"I believe nothing that I do not understand," is the favorite saying of Mr. Pettipo Dapperling, a gentleman who very much prides himself on his intellectual perspicacity. Yet ask Mr. Pettipo if he understands how it is that he wags his little finger, and he can give you no reasonable account of it. He will tell you (for he has read books and "studied" anatomy), that the little finger consists of so many jointed bones, that there are tendons attached to them before and behind, which belong to certain muscles, and that when these muscles are made to contract, the finger wags. And this is nearly all that Mr. Pettipo knows about it! How it is that the volition acts on the muscles, what volition is, what the will is—Mr. Pettipo knows not. He knows quite as little about the Sensation which resides in the skin of that little finger—how it is that it feels and appreciates forms and surfaces—why it detects heat and cold—in what way its papillæ erect themselves, and its pores open and close—about all this he is entirely in the dark. And yet Mr. Pettipo is under the necessity of believing that his little finger wags, and that it is endowed with the gift of sensation, though he in fact knows nothing whatever of the why or the wherefore.
We must believe a thousand things that we can not understand. Matter and its combinations are a grand mystery—how much more so, Life and its manifestations. Look at those far-off worlds majestically wheeling in their appointed orbits, millions of miles off: or, look at this earth on which we live, performing its diurnal motion upon its own axis, and its annual circle round the sun! What do we understand of the causes of such motions? what can we ever know about them, beyond the facts that such things are so? To discover and apprehend facts is much, and it is nearly our limit. To ultimate causes we can never ascend. But to have an eye open to receive facts and apprehend their relative value—that is a great deal—that is our duty; and not to reject, suspect, or refuse to accept them, because they happen to clash with our preconceived notions, or, like Mr. Pettipo Dapperling, because we "can not understand" them.
"O, my dear Kepler!" writes Galileo to his friend, "how I wish that we could have one hearty laugh together! Here at Padua is the principal Professor of Philosophy, whom I have repeatedly and urgently requested to look at the moon and planets through my glass, which he pertinaciously refuses to do. Why are you not here? What shouts of laughter we should have at this glorious folly! And to hear the Professor of Philosophy at Pisa lecturing before the Grand Duke with logical arguments, as if with magical incantations to charm the new planets out of the sky!"
Rub a stick of wax against your coat-sleeve, and it emits sparks: hold it near to light, fleecy particles of wool or cotton, and it first attracts, then it repels them. What do you understand about that, Mr. Pettipo, except merely that it is so? Stroke the cat's back before the fire, and you will observe the same phenomena. Your own body will, in like manner, emit sparks in certain states, but you know nothing about why it is so.
Pour a solution of muriate of lime into one of sulphate of potash—both clear fluids; but no sooner are they mixed together than they become nearly solid. How is that? You tell me that an ingredient of the one solution combines with an ingredient of the other, and an insoluble sulphate of lime is produced. Well! you tell me a fact; but you do not account for it by saying that the lime has a greater attraction for the sulphuric acid than the potash has: you do not understand how it is—you merely see that it is so. You must believe it.
But when you come to Life, and its wonderful manifestations, you are more in the dark than ever. You understand less about this than you do even of dead matter. Take an ordinary every-day fact: you drop two seeds, whose component parts are the same, into the same soil. They grow up so close together that their roots mingle and their stalks intertwine. The one plant produces a long slender leaf, the other a short flat leaf—the one brings forth a beautiful flower, the other an ugly scruff—the one sheds abroad a delicious fragrance, the other is entirely inodorous. The hemlock, the wheatstalk, and the rose-tree, out of the same chemical ingredients contained in the soil, educe, the one deadly poison, the other wholesome food, the third a bright consummate flower. Can you tell me, Mr. Pettipo, how is this? Do you understand the secret by which the roots of these plants accomplish so much more than all your science can do, and so infinitely excel the most skillful combinations of the philosopher? You can only recognize the fact—but you can not unravel the mystery. Your saying that it is the "nature" of the plants, does not in the slightest degree clear up the difficulty. You can not get at the ultimate fact—only the proximate one is seen by you.
But lo! here is a wonderful little plant—touch it, and the leaves shrink on the instant: one leaf seeming to be in intimate sympathy with the rest, and the whole leaves in its neighborhood shrinking up at the touch of a foreign object. Or, take the simple pimpernel, which closes its eye as the sun goes down, and opens as he rises again—shrinks at the approach of rain, and expands in fair weather. The hop twines round the pole in the direction of the sun, and—
Do we know any thing about these things, further than they are so?
A partridge chick breaks its shell and steps forth into its new world. Instantly it runs about and picks up the seeds lying about on the ground. It had never learned to run, or to see, or to select its food; but it does all these on the instant. The lamb of a few hours' old frisks about full of life, and sucks its dam's teat with as much accuracy as if it had studied the principle of the air-pump. Instinct comes full-grown into the world at once, and we know nothing about it, neither does the Mr. Dapperling above named.
When we ascend to the higher orders of animated being—to man himself—we are as much in the dark as before—perhaps more so. Here we have matter arranged in its most highly-organized forms—moving, feeling, and thinking. In man the animal powers are concentrated; and the thinking powers are brought to their highest point. How, by the various arrangements of matter in man's body, one portion of the nervous system should convey volitions from the brain to the limbs and the outer organs—how another part should convey sensations with the suddenness of lightning—and how, finally, a third portion should collect these sensations, react upon them, store them up by a process called Memory, reproduce them in thought, compare them, philosophize upon them, embody them in books—is a great and unfathomable mystery!
Life itself! how wonderful it is! Who can understand it, or unravel its secret! From a tiny vesicle, at first almost imperceptible to the eye, but gradually growing and accumulating about it fresh materials, which are in turns organized and laid down, each in their set places, at length a body is formed, becomes developed—passing through various inferior stages of being—those of polype, fish, frog, and animal—until, at length, the human being rises above all these forms, and the law of the human animal life is fulfilled. First, he is merely instinctive, then sensitive, then reflective—the last the greatest, the crowning work of man's development. But what do we know of it all? Do we not merely see that it is so, and turn aside from the great mystery in despair of ever unraveling it?
The body sleeps? Volition, sensation, and thought, become suspended for a time, while the animal powers live on; capillary arteries working, heart beating, lungs playing, all without an effort—voluntarily and spontaneously. The shadow of some recent thought agitates the brain, and the sleeper dreams. Or, his volition may awake, while sensation is still profoundly asleep, and then we have the somnambule, walking in his sleep. Or, volition may be profoundly asleep, while the senses are preternaturally excited, as in the abnormal mesmeric state. Here we have a new class of phenomena, more wonderful because less usual, but not a whit more mysterious than the most ordinary manifestations of life.
We are astonished to hear men refusing to credit the evidence of their senses as to mesmeric phenomena, on the ground that they can not "understand" them. When they can not understand the commonest manifestations of life—the causation of volition, sensation, or thought—why should they refuse belief on such a ground? Are the facts real? Are these things so? This should be the chief consideration with us. Mysteries they may be; but all life, all matter, all that is, are mysteries too. Do we refuse to believe in the electric telegraph, because the instantaneous transmission of intelligence between points a thousand miles apart seems at first sight fabulous, and, to the uninitiated, profoundly mysterious? Why should not thought—the most wonderful and subtle of known agencies—manifest itself in equally extraordinary ways?
We do not know that what the mesmerists call clairvoyance is yet to be held as established by sufficient evidence. Numerous strongly authenticated cases have certainly been adduced by persons whose evidence is above suspicion—as, for instance, by Swedenborg (attested by many impartial witnesses), by Goethe, by Zschokke, by Townshend, by Martineau, and others; but the evidence seems still to want confirmation. Only, we say, let us not prejudge the case—let us wait patiently for all sorts of evidence. We can not argue à priori that clairvoyance is not true, any more than the Professor at Padua could argue, with justice, that the worlds which Galileo's telescope revealed in the depths of space, were all a sham. That truth was established by extended observation. Let us wait and see whether this may not yet be established, too, by similar means.
Some of the things which the mesmerists, who go the length of clairvoyance, tell us, certainly have a very mysterious look; and were not sensation, thought, and all the manifestations of Life (not yet half investigated) all alike mysterious, we might be disposed to shut our eyes with the rest, and say we refused to believe, because we "did not understand."
But equally extraordinary relations to the same effect have been made by men who were neither mesmerists nor clairvoyantes. For instance, Kant, the German writer, relates that Swedenborg once, when living at Gottenburg, some three hundred miles from Stockholm, suddenly rose up and went out, when at the house of one Kostel, in the company of fifteen persons. After a few minutes he returned, pale and alarmed, and informed the party that a dangerous fire had just broken out in Stockholm, in Sudermalm, and that the fire was spreading fast. He was restless, and went out often; he said that the house of one of his friends, whom he named, was already in ashes, and that his own was in danger. At eight o'clock, after he had been out again, he joyfully exclaimed, "Thank God, the fire is extinguished the third door from my house." This statement of Swedenborg's spread through the town, and occasioned consternation and wonder. The governor heard of it, and sent for Swedenborg, who described the particulars of the fire—where and how it had begun, in what manner it had ceased, and how long it had continued. On the Monday evening, two days after the fire, a messenger arrived from Gottenburg, who had been dispatched during the time of the fire, and the intelligence he brought confirmed all that Swedenborg had said as to its commencement: and on the following morning the royal courier arrived at the governor's with full intelligence of the calamity, which did not differ in the least from the relation which Swedenborg had given immediately after the fire had ceased on the Saturday evening.
A circumstance has occurred while the writer was engaged in the preparation of this paper, which is of an equally curious character, to say the least of it. The lady who is the subject of it is a relation of the writer, and is no believer in the "Mysteries of Mesmerism." It may be remarked, however, that she is of a very sensitive and excitable nervous temperament. It happened, that on the night of the 30th of April, a frightful accident occurred on the Birkenhead, Lancashire, and Cheshire Railway, in consequence of first one train, and then another, running into the trains preceding. A frightful scene of tumult, mutilation, and death ensued. It happened that the husband of the lady in question was a passenger in the first train; though she did not know that he intended to go to the Chester races, having been in Liverpool that day on other business. But she had scarcely fallen asleep, ere, half-dozing, half-awake, she saw the accident occur—the terror, the alarm, and the death. She walked up and down her chamber in terror and alarm the whole night, and imparted her fears to others in the morning. Her husband was not injured, though greatly shaken by the collision, and much alarmed; and when he returned home in the course of the following day, he could scarcely believe his wife when she informed him of the circumstances which had been so mysteriously revealed to her in connection with his journey of the preceding day!
Zschokke, an estimable man, well known as a philosopher, statesman, and author, possessed, according to his own and contemporary accounts, the most extraordinary power of divination of the characters and lives of other men with whom he came in contact. He called it his "inward sight," and at first he was himself quite as much astonished at it as others were. Writing of this feature himself, he says: "It has happened to me, sometimes, on my first meeting with strangers, as I listened silently to their discourse, that their former life, with many trifling circumstances therewith connected, or frequently some particular scene in that life, has passed quite involuntarily, and, as it were, dream-like, yet perfectly distinct, before me. During this time, I usually feel so entirely absorbed in the contemplation of the stranger life, that at last I no longer see clearly the face of the unknown, wherein I undesignedly read, nor distinctly hear the voices of the speakers, which before served in some measure as a commentary to the text of their features. For a long time I held such visions as delusions of the fancy, and the more so as they showed me even the dress and motions of the actors, rooms, furniture, and other accessories. By way of jest, I once, in a family circle at Kirchberg, related the secret history of a seamstress who had just left the room and the house. I had never seen her before in my life; people were astonished and laughed, but were not to be persuaded that I did not previously know the relations of which I spoke, for what I had uttered was the literal truth; I, on my part, was no less astonished that my dream-pictures were confirmed by the reality. I became more attentive to the subject, and when propriety admitted it, I would relate to those whose life thus passed before me, the subject of my vision, that I might thereby obtain confirmation or refutation of it. It was invariably ratified, not without consideration on their part. I myself had less confidence than any one in this mental jugglery. So often as I revealed my visionary gifts to any new person, I regularly expected to hear the answer: 'It was not so.' I felt a secret shudder when my auditors replied that it was true, or when their astonishment betrayed my accuracy before they spoke."[12] Zschokke gives numerous instances of this extraordinary power of divination or waking clairvoyance, and mentions other persons whom he met, who possessed the same marvelous power.
The "Posthumous Memoirs of La Harpe" contain equally extraordinary revelations, looking forward, instead of backward, as in Zschokke's case, into the frightful events of the great French Revolution, the sightseer being Cazove, a well-known novel writer, who lived previous to the frightful outbreak. Mary Howitt, in her account of the extraordinary "Preaching Epidemic of Sweden," recites circumstances of the same kind, equally wonderful; and the Rev. Mr. Sandy and Mr. Townshend's books on mesmerism are full of similar marvels. Among the various statements, the grand point is, how much of them is true? What are the facts of mesmerism? To quote the great Bacon: "He who hath not first, and before all, intimately explained the movements of the human mind, and therein most accurately distinguished the course of knowledge and the seats of error, shall find all things masked, and, as it were, enchanted; and, until he undo the charm, shall be unable to interpret." How few of us have yet arrived at this enviable position.
A young French traveler, named Ernest Leroy, on arriving at Naples, found himself during the first few days quite confused by the multitude of his impressions. Now as it was in search of impressions that he had left his beloved Paris, there was nothing, it should seem, very grievous in this; and yet in the midst of his excitement there occurred intervals of intolerable weariness of spirit—moments when he looked upon the Strada Toledo with disgust, wished himself any where but in San Carlos, sneered at Posilippo, pooh-poohed Vesuvius, and was generally skeptical as to the superiority of the Bay over the Bosphorus, which he had not seen. All this came to pass because he had set out on the principle of traveling in a hurry, or, as he expressed it, making the most of his time. Every night before going to bed he made out and wrote down a programme of next day's duties—assigning so many hours to each sight, and so many minutes to each meal, but forgetting altogether to allow himself any opportunity for repose or digestion.
Thus he had come from Paris viâ Milan, Florence, and Rome, to Naples—the whole in the space of three weeks, during which, as will be easily imagined, he had visited an incredible number of churches, galleries, temples, and ruins of every description. In order to profit as much as possible by his travels he had arranged beforehand five or six series of ideas, or meditations as he called them: one on the assistance afforded by the fine arts to the progress of civilization, another consisting of a string of sublime commonplaces on the fall of empires and the moral value of monumental history; and so on. Each of these meditations he endeavored to recall on appropriate occasions; and he never had leisure to reflect, that for any instruction he was deriving from what he saw he might as well have stopped at home. However, having some imagination and talent, he frequently found himself carried away by thoughts born of the occasion, and so irresistibly, that once or twice he went through a whole gallery or church before he had done with the train of ideas suggested by some previous sight, and was only made aware that he had seen some unique painting or celebrated windows of stained-glass by the guide claiming payment for his trouble, and asking him to sign a testimonial doing justice to his civility and great store of valuable information. It is only just to state that M. Ernest never failed to comply with either of these demands.
When, however, as we have said, he had been two or three days in Naples, and had rushed over the ground generally traversed by tourists, our young traveler began to feel weary and disgusted. For some time he did not understand what was the matter, and upbraided himself with the lack of industry and decline of enthusiasm, which made him look forward with horror to the summons of Giacomo, his guide, to be up and doing. At length, however, during one sleepless night the truth flashed upon him, and in the morning, to his own surprise and delight, he mustered up courage to dismiss Giacomo with a handsome present, and to declare that that day at least he was resolved to see nothing.
What a delightful stroll he took along the seashore that morning with his eyes half-closed lest he might be tempted to look around for information! He went toward Portici, but he saw nothing except the sand and pebbles at his feet, and the white-headed surf that broke near at hand. For the first time since his departure from Paris he felt light-minded and at ease; and the only incident that occurred to disturb his equanimity was, when his eyes rested for half a second on a broken pillar in a vine-garden, and he was obliged to make an effort to pass by without ascertaining whether it was of Roman date. But this feat once accomplished, he threw up his cap for joy, shouted "Victoire!" and really felt independent.
He was much mistaken, however, if he supposed it to be possible to remain long in the enjoyment of that dolce far niente, the first savor of which so captivated him. One day, two days passed, at the end of which he found that while he had supposed himself to be doing nothing, he had in reality made the great and only discovery of his travels—namely, that the new country in which he found himself was inhabited, and that, too, by people who, though not quite so different from his countrymen as the savages of the South Sea Islands, possessed yet a very marked character of their own, worthy of study and observation. Thenceforward his journal began to be filled with notes on costume, manners, &c.; and in three weeks, with wonderful modesty, after combining the results of all his researches, he came to the conclusion that he understood nothing at all of the character of the Italians.
In this humble state of mind he wandered forth one morning in the direction of the Castle of St. Elmo, to enjoy the cool breeze that came wafting from the sea, and mingled with and tempered the early sunbeams as they streamed over the eastern hills. Having reached a broad, silent street, bordered only by a few houses and gardens, he resolved not to extend his walk further, but sat down on an old wooden bench under the shade of a platane-tree that drooped over a lofty wall. Here he remained some time watching the few passengers that occasionally turned a distant corner and advanced toward him. He noticed that they all stopped at some one of the houses further down the street, and that none reached as far as where he sat; which led him first to observe that beyond his position were only two large houses, both apparently uninhabited. One, indeed, was quite ruined—many of the windows were built up or covered with old boards; but the other showed fewer symptoms of decay, and might be imagined to belong to some family at that time absent in the country.
He had just come to this very important conclusion when his attention was diverted by the near approach of two ladies elegantly dressed, followed by an elderly serving-man in plain livery, carrying a couple of mass-books. They passed him rather hurriedly, but not before he had time to set them down as mother and daughter, and to be struck with the great beauty and grace of the latter. Indeed, so susceptible in that idle mood was he of new impressions, that before the young lady had gone on more than twenty paces he determined that he was in love with her, and by an instinctive impulse rose to follow. At this moment the serving-man turned round, and threw a calm but inquisitive glance toward him. He checked himself, and affected to look the other way for a while, then prepared to carry out his original intention. To his great surprise, however, both ladies and follower had disappeared.
An ordinary man would have guessed at once that they had gone into one of the houses previously supposed to be uninhabited, but M. Ernest Leroy must needs fancy, first, that he had seen a vision, and then that the objects of his interest had been snatched away by some evil spirit. Mechanically, however, he hurried to the end of the street, which he found terminated in an open piece of ground, which there had not been time for any one to traverse. At length the rational explanation of the matter occurred to him, and he felt for a moment inclined to knock at the door of the house that was in best preservation, and complain of what he persisted in considering a mysterious disappearance. However, not being quite mad, he checked himself, and returning to his wooden bench, sat down, and endeavored to be very miserable.
But this would have been out of character. Instead thereof he began to feel a new interest in life, and to look back with some contempt on the two previous phases of his travels. With youthful romance and French confidence he resolved to follow up this adventure, never doubting for a moment of the possibility of ultimate success, nor of the excellence of the object of his hopes. What means to adopt did not, it is true, immediately suggest themselves; and he remained sitting for more than an hour gazing at the great silent house opposite, until the unpleasant consciousness that he had not breakfasted forced him to beat a retreat.
We have not space to develop—luckily it is not necessary—all the wild imaginings that fluttered through the brain of our susceptible traveler on his return to his lodgings, and especially after a nourishing breakfast had imparted to him new strength and vivacity. Under their influence he repaired again to his post on the old wooden bench under the platane-tree, and even had the perseverance to make a third visit in the evening; for—probably, because he expected the adventure to draw out to a considerable length—he did not imitate the foolish fantasy of some lovers, and deprive himself of his regular meals. He saw nothing that day; but next morning he had the inexpressible satisfaction of again beholding the two ladies approach, followed by their respectable-looking servant. They passed without casting a glance toward him; but their attendant this time not only turned round, but stopped, and gazed at him in a manner he would have thought impertinent on another occasion. For the moment, however, this was precisely what he wanted, and without thinking much of the consequences that might ensue, he hastily made a sign requesting an interview. The man only stared the more, and then turning on his heel, gravely followed the two ladies, who had just arrived at the gateway of their house.
"I do not know what to make of that rascally valet," thought Ernest. "He seems at once respectable and hypocritical. Probably my appearance does not strike him as representing sufficient wealth, otherwise the hopes of a fair bribe would have induced him at any rate to come out and ask me what I meant."
He was, of course, once more at his post in the afternoon; and this time he had the satisfaction of seeing the door open, and the elderly serving-man saunter slowly out, as if disposed to enjoy the air. First he stopped on the steps, cracking pistachio-nuts, and jerking the shells into the road with his thumb; then took two or three steps gently toward the other end of the street; and at last, just as Ernest was about to follow him, veered round and began to stroll quietly across the road, still cracking his nuts, in the direction of the old wooden bench.
"The villain has at length made up his mind," soliloquized our lover. "He pretends to come out quite by accident, and will express great surprise when I accost him in the way I intend."
The elderly serving-man still came on, seemingly not at all in a hurry to arrive, and gave ample time for an examination of his person. His face was handsome, though lined by age and care, and was adorned by a short grizzled beard. There was something very remarkable in the keenness of his large gray eyes, as there was indeed about his whole demeanor. His dress was a plain suit of black, that might have suited a gentleman; and if Ernest had been less occupied with one idea he would not have failed to see in this respectable domestic a prince reduced by misfortune to live on wages, or a hero who had never had an opportunity of exhibiting his worth.
When this interesting person had reached the corner of the bench he set himself down with a slight nod of apology or recognition—it was difficult to say which—and went on eating his nuts quite unconcernedly. As often happens in such cases, Ernest felt rather puzzled how to enter upon business, and was trying to muster up an appearance of condescending familiarity—suitable, he thought, to the occasion—when the old man, very affably holding out his paper-bag that he might take some nuts, saved him the trouble by observing: "You are a stranger, sir, I believe?"
"Yes, my good fellow," was the reply of Ernest, in academical Italian; "and I have come to this county—"
"I thought so," interrupted the serving-man, persisting in his offer of nuts, but showing very little interest about Ernest's views in visiting Italy—"by your behavior."
"My behavior!" exclaimed the young man, a little nettled.
"Precisely. But your quality of stranger has hitherto protected you from any disagreeable consequences."
This was said so quietly, so amiably, that the warning or menace wrapped up in the words lost much of its bitter savor; yet our traveler could not refrain from a haughty glance toward this audacious domestic, on whom, however, it was lost, for he was deeply intent on his pistachios. After a moment Ernest recovered his self-possession, remembered his schemes, and drawing a little nearer the serving-man, laid his hand confidentially on the sleeve of his coat, and said: "My good man, I have a word or two for your private ear."
Not expressing the least surprise or interest, the other replied: "I am ready to hear what you have to say, provided you will not call me any more your good man. I am not a good man, nor am I your man, without offense be it spoken. My name is Alfonso."
"Well, Alfonso, you are an original person, and I will not call you a good man, though honesty and candor be written on your countenance. (Alfonso smiled, but said nothing). But listen to me attentively, remembering that though neither am I a good man, yet am I a generous one. I passionately love your mistress."
"Ah!" said Alfonso, with any thing but a benevolent expression of countenance. Ernest, who was no physiognomist, noticed nothing; and being mounted on his new hobby-horse, proceeded at once to give a history of his impressions since the previous morning. When he had concluded, the old man, who seemed all benevolence again, simply observed: "Then it is the younger of the two ladies that captivated your affections in this unaccountable manner!"
"Of course," cried Ernest; "and I beseech you, my amiable Alfonso, to put me in the way of declaring what I experience."
"You are an extraordinary young man," was the grave reply; "an extraordinary, an imprudent, and, I will add, a reckless person. You fall in love with a person of whom you know nothing—not even the name. This, however, is, I believe, according to rule among a certain class of minds. Not satisfied with this, you can find no better way of introducing yourself to her notice than endeavoring to corrupt one whom you must have divined to be a confidential servant. Others would have sought an introduction to the family; you dream at once of a clandestine intercourse—"
"I assure you—" interrupted Ernest, feeling both ashamed and indignant at these remarks proceeding from one so inferior in station.
"Assure me nothing, sir, as to your intentions, for you do not know them yourself. I understand you perfectly, because I was once young and thoughtless like you. Now listen to me: in that house dwells the Contessa Corsini, with her daughter Clara; and if these two persons had no one to protect them but themselves and a foolish old servitor, whom the first comer judges capable of corruption, they would ere this have been much molested; but it happens that the Count Corsini is not dead, and inhabiteth with them, although seldom coming forth into the public streets. What say you, young man, does not this a little disturb your plans?"
"In the first place," replied Ernest, "I am offended that you will persist in implying—more, it is true, by your manner than your words—that my views are not perfectly avowable."
"Then why, in the name of Heaven, do you not make yourself known to the count, stating your object, and asking formally for his daughter's hand?"
"Not so fast, Alfonso. It was necessary for me to learn, as a beginning, that there was a count in the case."
"And what do you know now? Perhaps those women are two adventurers, and I a rascal playing a virtuous part, in order the better to deceive you."
"You do not look like a rascal," said Ernest, quite innocently. At which observation the old man condescended to laugh heartily, and seemed from that moment to take quite a liking to his new acquaintance. After a little while, indeed, he began to give some information about the young Clara, who, he said, was only sixteen years of age, though quite a woman in appearance, and not unaccomplished. As to her dowry—Ernest interrupted him by saying, that he wished for no information on that point, being himself rich. The old man smiled amiably, and ended the conversation by requesting another interview next day at the same hour, by which time, he said, he might have some news to tell.
Ernest returned home in high spirits, which sank by degrees, however, when he reflected that as Alfonso declined favoring any clandestine correspondence, there was little in reality to be expected from him. True, he had given him some information, and he might now, by means of his letters of introduction, contrive to make acquaintance with the count. But though he spent the whole evening and next morning in making inquiries, he could not meet with any one who had ever even heard of such a person. "Possibly," he thought, "the old sinner may have been laughing at me all the time, and entered into conversation simply with the object of getting up a story to divert the other domestics of the house. If such be the case, he may be sure I shall wreak vengeance upon him."
In spite of these reflections, he was at his post at the hour appointed, and felt quite overjoyed when Alfonso made his appearance. The old man said that a plan had suggested itself by which he might be introduced into the house—namely, that he should pretend to be a professor of drawing, and offer his services. Ernest did not inquire how Alfonso came to know that he was an amateur artist, but eagerly complied with the plan, and was instructed to call on the following morning, and to say that he had heard that a drawing-master was wanted.
He went accordingly, not very boldly, it is true, and looking very much in reality like a poor professor anxious to obtain employment. The contessa, who was yet young and beautiful, received him politely, listened to his proposals, and made no difficulty in accepting them. The preliminaries arranged, Clara was called, and, to Ernest's astonishment, came bouncing into the room like a great school-girl, looked him very hard in the face, and among the first things she said, asked him if he was not the man she had seen two mornings following sitting opposite the house on the bench under the platane tree.
Now Ernest had imagined to himself something so refined, so delicate, so fairy-like, instead of this plain reality, that he all at once began to feel disgusted, and to wish he had acted more prudently. And yet there was Clara, exactly as he had seen her, except that she had exchanged the demure, conventional step adopted by ladies in the street for the free motions of youth; and except that, instead of casting her eyes to the earth, or glancing at him sideways, she now looked toward him with a frank and free gaze, and spoke what came uppermost in her mind. Certes, most men would have chosen that moment to fall in love with so charming a creature; for charming she was beyond all doubt, with large, rich, black eyes, pouting ruby lips, fine oval cheeks, and a mass of ebony hair; but Ernest's first impression was disappointment, and he began to criticise both her and every thing by which she was surrounded.
He saw at once that there was poverty in the house. The furniture was neat, but scanty; and the door had been opened by a female servant, who had evidently been disturbed from some domestic avocations. The contessa and her daughter were dressed very plainly—far differently from what they had been in the street; and it was an easy matter to see that this plainness was not adopted from choice but from necessity. Had Clara come into the room with a slow, creeping step, keeping her eyes modestly fixed on the chipped marble floor, not one of these observations would have been made: the large, dreary house would have been a palace in Ernest's eyes; but his taste was a morbid one, and in five minutes after he had begun to give his lesson, he began to fear that the conquest he had so ardently desired would be only too easy.
There was something, however, so cheerful and fascinating in Clara's manner that he could not but soon learn to feel pleasure in her society: and when he went away he determined, instead of starting off for Sicily, as he had at first thought of doing, to pay at least one more visit to the house in the character of drawing master. Alfonso joined him as he walked slowly homeward, and asked him how things had passed. He related frankly his first impressions, to which the old man listened very attentively without making any remark. At parting, however, he shook his head, saying that young men were of all animals the most difficult to content.
Next day, when Ernest went to give his lesson, he was told by Alfonso that the contessa, being indisposed, had remained in bed, but that he should find Clara in the garden. There was something romantic in the sound of this, so he hurried to the spot indicated, impatient to have the commonplace impressions of the previous day effaced. This time his disgust was complete. He found Clara engaged in assisting the servant maid to wring and hang out some clothes they had just finished washing. She seemed not at all put out by being caught thus humbly employed; but begging him to wait a little, finished her work, ran away, dressed somewhat carefully, and returning begged he would return to the house. He followed with cheeks burning with shame: he felt the utmost contempt for himself because he had fallen in love with this little housewife, and the greatest indignation against her for having presumed, very innocently, to excite so poetical a sentiment; and, in the stupidity of his offended self-love, resolved to avenge himself by making some spiteful remark ere he escaped from a house into which he considered that he had been regularly entrapped. Accordingly, when she took the pencil in hand, he observed that probably she imagined that contact with soap-suds would improve the delicacy of her touch. Clara did not reply, but began to sketch in a manner that proved she had listened to the pedantic rules he had laid down on occasion of the previous lesson more from modesty than because she was in want of them. Then suddenly rising without attending to some cavil he thought it his duty to make, she went to the piano, and beginning to play, drew forth such ravishing notes, that Ernest, who was himself no contemptible musician, could not refrain from applauding enthusiastically. She received his compliments with a slight shrug of the shoulders, and commenced a song that enabled her to display with full effect the capabilities of her magnificent voice. The soap-suds were forgotten; and Ernest's romance was coming back upon him: he began to chide himself for his foolish prejudices; and thought that, after all, with a little training, Clara might be made quite a lady. Suddenly, however, she broke off her song, and turning toward him with an ironical smile, said: "Not bad for a housemaid, Mr. Professor—is it?"
He attempted to excuse himself, but he was evidently judged; and, what was more—not as an obscure drawing-master, but as M. Ernest Leroy. His identity was evidently no secret; and she even called him by his name. He endeavored in vain to make a fine speech to apologize for his ill-behavior; but she interrupted him keenly, though good-humoredly, and the entrance of Alfonso was fatal to a fine scene of despair he was about to enact. Clara upon this retired with a profound salute; and Alfonso spoke with more of dignity than usual in his manner, and said: "My young friend, you must excuse a little deception which has been practiced on you, or rather which you have practiced upon yourself. I am going to be very free and frank with you to-day. I am not what you take me for. I am the Count Corsini, a Roman; and because I have not the means of keeping a man-servant, when the women of my family go to church I follow them, as you saw. This is not unusual among my countrymen. It is a foolish pride I know; but so it is. However, the matter interests you not. You saw my daughter Clara, and thought you loved her. I was willing, as on inquiry I found you to be a respectable person, to see how you could agree together; but your pride—I managed and overheard all—has destroyed your chance. My daughter will seek another husband."
There was a cold friendliness in Alfonso's tone which roused the pride of Ernest. He affected to laugh, called himself a foolish madcap, but hinted that a splendid marriage awaited him, if he chose, on his return to Paris; and went away endeavoring to look unconcerned. The following morning he was on board a vessel bound for Palermo, very sea-sick it is true, but thinking at the same time a great deal more of Clara than he could have thought possible had it been predicted.
Some few years afterward Ernest Leroy was in one of the salons of the Fauxbourg St. Germain. Still a bachelor, he no longer felt those sudden emotions to which he had been subject in his earlier youth. He was beginning to talk less of sentiments present and more of sentiments passed. In confidential moods he would lay his hand upon his waistcoat—curved out at its lower extremity, by the by, by a notable increase of substance—and allude to a certain divine Clara who had illuminated a moment of his existence. But he was too discreet to enter into details.
Well, being in that salon, as we have said, pretending to amuse himself, his attention was suddenly drawn by the announcement of Lady D——. He turned round, probably to quiz la belle Anglaise he expected to behold. What was his astonishment on recognizing in the superb woman who leaned on the arm of a tall, military-looking Englishman, the identical Clara Corsini of his youthful memories. He felt at first sick at heart; but, taking courage, soon went up and spoke to her. She remembered him with some little difficulty, smiled, and holding out her alabaster hand, said gently: "Do you see any trace of the soap-suds?" She never imagined he had any feeling in him, and only knew the truth when a large, round tear fell on the diamond of her ring. "Charles," said Ernest awhile afterward to a friend, "it is stifling hot and dreadfully stupid here. Let us go and have a game of billiards."
We went to look at it, only this last Midsummer, and found that the Railway had cut it up root and branch. A great trunk-line had swallowed the play-ground, sliced away the school-room, and pared off the corner of the house: which, thus curtailed of its proportions, presented itself, in a green stage of stucco, profile-wise toward the road, like a forlorn flat-iron without a handle, standing on end.
It seems as if our schools were doomed to be the sport of change. We have faint recollections of a Preparatory Day-School, which we have sought in vain, and which must have been pulled down to make a new street, ages ago. We have dim impressions, scarcely amounting to a belief, that it was over a dyer's shop. We know that you went up steps to it; that you frequently grazed your knees in doing so; that you generally got your leg over the scraper, in trying to scrape the mud off a very unsteady little shoe. The mistress of the Establishment holds no place in our memory; but, rampant on one eternal door-mat, in an eternal entry, long and narrow, is a puffy pug-dog, with a personal animosity toward us, who triumphs over Time. The bark of that baleful Pug, a certain radiating way he had of snapping at our undefended legs, the ghastly grinning of his moist black muzzle and white teeth, and the insolence of his crisp tail curled like a pastoral crook, all live and flourish. From an otherwise unaccountable association of him with a fiddle, we conclude that he was of French extraction, and his name Fidèle. He belonged to some female, chiefly inhabiting a back-parlor, whose life appears to us to have been consumed in sniffing, and in wearing a brown beaver bonnet. For her, he would sit up and balance cake upon his nose, and not eat it until twenty had been counted. To the best of our belief, we were once called in to witness this performance; when, unable, even in his milder moments, to endure our presence, he instantly made at us, cake and all.
Why a something in mourning, called "Miss Frost," should still connect itself with our preparatory school, we are unable to say. We retain no impression of the beauty of Miss Frost—if she were beautiful; or of the mental fascinations of Miss Frost—if she were accomplished; yet her name and her black dress hold an enduring place in our remembrance. An equally impersonal boy, whose name has long since shaped itself unalterably into "Master Mawls," is not to be dislodged from our brain. Retaining no vindictive feeling toward Mawls—no feeling whatever, indeed—we infer that neither he nor we can have loved Miss Frost. Our first impression of Death and Burial is associated with this formless pair. We all three nestled awfully in a corner one wintry day, when the wind was blowing shrill, with Miss Frost's pinafore over our heads; and Miss Frost told us in a whisper about somebody being "screwed down." It is the only distinct recollection we preserve of these impalpable creatures, except a suspicion that the manners of Master Mawls were susceptible of much improvement. Generally speaking, we may observe that whenever we see a child intently occupied with its nose, to the exclusion of all other subjects of interest, our mind reverts in a flash to Master Mawls.
But, the School that was Our School before the Railroad came and overthrew it, was quite another sort of place. We were old enough to be put into Virgil when we went there, and to get Prizes for a variety of polishing on which the rust has long accumulated. It was a School of some celebrity in its neighborhood—nobody could have said why—and we had the honor to attain and hold the eminent position of first boy. The master was supposed among us to know nothing, and one of the ushers was supposed to know every thing. We are still inclined to think the first-named supposition perfectly correct.
We have a general idea that its subject had been in the leather trade, and had bought us—meaning our School—of another proprietor, who was immensely learned. Whether this belief had any real foundation, we are not likely ever to know now. The only branches of education with which he showed the least acquaintance, were, ruling, and corporally punishing. He was always ruling ciphering-books with a bloated mahogany ruler, or smiting the palms of offenders with the same diabolical instrument, or viciously drawing a pair of pantaloons tight with one of his large hands, and caning the wearer with the other. We have no doubt whatever that this occupation was the principal solace of his existence.
A profound respect for money pervaded Our School, which was, of course, derived from its Chief. We remember an idiotic, goggle-eyed boy, with a big head and half-crowns without end, who suddenly appeared as a parlor-boarder, and was rumored to have come by sea from some mysterious part of the earth where his parents rolled in gold. He was usually called "Mr." by the Chief, and was said to feed in the parlor on steaks and gravy; likewise to drink currant wine. And he openly stated that if rolls and coffee were ever denied him at breakfast, he would write home to that unknown part of the globe from which he had come, and cause himself to be recalled to the regions of gold. He was put into no form or class, but learnt alone, as little as he liked—and he liked very little—and there was a belief among us that this was because he was too wealthy to be "taken down." His special treatment, and our vague association of him with the sea, and with storms, and sharks, and coral reefs, occasioned the wildest legends to be circulated as his history. A tragedy in blank verse was written on the subject—if our memory does not deceive us, by the hand that now chronicles these recollections—in which his father figured as a Pirate, and was shot for a voluminous catalogue of atrocities: first imparting to his wife the secret of the cave in which his wealth was stored, and from which his only son's half-crowns now issued. Dumbledon (the boy's name) was represented as "yet unborn," when his brave father met his fate; and the despair and grief of Mrs. Dumbledon at that calamity was movingly shadowed forth as having weakened the parlor-boarder's mind. This production was received with great favor, and was twice performed with closed doors in the dining-room. But, it got wind, and was seized as libelous, and brought the unlucky poet into severe affliction. Some two years afterward, all of a sudden one day, Dumbledon vanished. It was whispered that the Chief himself had taken him down to the Docks, and reshipped him for the Spanish Main; but nothing certain was ever known about his disappearance. At this hour, we can not thoroughly disconnect him from California.
Our School was rather famous for mysterious pupils. There was another—a heavy young man, with a large double-cased silver watch, and a fat knife, the handle of which was a perfect tool-box—who unaccountably appeared one day at a special desk of his own, erected close to that of the Chief, with whom he held familiar converse. He lived in the parlor, and went out for walks, and never took the least notice of us—even of us, the first boy—unless to give us a depreciatory kick, or grimly to take our hat off and throw it away, when he encountered us out of doors: which unpleasant ceremony he always performed as he passed—not even condescending to stop for the purpose. Some of us believed that the classical attainments of this phenomenon were terrific, but that his penmanship and arithmetic were defective, and he had come there to mend them; others, that he was going to set up a school, and had paid the Chief "twenty-five pound down," for leave to see Our School at work. The gloomier spirits even said that he was going to buy us; against which contingency conspiracies were set on foot for a general defection and running away. However, he never did that. After staying for a quarter, during which period, though closely observed, he was never seen to do any thing but make pens out of quills, write small-hand in a secret portfolio, and punch the point of the sharpest blade in his knife into his desk, all over it, he, too, disappeared, and his place knew him no more.
There was another boy, a fair, meek boy, with a delicate complexion and rich curling hair, who, we found out, or thought we found out (we have no idea now, and probably had none then, on what grounds, but it was confidentially revealed from mouth to mouth), was the son of a Viscount who had deserted his lovely mother. It was understood that if he had his rights, he would be worth twenty thousand a year. And that if his mother ever met his father, she would shoot him with a silver pistol which she carried, always loaded to the muzzle, for that purpose. He was a very suggestive topic. So was a young Mulatto, who was always believed (though very amiable) to have a dagger about him somewhere. But, we think they were both outshone, upon the whole, by another boy who claimed to have been born on the twenty-ninth of February, and to have only one birthday in five years. We suspect this to have been a fiction—but he lived upon it all the time he was at Our School.
The principal currency of Our School was slate-pencil. It had some inexplicable value, that was never ascertained, never reduced to a standard. To have a great hoard of it, was somehow to be rich. We used to bestow it in charity, and confer it as a precious boon upon our chosen friends. When the holidays were coming, contributions were solicited for certain boys whose relatives were in India, and who were appealed for under the generic name of "Holiday-stoppers"—appropriate marks of remembrance that should enliven and cheer them in their homeless state. Personally, we always contributed these tokens of sympathy in the form of slate-pencil, and always felt that it would be a comfort and a treasure to them.
Our School was remarkable for white mice. Red-polls, linnets, and even canaries, were kept in desks, drawers, hat-boxes, and other strange refuges for birds; but white mice were the favorite stock. The boys trained the mice, much better than the masters trained the boys. We recall one white mouse, who lived in the cover of a Latin dictionary, who ran up ladders, drew Roman chariots, shouldered muskets, turned wheels, and even made a very creditable appearance on the stage as the Dog of Montargis. He might have achieved greater things, but for having the misfortune to mistake his way in a triumphal procession to the Capitol, when he fell into a deep inkstand, and was dyed black, and drowned. The mice were the occasion of some most ingenious engineering, in the construction of their houses and instruments of performance. The famous one belonged to a Company of proprietors, some of whom have since made Railroads, Engines, and Telegraphs; the chairman has erected mills and bridges in New Zealand.
The usher at our school, who was considered to know every thing as opposed to the Chief who was considered to know nothing, was a bony, gentle-faced, clerical-looking young man in rusty black. It was whispered that he was sweet upon one of Maxby's sisters (Maxby lived close by, and was a day pupil), and further that he "favored Maxby." As we remember, he taught Italian to Maxby's sisters on half-holidays. He once went to the play with them, and wore a white waistcoat and a rose: which was considered among us equivalent to a declaration. We were of opinion on that occasion that to the last moment he expected Maxby's father to ask him to dinner at five o'clock, and therefore neglected his own dinner at half-past one, and finally got none. We exaggerated in our imaginations the extent to which he punished Maxby's father's cold meat at supper; and we agreed to believe that he was elevated with wine and water when he came home. But, we all liked him; for he had a good knowledge of boys, and would have made it a much better school if he had had more power. He was writing-master, mathematical-master, English master, made out the bills, mended the pens, and did all sorts of things. He divided the little boys with the Latin master (they were smuggled through their rudimentary books, at odd times when there was nothing else to do), and he always called at parents' houses to inquire after sick boys, because he had gentlemanly manners. He was rather musical, and on some remote quarter-day had bought an old trombone; but a bit of it was lost, and it made the most extraordinary sounds when he sometimes tried to play it of an evening. His holidays never began (on account of the bills) until long after ours; but in the summer-vacations he used to take pedestrian excursions with a knapsack; and at Christmas-time he went to see his father at Chipping Norton, who we all said (on no authority) was a dairy-fed-pork-butcher. Poor fellow! He was very low all day on Maxby's sister's wedding-day, and afterward was thought to favor Maxby more than ever, though he had been expected to spite him. He has been dead these twenty years. Poor fellow!
Our remembrance of Our School, presents the Latin master as a colorless, doubled-up, near-sighted man with a crutch, who was always cold, and always putting onions into his ears for deafness, and always disclosing ends of flannel under all his garments, and almost always applying a ball of pocket-handkerchief to some part of his face with a screwing action round and round. He was a very good scholar, and took great pains where he saw intelligence and a desire to learn; otherwise, perhaps not. Our memory presents him (unless teased into a passion) with as little energy as color—as having been worried and tormented into monotonous feebleness—as having had the best part of his life ground out of him in a mill of boys. We remember with terror how he fell asleep one sultry afternoon with the little smuggled class before him, and awoke not when the footstep of the Chief fell heavy on the floor; how the Chief aroused him, in the midst of a dread silence, and said, "Mr. Blinkins, are you ill, sir?" how he blushingly replied, "Sir, rather so;" how the Chief retorted with severity, "Mr. Blinkins, this is no place to be ill in" (which was very, very true), and walked back, solemn as the ghost in Hamlet, until, catching a wandering eye, he caned that boy for inattention, and happily expressed his feelings toward the Latin master through the medium of a substitute.
There was a fat little dancing-master who used to come in a gig, and taught the more advanced among us hornpipes (as an accomplishment in great social demand in after-life); and there was a brisk little French master who used to come in the sunniest weather with a handleless umbrella, and to whom the Chief was always polite, because (as we believed), if the Chief offended him, he would instantly address the Chief in French, and forever confound him before the boys with his inability to understand or reply.
There was, besides, a serving man, whose name was Phil. Our retrospective glance presents Phil as a shipwrecked carpenter, cast away upon the desert island of a school, and carrying into practice an ingenious inkling of many trades. He mended whatever was broken, and made whatever was wanted. He was general glazier, among other things, and mended all the broken windows—at the prime cost (as was darkly rumored among us) of ninepence for every square charged three-and-six to parents. We had a high opinion of his mechanical genius, and generally held that the Chief "knew something bad of him," and on pain of divulgence enforced Phil to be his bondsman. We particularly remember that Phil had a sovereign contempt for learning; which engenders in us a respect for his sagacity, as it implies his accurate observation of the relative positions of the Chief and the ushers. He was an impenetrable man, who waited at table between whiles, and, throughout "the half" kept the boxes in severe custody. He was morose, even to the Chief, and never smiled, except at breaking-up, when, in acknowledgment of the toast, "Success to Phil! Hooray!" he would slowly carve a grin out of his wooden face, where it would remain until we were all gone. Nevertheless, one time when we had the scarlet fever in the school, Phil nursed all the sick boys of his own accord, and was like a mother to them.
There was another school not far off, and of course our school could have nothing to say to that school. It is mostly the way with schools, whether of boys or men. Well! the railway has swallowed up ours, and the locomotives now run smoothly over its ashes.