such sorrows.

"I am coming in a week or two, and then I have many things to say to _ma
belle rose blanche_; till then I kiss her little hands.

"VIRGINIE DE FRONTIGNAC."

One beautiful afternoon, not long after, a carriage stopped at the
cottage, and Madame de Frontignac alighted. Mary was spinning in her
garret-boudoir, and Mrs. Scudder was at that moment at a little distance
from the house, sprinkling some linen, which was laid out to bleach on
the green turf of the clothes-yard.

Madame de Frontignac sent away the carriage, and ran up the stairway,
pursuing the sound of Mary's spinning-wheel mingled with her song; and
in a moment, throwing aside the curtain, she seized Mary in her arms,
and kissed her on either cheek, laughing and crying both at once.

"I knew where I should find you, _ma blanche_! I heard the wheel of my
poor little princess! It's a good while since we spun together, _mimi_!
Ah, Mary, darling, little do we know what we spin! life is hard and
bitter, isn't it? Ah, how white your cheeks are, poor child!"

Madame de Frontignac spoke with tears in her own eyes, passing her hand
caressingly over the fair checks.

"And you have grown pale, too, dear Madame," said Mary, looking up, and
struck with the change in the once brilliant face.

"Have I, _petite?_ I don't know why not. We women have secret places
where our life runs out. At home I wear rouge; that makes all
right;--but I don't put it on for you, Mary; you see me just as I am."

Mary could not but notice the want of that brilliant color and roundness
in the cheek, which once made so glowing a picture; the eyes seemed
larger and tremulous with a pathetic depth, and around them those bluish
circles that speak of languor and pain. Still, changed as she was,
Madame de Frontignac seemed only more strikingly interesting and
fascinating than ever. Still she had those thousand pretty movements,
those nameless graces of manner, those wavering shades of expression,
that irresistibly enchained the eye and the imagination,--true
Frenchwoman as she was, always in one rainbow shimmer of fancy and
feeling, like one of those cloud-spotted April days which give you
flowers and rain, sun and shadow, and snatches of bird-singing all at
once.

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