The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 05, March, 1858. Various
and where,—when the grandmother, who had been watching us with the impatient querulousness of age, hobbled across the room to ask "what that 'are man was a-talkin' about."
Briefly and calmly, in the key long use had suited to her infirmity, Hetty detailed the chief points of my story.
"Dew tell!" exclaimed the old woman; "Eben Jackson a'n't dead on dry land, is he? Left means, eh?"
I walked away to the door, biting my lip. Hetty, for once, reddened to the brow; but replaced her charge in the chair and followed me to the gate.
"Good day, Sir," said she, offering me her hand,—and then slightly hesitating,—"Grandmother is very old. I thank you, Sir! I thank you kindly!"
As she turned and went toward the house, I saw the glitter of the Panama chain about her thin and sallow throat, and, by the motion of her hands, that she was retwisting the same wire fastening that Eben Jackson had manufactured for it.
Five years after, last June, I went to Simsbury with a gay picnic party.
This time Lizzy was with me; indeed, she generally is now.
I detached myself from the rest, after we were fairly arranged for the day, and wandered away alone to "Miss Buel's."
The house was closed, the path grassy, a sweetbrier bush had blown across the door, and was gay with blossoms; all was still, dusty, desolate. I could not be satisfied with this. The meeting-house was as near as any neighbor's, and the graveyard would ask me no curious questions; I entered it doubting; but there, "on the leeward side," near to the grave of "Bethia Jackson, wife of John Eben Jackson," were two new stones, one dated but a year later than the other, recording the deaths of "Temperance Buel, aged 96," and "Hester Buel, aged 44."
AMOURS DE VOYAGE
Is it illusion? or does there a spirit from perfecter ages,
Here, even yet, amid loss, change, and corruption, abide?
Does there a spirit we know not, though seek, though we find,
comprehend not,
Here to entice and confuse, tempt and evade us, abide?
Lives in the exquisite grace of the column disjointed and single,
Haunts the rude masses of brick garlanded gayly with vine,
E'en in the turret fantastic surviving that springs from the ruin,
E'en in the people itself? Is it illusion or not?
Is it illusion or not that attracteth the pilgrim Transalpine,
Brings him a dullard and dunce hither to pry and to stare?
Is it illusion or not that allures the barbarian stranger,
Brings him with gold to the shrine, brings him in arms to the gate?
I.—CLAUDE TO EUSTACE
What do the people say, and what does the government do?—you
Ask, and I know not at all. Yet fortune will favor your hopes; and
I, who avoided it all, am fated, it seems, to describe it.
I, who nor meddle nor make in politics,—I, who sincerely
Put not my trust in leagues nor any suffrage by ballot,
Never predicted Parisian millenniums, never beheld a
New Jerusalem coming down dressed like a bride out of heaven
Right on the Place de la Concorde,—I, ne'ertheless, let me say it,
Could in my soul of souls, this day, with the Gaul at the gates, shed
One true tear for thee, thou poor little Roman republic!
France, it is foully done! and you, my stupid old England,—
You, who a twelvemonth ago said nations must choose for themselves, you
Could not, of course, interfere,—you, now, when a nation has chosen—
Pardon this folly! The Times will, of course, have announced the
occasion,
Told you the news of to-day; and although it was slightly in error
When it proclaimed as a fact the Apollo was sold to a Yankee,
You may believe when it tells you the French are at Civita Vecchia.
II.—CLAUDE TO EUSTACE
"Dulce" it is, and "decorum" no doubt, for the country to fall,—to
Offer one's blood an oblation to Freedom, and die for the Cause; yet
Still, individual culture is also something, and no man
Finds quite distinct the assurance that he of all others is called on,
Or would be justified, even, in taking away from the world that
Precious creature, himself. Nature sent him here to abide here;
Else why sent him at all? Nature wants him still, it is likely.
On the whole, we are meant to look after ourselves; it is certain
Each has to eat for himself, digest for himself, and in general
Care for his own dear life, and see to his own preservation;
Nature's intentions, in most things uncertain, in this most plain and
decisive:
These, on the whole, I conjecture the Romans will follow, and I shall.
So we cling to the rocks like limpets; Ocean may bluster,
Over and under and round us; we open our shells to imbibe our
Nourishment, close them again, and are safe, fulfilling the purpose
Nature intended,—a wise one, of course, and a noble, we doubt not.
Sweet it may be and decorous, perhaps, for the country to die; but,
On the whole, we conclude the Romans won't do it, and I shan't.
III.—CLAUDE TO EUSTACE
Will they fight? They say so. And will the French? I can hardly,
Hardly think so; and yet—He is come, they say, to Palo,
He is passed from Monterone, at Santa Severa
He hath laid up his guns. But the Virgin, the Daughter of Roma,
She hath despised thee and laughed thee to scorn,—the Daughter of Tiber
She hath shaken her head and built barricades against thee!
Will they fight? I believe it. Alas, 'tis ephemeral folly,
Vain and ephemeral folly, of course, compared with pictures,
Statues, and antique gems,—indeed: and yet indeed too,
Yet methought, in broad day did I dream,—tell it not in St. James's,
Whisper it not in thy courts, O Christ Church!—yet did I, waking,
Dream of a cadence that sings, Si tombent nos jeunes héros, la
Terre en produit de nouveaux contre vous tous prêts à se battre;
Dreamt of great indignations and angers transcendental,
Dreamt of a sword at my side and a battle-horse underneath me.
IV.—CLAUDE TO