Tomes. Do you grudge the poor creatures their holiday and their holiday-dress?
Grey. Far from it! Let them, let us all, have more holidays, and holiday-dresses as beautiful as may be. But I cannot see why a holiday-dress should be so entirely unlike the dress they wear on other days. I have a respect as well as an admiration for the white-capped, bonnetless head of the French maid, which I cannot feel for my own wife's nurse, when I meet her flaunting along the streets on Sunday afternoon in a bonnet which is a cheap and vulgar imitation of that which my wife wears, and really like it only in affording no protection to her head, and requiring huge pins to keep it in the place where a bonnet is least required. I have seen a farmer, whose worth, intelligence, and manly dignity found fitting expression in the dress that he daily wore, sacrifice this harmonious outward seeming in an hour, and sink into insignificance, if not vulgarity, by putting on a dress-coat and a shiny stove-pipe hat to go to meeting or to "York." A dress-coat and a fashionable hat are such hideous habits in themselves, that he must be unmistakably a man bred to wearing them, and on whom they sit easily, if not a well-looking and distinguished man, who can don them with impunity, especially if we have been accustomed to see him in a less exacting costume.
Mr. Key. The very reason why every man will, at sacrifice of his comfort and his last five dollars, exercise his right to wear them whenever he can do so. But your idea of a beautiful costume, Mr. Grey, seems to be a blue, red, or yellow bag, or bolster-case, drawn over the head, mouth downwards, with a hole in the middle of the bottom for the neck and two at the corners for the arms, and bound about the waist with a cord; for I observe that you insist upon a girdle.
Grey. I don't scout your pattern so much as you probably expected. Costumes worse in every respect have been often worn.And the girdle? Is it not, in female dress, at least, the most charming accessory of costume? that which most defines the peculiar beauties of woman's form? that to which the tenderest associations cling? Its knot has ever had a sweet significance that makes it sacred. What token could a lover receive that he would prize so dearly as the girdle whose office he has so often envied? "That," cries Waller,
"That which her slender waist confin'd
Shall now my joyful temples bind.
* * * * *
Give me but what this ribbon bound,
Take all the rest the sun goes round."
Have women taste? and can they put off this cestus with which the least attractive of them puts on some of Venus's beauty? Have they sentiment? and can they discard so true a type of their tender power that its mere lengthening makes every man their servant?
Tomes. Your bringing up the poets to your aid reminds me that you have the greatest of them against you, as to the importance of richness in dress. What do you say to Shakespeare's "Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, but not expressed in fancy"?
Grey. That it is often quoted as Shakespeare's advice in dress by people who know nothing else that he wrote, and who would have his support for their extravagance, when, in fact, we do not know what Shakespeare would have thought upon the subject, had he lived now. It is the advice of a worldly-minded old courtier to his son, given as a mere prudential maxim, at a time when, to make an impression and get on at court, a man had need to be richly dressed. That need has entirely passed away.
Miss Larches. But, Mr. Grey, I remember your finding fault with the powder on the head-dress of that marquise costume, because it concealed the red hair of the wearer. In such a case I should consider powder a blessing. Do you really admire red hair?
Grey. When it is beautiful, I do, and prefer it to that of any other tint. I don't mean golden hair, or flaxen, or yellow, but red,the color of dark red amber, or, nearer yet, of freshly cut copper. There is ugly red hair, as there is ugly hair of black and brown, and every other hue. It is not the mere name of the color of the hair that makes it beautiful or not, but its tint and texture. I have seen black hair that was hideous to the sight and repulsive to the touch,other, also black, that charmed the eyes and wooed the fingers. Fashion has asserted herself even in this particular. There have been times when the really fortunate possessor of such brown tresses as Miss Larches's would have been deemed unfortunate. No troubadour would have sung her praises; or if he did, he would either have left her hair unpraised, or else lied and called it golden, meaning red, as we know by the illuminated books of the Middle Ages. Had she lived in Venice, that great school of color, two or three hundred years ago, in the days of Titian and Giorgione, its greatest masters, she would probably have sat upon a balcony with her locks drawn through a crownless broad-brimmed hat, and covered with dye, to remove some of their rich chestnut hue, and substitute a reddish tinge;just as this lady is represented as doing in this Venetian book of costumes of that date.
Key. Oh that two little nephews of mine, that the boys call Carroty Bill and Brickdust Ben, were here! How these comfortable words would edify them!
Grey. I'm afraid not, if they understood me, or the poets, who, as well as the painters, are with me, Horace's Pyrrha had red hair,
"Cui flavam religas comam
Simplex munditiis?"
which, if Tomes will not be severely critical, I will translate,
"For whom bind'st back thy amber hair
In neat simplicity?"
Mrs. Grey. The poets are always raving about neat simplicity, or something else that is not the fashion. I suppose they sustain you in your condemnation of perfumes, too.
Tomes. There I'm with Grey,and the poets, too, I think.
Mrs. Grey. What say you, Mr. Key?
Tomes. At least, Grey, [turning to him,] Plautus says, "Mulier recte olet ubi nihil olet" which you may translate for the ladies, if you choose. I always distrust a woman steeped in perfumes upon the very point as to which she seeks to impress me favorably.
Grey [as if to himself and Tomes]
"Still to be powder'd, still perfum'd,
Lady, it is to be presum'd,
Though Art's hid causes are not found,
All is not sweet, all is not sound."
Mrs. Grey. What is that you are having to yourselves, there?
Grey. Only a verse or two à-propos from rare Ben.
Mrs. Grey. What do poets know about dress, even when they are poetesses? Look at your friend, the authoress of the "Willow Wreath." What a spook that woman is! Where does she get those dresses? I've often wondered
* * * * *Here the glass door opened, and a neat, fresh-looking maid-servant said, "Please, Ma'am, dinner is served."
Grey. Dinner! Have we been talking here two mortal hours? You'll all stop, of course: don't think of declining. Nelly blushes, yonder, doubtful, on "hospitable thoughts intent," I don't believe "our general mother," though she had Eden for her larder, heard Adam announce the Archangel's unexpected visit about dinner-time without a momentary qualm as to whether the peaches would go round twice. There'll be enough for Miss Larches and you, Nelly; and we gentlemen will beam smiles upon you as we mince our modest share. Let us go in. Mr. Key, will you commit yourself to Mrs. Grey? Miss Larches, will you lay aside your bonnet? Oh, it's off already! One can't see, unless one stands behind you; and I prefer the front view. Pray, take my arm. And, Tomes, keep at a respectful distance in the rear, for the safety of Miss Larches's skirts, or she will be for excluding you, if we should have a talk about another phase of Daily Beauty, or stay away herself; and neither of you could be spared.
THE ARTIST-PRISONER
Here, in this vacant cell of mine,
I picture and paint my Apennine.
In spite of walls and gyvéd wrist,
I gather my gold and amethyst.
The muffled footsteps' ebb and swell,
Immutable tramp of sentinel,
The clenchéd lip, the gaze of doom,
The hollow-resounding dungeon-gloom,
All fade and cease, as, mass and line,
I shadow the sweep of Apennine,
And from my olive palette take
The marvellous pigments, flake by flake.
With azure, pearl, and silver white,
The purple of bloom and malachite,
Ceiling, wall, and iron door,
When the grim guard goes, I picture o'er.
E'en where his shadow falls athwart
The sunlight of noon, I've a glory wrought,
Have shaped the gloom and golden shine
To image my gleaming Apennine.
No cruel Alpine heights are there,
Dividing the depths of pallid air;
But sea-blue liftings, far and fine,
With driftings of pearl and coralline;
And domes of marble, every one
All ambered o'er by setting sun;
Yes, marble realms, that, clear and high,
So float in the purple-azure sky,
We all have deemed them, o'er and o'er,
Miraculous isles of madrepore;
Nor marvel made that hither floods
Bore wonderful forms of hero-gods.
Oh, can you see, as spirit sees,
Yon silvery sheen of olive-trees?
To me a sound of murmuring doves
Comes wandering up from olive-groves,
And lingers near me, while I dwell
On yonder fair field of asphodel,
Half-lost in sultry songs of bees,
As, touching my chaliced anemones,
I prank their leaves with dusty sheen
To show where the golden bees have been.
On granite wall I paint the June
With emerald grape and wild festoon,
Its chestnut-trees with open palms
Beseeching the sun for daily alms,
In sloping valley, veiled with vines,
A violet path beneath the pines,
The way one goes to find old Rome,
Its far away sign a purple dome.
But not for me the glittering shrine:
I worship my God in the Apennine!
To all save those of artist eyes,
The listeners to silent symphonies,
Only a cottage small is mine,
With poppied pasture, sombre pine.
But they hear anthems, prayer, and bell,
And sometimes they hear an organ swell;
They see what seemsso saintly fair
Madonna herself a-wandering there,
Bearing baby so divine
They speak of the Child in Palestine!
Yet I, who threw my palette down
To fight on the walls of yonder town,
Know them for wife and baby mine,
As, weeping, I trace them, line by line,
In far-off glen of Apennine!
THE MINISTER'S WOOING
[Continued.]
CHAPTER XXVA GUEST AT THE COTTAGENothing is more striking, in the light and shadow of the human drama, than to compare the inner life and thoughts of elevated and silent natures with the thoughts and plans which those by whom they are surrounded have of and for them. Little thought Mary of any of the speculations that busied the friendly head of Miss Prissy, or that lay in the provident forecastings of her prudent mother. When a life into which all our life-nerves have run is cut suddenly away, there follows, after the first long bleeding is stanched, an internal paralysis of certain portions of our nature. It was so with Mary: the thousand fibres that bind youth and womanhood to earthly love and life were all in her as still as the grave, and only the spiritual and divine part of her being was active. Her hopes, desires, and aspirations were all such as she could have had in greater perfection as a disembodied spirit than as a mortal woman. The small stake for self which she had invested in life was gone,and henceforward all personal matters were to her so indifferent that she scarce was conscious of a wish in relation to her own individual happiness. Through the sudden crush of a great affliction, she was in that state of self-abnegation to which the mystics brought themselves by fastings and self-imposed penances,a state not purely healthy, nor realizing the divine ideal of a perfect human being made to exist in the relations of human life,but one of those exceptional conditions, which, like the hours that often precede dissolution, seem to impart to the subject of them a peculiar aptitude for delicate and refined spiritual impressions. We could not afford to have it always night,and we must think that the broad, gay morning light, when meadow-lark and robin and bobolink are singing in chorus with a thousand insects and the waving of a thousand breezes, is on the whole the most in accordance with the average wants of those who have a material life to live and material work to do. But then we reverence that clear-obscure of midnight, when everything is still and dewy;then sing the nightingales, which cannot be heard by day; then shine the mysterious stars. So when all earthly voices are hushed in the soul, all earthly lights darkened, music and color float in from a higher sphere.
No veiled nun, with her shrouded forehead and downcast eyes, ever moved about a convent with a spirit more utterly divided from the world, than Mary moved about her daily employments. Her care about the details of life seemed more than ever minute; she was always anticipating her mother in every direction, and striving by a thousand gentle preveniences to save her from fatigue and care; there was even a tenderness about her ministrations, as if the daughter had changed feelings and places with the mother.
The Doctor, too, felt a change in her manner towards him, which, always considerate and kind, was now invested with a tender thoughtfulness and anxious solicitude to serve which often brought tears to his eyes. All the neighbors who had been in the habit of visiting at the house received from her, almost daily, in one little form or another, some proof of her thoughtful remembrance.
She seemed in particular to attach herself to Mrs. Marvyn,throwing her care around that fragile and wounded nature, as a generous vine will sometimes embrace with tender leaves and flowers a dying tree.
But her heart seemed to have yearnings beyond even the circle of home and friends. She longed for the sorrowful and the afflicted,she would go down to the forgotten and the oppressed,and made herself the companion of the Doctor's secret walks and explorings among the poor victims of the slave-ships, and entered with zeal as teacher among his African catechumens.
Nothing but the limits of bodily strength could confine her zeal to do and suffer for others; a river of love had suddenly been checked in her heart, and it needed all these channels to drain off the waters that must otherwise have drowned her in the suffocating agonies of repression.
Sometimes, indeed, there would be a returning thrill of the old wound,one of those overpowering moments when some turn in life brings back anew a great anguish. She would find unexpectedly in a book a mark that he had placed there,or a turn in conversation would bring back a tone of his voice,or she would see on some thoughtless young head curls just like those which were swaying to and fro down among the wavering seaweeds,and then her heart gave one great throb of pain, and turned for relief to some immediate act of love to some living being. They who saw her in one of these moments felt a surging of her heart towards them, a moisture of the eye, a sense of some inexpressible yearning, and knew not from what pain that love was wrung, nor how that poor heart was seeking to still its own throbbings in blessing them.