[1] An “Omnibus” (this explanation is one of pure politeness on our part, and for the sake of the uninitiated) is a substitute for an Album; in which, any thing, every thing, and nothing, are quartered heterogeneously, and made good friends—supposing all this time that the thing be kept within the pale of proprieties. They are with, or without covers—written in black or red ink—up or down—crossways or otherwise, just as it happens. They were first got up by a certain coterie of ladies, who had sense enough to see that “Albums” are very sentimental and very ridiculous, owing to the extreme nicety with which a man must scribble for them; and that by introducing a little more latitude in this respect, the evil might in a measure be remedied. The result, ’tis thought, has shown their wisdom.
“Come, write in my ‘Omnibus,’” said a sweet girl to me, with an eye that made one’s heart bump, and a lip that made him dream dreams. I looked into that eye, and at that lip—they almost unmanned me, yet I shook my head.
She looked imploringly.
“Can’t,” stammered I at last, though it choked me to say so.
“Pray do,” and she laid her soft white hand on mine. Heavens and Earth! how the touch of that little hand thrilled through me—burnt along my arm—then down into my heart. Yet I remembered my resolution—I made it the day before—I swore by my happiness I’d never touch pen again. Still, there lay that hand—the long tapering fingers—I counted them one way, then t’other—how pretty they looked! I tried to look away—I looked at the four corners of heaven—some how or other, my eyes came right back again. Then I felt a soft pressure, those fingers contracted, they clasped—it was all over with me—the grasp of Hercules were nothing to it.
The first thing I did was to kiss them—the next, find my senses. She blushed, I fidgeted.
“Think out something”—the sound was like a brook in summer.
So I thought, and thought, and thought—
Thought I was by the ocean. Every body has stood by the ocean. Every body loves the ocean. They love it because ’tis beautiful. They love it because ’tis terrible. Who that could ever tell his passions, as he has seen the giant rouse himself—the black sky split by the thunder-bolt, and so brazen and fiery that it seemed crisping, and “about to roll away with a great noise”—the driving wind—the bellowing thunder—the crashing deck—the rattling cordage—the death shriek of the sea-shipped wretch as the wave went over him—the horror-like eye’s last glance upon you! But I don’t mean such an ocean. It wasn’t such an one that I was standing by. It was a pretty considerable, magnificent, almighty, great sheet of water as far as the eye went, with a sky above that made one’s heart leap to look at it—its depth of blue seeming to stretch away and away, field after field, without a mist or cloud in it to mar its beauty—one unbounded, unshadowed sweep of glory and magnificence. The winds, soft and balmy, went whirling and whimpering along its surface, curling and crinkling it into small white waves, that, racing and capering up the beach, sparkled and turned into bubbles, and were caught up by the sun beams. Here and there the waters break. The huge porpoise went plunging, and sousing, and weltering along his blue path, flapping his huge tail into the air, and grunting his happiness—the bright light refracted from his surface, came to the eye like a rainbow. Here and there the flying fish slipped from his element, and went careering away over the far waters, till with a light dash or slap, his white wings dipped again into the ocean. The distance had one sail, a single one, right on the horizon’s edge—type, methought, of a being shut from the world—a human heart cut loose from sympathy—on the black desert of man’s pilgrimage. Such was the scene. I felt it. I rose, and stood, and shouted, and—
Thought I was down in the ocean—right on the bottom. Whew! what a place it was!—saw all sorts of things, living and dead—all colors, good and bad—all shapes, hateful and fascinating. Here I wandered through endless groves of coral. Aloft went the light shafts tapering away into the blue distance, then branching forth into a glorious canopy, through which came the broken light with a mellowed beauty, not unlike the sun’s beams through a polished fresco-worken slab of alabaster. The waves swung backwards and forwards through this submarine forest, and their rush made the tall shafts quiver like aspen boughs in the tempest wind; and the light coral twigs, here and there detached by the waters, fell thick and fast like star showers in wintry nights. Nor should I forget the sounds of those waters as they tossed up the shells which were scattered there, and witched from them a music, that tripped and tilted through the brain, like Mab and her melodies in moonlight vision. It changed! I was in a desert! Rocks and barren surfaces above, beneath, around me! Wild cliffs—rent fastnesses—deep chasms—yawning and gaping like the cleft jaws of Hell! They had wrecks, and ruins, and dead men, and skeletons, and skulls in them. Here were fragments of those mighty tenements, that once rode in triumph on the wave’s surface. There were those black engines, wont to belch forth “their devilish glut,” and flame, and thunder. Here were skeletons—some hugging in mortal conflict. They were grappled together, as when death overtook them—their jaws yet apart, as the last curse dwelt on them, the moment the bolt came. There were friends too, parent and child, husband and wife, lover and maiden—laid as they died, locked heart to heart, each on the other’s breast, the two a unity. I sickened, shuddered, gasped—
Thought I was in a forest—a bright, a green, a glorious forest. My heart ached, and I had turned from the heated world and its miseries, and where the lofty branches had intertwined and woven a pleasant twilight dwelling place, I sat me down to meditate. Then I scribbled and scribbled—and thus, I scribbled—
Thought I was on an island—the brightest thing ever dancing in a poet’s vision, a perfect Eden-spot, an Elysium—
Thought I was in love. Heavens! what a creature she was! Her form was like a fairy’s; and her face, about which the flaxen ringlets fell long, and soft, and silky, was at once so arch and sweet, it witched the very soul out of me before I knew it. Her picture is before me.—Her head like Juno’s, when she walked before the Olympic Thunderer, and yet a woman’s; her brow, high, and white, and pure; eyes of heaven’s own coloring, and bright, and ustrous, and large, and full, in whose crystalline depths slept a soul such as—as—you must guess at, reader, I can’t think of a comparison; a cheek, the eloquent beauty of which melted away so gradually into the pure transparency of her temples, that the eye lost it, and was wandering away, up, and around them, before it became aware of its own vagaries; and her mouth—Heavens and Earth! it was altogether and absolutely, the sweetest, prettiest, pouting, come-kiss-me, little mouth, I ever looked at; and her voice—her voice—how clear and musical—there was nothing like her clear, happy laugh—it rung like an instrument—like the silvery bell in the Faery Tale; and when she prettily bade me sit at her feet, and look up into her clear bright eyes—pooh! I might as well have attempted to knock Destiny on the head at once, and steer the boat of life myself, as keep from doing her bidding; and her form, robed as she was in her white cymar, with a single rose in her hair—the neck—the full bust—the rounded arm—the graceful curvature and wavy sweep of her folded dress, as it swelled from her glittering zone and fell to her feet—dear me! dear me—I—but this will do for a description.
Her name was Fan.
One beautiful twilight—I shan’t forget it soon—one twilight, as the sun went, and right over his glorious resting place, the clouds of evening, like an enormous sweep of woven chrysolite, hung pinned by a single star to the blue wall of heaven—I sat and gazed at that star, then into her eyes; now into her eyes, and then at that star again; and—I grew silly.
Says I, “Fan!”
Says she, “Frank!”
“You are very pretty,” says Frank.
“You are very impudent,” says Fan.
She shook her head at me, and drew her mouth into the queerest pucker imaginable.
“Fanny,” said I seriously.
She sobered.
Some how or other, I got hold of her hand—’twas a pretty hand! I kissed it.
“Don’t be silly;” and she gave me a cuff that made me see stars.
“Fanny, I”—
She looked softly at me.
“Dearest Fanny, I”—
She pouted.
“I—I”—
She blushed.
“I—love you.”
She sprang into my arms.
Bending back her head, and shaking her long locks from her pretty brow, our lips—
Hillo! reader, you are not getting sentimental, are you? Don’t now; for I’ve no sympathy with you—no more sentiment than a horse.
But stop; here’s a bit, and written when things were tremendous. Ecce signum!
I suppose I felt considerably relieved after this Ætnæan effusion. ’Twould have cooled the furnace where they put Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. But hear the sequel! We pouted, quarreled, parted.
After our first pout, I scribbled as follows—
Thought I was with my mother. Mother! reader, hast thou a mother? not a mere nominal parent—one who brought thee into the world, and then left thee to struggle in’t—one who gave thee but a moiety of her tenderness? Nay, nay; I do not mean such. But I mean, one whose very life was wrapp’d up in thee, one whose eye moistened with thine, whose voice faltered with thine, whose heart reflected every shadow which passed over thy heart, even as a lake the summer clouds, that idle above its bosom. Such an one I mean—hadst ever such? I had—and how I loved her. Did I not?—the following verses prove it.
(In two Sonnets.)
Thus I valued her. But she’s in her grave now, and I often go there to watch and weep, and please myself with the vain fancy, that her spirit is bending over me. I always feel holier after it—as if I had come from another world—had been beyond the grave—had unravelled the great mysteries of life and death, and could now look upon life unsway’d by that natural Atheism which ever clings to humanity, and mingles in all our aspirations for the future. Watching and prayer ever better us. But by the grave of a loved one, there are still holier influences. We see them through the mirror of feeling. If they had faults, they have them no longer; and their virtues, we canonize them—they are relics—they are talismans which we lay on our hearts, and they are holier for the contact.
Earth’s thoughts come not to the grave’s side. The idle, the giddy and gay, they do not jest here—the song of triumph ceases, the unfinished quip dies on the lip that made it. The famed, the haughty, the ambitious, they bring not their proud thoughts with them—they tread its holy precincts, and their schemes are forgotten. The school boy’s whistle is lower here, and the butterfly he chases so eagerly, scales the white palings and escapes—he will not follow him. The very flowers that bloom here, the osiers that swathe the grave of that little one and twine about the head stones—they teach us by their freshness, and our thoughts stir up the fountains in us, and the heart is hallowed by it.
Come hither, thou parent—a father perhaps. This was thy heart’s pride and passion. Hope and promise were his. You had already marked his path. Here were the flowers—there the thorns. You saw him in fancy, out of his boyhood—the youth—the young man—his cheek glowing for the contest. Death came—and you laid him here.
Come hither, thou parent—a mother perhaps. This was thy first born. You bore him on your heart; you nursed him; you hung over him; you wept and prayed for him as mothers only can do; and you too, have laid him here. The little form you decked so—the locks that swung over a brow of silver—the face with its beauty, and light, and sweetness, and all the innocency of happy childhood—the clear silver shout of his joy—the step that ran to thee—the lip that pouted for the morning and evening kiss—aye! here they are—look at them.
And who art thou, mourner?—thou that lookest not up to the glorious sky, or abroad on the fair face of the creation of God; but, wrapped in the selfishness and solitude of thy grief, standest here like a lone monument of dead men’s histories—who art thou? Thine eye is on that slab there; ’tis a maiden’s. Thou lovedst her perhaps; her heart beat to thee; her lip was free to thy wooing. She was decked for a bridal; the rite had sealed her thine; and death strewed thy bridal couch with rosemary, and rue, and the gloomy cypress.
And what do these here? They come here to weep, for it sanctifies them. They come from the roar, and bustle, and heartlessness of life, and they would listen awhile to the eloquence of the shrouded dead. O! the dead are eloquent! The voice is low, yet louder than that of many waters! They tell us that our loved ones were not ours! They tell us that they were lent to us, and have now been reclaimed! They tell us, that though saddening, ’tis sweet to think of them, for they tie us and our souls to the purity of Heaven!
Some men shudder as they look into a grave; and well they may, some of the world. But the heart is wrong which feels thus. Does the sight of land give pain to the shipwrecked? is the hope of freedom unwelcome at the dungeon? does the sound of waters please in the desert? does the thought of sleep annoy us when weary? does the hope of oblivion give pain when the heart aches? Why then should the thought of what is greater gain than all these come to our hearts, but to waken their holiest emotions?
There—young lady! I’ve thought for your “Omnibus,”—pray, what do you think?
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