'The Chesterfield of oil-colors?' suggested Rocjean. 'But à propos of Nature, you never paint a picture directly from her, do you?'
'Never! Does a great historical painter use the model? No, sir; he draws on his imagination for his figures. He scorns to copy from a model. I convey the impression of mystery that Naychure gives me; I am no servile copyist. And I claim to leave an impression on the minds of the beholders of my works. Why, even Caper, I believe, can see what I wish to tell, and read my poems on canvas. Tell me, Caper, what idea does even that rough sketch of Venice awake in your imaginative faculties, and all that?'
Caper's face wore a deeply thoughtful look, as he answered: 'I do see it; I do claim to read the lesson you would teach'
'Speak it out,' interrupted Phlamm, 'I knew you would feel the deep, mysterious sentiment as is in it.'
'Spider-tracks and crows' feet on the blue mud of a big marsh,' spoke Caper resolutely.
'Pshaw!' exclaimed Phlamm impetuously; 'you have no Faith, and without that, all Art is a sealed thing. Goldburg, to whom I lately sold a painting, had faith; he saw the grand idea which I explained to him in that picture; he knew that the Earl of Bigbarns had purchased a work of mine, and he said to me: 'The opinion of such a man is an opinion as should be a valuable opinion to a business man, and govern the sentiments of those who worship Art.' Other artists see Naychure, but how do they see her? I answer, blindly! They don't feel her here!' (Phlamm struck his waistcoat in fearful proximity to a pocket in it, and altogether too low for his heart.)
'Nay-chure,' said Caper to Rocjean, as they left this studio of the mysterious one, 'ruined a good Barnum to make a poor Phlamm, when she made him.'
A BATH-HUNT
It is a mournful sight to see a city of one hundred and eighty thousand five hundred and thirty-nine inhabitants, including one thousand three hundred and thirty-one priests, two thousand four hundred and four monks, and eight hundred and fifty-four Jews, Turks, and heretics, as the census had it, attacked with hydrophobia. But it is so. A preternatural dread of water rages among all the inhabitants of Rome, from the untitled down to the titled.
'Madame,' said Rocjean to a distinguished female model, 'I assure you that, in the sixth century, [or as Sir Gardiner Wilkinson has it, in the five hundred,] there were nine thousand and twenty-five baths in this city.'
'Those must have been good times,' replied she, 'for the washerwomen, seguro! There are a good many clothes of the forestieri [strangers] washed here now; but not so many different places to wash them in.'
'I mean places to bathe one's self all over in.'
'Mai! Never, never!' exclaimed the woman with horror; 'never! 'twould give them the fever, kill them dead!'
Mr. Van Brick, of New-York, arriving in Rome early in the morning, demanded of the porter at the hotel where he could find a bagno, or place where he could get a bath. He was directed to go down the Babuino, and at such a number he would find the establishment. Forgetting the number before he was three steps from the hotel, he inquired of a man who was driving a she-jackass to be milked, where the bath was. As he spoke very little Italian, he had to make up by signs what he wanted in words. The man, probably believing he wanted a church, and that his motions signified being sprinkled with water, pointed to the Greek church, and Van Brick, thinking it was a solemn-looking old bagno, strode in, to his astonishment finding out as soon as he entered that he was by no means in the right place. As he turned to go out, he saw an amiable-looking young man, with a black cocked hat in his hand, and a black serge shirt on that came down to his heels, and had a waist-band drawing it in over his hips. He asked the young man, as well as he could in Italian, where there was a bagno.
'The signore is English?' asked the youth in the black shirt.
'I want a bath,' said Van Brick, 'which way?'
'Have patience, signore. There are a great many English in Rome.'
'Farewell!' quoth Van Brick, turning on his heel, reflecting: 'That youth talks too much; he does it to conceal his ignorance; he don't know what a bath is.' Coming out of the church, he met a good-natured looking Roman girl, without any bonnet, as usual, going along with a bottle of wine and a loaf of bread.
'Can you tell me where the bath is?'
'Chi lo sa, signore.'
This CHI LO SA, or, 'who knows?' of the Romans, is a shaft that would kill Paul Pry. It nearly throws an inquisitive man into convulsions. He meets it at every turn. The simplest question is knocked to pieces by it. So common is it for a Roman of the true plebs breed to give you this for an answer to almost every question, that Rocjean once won a hat from Caper in this wise: they stood one evening in front of a grocer's store, down by the Pantheon; it was brilliantly illuminated with hundreds of candles, displaying piles of hams, cheese, butter, eggs, etc., etc. Chandeliers constructed of egg-shells, where candles shone brightly, particularly struck Caper.
'You see,' said Rocjean, 'as anyone else can see, that those chandeliers are made of egg-shells. Now, I will bet you a hat that I will ask four men, one after another, who may come to look in this window, what those chandeliers are made of, and three at least, if not all four of them, will answer, 'Who knows?' (Chi lo sa.)
'Done!' said Caper.
Rocjean asked four men, one after another. All four answered; 'Who knows?'
But to continue the bath-hunt: Van Brick was thrown over by the girl's answer, and next asked an old woman, who was standing at the door of a house, buying broccoli from a man with a hand-cart.
'Can you tell me where the bath is?'
'The bath?'
'Yes, the bath.'
'Is it where they boil water for the English?'
'That must be the shop,' quoth Brick.
'That's the place,' pointing with her finger to a house on the opposite side of the way.
Van Brick crossed over, and after five minutes' hunt over the whole house, was coming down disheartened, when he saw a pretty girl, about eighteen years old, standing by the doorway.
'Can you tell me where the bath is?'
'Seguro! I attend to them. You can't have a warm bath for two or three hours yet, for there is no fire; but you can have a cold one.'
'Well, let me have it as quickly as possible.'
'Yes, sir. We have no soap for sale, but you can get it two doors off.'
Van Brick went out, and after a time returned with a cake of soap.
'Signore,' said the girl, when he went back, 'the water is all running out of the hole in the bottom of the tub, and I can't stop it.'
'H'm! Show me the tub; I am a splendid mechanic.'
The hole being stopped, the tub was rapidly filling with water. Van Brick, in anticipation, was enjoying his bath; when in rushed the attendant.
'Signore, you will have to wait a few minutesuntil I wash some towels.'
Van Brick was in extremis. Taking a gold scudo, one of those dear little one-dollar pieces the Romans call far-fálle (butterflies) from his pocket, he thus addressed her:
'Maiden, rush round the corner and buy me a yard of any thing that will dry me; I don't care what it is, except salt fish.'
'Oh! but these English are bursting with money,' thought the girl, and thus thinking, she made great haste, only stopping to tell three or four friends about the crazy man that was round at her place, who didn't want salt fish to make him dry.
'Behold me back again!' said the girl, 'I flew.'
'Yes,' said Van Brick, 'and so did time; and he got ahead of you about half an hour. Give me the towels.'
'Si, signore, behold them! See how fine they are! What an elegant fringe on them; and only twenty-five baiocchi a piece, fringe and all included.'
Van Brick, at last left in peace, plunged into the bath.
When he came out, he found he had half a scudo to pay for the water, half a scudo for towels, quarter of a scudo for soap, and another quarter scudo for a buono mano to the bath-girl. Total, one dollar and a half.
'Now,' soliloquized Van Brick, as he dressed himself, 'I have an arithmetical question to solve. If a Roman, by hard scratching, can earn twenty cents a day, and it costs him twenty-five cents for board and lodging, how long will it be before he saves up a dollar and a half to take a bath? But that intelligent maiden will tell me, I know.' He asked her.
'Signore, the Romans never bathe.'
'You mean the Catholic Romans, for the Pagan Romans didn't do any thing else.'
'They're all burning up in the inferno, Seguro!' said the maiden.
'But they had fifteen aqueducts to keep them cool when they were alive,' spoke Van Brick.
'Chi lo sa. We have three aqueducts, we Romans, and we have more water, yes, more water than we candrink.'
'Yes, while there's wine about. Adio, bella ninfa!'
GLANCES FROM THE SENATE-GALLERY
II
We considered, in the last number of The Continental, some of the leading orators and statesmen who, in the last Congress, represented the States now in rebellion against the Constitution. It can not be denied that, by their secession from the floor of the Senate, that body, which undoubtedly exhibits the best specimens of American eloquence, was deprived of several of its fairest ornaments; but we believe that a consideration of those Senators who remained faithful to the interests of their country, will discover the fact that in them was displayed at least equally conspicuous merit in oratory and legislation. A distinct contrast was discernible between Northern and Southern eloquence; the latter being of an impulsive and passionate character, unadorned generally by the graces which mental culture lends to that art, (which might be inferred from their well-known temperament,) while the former appears to be more deliberate and thoughtful, indicating by its elegance and harmony the refining and systematizing influence of education, and partaking of the natural phlegm peculiar to inhabitants in colder regions. While Southern eloquence seemed to endeavor to elicit feeling and passion, Northern orators looked for their success rather to the conviction of the understanding than to the indulgence of the weaker elements of human nature. By pleasing and subtle sophistries, by enthusiastic ebullitions of resentment and indignation, or by the more amiable contrivances of patriotic and virtuous sentiment, Benjamin and Davis sought, if they could not convince legislators, at least to attract to their peculiar doctrines the impulsive and credulous masses among their own people. On the contrary, it was apparent that Northern statesmen, confident in the exercise of intellectual resources, relied on the intelligence and reason of their auditors and constituents, and seldom resorted to that species of oratory which was employed by their adversaries, and which may be called in a manner strategetic, when logical accuracy was likely to meet with more satisfactory and more permanent success. Before we proceed to notice the eminent Senators from the North, we propose to dwell briefly upon several who, though representing slave States, were, in the last Congress at least, loyal to the Government; several of whom, however, are now engaged in treason, while others remain true to their allegiance.
The person who, both from the position he held in the Senate and from his imposing personal appearance, first attracted the attention of the visitor, was the Vice-President, Breckinridge, of Kentucky. His later treachery has made him justly the object of bitter popular odium, inasmuch as his delinquency was aggravated by his former professions of loyalty. It was hoped by many who had witnessed his early elevation to the highest dignities, his undoubted ability both as an orator and as an administrative officer, and his apparently manly and ingenuous bearing, that talents which promised to be of so great service to his country would, in the approaching struggle, be exerted in behalf of its entirety and honor. Southern 'chivalry' in him was exhibited in a nobler and more amiable light than in his more petulant and less generous colleagues. A certain graceful dignity was united with the most attractive felicity of manner, and one could not help regarding him, when viewed in private society, as a perfect model of a gentleman. His courtesy and delicacy were exhibited to all alike, and strangers could not help admiring one who had at so early an age been raised to so giddy a hight, and yet who had retained such condescension of manner and such continual good-nature to every body who approached him. His personal appearance, as we have already said, was highly imposing; in which was combined a manliness of demeanor and a strikingly handsome countenance and figure. His peculiar fitness as a presiding officer made him popular in that capacity. Seldom, indeed, has a Vice-President occupied the chair with such perfect ease and such stately dignity. His oratory was worthy of a Senator, elevated, earnest, and partaking less of passion and rancor than other Southern speakers; but it rather lacked the substance and solidity which a maturer stage of life would undoubtedly have given to it. He seemed to be a fair representative of the Kentucky aristocracy, possessing a delicate sense of honor, a bold spirit, though hardly enthusiasm of soul. Evidently absorbed in a selfish ambition for power, this fault is in some degree palliated by the circumstance of the early age at which he was promoted to the public counsels. That this passion, unduly encouraged, has led him into a deplorable and fatal mistake, is now evident; and from what we have recently heard of him, we doubt not that a similar conviction has made him wretched and desperate.
The father of the Senate, Mr. Crittenden, so well known during the last weeks of his term as the would-be pacificator, by compromise, of the impending rupture, was the last of the generation of statesmen of whom Webster and Clay were the leading cotemporaries. His long service in the national legislature procured him on all occasions a respectful and attentive hearing, and were it not for this circumstance, the earnest impressiveness of his declamation, at times relieved by sparks of old-fashioned wit, would have attracted the notice of his auditors. He was singular in his personal appearance, and a peculiarly fierce expression of face frequently gave an erroneous idea of his character, which was, making allowance for age and a life of turmoil, affable and good-natured. He always reminded us of the portraits of Lord Chancellor Thurlow, whose bushy eyebrows and stern countenance used to terrify young barristers in Westminster eighty years ago. Rather negligent in his dress, and far from elegant in manner, he would hardly be noticed at first as one of the leading members of the body. As a lawyer, he has been acute and learned; as a statesman, generally able, though hardly profound; as an orator, not graceful, but forcible and earnest. His patriotism was, no doubt, zealous and entirely disinterested; but certainly ill-directed, and not adapted in the application it made of principles to the exigencies of the times. Representing the most respected and most prosperous of slave States, and being considered in a manner as the statesman upon whose shoulders had fallen the mantle of the illustrious Clay, his influence was considerable, both with adherents and antagonists.