An Epistle to Posterity/Chapter IV
CHAPTER IV
Inthe early forties and fifties almost everybody "had about enough to live on," and young ladies dressed well on a hundred dollars a year. The daughters of the richest man in Boston were dressed with scrupulous plainness, and the wife and mother owned one brocade, which did service for several years. Display was considered vulgar. Now, alas! only Queen Victoria dares to go shabby; fine clothes have become a necessity to the lesser lights. The greater proportion of people were happier, because there was not such emulation, such vulgar striving, nor such soaring, foolish ambitions. Then men and women fell back on their own minds for that entertainment which they now seek in fast horses, yachts, great and constant change, journeys to Europe and to Newport. Books took the place of dress and display. When a young lady was introduced into society one bouquet did duty for the seventy-five which now are considered quite too few. There was a sober elegance among even the first in position and the richest in pocket. There was no talk about money; it has become a subject of conversation since the war.
I was fortunate in being born in that hour of grace and brighter things which followed the gloomy Calvinistic period. Several years before I began to observe things Reverend Lyman Beecher had been preaching violently against Unitarianism, but about Boston that gentler faith had permitted the young people to dance and to enjoy life. Therefore I cannot say that I suffered from any Puritan narrowness, although I heard the echoes of it. The Puritan virtues of economy, plain living, and high thinking were everywhere; yet there were balls and dinners and drives and picnics, and robust pleasure at Thanksgiving and at Christmas. Tinctured by the memories of youth, it seems to me to have been a happy and healthful resting-place between the religious gloom which had preceded it and the dreadful sorrows of the war of secession which followed. In those early days the dress of New England girls was simple and inexpensive, often white in summer and dark merino in winter, and perhaps one silk dress for great occasions. But there was one dress which was always handsome, and that was the wedding-dress. Perhaps for that reason, or a better one, I wrote the following letter to a friend:
"Dear L., — I am to be married to-morrow, and have just been rehearsing the ceremony in the front parlor in my wedding-dress. It is a beauty, made with a low waist, pointed before and in the back, where it is laced; a deep Brussels lace berthe trims the neck. The sleeves are short and tight, the skirt very full and plaited into a belt. It is made of white moire antique, so stiff it would stand alone. I have a wreath of orange blossoms, with long, flowing garlands at the back, and a white tulle veil, cut like a cloak, with a point of lace à la Marie Stuart coming down to the forehead. This is very becoming. White satin slippers and white gloves. My two bridesmaids have deep-pink flounced grenadine dresses over pink silk, with garlands of pink acacias, which make Annie look like a dream. Mr. Sherwood has a deep-mulberry dress-coat with steel buttons, and a white silk vest; it is very handsome. I hope the gentlemen will keep to this fashion. [This was a fashion introduced by the Prince Consort, and it was very handsome, but it did not last long; the gloomy clawhammer soon displaced it. It was attempted again in 1870, but was blotted out.] Bishop Chase, of New Hampshire, is to perform the ceremony, and is here tonight with us, as are Mr. and Mrs. Sherwood, Mary Bostwick, Mary Sherwood, and David Colden Murray, Robert Sherwood, and Thaddeus Lane. Our house is full, and Roxana and her assistants are in great feather getting up feasts. We are to be married at twelve o'clock, and at two leave for Mount Vernon and New York via Springfield. And perhaps we shall reach the Mammoth Cave.
"For our real wedding journey, however, John will take me to the "West Indies, where he has an important lawsuit to take care of. Is not that a most original, delightful programme? Who ever went to the West Indies before on a bridal tour? We hope you will come to our wedding reception in New York. It will be on December 1, just before we sail. Etc., etc.
A light fall of snow through which the sun shone lighted up the morning hour. Dr. Ingersoll, a dear and witty friend, said, "Nature has paid you the prettiest of compliments; she has put on a wedding-veil."
We went on the 8th of December to Bermuda by a little propeller which was the most uncomfortable craft I ever have sailed on. It was called the Merlin, but had left all enchantment behind. The smell of the galley came aft, freighted with the odor of roasted onions. On board were many residents of those islands going home after a summer in the States, and with one of them we formed a friendship destined to have a most beneficial result on our winter's residence in Santa Cruz. This was the Reverend Mr. Hawley, the rector of the church at Bassin, who asked us to share his house there, as the hotel was most primitive, and we did so gladly, later on.
Bermuda is beautiful, with its turquoise waters, its oleander-trees, its white cottages of stone with yellow roofs, and its swell English regiment, its lilies, and boundless waters, "the still vexed Bermoothes." Since those days it has become a fashionable watering-place, with grand hotels. Then it had but one little boarding-house, where we got a respectable dinner.
But its beauty is its own; it was always unique. The one day's experience and a drive to St. George was all that was allowed us, and we were soon at sea again.
The planters and their families proved very agreeable travelling companions, although they all talked ruin. They were principally from the Danish islands, St. Thomas and Santa Cruz, and were never tired of telling how the Danish governor, Van Scholten, had issued an edict freeing the slaves, and had then sailed off to Denmark in time to escape the riot, the bloodshed, and the confusion of his act. "In fact," said my infuriated informant, "you will see plenty of ruin. England has neglected and ruined Jamaica, revolution and bad government have ruined Hayti, emancipation and Denmark have ruined Santa Cruz, and Spain has ruined Cuba," and so on, and so on.
"But you still have flowers?" I asked.
"Oh yes, plenty of flowers, and we can give you a good dinner and show you a few of Thorwaldsen's statues. And you will see neglected fields, tumble-down properties, looking-glasses cracked and boarded up, windows broken, etc. Losing our slave labor, we are all poor, poor, poor," etc., etc., ad infinitum.
When we reached the picturesque harbor of St. Thomas, and, looking up a steep mountain like Vesuvius, saw the little town of Charlotte Amalie hanging in air, with palaces and flowering trees everywhere, we were so delighted that I lost all sense of ruin. My gloomy planter, coming up in a suit of white duck, was more cheerful, and watched for his little schooner, which was to take him to Santa Cruz, twenty miles away. We were to go to the hotel and spend a week in St. Thomas before we sailed over to Santa Cruz.
A famously good French table we found, and the heterogeneous company of all the islands joined in this hotel, which from its piazza commanded a splendid view. The thermometer stood at 88°, although it was December. Near us at dinner sat Father Ambrosius, a most celebrated Catholic priest, who had been on the Merlin. Father Ambrosius had been sufficiently human to talk to the young bride of subjects in which she then took a decided interest, and perhaps does yet.
Amid those tropical seas and lustrous stars and those soft breezes, on whose wings fly delicate love fancies and tender dreams, the old monk had talked to us of the Provençal poetry, of Petrarch, of Clémence Isaure and the violet, of old Spanish romance, and of modern French romance and poetry. He had all Petrarch's sonnets at his tongue's end. No two young married lovers had ever a better companion. Even at the dinner he proved himself a gourmet, was a capital judge of wines, and told us what to eat and what to avoid; he even told us who people were — such as the old sun-dried banker, the Danish Councillor Feddustal, the Danish beauty Miss Stridiron, etc. After dinner he sat out with us on the balcony, looking at the unlimited reach of ocean and the calm, splendid, brilliantly illuminated heaven. Venus seemed to hang down by an invisible thread, and she caused the palm-trees to cast a visible shadow; she glowed with such pale, intense fire in that clear air that the earth was filled with her radiance. He knew his classics as well as his breviary; he knew even human nature; he knew literature; he had taste and intelligence — in fact, we always wished that we could have taken Father Ambrosius, brown capuchin, rope round the waist, shaved head and all, along with us through life.
The next day, at his suggestion, we had mounted two little Spanish jennets and rode up the Sugar-loaf to see more of the view. I believe nothing finer exists than this sudden elevation out of the blue sea, St. Thomas, W. I.
On the following day we were asked to dine with the old banker, to whom my husband had brought letters of credit, and to whom was consigned a very large sum of money which was to settle the claims of one Anna Maria Sparks to the estate in San Francisco owned by her son, one Leidesdorf, and bought by one Captain Folsom. I shall have more to say of this romantic story later on. As it was, I picture myself dressed in an India muslin and going down to my first West India dinner. The change from the propeller was delightful. The thermometer was up among the nineties, and yet the Englishmen present were in the orthodox black coat and trousers, and the two American officers were sweltering in their fine naval uniforms and stiff embroidered collars (one of them, who was very fat, said in my ear, with a good-natured smile, "You know how uniforms shrink"). The Americans present were in white-duck pantaloons and black dress-coats, the only ones who dared to differ from the English regard for les convenances (and I am not sure they were much cooler). Several ladies were present, and the dinner was admirable — a well-seasoned soup, a fish called the barracouta, an excellent entrée, a pair of guineafowls, roast mutton, a salad of green peppers and tomatoes, well dressed; and, what was more important to the gentlemen, good old Madeira which had travelled far, Tinto which was fresh from Spain, clarets as good as when they first left France, and Burgundy a trifle better.
After the dinner was finished our host, the banker, arose and, stretching out his hand to me, said, "Welbekomer." This custom went around the table. It seems it is a Danish word signifying "Welcome," "Your good health," "May your dinner agree with you."
I retired with the Danish ladies, all of whom spoke English, and I asked them how they spent their lives.
"Oh, we rise early, go out on horseback, come back, take a siesta, and dress for an eleven-o'clock breakfast, then lounge and read or do embroidery; then we lunch at two, take another siesta, drive at five, to get the ocean breeze, and dine at eight — a busy, uninteresting, sleepy life," said Miss Sigenbrod, a pale Danish beauty. But she sat down at the piano and played with great vigor. The Danes, men and women, are consummate musicians — a great resource in that sleepy island. The gentlemen finally got through with their cigars, wine-and-water, Peter Herring brandy, and cordials, and came in to join us. Our host, hospitable to the last, offered us ladies aerated waters, as we did not take the heavier drinks; but what would I not have given for one glass of ice-water! — a luxury I was not destined to taste in three months, for all the cooling which drinking-water gets in these remote islands is to hang it in a porous jar in the breeze, which I thought made it more tepid and more tasteless than before. But I could talk of my ride on a Spanish jennet, a pacing pony which is nearer to being a rocking-chair than any horseback motion I have ever tried. No carriages would be of service on that sugar-loaf which St. Thomas is, so we did all our sight-seeing from the ponies' backs.
"Well, how did you enjoy your dinner?" asked my husband, as we regained our own rooms in the hotel.
"Oh, immensely !" said I. "I should like to live here forever."I have been glad since that he was not of my opinion.
We left on a little schooner for Santa Cruz in a week. It was a short sail and uneventful. Our friend the Reverend Mr. Hawley received us at the wharf with his carriage in waiting, drove us to his house, and gave us afternoon tea on a shaded veranda which looked into a garden. And afterwards we sauntered down long avenues which were thickly shaded by polished-leaved orange-trees, the Olea fragrans, and the innumerable blooming trees of this famed island. These alleys radiated in fan shape from the house. Along one, lovely scarlet pendent blossoms lighted up the green; in another, yellow tassels hung gracefully; in another, pink blossoms blushed. Down another alley white flowers gleamed like stars; the banana, the pineapple, the orange, the guava, the lemon, all planted at intervals; and over the pretty shaded portico hung the passion-flower vine, heavy with symbolic blossoms and its fruit, the queer pear-shaped papaw.
I could not express my ecstatic delight; nor was this delight ever satiated. Never, except in Italy, have I seen anything more lovely. Miss Ballin, a colored housekeeper, of excellent manners, showed me to my room, and I found no glass windows — there is not a pane of glass in Santa Cruz; a bed with one linen sheet over the hard mattress, a pillow, a mosquito-net, two chairs, a dressing-table, and a wash-stand, voilà tout! Seeing me look askance at the bed, she said, "If madame should wish another sheet I will give her a square of mosquito-netting."
And that was all I had during six weeks. It was all I needed; but the great trouble was to get a bath-tub and enough water.
The mosquitoes troubled me when I sat on the veranda, so I soon got to pass my days in a long, low, beautiful room down-stairs, which had a marble floor and was carefully mosquito-netted against the enemy. I found that silk stockings and low slippers must be abandoned and thick boots substituted, else these ferocious biters would eat me up. I got to like Miss Ballin's dinners, heavily freighted with red pepper though they were; they were savory, and a certain pastry called guava-berry tart was highly appreciated.
"Christmas will come day after to-morrow," said Mr. Hawley, one evening, "and I wish to appropriate Mrs. Sherwood's day." He told us that we were to dine with him at Mrs. Abbot's, where we should see the true elegance and hospitality of the island. Mrs. Abbot had been twice married, her first husband having been Captain Blakeley, of our navy, of distinguished fame. His daughter had been a ward of the United States, and after her mother's second marriage she had come to these islands, married, and had died. Mrs. Abbot had, however, other sons and daughters, and with her brothers and sisters, was rather the queen of Bassin.
"But first I wish you to go with me to early church, and see me administer the communion to eight hundred negroes," said this dear, good, faithful rector. This excellent man had me called at six, and I went with him through the glory of the tropical morning, through the churchyard filled with the works of Thorwaldsen. The little grave of one little child had been marked by a butterfly, and this work of Thorwaldsen's skilful fingers was doubly beautiful, in that the damp sea air had fretted the wings of the butterfly until they were diaphanous. We came to the church, already half filled with the black women in their white turbans and gowns, the black men decently dressed for church, all standing awaiting that blessed hospitality which had said to them as to us, "Eat, drink, in remembrance of Me."
The clerk introduced them all to the clergyman, saying, "Diana and Cæsar, estate Diamond and Ruby"; "Clio and Manuel, estate Mon Bijou," before they took the cup. This was necessary, as Mr. Hawley could not remember them all.
That was the only thing which remained to remind one that they had so recently been chattels.
It was a long service, that of Christmas-day, for at eleven o'clock arrived the planters and their families, many of whom kindly called on us afterwards at the rectory. Among those was Mr. Randolph, an Englishman, who asked us to dine with him at Mon Bijou, his pretty place seven miles away. My husband went off with him to call on the governor and some of the other dignitaries, and on old Judge Feddersen, who held the fort for Anna Maria Sparks in the Captain Folsom case.
I was very glad to retreat to the mosquito-net and the one linen sheet and to fan myself into a siesta. I rose at seven reluctantly to dress, and at eight o'clock we drove to Mrs. Abbot's, where we found a large party. Mrs. Abbot was a lady of high degree; her manners had the majesty of a past age. Councillor Feddustal, a very distinguished person, stood near her. The governor and his wife, evidently people of the world; Miss Sigenbrod, Misses Stridiron, Miss Feddersen, Danish beauties; Miss Abbot, a gentle blonde, and some fine-looking old gentlemen in uniforms, made up a distinguished party of twenty-four people.
There seemed to be a white-haired negro behind each chair. The long table was illuminated with wax-candles in tall glass globes which defended their flickering light from the insects and from draughts. The table was loaded with flowers and most delicious fruits, with heavy old-fashioned silver-plate and china, all of which had been curious and valuable for more than a hundred years. The viands were savory and well cooked. My husband had the honor to sit next Mrs. Abbot, and I soon saw them looking at me and pointing to a picture on the wall. As I looked at it I noticed that it was like my mother and my sisters, and that the lady was dressed as I was, in yellow. In fact, it happened to bear a singular resemblance to me. Mrs. Abbot was much affected by it, and as this was a picture of her deceased daughter it became a very intimate bond between us, and led to a thousand kindnesses on her part towards the stranger.
The hour of toasts arrived, and the clergyman arose and drank "To the roof," always the first toast; then "His Majesty the King"; then "To our absent friends, God bless them!" drunk standing; "To our friendly allies, Europe and America" (rather patronizingly); and, finally, "To the bride and groom," at which my next neighbor threw his glass over his shoulder and broke it in my honor.
Then rising, each shook hands with the other, exclaimed "Welbekomer!" and we ladies retired, leaving the gentlemen to cigars and rum-and-water.
After Miss Sigenbrod had dashed off a superb sonata on the piano, Mrs. Abbot sat down by me and put her sweet old hand in mine, telling me how I reminded her of her lost daughter. "There is her picture by Sully, of Philadelphia," said she; "it might be a picture of you."
She asked me to come next week. King's Day, and see the people dance. "Our people [meaning the negroes] come in from the plantations and sing their old African melodies, and play the drum and dance; it is a wild scene, one that strangers never forget. We have an African prince named Manuel, who was brought here when he was a boy. He was very unruly, but kindness has tamed him."
So I saw Manuel, the African prince, and many another with the original brand of the slave-ships on their foreheads, and they played the rude drum (which was a skin pulled over the head of a barrel) with their thumbs, as they sang a monotonous chant in the minor key (all savage music is in the minor key, and is profoundly sad, never joyous); and they danced, wildly, savagely — as a bird might fly, with one of its wings broken.
Our next expedition was to the house of an old Scotch knight, Sir Matthew Macdonald, whose house commanded a splendid view. We found the old man of scientific attainments at his post of observation, noting barometers and thermometers and Nature generally.
Two naval officers were of our party; their ship, a fine man-of-war flying the Stars and Stripes, lay in the harbor. Sir Matthew showed great interest in these, and opened a musty yellow volume in which he recorded the name, tonnage, number of guns, etc.
"This I have done for fifty years," said the old gentleman. "My interest in this world is bounded by what comes into these seas which lie under my eyes — by Nature, which lies all about me, and the heavens above me. I do not care for society, for politics, for the performance of man in the theatre of this world. So long as friends choose to come to me here, they are welcome; I go nowhere. It may be a selfish existence, but to me it is a happy one, and it hurts no one." After taking coffee with Lady Macdonald, Sir Matthew led us into a ruined, desolated wing of his house to show us the ravages ages of the ants. They had eaten away the whole interior of the wood which had supported his astronomical instruments, and he had these mounted on iron ploughshares and broken bits of sugar-boilers. We often heard these ant ravages alluded to, and afterwards we saw a colony of them deliberately strip off their wings and worm their way into a wooden wall in Mr. Hawley's house. Sometimes the leg of a table would go down unexpectedly and reveal a hollow inside; they had entirely eaten out the heart of the wood.
Most of the houses at which we visited were monuments of past prosperity, where poverty was bravely and silently borne. They were, many of them, full of learning and refinement, full of dramatic secrets. It was the veriest atmosphere for the novelist. No one knew anything about Time. He had never crossed over from St. Thomas, the old thief Time! Having no seasons, it was always summer — "sacred, high, eternal noon." These West-Indians never said "last autumn," "last winter." They had none of these reminders; so the growth of children was their only calendar. Their newspapers were a fortnight old, and nobody read them but the planters, and they not often. A newspaper is of no interest unless you read one every day. One must keep hold of Time.
The day came when we were to dine at Mr. Randolph's, and the rich English planter received us in a beautiful, well-kept house. Fortune had not gone hard with him. We drove thither by the sea over one or two gentle elevations, seeing St. Thomas and Porto Rico — very dimly the last, but dreamy and delicious. The plantations looked, each with its negro huts about it, like little towns; and the long, smooth, white roads, planted with palm-trees like long zones of umbrellas, had a pretty effect. But palms are not half so beautiful as elms. In a landscape they are ineffective.
Mr. Randolph lived like an English nobleman, but he was no more cheerful than the rest of them. He knew how to give a dinner. London could not have given us a better one. People who live in quiet, remote places are apt to give good dinners. They are the oft-recurring excitement of an otherwise unemotional, dull existence. They linger, each of these dinners, in our palimpsest memories, each recorded clearly, so that it does not blot out the other. Mr. Randolph had travelled extensively. He was a "London swell" condemned to an existence in this remote corner. But then he had a French cook from the "Trois Frères Provençaux," a keenly developed sense of gastronomy, and plenty of money. Given these three things, "avec cette sauce," and one could give a dinner in the desert.
"Oh, what a good dinner we have eaten, and what cigars we are smoking!" whispered my husband to me as he came in furtively to bring me my fan and handkerchief; and then he returned to the moonlighted veranda, in the shade, to look at the tropical night and to imbibe the fine old Santa Cruz rum and water. The time came for us to depart, and we drove home in the tropical moonlight, my husband holding a parasol over my head — in that superb moonlight, so soft and clear. Why? Randolph had told him to do so, he said, else I should have a swollen face, which would not become a bride.
"Randolph thinks the moon particularly dangerous, not only to one's brain, but to one's personal beauty," said he; "and what stories they tell of centipeds and the poison fish, the barracouta and the moon!"
Our next fine dinner was at Government House. There we had an exact copy of what such a feast would be at Copenhagen, and it was very stately. As we got talking music during the charming dessert, his Excellency promised to play for us afterwards on the piano some works of a Danish composer. I found out that he was an ardent admirer and pupil of Rubinstein, and that he himself was the composer. How rarely, I thought, shall I find a governor who will play the piano like this for me!
"Much talk of Bulasminda after you left the table," said my husband to me. "It is the old residence of the late governor, Van Scholten. The present governor offered it to us, if we wish to take it, for almost nothing. It stands there furnished, and with a corps of accomplished servants ready at your hand. Moreover, he and his delightful wife will call for us and take us for a drive and lunch at Bulasminda to-morrow."
Bulasminda was on a height far above the city of Ballin, and commanded the view and the sea-breeze so coveted in these islands; here were great breezy salons and broad verandas, and cozy little charming boudoirs furnished with bright chintz. From the telescopes along the veranda one could but fear that Governor Van Scholten had sat looking out to sea, for the best part of his occupancy, to sight the vessel which should bear him away. There was his journal on the table, like Robinson Crusoe's notched sticks:
"Calypso sighted this morning.
"Ariel weighed anchor at seven last evening.
"Christian the Eleventh sailed to-day.
"Schooner Gustavus arrived.
"American man-of-war Lancaster in the harbor.
"English steamer Trent expected," etc.
We were asked by the steward to put our names in this book, but as we were not a steamship, nor even a schooner, we hesitated. After luncheon our hospitable hosts showed us the house; it was vastly convenient, but we did not take it, not even for a week.
The busy and hard-working young lawyer had not forgotten his business. The case at which he worked several hours a day was this: A certain half-negro, half-Dane sea-captain named Leidesdorf had done so good a business between St. Thomas and San Francisco in the early forties that he had made money. He had the good-luck to be in San Francisco when gold was discovered, and came to own a piece of ground in the then small town which struck the fancy of one of the "Argonauts of '49." Sea-Captain Leidesdorf promised to sell this piece of land to Captain Folsom for a certain sum, and was paid that money, but he started home in his ship for St. Thomas before the transaction was completed, and died just before landing.
Hence confusion and New York lawyers. His old mother, Anna Maria Sparks, who could neither read nor write, demanded boxes of jewels and barrels of gold. The price had gone up every hour since Captain Folsom made the first treaty. Should she allow her son's great fortune to escape her? A shrewd old Danish lawyer, Judge Feddersen, said no. So poor Captain Folsom kept paying and paying, and other heirs sprang up. My husband had been twice to Santa Cruz before on this business; I only came in at the finish. Finally, one payment remained, and he said that I might see that; so he drove me up a hill to a humble shanty where sat a drunken Danish soldier on a three-legged stool awaiting his share, and it was paid to him — $20,000 in gold. He was not a Populist or a Silverite; he distrusted paper, and he would have none of his own depreciated Danish coin; so a little bag of gold was produced, and he was paid in the presence of Judge Feddersen and the clerk of the bank, while my husband did the legal business and took the receipt. I remember exactly how this Danish soldier cramped himself up to write his name, "Holder Guindrop" — I can see that autograph now. We then left him with his gold. He was a brother-in-law of the late Captain Leidesdorf, and he drank himself to death in three months out of his bag of gold.
When we came back to New York Captain Folsom called to see us — a pale, resolute man, very embittered and disappointed. He had fought with wild beasts at Ephesus for his land, and said that he had paid old Anna Maria Sparks $200,000 too much. He died soon after, and the distinguished firm of Halleck, Peachy & Billings took care of his affairs; this was the last little leaf of romance which came to me with my wedding journey.
We left Santa Cruz and our dear, hospitable friends, our kind Mr. Hawley, and the unique days we passed there with great regret. I often see in my dreams that flower-laden porch, the lovely view from Bulasminda, and during Christmas week I always hear that monotonous droning sound; I see the negroes advancing, singing that melancholy minor strain. Unhappy Africa with her burdens comes before me. I see the barbaric spirit get the mastery of them. They wildly throw their arms in the air, hysterically seize each other by the waist, as if the tarantula had bitten them; then they advance slowly and with majesty towards the house, with courtesy and obeisance. They ask for "old Missus," and raise her hand to their lips and their brows; then a fine athletic negro asks for the baby. It is brought in its long white robe; he takes it tenderly and passes it from one to another; they all smile, kiss the new-comer, and show most enviable ivory teeth, thus saluting age and youth with fine poetic instincts. Then they bring forward their oldest man, Manuel, the African prince, who performs the same Oriental homage and utters more rude original rhymes, to which the whole family listen politely, and they all disappear slowly; the festival of a Santa Cruz Christmas is at an end.
We went through the Caribbean Sea towards Cuba, stopping at Jacmel — miserable place — at Hayti and Jamaica, all very sad; rounded the island of Cuba, and came to those fortifications at Havana which cost the Spanish king so much that he asked if they were built of silver! Our steamer happened to be the English Trent, which years after was made historical by the fact that Mason and Slidell were on board of her when a Yankee gun stopped her further progress, Havana was then a beautiful, peaceful town, full of rich people who were fond of entertaining. I remember we attended a grand fête at the palace of Mr. Aldama, the richest of the Cubans. It was fairy-like in its beauty, regal in magnificence. We went to the opera, one of the gayest in the world; we drove in a volante up and down that gorgeous Paseo of a Sunday afternoon, all the ladies in full dress; we bought fans; we enjoyed and explored the romantic Spanish city, full of luxury. But, alas! the negroes, the slaves with the chain-gang, each with an iron ball on a lame leg, cleaning the streets, spoiled it for me. Even then Americans were objects of suspicion, and we had to conceal our identity while an English officer took us over the Moro Castle. We went out to Matanzas to see a coffee plantation. It was all very gay and very tropical and yet unlike Santa Cruz. There was no ennui in this lively Havana life; yet there were mutterings, not loud but deep, over the hated Spaniard. Captain Walker, the filibuster, had been in that neighborhood. There was talk of annexation, but the trouble had not come yet. So I remember the island in perhaps its period of greatest prosperity, and certainly when it was one of the gayest and most agreeable of winter sojourns.
New York had three great visitors within the two years after my wedding journey. They were Rachel, Thackeray, and Fanny Kemble. Each a memory for a lifetime.
It was after a tiresome journey from our country place, one October evening, that, making a hasty toilet, I went to the theatre to see Rachel in Phèdre. I did not know that I was to have this supreme pleasure so soon, although I knew I should see her sometime. So incoherent were my expectations that I thought my early memorizing of the great play would help me to understand her and to measure the greatness of her acting.
I had been made, when studying French, to memorize those lofty Alexandrines of Racine's masterpiece; therefore the story of Phèdre was very familiar. Remembering that the goddess had condemned the poor queen to fall in love with her stepson, I pictured her as rather an elderly person, perhaps a sort of Mrs. Nickleby. Who, then, was this young, sorrowful woman coming in with tragic face, dragging after her, as if its weight were insupportable, the long crimson mantle of a queen? Who was this dark-eyed creature, so young, so lovely, who sank into her imperial seat, the crimson mantle draped behind her, throwing out her beautiful arms and her delicate little head? The lover, an ugly, big-headed young Frenchman, against whose presence she shuddered so that she seemed to shake the stage, fully carried out the idea that the power of the goddess must have been supreme, for no woman in her senses could have fallen in love with him. Rachel never seemed to walk, and in Phèdre she gave the idea that a serpent was hidden under her long robe, on whose undulations she was moved along irrespective of her own volition. Her eyes were half closed, and her whole face, expressive of baleful passion which her nobler self hated, was the most beautiful, painful thing possible. Her voice was the very soul of music. She did not seem to know that an audience was present. Her absorption in her part was so perfect that I was full of pity for her, and wondered if she would live until the end of the play. When it was ended I found myself paralyzed and unable to rise for some moments. It was the most powerful of all artistic emotions that I have experienced in a long life of theatre-going.
I afterwards saw her in all her best parts — Adrienne Lecouvreur, Camille, in which she was emphatically beautiful, in a classic Greek dress with scarlet fillet in her hair; and again in a charming comedy, Le Moineau de Lesbie, in which her rare smile and playfulness were most conspicuous. I remember even the beauty of her robe in this play.
The wonder of Rachel's playing was the wonder of all genius. You did not see her, or her art; you saw the real creature whom her art portrayed. In this respect Salvini was nearest to her of any artist I have seen. Her sister, Sarah Félix, was an admirable artiste, and so was her brother, Raphael; but they played on the stage, while Rachel floated in an ether over it. When the two sisters played Elizabeth and Mary in the great drama of Marie Stuart there was a question as to which was the greater queen; but when Mary Stuart receives her death sentence there was no doubt. Such a creature ruled heaven as well as earth, and human misfortunes assumed their appropriate place beneath her real exaltation. And yet this part was not Rachel's greatest triumph. She reigns in memory as Camille, the Roman sister.
Soon after the departure of Rachel, Fanny Kemble began a course of readings in New York. This gifted niece of Mrs. Siddons gave us all the great Kemble traditions, and her voice, a miracle of expressive music, added the final charm. It was a message from Shakespeare.
I liked her best in the Tempest, as the contrast of Ariel and Caliban is so extraordinary. The majestic poetry, and, again, the broad humor of the minor characters, especially of the, drunken Trinculo, afforded her all the sweep and scope she needed for her tremendous powers. She absolutely reeled in the scene with Trinculo. Her Caliban was immense.
She was very grand in Measure for Measure and Cymbeline, two plays with which I had not been familiar. And oh! how great in Macbeth and King Lear! The latter was almost too much. It gave me a headache. I^m not sure I would like to see it again.
I heard Thackeray's first series of lectures in New York on "The Four Georges"; but I was not destined to know him until he came the second time, in 1855. America had welcomed him as the author of Punch's Prize Novelists and of Vanity Fair, which reached us about 1849. The enthusiastic regard of Charlotte Brontë for Mr. Thackeray, who spoke of him as the "first social regenerate of the day, the one who should restore to rectitude the warped order of things," found an echo in our hearts. He was a complete success. He was as delightful as his own literary personages are, and so "like his writings" that every one spoke of it. His allusions, his voice, his looks, were all just what we had expected. Never did a long-hoped-for hero fill the bill so thoroughly. His loving and life-giving genius spoke in every word. Wonderful examples of excellence those papers on "The Four Georges," and delivered in a clear, fine, rich voice. Their simplicity was matchless, and the fun in him came out as he described the fourth George, and then stopped, not smiling himself, while we all laughed. He silently stood, his head tipped back, and then calmly wiped his spectacles and went on. He had a charm as a speaker which no one has since caught: it defies analysis, as does his genius. It was Thackerayian.
I think that I heard then that he was more widely read in America than in England; he was certainly treated with great hospitality. The Century Club (then wholly made up of authors, artists, and actors) was pronounced by him the "best club in the world." He was allowed the fullest liberty there; and as he was a man of moods, and his mood was sometimes silence, he was glad of a corner where he could sit unobserved. Fitz-Greene Halleck, who wrote "Green be the turf above thee!" and "At midnight in her guarded tent," entertained him; and Hackett, the comedian, and Sparrowgrass Cozzens and Willis and Bryant and Cooper were all of this party. While in Boston James T. Field, most admirable of friends, took that care of him which his genial nature suggested. Washington Irving and Bayard Taylor were also here then to greet him.
I saw him several times during his later visit in 1855, and in the company of Miss Sallie Baxter, who was the beautiful girl who suggested to him the character or personal appearance of Ethel Newcomb, at least such was the gossip.
I remember going with her to one of his lectures and seeing Thackeray in the greenroom before he entered. It was here he showed the playful and engaging side of his manner. Thackeray was a gentleman born and bred, and his polish of manner never left him, even when his fun would have made him boyish.
Sallie Baxter was a dark beauty of the Spanish type, most exquisitely lovely, with fabulous great black eyes, whose lashes swept her eyebrows. She was a natural, unaffected person, and during his stay in New York Thackeray was frequently a guest in her mother's house. Miss Baxter seemed to treat him like a daughter. Perhaps she brought back those dear ones whom he had left at 13 Young Street, South Kensington. Many suppers and dinners and theatre parties brought me to see the great man rather intimately, and I do not remember a more easy-going and genial person. His tall, commanding form and gray head, his nez retroussé and his eye-glasses, his firm tread and charming laugh, got to be as well known in Kew York as they were in London. His little notes in his very neat handwriting found their way into our albums. He was always accessible and full of enjoyment, and yet when we saw him sailing along majestically down Broadway, with his hands in his pockets, there was an air of melancholy and of preoccupation in his expressive face. But he was "as reticent as he was brave," and no one heard him speak of his sorrows, if he had any. Perhaps this was one of the happiest periods of his life. Sallie Baxter married at the South, was separated from her Northern family by the terrors of the civil war, and died young, away from them. I think she died about the same time that Thackeray did, perhaps a year before.
A kind-hearted, noble, tender man; a generous, sincere gentleman; a healthy, good liver, and with a fine grip to his hearty hand. He was a big man and heavy, and walked with a strong step; a healthful, broad-shouldered Englishman, whose jollity and fun seemed to forbid reticence on his part, but who could and did, at the touch of humbug or affectation, retreat into himself, turn away with an expression of polished irony on his face, and, with a singular movement of the head, assure the bore that he was no longer needed.
When we went to England in 1869, Miss Thackeray gave us a dinner. Her home then was with her sister and her husband, Mr. and Mrs. Leslie Stephen. The afterwards much-talked-of Mr. Justice Stephen was of the party, and Doyle was there, the artist of Punch, so distinguished for his "Brown, Jones, and Robinson." I had a letter to Miss Thackeray from Dr. Bellows; but to be an American and a friend of their father was to these ladies a sufficient introduction, and they treated us with great kindness. We saw many of the MSS. of Thackeray's famous works, illustrated by his own hand, and Mr. and Mrs. Leslie Stephen took every pains to show us these treasures.
During this dinner, at which Miss Thackeray made herself very agreeable, a message came in from Madame Ritchie saying that her son, Richmond Ritchie, had passed his examinations successfully. This seemed to be much-longed-for news to all of them, and it is the more agreeable to remember, since he is the gentleman who has made her so happy as her husband for twenty years.
I had the pleasure of meeting this famous and agreeable Mrs. Ritchie at Aix-les-Bains in 1888, and to sit and talk with her near a vine-clad wall, up which the lizards were climbing, was indeed a great pleasure. Her companionship made this prettiest place on earth, Aix-les-Bains, even more attractive ("Savoie, c'est la grâce alpestre," says Victor Hugo) than it is by nature.
And indeed here, by the Lake of Bouget, did I have one of the most treasured talks of Thackeray with one of the dearest of women, his much-beloved daughter Anne.
Anthony Trollope said of Thackeray, "One loves him as one loves a woman, tenderly and with thoughtfulness, thinking of him when away from him as a source of joy which cannot be analyzed, but is full of comfort."
Nor was he less dear to others who saw less of him. The great heart which kept that gigantic brain going was indeed a tender heart.
These early fifties were the blessed days, when we had a novel by Dickens and one by Thackeray running at the same time; and Charlotte Brontë, having overwhelmed us with Jane Eyre, was good enough to give us Villette, which has in it the best description of Rachel's acting which I have ever seen, and her not less characteristic novel of Shirley. Such was our literary luxury.
Among the visitors to New York who created no little stir in the early fifties was Miss Anne Pamela Cunningham, from Virginia, introduced by Mrs. Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie. Miss Cunningham started the idea of buying Mount Vernon. It reminds me of how small a town New York was then that we soon set the whole of it ringing with this enthusiasm. Dion Boucicault and Agnes Robertson played their sensational drama Pauvrette for us; Mrs. Mowatt Ritchie gave some tableaux at Mr. Edward Cooper's. Mr. Everett, however, was our best friend in the way of raising money.
I think Mr. Everett's contribution to this purchase amounted to nearly $50,000. I know that Mr. Robert Bonner sent him a check for $10,000 for writing some papers for the Ledger, all of which Mr. Everett contributed to the cause. Miss Mary M. Hamilton was made Regent of the State, and, assisted by the best people of New York, bravely carried the burden to her lamented death.
What a forlorn, old, neglected place Mount Vernon was then! but how soon it became cared for and clean! And now it is almost as it was when Washington lived there, if we can spiritually see the real furnishing of the past. The office of regent fell to the able hands of Mrs. Justine Van Rensselaer Townsend, a Colonial Dame, and fitted in every way to be the sponsor of such a trust. I rejoice that it is now the care of the women of America, but I am glad I remember the poor old place in 1848, when it had nothing to look at but the key of the Bastile, which nobody wished to take away or steal.
I worked with Miss Hamilton all these early years in favor of this patriotic object. Glad were we that it was paid for and safe before the dreadful days of the war, for we had other and more urgent need for all the money that any one could give.
Miss Anne Pamela Cunningham was aristocratic to a great fault, and so very "Secesh" in her sympathies that she would not speak to any Northern person after the war. Mrs. Ritchie, poor woman! after her striking career as a beauty in New York's best set, and her career as an actress in America and England, married Mr. Ritchie, of Richmond, went abroad during the war, and died in London poor, and inexpressibly saddened at the inevitable separation which, that war had brought about. One of the most interesting events of the early fifties had been to me the seeing her official retirement from the stage. She played Pauline in the Lady of Lyons, in which she had made her debut, ten years before, at the old Park Theatre. The house was crowded as the pretty blond woman made her graceful speech. The next most interesting event was her wedding, at the country-place of her father on Long Island, and a very gay fête it was. Her husband was an editor at Richmond, Va., a most gentlemanly and excellent person, tenderly fond, and true to her. But the sorrows of their country tore them apart, nor did they live to see the day of reconciliation, prosperity, and reconstruction.
I have often thought that some record of this service of hers should be perpetuated at Mount Vernon. I know that Miss Hamilton (afterwards Mrs. George L. Schuyler) had this very much at heart. Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie brought this idea to the notice of the public of New York, the purchase of Mount Vernon, and she should have her picture hung in one of those now beautifully restored rooms, and the memory of Miss Anne Pamela Cunningham should be venerated.