Web
and Book design, |
Click
Here to return to |
I had imagined that the next
best thing to seeing England would be to see Scotland; but, as this
latter
pleasure was denied me, certainly the next best thing was seeing
Scotland's
greatest son. Carlyle has been so constantly and perhaps justly
represented as
a stormy and wrathful person, brewing bitter denunciation for America
and
Americans, that I cannot forbear to mention the sweet and genial mood
in which
we found him, — a gentle and affectionate grandfather, with
his delicious
Scotch brogue and rich, melodious talk, overflowing with reminiscences
of his
earlier life, of Scott and Goethe and Edinburgh, and other men and
places he
had known. Learning that I was especially interested in birds, he
discoursed of
the lark and the nightingale and the mavis, framing his remarks about
them in
some episode of his personal experience, and investing their songs with
the
double charm of his description and his adventure.
"It is only geese who
get plucked there," said my companion after we had left, — a
man who had
known Carlyle intimately for many years; "silly persons who have no
veneration
for the great man, and come to convert him or to change his convictions
upon
subjects to which he has devoted a lifetime of profound thought and
meditation.
With such persons he has no patience."
Carlyle had just returned
from Scotland, where he had spent the summer. The Scotch hills and
mountains,
he said, had an ancient, mournful look, as if the weight of
immeasurable time
had settled down upon them. Their look was in Ossian, — his
spirit reflected
theirs; and as I gazed upon the venerable man before me, and noted his
homely
and rugged yet profound and melancholy expression, I knew that their
look was
upon him also, and that a greater than Ossian had been nursed amid
those lonely
hills. Few men in literature have felt the burden of the world, the
weight of
the inexorable conscience, as has Carlyle, or drawn such fresh
inspiration from
that source. However we may differ from him (and almost in self-defense
one
must differ from a man of such intense and overweening personality), it
must
yet be admitted that he habitually speaks out of that primitive silence
and
solitude in which only the heroic soul dwells. Certainly not in
contemporary
British literature is there another writer whose bowstring has such a
twang.
I left London in the early
part of November, and turned my face westward, going leisurely through
England
and Wales, and stringing upon my thread a few of the famous places, as
Oxford,
Stratford, Warwick, Birmingham, Chester, and taking a last look at the
benign
land. The weather was fair; I was yoked to no companion, and was
apparently the
only tourist on that route. The field occupations drew my eye as usual.
They
were very simple, and consisted mainly of the gathering of root crops.
I saw no
building of fences, or of houses or barns, and no draining or improving
of any
kind worth mentioning, these things having all been done long ago.
Speaking of
barns reminds me that I do not remember to have seen a building of this
kind
while in England, much less a group or cluster of them as at home; hay
and
grain being always stacked, and the mildness of the climate rendering a
protection of this kind unnecessary for the cattle and sheep. In
contrast,
America may be called the country of barns and outbuildings: —
as Walt Whitman
apostrophizes the Union.
I missed also many familiar
features in the autumn fields, — those given to our landscape
by Indian corn,
for instance, the tent-like stouts, the shucks, the rustling blades,
the ripe
pumpkins strewing the field; for, notwithstanding England is such a
garden, our
corn does not flourish there. I saw no buckwheat either, the red
stubble and
little squat figures of the upright sheaves of which are so noticeable
in our
farming districts at this season. Neither did I see, any gathering of
apples,
or orchards from which to gather them. "As sure as there are apples in
Herefordshire" seems to be a proverb in England; yet it is very certain
that the orchard is not the institution anywhere in Britain that it is
in this
country, or so prominent a feature in the landscape. The native apples
are
inferior in size and quality, and are sold by the pound. Pears were
more
abundant at the fruit stands, and were of superior excellence and very
cheap.
I hope it will not be set
down
to any egotism of mine, but rather to the effect upon an ardent pilgrim
of the
associations of the place and its renown in literature, that all my
experience
at Stratford seems worthy of recording, and to be invested with a sort
of
poetical interest, — even the fact that I walked up from the
station with a
handsome young countrywoman who had chanced to occupy a seat in the
same
compartment of the car with me from Warwick, and who, learning the
nature of my
visit, volunteered to show me the Red Horse Inn, as her course led her
that
way. We walked mostly in the middle of the street, with our umbrellas
hoisted,
for it was raining slightly, while a boy whom we found lying in wait
for such a
chance trudged along in advance of us with my luggage.
At the Red Horse the pilgrim
is in no danger of having the charm and the poetical atmosphere with
which he
has surrounded himself dispelled, but rather enhanced and deepened,
especially
if he has the luck I had, to find few other guests, and to fall into
the hands
of one of those simple, strawberry-like English housemaids, who gives
him a
cozy, snug little parlor all to himself, as was the luck of Irving
also; who
answers his every summons, and looks into his eyes with the simplicity
and
directness of a child; who could step from no page but that of Scott or
the
divine William himself; who puts the "coals" on your grate with her
own hands, and, when you ask for a lunch, spreads the cloth on one end
of the
table while you sit reading or writing at the other, and places before
you a
whole haunch of delicious cold mutton, with bread and homebrewed ale,
and
requests you to help yourself; who, when bedtime arrives, lights you up
to a
clean, sweet chamber, with a high-canopied bed hung with snow-white
curtains;
who calls you in the morning, and makes ready your breakfast while you
sit with
your feet on the fender before the blazing grate; and to whom you pay
your
reckoning on leaving, having escaped entirely all the barrenness and
publicity
of hotel life, and had all the privacy and quiet of home without any of
its
cares or interruptions. And this, let me say here, is the great charm
of the
characteristic English inn; it has a domestic, homelike air. "Taking
mine
ease at mine inn" has a real significance in England. You can take your
ease and more; you can take real solid comfort. In the first place,
there is no
bar-room, and consequently no loafers or pimps, or fumes of tobacco or
whiskey;
then there is no landlord or proprietor or hotel clerk to lord it over
you. The
host, if there is such a person, has a way of keeping himself in the
background, or absolutely out of sight, that is entirely admirable. You
are
monarch of all you survey. You are not made to feel that it is in some
one
else's house you are staying, and that you must court the master for
his favor.
It is your house, you are the master, and you have only to enjoy your
own.
In the gray, misty
afternoon, I walked out over the Avon, like all English streams full to
its
grassy brim, and its current betrayed only by a floating leaf or
feather, and
along English fields and roads, and noted the familiar sights and
sounds and
smells of autumn. The spire of the church where Shakespeare lies buried
shot up
stately and tall from the banks of the Avon, a little removed from the
village;
and the church itself, more like a cathedral in size and beauty, was
also
visible above the trees. Thitherward I soon bent my steps, and while I
was
lingering among the graves,1
reading the names and dates so many
centuries old, and surveying the gray and weather-worn exterior of the
church,
the slow tolling of the bell announced a funeral. Upon such a stage,
and amid
such surroundings, with all this past for a background, the shadowy
figure of
the peerless bard towering over all, the incident of the moment had a
strange
interest to me, and I looked about for the funeral cortege. Presently a
group
of three or four figures appeared at the head of the avenue of limes,
the
foremost of them a woman, bearing an infant's coffin under her arm,
wrapped in a
white sheet. The clerk and sexton, with their robes on, went out to
meet them,
and conducted them into the church, where the service proper to such
occasions
was read, after which the coffin was taken out as it was brought in,
and
lowered into the grave. It was the smallest funeral I ever saw, and my
effort
to play the part of a sympathizing public by hovering in the
background, I
fear, was only an intrusion after all.
Having
loitered to my heart's content amid the
stillness of the old church, and paced to and fro above the illustrious
dead, I
set out, with the sun about an hour high, to see the house of Anne
Hathaway at
Shottery, shunning the highway and following a path that followed
hedge-rows,
crossed meadows and pastures, skirted turnip-fields and
cabbage-patches, to a
quaint gathering of low thatched houses, — a little village
of farmers and
laborers, about a mile from Stratford. At the gate in front of the
house a boy
was hitching a little gray donkey, almost hidden beneath two immense
panniers
filled with coarse hay.
"Whose house is
this?" inquired I, not being quite able to make out the name.
"Hann' Ataway's
'ouse," said he.
So I took a good look at
Anne's house, — a homely, human-looking habitation, with its
old oak beams and
thatched roof, — but did not go in, as Mrs. Baker, who was
eying me from the
door, evidently hoped I would, but chose rather to walk past it and up
the
slight rise of ground beyond, where I paused and looked out over the
fields,
just lit up by the setting sun. Returning, I stepped into the
Shakespeare
Tavern, a little, homely wayside place on a street, or more like a
path, apart
from the main road, and the good dame brought me some "home-brewed,"
which I drank sitting by a rude table on a rude bench in a small, low
room,
with a stone floor and an immense chimney. The coals burned cheerily,
and the
crane and hooks in the fireplace called up visions of my earliest
childhood.
Apparently the house and the surroundings, and the atmosphere of the
place and
the ways of the people, were what they were three hundred years ago. It
was all
sweet and good, and I enjoyed it hugely, and was much refreshed.
Crossing the fields in the
gloaming, I came up with some children, each with a tin bucket of milk,
threading their way toward Stratford. The little girl, a child ten
years old,
having a larger bucket than the rest, was obliged to set down her
burden every
few rods and rest; so I lent her a helping hand. I thought her prattle,
in that
broad but musical patois, and along these old hedge-rows, the most
delicious I
ever heard. She said they came to Shottery for milk because it was much
better
than they got at Stratford. In America they had a cow of their own. Had
she
lived in America, then? "Oh, yes, four years," and the stream of her
talk was fuller at once. But I hardly recognized even the name of my
own
country in her innocent prattle; it seemed like a land of fable,
— all had a
remote mythological air, and I pressed my inquiries as if I was hearing
of this
strange land for the first time. She had an uncle still living in the
"States of Hoio," but exactly where her father had lived was not so
clear. In the States somewhere, and in "Ogden's Valley." There was a
lake there that had salt in it, and not far off was the sea. "In
America," she said, and she gave such a sweet and novel twang to her
words, "we had a cow of our own, and two horses and a wagon and a
dog." "Yes," joined in her little brother, "and nice
chickens and a goose." "But," continued the sister, "we
owns none o' them here. In America 'most everybody owned their houses,
and we
could 'a' owned a house if we had stayid."
"What made you leave
America?" I inquired.
"'Cause me father
wanted to see his friends."
"Did your mother want
to come back?"
"No, me mother wanted
to stay in America."
"Is food as plenty
here, — do you have as much to eat as in the States?"
"Oh, yes, and more. The
first year we were in America we could not get enough to eat."
"But you do not get
meat very often here, do you?"
"Quite often," —
not so confidently.
"How often?"
"Well, sometimes we has
pig's liver in the week time, and we allers has meat of a Sunday; we
likes
meat."
Here we emerged from the
fields into the highway, and the happy children went their way and I
mine.
In the evening, as I was
strolling about the town, a poor, crippled, half-witted fellow came
jerking
himself across the street after me and offered himself as a guide.
"I'm the Teller what
showed Artemus Ward around when he was here. You've heerd on me, I
expect? Not?
Why, he characterized me in 'Punch,' he did. He asked me if Shakespeare
took
all the wit out of Stratford? And this is what I said to him: `No, he
left some
for me.'"
But not wishing to be guided
just then, I bought the poor fellow off with a few pence, and kept on
my way.
Stratford is a quiet old
place, and seems mainly the abode of simple common folk. One sees no
marked
signs of either poverty or riches. It is situated in a beautiful
expanse of
rich, rolling farming country, but bears little resemblance to a rural
town in
America: not a tree, not a spear of grass; the houses packed close
together and
crowded up on the street, the older ones presenting their gables and
showing
their structure of oak beams. English oak seems incapable of decay even
when
exposed to the weather, while indoors it takes three or four centuries
to give
it its best polish and hue.
I took my last view of
Stratford quite early of a bright Sunday morning, when the ground was
white
with a dense hoar-frost. The great church, as I approached it, loomed
up under
the sun through a bank of blue mist. The Avon was like glass, with
little
wraiths of vapor clinging here and there to its surface. Two white
swans stood
on its banks in front of the church, and, without regarding the mirror
that so
drew my eye, preened their plumage; while, farther up, a piebald cow
reached
down for some grass under the brink where the frost had not settled,
and a
piebald cow in the river reached up for the same morsel. Rooks and
crows and
jackdaws were noisy in the trees overhead and about the church spire. I
stood a
long while musing upon the scene.
At the birthplace of the
poet, the keeper, an elderly woman, shivered with cold as she showed me
about.
The primitive, home-made appearance of things, the stone floor much
worn and broken,
the rude oak beams and doors, the leaden sash with the little
window-panes
scratched full of names, among others that of Walter Scott, the great
chimneys
where quite a family could literally sit in the chimney corner, were
what I
expected to see, and looked very human and good. It is impossible to
associate
anything but sterling qualities and simple, healthful characters with
these
early English birthplaces. They are nests built with faithfulness and
affection, and through them one seems to get a glimpse of devouter,
sturdier
times.
From Stratford I went back
to Warwick, thence to Birmingham, thence to Shrewsbury, thence to
Chester, the
old Roman camp, thence to Holyhead, being intent on getting a glimpse
of Wales
and the Welsh, and maybe taking a tramp up Snowdon or some of his
congeners,
for my legs literally ached for a mountain climb, a certain set of
muscles
being so long unused. In the course of my journeyings, I tried each
class or
compartment of the cars, first, second, and third, and found but little
choice.
The difference is simply in the upholstering, and, if you are provided
with a
good shawl or wrap-up, you need not be particular about that. In the
first, the
floor is carpeted and the seats substantially upholstered, usually in
blue woolen
cloth; in the second, the seat alone is cushioned; and in the third,
you sit on
a bare bench. But all classes go by the same train, and often in the
same car,
or carriage, as they say here. In the first class travel the real and
the
shoddy nobility and Americans; in the second, commercial and
professional men;
and in the third, the same, with such of the peasantry and humbler
classes as
travel by rail. The only annoyance I experienced in the third class
arose from
the freedom with which the smokers, always largely in the majority,
indulged in
their favorite pastime. (I perceive there is one advantage in being a
smoker:
you are never at a loss for something to do, — you can
smoke.)
At Chester I stopped
overnight, selecting my hotel for its name, the "Green Dragon." It
was Sunday night, and the only street scene my rambles afforded was
quite a
large gathering of persons on a corner, listening, apparently with
indifference
or curiosity, to an ignorant, hot-headed street preacher. "Now I am
going
to tell you something you will not like to hear, something that will
make you
angry. I know it will. It is this: I expect to go to heaven. I am
perfectly
confident I shall go there. I know you do not like that." But why his
hearers should not like that did not appear. For my part, I thought,
for the
good of all concerned, the sooner he went the better.
In the morning, I mounted
the wall in front of the cathedral, and, with a very lively feeling of
wonder
and astonishment, walked completely around the town on top of it, a
distance of
about two miles. The wall, being in places as high as the houses,
afforded some
interesting views into attics, chambers, and back yards. I envied the
citizens
such a delightful promenade ground, full of variety and interest. Just
the
right distance, too, for a brisk turn to get up an appetite, or for a
leisurely
stroll to tone down a dinner; while as a place for chance meetings of
happy
lovers, or to get away from one's companions if the flame must burn in
secret
and in silence, it is unsurpassed. I occasionally met or passed other
pedestrians, but noticed that it required a brisk pace to lessen the
distance
between myself and an attractive girlish figure a few hundred feet in
advance
of me. The railroad cuts across one corner of the town, piercing the
walls with
two very carefully constructed archways. Indeed, the people are very
choice of
the wall, and one sees posted notices of the city authorities offering
a reward
for any one detected in injuring it. It has stood now some seven or
eight centuries,
and from appearances is good for one or two more. There are several
towers on
the wall, from one of which some English king, over two hundred years
ago,
witnessed the defeat of his army on Rowton Moor. But when I was there,
though
the sun was shining, the atmosphere was so loaded with smoke that I
could not
catch even a glimpse of the moor where the battle took place. There is
a
gateway through the wall on each of the four sides, and this slender
and
beautiful but blackened and worn span, as if to afford a transit from
the
chamber windows on one side of the street to those of the other, is the
first
glimpse the traveler gets of the wall. The gates beneath the arches
have
entirely disappeared. The ancient and carved oak fronts of the
buildings on the
main street, and the inclosed sidewalk that ran through the second
stories of
the shops and stores, were not less strange and novel to me. The
sidewalk was
like a gentle upheaval in its swervings and undulations, or like a walk
through
the woods, the oaken posts and braces on the outside answering for the
trees,
and the prospect ahead for the vista.
The ride along the coast of
Wales was crowded with novelty and interest, — the sea on one
side and the
mountains on the other, — the latter bleak and heathery in
the foreground, but
cloud-capped and snow-white in the distance. The afternoon was dark and
lowering, and just before entering Conway we had a very striking view.
A turn
in the road suddenly brought us to where we looked through a black
framework of
heathery hills, and beheld Snowdon and his chiefs apparently with the
full
rigors of winter upon them. It was so satisfying that I lost at once my
desire
to tramp up them. I barely had time to turn from the mountains to get a
view of
Conway Castle, one of the largest and most impressive ruins I saw. The
train
cuts close to the great round tower, and plunges through the wall of
gray,
shelving stone into the bluff beyond, giving the traveler only time to
glance
and marvel.
About the only glimpse I got
of the Welsh character was on this route. At one of the stations,
Abergele I
think, a fresh, blooming young woman got into our compartment, occupied
by
myself and two commercial travelers (bag-men, or, as we say,
"drummers"), and, before she could take her seat, was complimented by
one of them on her good looks. Feeling in a measure responsible for the
honor
and good-breeding of the compartment, I could hardly conceal my
embarrassment;
but the young Abergeless herself did not seem to take it amiss, and
when presently
the jolly bag-man addressed his conversation to her, replied
beseemingly and
good-naturedly. As she arose to leave the car at her destination, a few
stations beyond, he said "he thought it a pity that such a sweet,
pretty
girl should leave us so soon," and seizing her hand the audacious
rascal
actually solicited a kiss. I expected this would be the one drop too
much, and
that we should have a scene, and began to regard myself in the light of
an
avenger of an insulted Welsh beauty, when my heroine paused, and I
believe
actually deliberated whether or not to comply before two spectators!
Certain it
is that she yielded the highwayman her hand, and, bidding him a gentle
good-night in Welsh, smilingly and blushingly left the car. "Ah,"
said the villain, "these Welsh girls are capital; I know them like a
book,
and have had many a lark with them."
At Holyhead I got another
glimpse of the Welsh. I had booked for Dublin, and having several hours
on my
hands of a dark, threatening night before the departure of the steamer,
I
sallied out in the old town tilted up against the side of the hill, in
the most
adventurous spirit I could summon, threading my way through the dark,
deserted
streets, pausing for a moment in front of a small house with closed
doors and
closely, shuttered windows, where I heard suppressed voices, the
monotonous
scraping of a fiddle, and a lively shuffling of feet, and passing on
finally
entered, drawn by the musical strains, a quaint old place, where a
blind
harper, seated in the corner of a rude kind of coffee and sitting room,
was
playing on a harp. I liked the atmosphere of the place, so primitive
and
wholesome, and was quite willing to have my attention drawn off from
the
increasing storm without, and from the bitter cup which I knew the
Irish sea
was preparing for me. The harper presently struck up a livelier strain,
when
two Welsh girls, who were chatting before the grate, one of them as
dumpy as a
bag of meal and the other slender and tall, stepped into the middle of
the
floor and began to dance to the delicious music, a Welsh mechanic and
myself
drinking our ale and looking on approvingly. After a while the
pleasant,
modest-looking bar-maid, whom I had seen behind the beer-levers as I
entered,
came in, and, after looking on for a moment, was persuaded to lay down
her
sewing and join in the dance. Then there came in a sandy-haired
Welshman, who
could speak and understand only his native dialect, and finding his
neighbors
affiliating with an Englishman, as he supposed, and trying to speak the
hateful
tongue, proceeded to berate them sharply (for it appears the Welsh are
still
jealous of the English); but when they explained to him that I was not
an
Englishman, but an American, and had already twice stood the beer all
around
(at an outlay of sixpence), he subsided into a sulky silence, and
regarded me
intently.
About eleven o'clock a
policeman paused at the door, and intimated that it was time the house
was shut
up and the music stopped, and to outward appearances his friendly
warning was
complied with; but the harp still discoursed in a minor key, and a
light
tripping and shuffling of responsive feet might occasionally have been
heard
for an hour later. When I arose to go, it was with a feeling of regret
that I
could not see more of this simple and social people, with whom I at
once felt
that "touch of nature" which "makes the whole world kin,"
and my leave-taking was warm and hearty accordingly.
Through the wind and the
darkness I threaded my way to the wharf, and in less than two hours
afterward
was a most penitent voyager, and fitfully joining in that doleful
gastriloquial
chorus that so often goes up from the cabins of those Channel steamers.
I hardly know why I went to
Ireland, except it was to indulge the few drops of Irish blood in my
veins, and
maybe also with a view to shorten my sea voyage by a day. I also felt a
desire
to see one or two literary men there, and in this sense my journey was
eminently gratifying; but so far from shortening my voyage by a day, it
lengthened it by three days, that being the time it took me to recover
from the
effects of it; and as to the tie of blood, I think it must nearly all
have run
out, for I felt but few congenital throbs while in Ireland.
The Englishman at home is a
much more lovable animal than the Englishman abroad, but Pat in Ireland
is even
more of a pig than in this country. Indeed, the squalor and poverty,
and cold,
skinny wretchedness one sees in Ireland, and (what freezes our
sympathies) the
groveling, swiny shiftlessness that pervades these hovels, no traveler
can be
prepared for. It is the bare prose of misery, the unheroic of tragedy.
There is
not one redeeming or mitigating feature.
Railway traveling in Ireland
is not so rapid or so cheap as in England. Neither are the hotels so
good or so
clean, nor the fields so well kept, nor the look of the country so
thrifty and
peaceful. The dissatisfaction of the people is in the very air. Ireland
looks
sour and sad. She looks old, too, as do all those countries beyond
seas, — old
in a way that the American is a stranger to. It is not the age of
nature, the
unshaken permanence of the hills through long periods of time, but the
weight
of human years and human sorrows, as if the earth sympathized with man
and took
on his attributes and infirmities.
I did not go much about
Dublin, and the most characteristic things I saw there were those
queer,
uncomfortable dog-carts, — a sort of Irish bull on wheels,
with the driver on
one side balancing the passenger on the other, and the luggage
occupying the
seat of safety between. It comes the nearest to riding on horseback,
and on a
side-saddle at that, of any vehicle-traveling I ever did.
I stopped part of a day at
Mallow, an old town on the Blackwater, in one of the most fertile
agricultural
districts of Ireland. The situation is fine, and an American naturally
expects
to see a charming rural town, planted with trees and filled with clean,
comfortable homes; but he finds instead a wretched place, smitten with
a plague
of filth and mud, and offering but one object upon which the eye can
dwell with
pleasure, and that is the ruins of an old castle, "Mallow Castle over
Blackwater," which dates back to the time of Queen Elizabeth. It stands
amid noble trees on the banks of the river, and its walls, some of them
thirty
or forty feet high, are completely overrun with ivy. The Blackwater, a
rapid,
amber-colored stream, is spanned at this point by a superb granite
bridge.
And I will say here that
anything like a rural town in our sense, — a town with trees
and grass and large
spaces about the houses, gardens, yards, shrubbery, coolness,
fragrance, —
seems unknown in England or Ireland. The towns and villages are all
remnants of
feudal times, and seem to have been built with an eye to safety and
compactness, or else men were more social, and loved to get closer
together,
then than now. Perhaps the damp, chilly climate made them draw nearer
together.
At any rate, the country towns are little cities; or rather it is as if
another
London had been cut up in little and big pieces and distributed over
the land.
In the afternoon, to take
the kinks out of my legs, and to quicken, if possible, my circulation a
little,
which since the passage over the Channel had felt as if it was thick
and green,
I walked rapidly to the top of the Knockmeledown Mountains, getting a
good view
of Irish fields and roads and fences as I went up, and a very wide and
extensive view of the country after I had reached the summit, and
improving the
atmosphere of my physical tenement amazingly. These mountains have no
trees or
bushes or other growth than a harsh prickly heather, about a foot high,
which
begins exactly at the foot of the mountain. You are walking on smooth,
fine
meadow land, when you leap a fence and there is the heather. On the
highest
point of this mountain, and on the highest point of all the mountains
around,
was a low stone mound, which I was puzzled to know the meaning of.
Standing
there, the country rolled away beneath me under a cold, gray November
sky, and,
as was the case with the English landscape, looked singularly desolate,
— the
desolation of a dearth of human homes, industrial centres, families,
workers,
and owners of the soil. Few roads, scarce ever a vehicle, no barns, no
groups
of bright, well-ordered buildings, indeed no farms and neighborhoods
and
schoolhouses, but a wide spread of rich, highly cultivated country,
with here
and there, visible to close scrutiny, small gray stone houses with
thatched
roofs, the abodes of poverty and wretchedness. A recent English writer
says the
first thing that struck him in American landscape-painting was the
absence of
man and the domestic animals from the pictures, and the preponderance
of rude,
wild nature; and his first view of this country seems to have made the
same
impression. But it is certainly true that the traveler through any of
our older
States will see ten houses, rural habitations, to one in England or
Ireland,
though, as a matter of course, nature here looks much less
domesticated, and
much less expressive of human occupancy and contact. The Old World
people have
clung to the soil closer and more lovingly than we do. The ground has
been more
precious. They have had none to waste, and have made the most of every
inch of
it. Wherever they have touched they have taken root and thriven as best
they
could. Then the American is more cosmopolitan and less domestic. He is
not so
local in his feelings and attachments. He does not bestow himself upon
the
earth or upon his home as his ancestors did. He feathers his nest very
little.
Why should he? He may migrate tomorrow and build another. He is like
the
passenger pigeon that lays its eggs and rears its young upon a little
platform
of bare twigs. Our poverty and nakedness is in this respect, I think,
beyond
dispute. There is nothing nest-like about our homes, either in their
interiors
or exteriors. Even wealth and taste and foreign aids rarely attain that
cozy,
mellowing atmosphere that pervades not only the lowly birthplaces but
the halls
and manor houses of older lands. And what do our farms represent but so
much
real estate, so much cash value?
Only where man loves the
soil, and nestles to it closely and long, will it take on this
beneficent and
human look which foreign travelers miss in our landscape; and only
where homes
are built with fondness and emotion, and in obedience to the social,
paternal,
and domestic instincts, will they hold the charm and radiate and be
warm with
the feeling I have described.
And, while I am upon the subject, I will add that European cities differ from ours in this same particular. They have a homelier character, — more the air of dwelling-places, the abodes of men drawn together for other purposes than traffic. People actually live in them, and find life sweet and festal. But what does our greatest city, New York, express besides commerce or politics, or what other reason has it for its existence? This is, of course, in a measure the result of the modern worldly and practical business spirit which more and more animates all nations, and which led Carlyle to say of his own countrymen that they were becoming daily more "flat, stupid, and mammonish." Yet I am persuaded that in our case it is traceable also to the leanness and depletion of our social and convivial instincts, and to the fact that the material cares of life are more serious and engrossing with us than with any other people.
I spent part of a day at
Cork, wandering about the town, threading my way through the back
streets and
alleys, and seeing life reduced to fewer makeshifts than I had ever
before
dreamed of. I went through, or rather skirted, a kind of secondhand
market,
where the most sorry and dilapidated articles of clothing and household
utensils were offered for sale, and where the cobblers were cobbling up
old
shoes that would hardly hold together. Then the wretched old women one
sees,
without any sprinkling of young ones, — youth and age alike
bloomless and
unlovely.
In a meadow on the hills
that encompass the city, I found the American dandelion in bloom, and
some
large red clover, and started up some skylarks as I might start up the
field
sparrows in our own uplying fields.
Is the magpie a Celt and a
Catholic? I saw not one in England, but plenty of them in France, and
again
when I reached Ireland.
At Queenstown I awaited the
steamer from Liverpool, and about nine o'clock in the morning was
delighted to
see her long black form moving up the bay. She came to anchor about a
mile or
two out, and a little tug was in readiness to take us off. A score or
more of
emigrants, each with a bag and a box, had been waiting all the morning
at the
wharf. When the time of embarkation arrived, the agent stepped aboard
the tug
and called out their names one by one, when Bridget and Catherine and
Patrick
and Michael, and the rest, came aboard, received their tickets, and
passed
"forward," with a half-frightened, half-bewildered look. But not much
emotion was displayed until the boat began to move off, when the tears
fell
freely, and they continued to fall faster and faster, and the sobs to
come
thicker and thicker, until, as the faces of friends began to fade on
the wharf,
both men and women burst out into a loud, unrestrained bawl. This
sudden
demonstration of grief seemed to frighten the children and smaller fry,
who up
to this time had been very jovial; but now, suspecting something was
wrong,
they all broke out in a most pitiful chorus, forming an anti-climax to
the wail
of their parents that was quite amusing, and that seemed to have its
effect
upon the "children of a larger growth," for they instantly hushed
their lamentations and turned their attention toward the great steamer.
There
was a rugged but bewildered old granny among them, on her way to join
her
daughter somewhere in the interior of New York, who seemed to regard me
with a
kindred eye, and toward whom, I confess, I felt some family affinity.
Before we
had got halfway to the vessel, the dear old creature missed a sheet
from her
precious bundle of worldly effects, and very confidentially told me
that her
suspicions pointed to the stoker, a bristling, sooty "wild Irishman."
The stoker resented the insinuation, and I overheard him berating the
old lady
in Irish so sharply and threateningly (I had no doubt of his guilt)
that she
was quite frightened, and ready to retract the charge to hush the man
up. She
seemed to think her troubles had just begun. If they behaved thus to
her on the
little tug, what would they not do on board the great black steamer
itself? So
when she got separated from her luggage in getting aboard the vessel,
her
excitement was great, and I met her following about the man whom she
had
accused of filching her bed linen, as if he must have the clew to the
lost bed
itself. Her face brightened when she saw me, and, giving me a terribly
hard
wink and a most expressive nudge, she said she wished I would keep near
her a
little. This I did, and soon had the pleasure of leaving her happy and
reassured beside her box and bundle.
The passage home, though a
rough one, was cheerfully and patiently borne. I found a compound
motion, — the
motion of a screw steamer, a roll and a plunge — less trying
to my head than
the simple rocking or pitching of the side-wheeled Scotia. One motion
was in a
measure a foil to the other. My brain, acted upon by two forces, was
compelled
to take the hypothenuse, and I think the concussion was considerably
diminished
thereby. The vessel was forever trembling upon the verge of immense
watery
chasms that opened now under her port bow, now under her starboard, and
that
almost made one catch his breath as he looked into them; yet the noble
ship had
a way of skirting them or striding across them that was quite
wonderful. Only
five days was, I compelled to "hole up" in my stateroom, hibernating,
weathering the final rude shock of the Atlantic. Part of this time I
was capable
of feeling a languid interest in the oscillations of my coat suspended
from a
hook in the door. Back and forth, back and forth, all day long,
vibrated this
black pendulum, at long intervals touching the sides of the room,
indicating
great lateral or diagonal motion of the ship. The great waves, I
observed, go
in packs like wolves. Now one would pounce upon her, then another, then
another, in quick succession, making the ship strain every nerve to
shake them
off. Then she would glide along quietly for some minutes, and my coat
would
register but a few degrees in its imaginary arc, when another band of
the
careering demons would cross our path and harass us as before.
Sometimes they
would pound and thump on the sides of the vessel like immense
sledge-hammers,
beginning away up toward the bows and quickly running down her whole
length,
jarring, raking, and venting their wrath in a very audible manner; or a
wave
would rake along the side with a sharp, ringing, metallic sound, like a
huge
spear-point seeking a vulnerable place; or some hard-backed monster
would rise
up from the deep and grate and bump the whole length of the keel,
forcibly
suggesting hidden rocks and consequent wreck and ruin.
Then it seems there is
always some biggest wave to be met somewhere on the voyage, —
a monster billow
that engulfs disabled vessels, and sometimes carries away parts of the
rigging
of the stanchest. This big wave struck us the third day out about
midnight, and
nearly threw us all out of our berths, and careened the ship over so
far that
it seemed to take her last pound of strength to right herself up again.
There
was a slamming of doors, a rush of crockery, and a screaming of women,
heard
above the general din and confusion, while the steerage passengers
thought
their last hour had come. The vessel before us encountered this giant
wave
during a storm in mid-ocean, and was completely buried beneath it; one
of the
officers was swept over board, the engines suddenly stopped, and there
was a
terrible moment during which it seemed uncertain whether the vessel
would shake
off the sea or go to the bottom.
Besides observing the
oscillations of my coat, I had at times a stupid satisfaction in seeing
my two
new London trunks belabor each other about my stateroom floor. Nearly
every day
they would break from their fastenings under my berth and start on a
wild race
for the opposite side of the room. Naturally enough, the little trunk
would
always get the start of the big one, but the big one followed close,
and
sometimes caught the little one in a very, uncomfortable manner. Once a
knife
and fork and a breakfast plate slipped off the sofa and joined in, the
race;
but, if not distanced, they got sadly the worst of it, especially the
plate.
But the carpet had the most reason to complain. Two or three turns
sufficed to
loosen it from the floor, when, shoved to one side, the two trunks took
turns
in butting it. I used to allow this sport to go on till it grew
monotonous,
when I would alternately shout and ring until "Robert" appeared and
restored order.
The condition of certain
picture-frames and vases and other frail articles among my effects,
when I
reached home, called to mind not very pleasantly this trunken frolic.
It is impossible not to
sympathize with the ship in her struggles with the waves. You are lying
there
wedged into your berth, and she seems indeed a thing of life and
conscious
power. She is built entirely of iron, is 500 feet long, and, besides
other
freight, carries 2500 tons of railroad iron, which lies down there flat
in her
bottom, a dead, indigestible weight, so unlike a cargo in bulk; yet she
is a
quickened spirit for all that. You feel every wave that strikes her;
you feel
the sea bearing her down; she has run her nose into one of those huge
swells,
and a solid blue wall of water tons in weight comes over her bows and
floods
her forward deck; she braces herself, every rod and rivet and timber
seems to
lend its support; you almost expect to see the wooden walls of your
room grow
rigid with muscular contraction; she trembles from stem to stern, she
recovers,
she breaks the gripe of her antagonist, and, rising up, shakes the sea
from her
with a kind of gleeful wrath; I hear the torrents of water rush along
the lower
decks, and, finding a means of escape, pour back into the sea, glad to
get away
on any terms, and I say, "Noble ship! you are indeed a god!"
I wanted to see a
first-class storm at sea, and perhaps ought to be satisfied with the
heavy blow
or hurricane we had when off Sable Island, but I confess I was not,
though, by
the lying to of the vessel and the frequent soundings, it was evident
there was
danger about. A dense fog uprose, which did not drift like a land fog,
but was
as immovable as iron; it was like a spell, a misty enchantment; and out
of this
fog came the wind, a steady, booming blast, that smote the ship over on
her
side and held her there, and howled in the rigging like a chorus of
fiends. The
waves did not know which way to flee; they were heaped up and then
scattered in
a twinkling. I thought of the terrible line of one of our poets:
—
The sea looked wrinkled and
old and oh, so pitiless! I had stood long before Turner's "Shipwreck"
in the National Gallery in London, and this sea recalled his, and I
appreciated
more than ever the artist's great powers.
These storms, it appears,
are rotary in their wild dance and promenade up and down the seas.
"Look
the wind squarely in the teeth," said an ex-sea-captain among the
passengers, "and eight points to the right in the northern hemisphere
will
be the centre of the storm, and eight points to the left in the
southern
hemisphere." I remembered that, in Victor Hugo's terrible dynamics,
storms
revolved in the other direction in the northern hemisphere, or followed
the
hands of a watch, while south of the equator they no doubt have ways
equally
original.
Late in the afternoon the
storm abated, the fog was suddenly laid, and, looking toward the
setting sun, I
saw him athwart the wildest, most desolate scene in which it was ever
my
fortune to behold the face of that god. The sea was terribly agitated,
and the
endless succession of leaping, frothing waves between me and the
glowing west
formed a picture I shall not soon forget.
I think the excuse that is
often made in behalf of American literature, namely, that our people
are too
busy with other things yet, and will show the proper aptitude in this
field,
too, as soon as leisure is afforded, is fully justified by events of
daily
occurrence. Throw a number of them together without anything else to
do, and
they at once communicate to each other the itch of authorship. Confine
them on
board an ocean steamer, and by the third or fourth day a large number
of them
will break out all over with a sort of literary rash that nothing will
assuage
but some newspaper or journalistic enterprise which will give the poems
and
essays and jokes with which they are surcharged a chance to be seen and
heard
of men. I doubt if the like ever occurs among travelers of any other
nationality. Englishmen or Frenchmen or Germans want something more
warm and
human, if less "refined;" but the average American, when in company,
likes nothing so well as an opportunity to show the national trait of
"smartness." There is not a bit of danger that we shall ever relapse
into barbarism while so much latent literature lies at the bottom of
our daily
cares and avocations, and is sure to come to the surface the moment the
latter
are suspended or annulled!
While abreast of New
England, and I don't know how many miles at sea, as I turned in my deck
promenade, I distinctly scented the land, a subtle, delicious odor of
farms and
homesteads, warm and human, that floated on the wild sea air, a promise
and a
token. The broad red line that had been slowly creeping across our
chart for so
many weary days, indicating the path of the ship, had now completely
bridged
the chasm, and had got a good purchase down under the southern coast of
New
England; and according to the reckoning we ought to have made Sandy
Hook that
night; but though the position of the vessel was no doubt theoretically
all
right, yet practically she proved to be much farther out at sea, for
all that
afternoon and night she held steadily on her course, and not till next
morning
did the coast of Long Island, like a thin, broken cloud just defined on
the
horizon, come into view. But before many hours we had passed the Hook,
and were
moving slowly up the bay in the midday splendor of the powerful and
dazzling
light of the New World sun. And how good things looked to me after even
so
brief an absence! — the brilliancy, the roominess, the deep
transparent blue of
the sky, the clear, sharp outlines, the metropolitan splendor of New
York, and
especially of Broadway; and as I walked up that great thoroughfare, and
noted
the familiar physiognomy and the native nonchalance and independence, I
experienced the delight that only the returned traveler can feel,
— the instant
preference of one's own country and countrymen over all the rest of the
world.