The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844

Through hazy clouds, scarce ruffled by the breeze,
Methought, last night, I saw the man i’ th’ moon;
As in the hollow bowl of silver spoon
A broad reflected face the gazer sees;
(Who trifling, dinner done, with bread and cheese,
Abstractly lifts the spoon aforesaid up;)
Or the same thing beholds in polished cup,
Or concave snuff-box, whence the vocal sneeze!
Sight of the man suggested Hotspur’s boast;
But the night froze; and to express such hope
Sounded far softer than the softest soap
To me, who rather chose my heels to toast
In the warm vicinage of glowing stove,
Than pluck the moon’s-man’s nose, beneath the frigid Jove![5 - Sub dio.—Hor.]

If there be not a fruitful lesson in the subjoined, which we venture to separate from its context in a recent letter from an esteemed friend and contributor, then we—are mistaken: ‘Apropos of ‘American Ptyalism,’ in your March number: a friend was telling me the other day of the agonies he had suffered from dispensing with the use of tobacco. He had used it in various ways for thirty years, but finding that he was breaking down under it, he broke off abruptly, about a year ago. ‘Let a tobacco-chewer,’ said he, ‘who wishes to know what nerves are, abstain for only one day, and if he has a wife who is delicate and nervous, he will forever after look upon her with a sympathy that he never felt before. Why, Sir, for months after I had forsworn tobacco, my mouth and jaws were any thing but flesh and bone. They were fire, ice, and prussic-acid, alternately. The roof of my mouth would at one moment have the feeling of blistering, and the next of freezing; and in addition to that, needles would occasionally pierce my face in every imaginable way. My head, for the most part, was a large hogshead with a bumble-bee in it, and the bung stopped up. You know that I am not imaginative; but my teeth, Sir, would suddenly grow to the length of a mastodon’s, and perhaps five minutes after, (if at the table,) a narcotic deadness would take the place of the previous excitement, and I would seem to be mumbling my food like people whose teeth are gone. But in the street, I always seemed to be grinning at every body, like some horrible beast who couldn’t get his mouth shut. If you have ever stayed agape for an hour or so, while the doctor was on his way to reset your jaws, you can imagine how distressingly public that feeling is. One bitter cold night I woke on the cellar-stairs, having got that far in search of tobacco, in my night-dress. Did you ever do so? You may think it trifling; but whenever from any cause you have become nervous, the first night that you wake on the cellar-stairs in the dark will be something to remember. At another time I dreamed of dying. I had been long sick and had wasted to a mere nothing; but having had abundant time to prepare for death, I flattered myself that I was quite ready to go; and indeed, my hold upon life was so feeble, (a slight change in the weather would have snapped it, so it seemed,) my very breath was so fluttering and unsatisfactory, that I thought it would be as well perhaps to have done with it. The faces of friends, and the out-door world, with all its many goings-on, were pleasant to behold, but faintly so—indistinctly; my pulsations had gone down to such extreme tenuity, that the effort of getting at a pleasure killed it. But I was mistaken; for just before dying, the thought of my cigars came to me like a blessing; and although my physician told me I had but a few moments to live, I would not be refused. A cigar was brought; I seized it in my bony fingers, held it up to the light, smelt of it, and fondled it till the light was brought; and then, with what little grace my strength would allow, I inhaled that divine tobacco! How complacently, as far as I was able, did I then look around upon my surviving friends! My eyes, however, closed very soon from languor, and my breath now coming only at rather long intervals, the puffs were far between; notwithstanding which, I lived it through to the last inspiration; but in the closing draught, the fire from the cigar burnt my mouth so badly that I—awoke, and found I had actually bitten my lip in a most shocking manner! Well, Sir, you may think it was pleasant not to be dying, and so it was; but as I then felt, I think I would sooner have gone, if I could have taken with me the fragrance of that incomparable regalia.” ••• Our new friend, the writer of the ‘Lines to an Early Robin,’ who desires us to send him six numbers of the Knickerbocker containing his article, inquires ‘which kind of his writing we should prefer, prose or poetry?’ We hardly know what to say, in answer to this categorical query. It will not perhaps be amiss, however, to adopt the in medio tutissimus ibis style of the traveller, who, upon calling for a cup of tea at breakfast, handed it back to the servant, after tasting it, with the remark: ‘If this is tea, bring me coffee—if it is coffee, bring me tea; I want a change.’ If what ‘M.’ sends us is poetry, let him send us prose; if it is prose, (and it certainly ‘has that look,’) let him send us poetry, by all means. ••• Judges and other legal functionaries, though ostensibly ‘sage, grave men,’ are oftentimes sad wags, and fond of fun and frolic. From one of this class we derive the annexed: ‘A few months since, in a neighboring town, a knight of the yard-stick was paying his addresses to a Miss Inches, who, beside some personal attraction, was reputed to be mistress of a snug fortune. At first, the lady encouraged his addresses, but afterward jilted him. Rendered desperate by his double loss, the young man went home and deliberately shot himself; and the coroner’s jury next morning brought in a verdict of ‘Died by Inches!” ••• How very beautiful are these lines upon the death of a young and lovely girl, the bloom of whose fair cheek refused to wither at the blighting touch of the Destroyer:

‘Her eye-lids as in sleep were closed,
Her brow was white like snow;
A smile still lingered on her cheek,
As if ’twas loth to go!

‘And it may be a smile so sweet,
So quiet and serene,
Was never on the healthy brow
Of living maiden seen.

‘Perchance the wondrous bliss which burst
Upon her raptured mind,
When first she woke in glory’s courts,
Now left its trace behind.

‘Her end was peace. I thought that they
Who loved her, should not grieve;
For these last words they heard her say,
‘My spirit, Lord, receive!’

‘And when they laid her in the earth,
Her cheek still held the bloom;
That smile so sweet, the gentle maid
Bore with her to the tomb.

‘Think it not strange that brighter tints
Upon the blossoms crept,
Which grew above the sacred spot
Where that meek maiden slept.’

We scarcely know when we have been more amused, than in reading lately a satirical sketch, entitled ‘The House of Mourning: a Farce.’ Squire Hamper and his lady, personages rather of the rustic order, who have come up to London from the family seat in the country, in the progress of shopping in a street at the west end of the metropolis, stop at a dry-goods undertakers, with a hatchment, and ‘Maison de Deuil,’ or House of Mourning, by way of a sign over the door. ‘Mason de Dool!’ exclaims the Squire, responding to his wife’s translation; ‘some foreign haberdasher’s, I ’spose.’ The lady, however, coaxes him to go in; for although she has lost no friends, she longs to see the ‘improvements in mourning,’ which she can do by ‘cheapening a few articles, and buying a penny-worth of black pins.’ The worthy pair enter, take an ebony chair at the counter, while a clerk in a suit of sables addresses the lady, and in sepulchral tones inquires if he ‘can have the melancholy pleasure of serving her.’ ‘How deep would you choose to go, Ma’am? Do you wish to be very poignant? We have a very extensive assortment of family and complimentary mourning. Here is one, Ma’am, just imported; a widow’s silk, watered, as you perceive, to match the sentiment. It is called the ‘Inconsolable,’ and is very much in vogue in Paris for matrimonial bereavements.’ ‘Looks rather flimsy, though,’ interposes the Squire; ‘not likely to last long, eh, Sir?’ ‘A little slight, praps,’ replies the shopman; ‘rather a delicate texture; but mourning ought not to last forever, Sir.’ ‘No,’ grumbles the Squire; ‘it seldom does, ’specially the violent sorts.’ ‘As to mourning, Ma’am,’ continues the shopman, addressing the lady, ‘there has been a great deal, a very great deal indeed, this season; and several new fabrics have been introduced, to meet the demand for fashionable tribulation, and all in the French style; they of France excel in the funèbre. Here for instance is an article for the deeply-afflicted; a black crape, expressly adapted to the profound style of mourning; makes up very sombre and interesting. Or, if you prefer to mourn in velvet, here’s a very rich one; real Genoa, and a splendid black; we call it the ‘Luxury of Woe.’ It’s only eighteen shillings a yard, and a superb quality; fit, in short, for the handsomest style of domestic calamity.’ Here the Squire wants to know ‘whether sorrow gets more superfine as it goes upward in life.’ ‘Certainly—yes, Sir—by all means,’ responds the clerk; ‘at least, a finer texture. The mourning of poor people is very coarse, very; quite different from that of persons of quality. Canvass to crape, Sir.’ The lady next asks if he has a variety of half-mourning; to which he replies: ‘O, infinite—the largest stock in town; full, and half, and quarter, and half-quarter mourning, shaded off from a grief prononcé to the slightest nuance of regret.’ The lady is directed to another counter, and introduced to ‘the gent. who superintends the Intermediate Sorrow Department;’ who inquires: ‘You wish to inspect some half-mourning, Madam? the second stage of distress? As such Ma’am, allow me to recommend this satin—intended for grief when it has subsided; alleviated, you see, Ma’am, from a dead black to a dull lead color. It’s a Parisian novelty, Ma’am, called ‘Settled Grief,’ and is very much worn by ladies of a certain age, who do not intend to embrace Hymen a second time.’ (‘Old women, mayhap, about seventy,’ mutters the Squire.) ‘Exactly so, Sir; or thereabout. Not but what some ladies, Ma’am, set in for sorrow much earlier; indeed, in the prime of life; and for such cases it is a very durable wear; but praps it’s too lugubre: now here’s another—not exactly black, but shot with a warmish tint, to suit a woe moderated by time. The French call it a ‘Gleam of Comfort.’ We’ve sold several pieces of it; it’s very attractive; we consider it the happiest pattern of the season.’ ‘Yes,’ once more interposes the Squire; ‘some people are very happy in it no doubt.’ ‘No doubt, Sir. There’s a charm in melancholy, Sir. I’m fond of the pensive myself. Praps, Madam, you would prefer something still more in the transition state, as we call it, from grave to gay. In that case, I would recommend this lavender Ducape, with only just a souvenir of sorrow in it; the slightest tinge of mourning, to distinguish it from the garb of pleasure. But possibly you desire to see an appropriate style of costume for the juvenile branches, when sorrow their young days has shaded? Of course, a milder degree of mourning than for adults. Black would be precocious. This, Ma’am, for instance—a dark pattern on gray; an interesting dress, Ma’am, for a little girl, just initiated in the vale of tears; only eighteen-pence a yard Ma’am, and warranted to wash.’ The ‘Intermediate Sorrow Department,’ however, derives no patronage from the ‘hard customer;’ and we next find her in the ‘Coiffure Department,’ looking at caps, and interrogating a show-woman in deep mourning, who is in attendance, and enlarging upon the beauty of her fabrics: ‘This is the newest style, Ma’am. Affliction is very much modernized, and admits of more gout than formerly. Some ladies indeed for their morning grief wear rather a plainer cap; but for evening sorrow, this is not at all too ornée. French taste has introduced very considerable alleviations.’ Failing however, in ‘setting her caps’ for the new customer, the show-woman ‘tries the handkerchief’ enticement; exhibiting one with a fringe of artificial tears worked on the border—‘the ‘Larmoyante,’ a sweet-pretty idea.’ The Squire intimates that as a handkerchief to be used, it would most likely be found ‘rather scrubby for the eyes.’ But the show-woman removes this objection: ‘O dear, no, Sir—if you mean wiping. The wet style of grief is quite gone out—quite! The dry cry is decidedly the genteel thing.’ No wonder that the Squire, as he left the establishment with his ‘better half,’ was fain to exclaim: ‘Humph! And so that’s a Mason de Dool! Well! if it’s all the same to you, Ma’am, I’d rather die in the country, and be universally lamented after the old fashion; for, as to London, what with the new French modes of mourning, and the ‘Try Warren’ style of blacking the premises, it do seem to me that before long all sorrow will be sham Abram, and the House of Mourning a regular Farce!’ ••• A Canadian Correspondent, in a few ‘free and easy’ couplets, advises us how much we have lost by declining a MS. drama of his, which he is hammering out on the anvil of his brain. We subjoin a few lines of ‘The Angry Poet:’

‘The damper, the draft of my drama you’ve checked;
You’ve stunted my laurels—my rich cargo wrecked!
That cargo! O! never was galleon of Spain
Thus freighted, by winds wafted over the Main!
There were stuffs, and brocades, and rich laces and blonde;
There were Damascene blades, and thy silks Trebisond;
There was armor from Milan, both cuirass and helm,
Abelards, Eloïsas, and Father Anselm:
There were jewels, and gold, and the amulet’s power,
A hero to spout, and to rant by the hour;
A lady to love, and be loved, and to faint,
As a matter of course, turning pale through her paint!
There were clowns who the grave-digger clown could outvie,
And princes who on the stage strutted so high
That Prince Hamlet they’d cut; who could pick up a scull,
Vote his morals a bore, and his wit mighty dull!
There were spirits that roam in the caves of the deep,
Coming back to our earth, as ghosts will do, to peep!
A king of the Cannibals—warriors, a host;
And a city with domes, mid the dim waters lost:
There was some one descended from Brian Boru;
For Pleasaunce a hunchback, in French ‘Un Tortu;’
Every scene was an episode—tragic each act;
Winding up with swords clashing, or pistols well cracked.’

We have just received the following from an esteemed correspondent, who transcribes it verbatim from the familiar letter of a friend. If we have a solitary reader who can peruse it without emotion, let him confine his indifference within his own cold bosom:

‘I have just returned from the funeral of poor Emma G–, a little girl to whom I had been for years most tenderly attached. As there was something very touching in the circumstances connected with her death, I will relate them to you. She was the daughter of a widow, a near neighbor of mine. When I first knew her, she was a sprightly child of about four years of age, perfect in form and feature. The bloom of health was on her cheek; her eye was the brightest I ever saw; while in her bosom there glowed a generous affection that seemed to embrace all with whom she came in contact. But when she reached her seventh year, her health began to decline. The rose suddenly paled on her cheek, and her eye had acquired prematurely that sad, thoughtful expression which gives so melancholy a charm to the features of wasting beauty. Her mother looked on with an anxious heart and at an utter loss to account for so sudden a change in her health. But soon a new source of anxiety appeared. While dressing her one day, she observed on Emma’s back, just between the shoulders, a small swelling, of about the size of a walnut. As she watched this spot, and observed that it grew larger from day to day, the mother began to have sad misgivings. These however she kept to herself for a time. Soon afterward, a slight stoop in her gait became visible. The family physician was now called in, and the worst forebodings of the mother were confirmed. Her idolized child was fast becoming a hump-back!

‘I will not attempt to describe the feelings of the mother, who was thus doomed to witness from day to day the slow growth of that which was to make one so dear to her a cripple and a dwarf. Suffice it to say, her love as well as care seemed to be redoubled, and Emma became more than ever the child of her affections. Nor did her little companions neglect her when she could no longer join in their out-door sports, and her own sprightly step had given place to a slow, stooping-gait, and the sweet ringing voice to a sad or querulous tone, that sometimes made the very heart ache. On the contrary, all vied with each other in administering to her amusements. Among them, none clung to her with more assiduity than her brother William, who was the nearest to her own age. He gave up all his own out-door play, in order to be with her, and seemed never so happy as when he could draw a smile, sad though it was, from her thoughtful features. But after a while, Emma grew wayward under her affliction; and unfortunately, though generally good-natured, William had a quick temper, to check which required more self-command than commonly falls to one so young. Sometimes, therefore, when he found plan after plan, which he had projected for her amusement, rejected with peevish contempt, he could hardly conceal from her his own wounded feelings. Yet, though at times apparently ungrateful, Emma was perhaps not so in fact; and she loved her brother better than any one else, save her mother. It was only in moments when her too sensitive nature had been chafed perhaps by her own reflections—for like the majority of children in her circumstances, she was thoughtful beyond her years—that her conduct seemed unkind. And then, when she marked the clouded expression of her brother’s face, she would ask forgiveness in so meek a spirit, and kiss his cheek so affectionately, that he forgave her almost as soon as offended.

‘Years thus passed on, when one day, after she had been more than usually perverse and fretful, William, who had been reading to her, on receiving some slight rebuff, started suddenly from his seat by her side, called her ‘a little hunch-back,’ and left the room. In a moment, however, his passion subsided, and returning, he found his sister in tears. He attempted to put his arm around her neck, but she repulsed him, and slipping away, retired to her own chamber. Her mother soon after learned what had happened, and going to Emma, found her upon the bed in a paroxysm of grief. She endeavored to soothe her feelings, but in vain; she refused to be comforted. ‘I want to die, mother,’ she replied to all her endearments; ‘I have long felt that I was a burden to you all.’ She cried herself to sleep that night, and on the morrow was too ill to rise. The doctor was called in, and warned the mother against an approaching fever. For three days she remained in an uncertain state; but on the fourth, the fever came in earnest, and thenceforth she was confined to her pillow.

‘In the mean time, the grief of William had been more poignant even than that of his sister. Thrice he had been to her bedside to ask her forgiveness, and kiss once more her pallid cheek; but she turned her face resolutely away, and refused to recognize him. After these repulses he would slowly leave the room, and going to his own chamber, sit brooding for hours over the melancholy consequences of his rashness. Owing to the previous enfeebled health of Emma, the fever made rapid progress, and it soon became apparent that she must die. William, in consequence of the violent aversion of his sister, had latterly been denied admittance to the chamber, though he lingered all day about the door, eagerly catching the least word in regard to her state, and apparently unmindful of all other existence.

‘One morning there was evidently a crisis approaching; for the mother and attendants, hurrying softly in and out the sufferer’s chamber, in quick whispered words gave orders or imparted intelligence to others. William saw it all, and with the quick instinct of affection, seemed to know what it foreboded. Taking his little stool, therefore, he sat down beside the chamber-door, and waited in silence. In the mean time, the mother stood over the dying child, watching while a short unquiet slumber held her back for a little while longer. Several times a sweet smile trembled round the sufferer’s lips, and her arms moved as if pressing something to her bosom. Then she awoke, and fixing her eyes upon her mother, whispered faintly, ‘I thought William was here.’ A stifled sob was heard at the door, which stood partly open. Mrs. G– stepped softly out, and leading William to the bed-side, pointed to his dying sister. He threw himself upon her bosom, and pressing his lips to her pale cheek, prayed for forgiveness. Emma did not heed him; but looking again in her mother’s face, and pointing upward, said softly: ‘I shant be so there!—shall I, mother?’

‘No, my poor child!’ replied the weeping parent; ‘I hope not. But don’t talk so, Emma. Forgive your poor brother, or you’ll break his heart.’

‘Emma tried to gasp something; but whatever it was, whether of love or hate, it never reached a mortal ear. In a few moments she was no more.’

We take your amiable hint, good ‘P.’ of S–, and shall venture the forfeit. That our own ‘humor is no great shakes,’ we very cheerfully admit—so that there is an end to that ‘difference of opinion.’ ‘P.’ reminds us of an anecdote which we had not long since from a friend. ‘There, take that!’ said a would-be facetious doctor to a patient, whom he had been boring almost to extinction with what he fancied to be humor; ‘take it; ’t will do you good, though it is nauseous.’ ‘Don’t say a word about that,’ said the patient, swallowing the revolting potion; ‘the man who has endured your wit, has nothing to fear from your physic!’ ••• ‘C. M. P.’s parody on ‘Oh no, I never mention Him,’ is a very indifferent affair, compared with Hood’s transcript of that well-known song. We remember a stanza or two of it:

‘Oh, no, I never mentioned it,
I never said a word;
But lent my friend a five-pound note,
Of which I’ve never heard.
He said he merely borrowed it
To pay another debt;
And since I’ve never mention’d it,