Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. XXVII, August 1852, Vol. V

Donkey-man (being plaintiff). – The court will observe that three months and twelve weeks make six months.

The Judge nods acquiescence.

Leonard. – Agreed. They make six months. I went then after my little mule, a delicate creature, not larger than a large ass, that I had picked out expressly for my little wagon. I went, as I said, to see my little mule. And what does the man show me? A great, yellow jackass, high in the hips, with a big belly, that would be sure to split the shafts of my carriage! I said to him, "M. Galoupeau, this is not my little mule, and I sha'n't pay you."

Galoupeau (plaintiff). – And what did I say?

Leonard. – You swore it was my mule.

Galoupeau. – I said better than that: I said I couldn't constrain the nature of the beast, and hinder a little mule from growing large.

Leonard. – But mine was a blond, and yours is yellow.

Galoupeau. – Simply another effect of nature! And I have seen a little black ass foal turn white at three months old!

Leonard. – Do you think I have filled casks so long, not to know that red wine is red, and white wine, white.

Galoupeau. – I don't know. I don't understand the nature of wines; but donkeys – yes.

Judge (to the defendant). – So you refuse to take the mule?

Leonard. – I rather think so – a mule like a camel, and such a ferocious character, that he came within an ace of taking my life!

Judge. – You will please to make good this point of the injuries sustained.

Leonard. – The thing is easy. This M. Galoupeau insisted that I should take a look at his beast, and brought him out of the stable. The animal made off like a mad thing, and came near killing all the poultry. Then M. Galoupeau, who professes to know his habits, followed him up to the bottom of the yard, spoke gently to him, and after getting a hand upon his shoulder, called me up. As for myself, I went up confidently. I came near the beast, and just as I was about to reach out my hand for a gentle caress, the brute kicked me in the stomach – such a kick! – Mon Dieu! but here, your Honor, is the certificate – "twelve days a-bed; one hundred and fifty leeches." All that for caressing the brute!

Galoupeau. – If you were instructed, M. Léonard, in the nature of these beasts, you would understand that they never submit to any flattery from behind; and you know very well that you approached him by the tail.

Here two stable-boys were called to the stand, who testified that Signor Léonard Vidaillon, late cooper, did approach their master's jackass by the tail; and furthermore, that the mule (or jackass) was ordinarily of a quiet and peaceable disposition. This being shown to the satisfaction of the Court, and since it appeared that an inexperience, arising out of ignorance of the nature of the beast, had occasioned the injury to Signor Vidaillon, the case was decided for the plaintiff. Poor Léonard was mulcted in the cost of the mule, the costs of the suit, the cost of a hundred and fifty leeches, and the cost of broader shafts to his family wagon.

We have entertained our reader with this report – first, to show how parties to a French suit plead their own cause; and next, to show how the French reporters render the cause into writing. The story is headed in the French journal, like a farce – "A little mule will grow."

As for the town, in these hot days of summer, it looks slumberous. The hundreds who peopled the up-town walks with silks and plumes, are gone to the beach of Newport, or the shady verandas of the "United States." Even now, we will venture the guess, there are scores of readers running over this page under the shadow of the Saratoga colonnades, or in view of the broad valley of the Mohawk, who parted from us last month in some cushioned fauteuil of the New York Avenues.

The down-town men wear an air of ennui, and slip uneasily through the brick and mortar labyrinths of Maiden-lane and of John-street. Brokers, even, long for their Sunday's recess – when they can steal one breath of health and wideness at New Rochelle, or Rockaway. Southerners, with nurses and children, begin to show themselves in the neighborhood of the Union and Clarendon, and saunter through our sunshine as if our sunshine were a bath of spring.

Fruits meantime are ripening in all our stalls; and it takes the edge from the sultriness of the season to wander at sunrise, through the golden and purple show of our Washington market. Most of all, to such as are tied, by lawyer's tape or editorial pen, to the desks of the city, does it bring a burst of country glow to taste the firstlings of the country's growth, and to doat upon the garden glories of the year – as upon so many testimonial clusters, brought back from a land of Canaan.

And in this vein, we can not avoid noting and commending the increasing love for flowers. Bouquets are marketable; they are getting upon the stalls; they flank the lamb and the butter. Our civilization is ripening into a sense of their uses and beauties. They talk to us even now – (for a tenpenny bunch of roses is smiling at us from our desk) of fields, fragrance, health, and wanton youth. They take us back to the days when with urchin fingers we grappled the butter-cup and the mountain daisy – days when we loitered by violet banks, and loved to loiter – days when we loved the violets, and loved to love; and they take us forward too – far forward to the days that always seem coming, when flowers shall bless us again, and be plucked again, and be loved again, and bloom around us, year after year; and bloom over us, year after year!

The two great hinges of public chat are – just now – the rival candidates, Generals Pierce and Scott; serving not only for the hot hours of lunch under the arches of the Merchants' Exchange, but toning the talk upon every up-bound steamer of the Hudson, and giving their creak to the breezes of Cape May.

Poor Generals! – that a long and a worthy life should come to such poor end as this. To be vilified in the journals, to be calumniated with dinner-table abuse, or with worse flattery – to have their religion, their morals, their courage, their temper, all brought to the question; – to have their faces fly-specked in every hot shop of a barber – to have their grandparents, and parents all served up in their old clothes; to have their school-boy pranks ferreted out, and every forgotten penny pitched into their eyes; to have their wine measured by the glass, and their tears by the tumbler; to have their names a bye-word, and their politics a reproach – this is the honor we show to these most worthy candidates!

As a relief to the wearisome political chat, our city has just now been blessed with Alboni; and it is not a little curious to observe how those critics who were coy of running riot about Jenny Lind, are lavishing their pent-up superlatives upon the new-comer. The odium of praising nothing, it appears, they do not desire; and seize the first opportunity to win a reputation for generosity. The truth is, we suspect, that Alboni is a highly cultivated singer, with a voice of southern sweetness, and with an air of most tempered pleasantness; but she hardly brings the prestige of that wide benevolence, noble action, and naïve courtesy, which made the world welcome Jenny as a woman, before she had risked a note.

In comparing the two as artists, we shall not venture an opinion; but we must confess to a strong liking for such specimen of humanity, as makes its humanity shine through whatever art it embraces. Such humanity sliding into song, slides through the song, and makes the song an echo; such humanity reveling in painting, makes the painting only a shadow on the wall. Every true artist should be greater than his art; or else it is the art that makes him great.

And while we are upon this matter of song, we take the liberty of suggesting, in behalf of plain-spoken, and simple-minded people, that musical criticism is nowadays arraying itself in a great brocade of words, of which the fustian only is clear to common readers. We can readily understand that the art of music, like other arts, should have its technicalities of expression; but we can not understand with what propriety those technicalities should be warped into such notices, as are written professedly for popular entertainment and instruction.

If, Messrs. Journalists, your musical critiques are intended solely for the eye of connoisseurs, stick to your shady Italian; but if they be intended for the enlightenment of such hungry outside readers, as want to know, in plain English, how such or such a concert went off, and in what peculiar way each artist excels, for Heaven's sake, give us a taste again of old fashioned Saxon expletive! He seems to us by far the greatest critic, who can carry to the public mind the clearest and the most accurate idea of what was sung, and of the way in which it was sung. It would seem, however, that we are greatly mistaken; and that the palm of excellence should lie with those, whose periods smack most of the green-room, and cover up opinions with a profusion of technicalities. We shall not linger here, however, lest we be attacked in language we can not understand.

Among the novelties which have provoked their share of the boudoir chit-chat, and which go to make our monthly digest of trifles complete, may be reckoned the appearance of a company of trained animals at the Astor Place Opera House. Their débût was modest and maidenly; and could hardly have made an eddy in the talk, had not the purveyors of that classic temple, entered an early protest against the performance, as derogatory to the dignity of the place.

This difficulty, and the ensuing discussions, naturally led to a comparison of the habits of the various animals, who are accustomed to appear in that place, whether as spectators, or as actors. What the judicial decision may have been respecting the matter, we are not informed. Public opinion, however, seems to favor the conclusion that the individuals composing the monkey troup would compare well, even on the score of dignity, with very many habitués of the house; and that the whole monkey tribe, being quite harmless and inoffensive, should remain, as heretofore, the subjects of Christian toleration, whether appearing on the bench (no offense to the Judges) or the boards.

With this theatric note, to serve as a snapper to our long column of gossip, we beg to yield place to that very coy lady – the Bride of Landeck.

AN OLD GENTLEMAN'S LETTER

"THE BRIDE OF LANDECK."

Dear Sir – The small village of Landeck is situated in a very beautiful spot near the river Inn, with a fine old castle to the southeast, against the winds from which quarter it shelters the greater part of the village – a not unnecessary screen; for easterly winds in the Tyrol are very detestable. Indeed I know no country in which they are any thing else, or where the old almanac lines are not applicable —

"When the wind is in the east,
'Tis neither good for man or beast."

Some people, however, are peculiarly affected by the influence of that wind; and they tell a story of Dr. Parr – for the truth of which I will not vouch, but which probably has some foundation in fact. When a young man, he is said to have had an attack of ague, which made him dread the east wind as a pestilence. He had two pupils at the time, gay lads, over whose conduct, as well as whose studies, he exercised a very rigid superintendence. When they went out to walk, Parr was almost sure to be with them, much to their annoyance on many occasions. There were some exceptions, however; and they remarked that these exceptions occurred when the wind was easterly. Boys are very shrewd, and it did not escape the lads' attention, that every day their tutor walked to the window, and looked up at the weather-cock on the steeple of the little parish church. Conferences were held between the young men; and a carpenter consulted. A few days after, the wind was in the east, and the Doctor suffered them to go out alone. The following day it was in the east still. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, all easterly wind – if the weather-cock might be believed. Sunday, Parr went to church, and shivered all day. The next week it was just the same thing. Never was such a spell of easterly wind. Parr was miserable. But at the end of some five weeks, a friend, and man of the world, came to visit him, with the common salutation of – "A fine day, Doctor!"

"No day is a fine day, sir, with an easterly wind," said Parr, with his usual acerbity.

"Easterly wind?" said his visitor, walking toward the window; "I don't think the wind is east – yes it is, indeed."

"Ay, sir, and has been for these six weeks," answered Parr, sharply. "I could tell it by my own sensations, without looking at the weather-cock."

"Why, Doctor," answered the other, "the wind was west yesterday: that I know; and I thought it was west to-day."

"Then you thought like a fool, sir," answered Parr. "A man who can not tell when the wind is in the east, has no right to think at all. Let him look at the weather-cock."

"But the weather-cock may be rusty," answered the other; "and your weather-cock must be rusty if it pointed to the east yesterday; for it blew pretty smartly from the west all day."

"Do you think I am a fool, sir: do you think I am a liar?" asked Parr, angrily.

"No; but you may be mistaken, Doctor," replied the other. "Even Solomon, as you know, made a mistake sometimes; and you are mistaken now; and the weather-cock too. Look at the clouds: they are coming rapidly from the west. If you would take my advice, you would look to our friend there on the top of the steeple."

"I will, sir – I will this moment," replied Parr; and ringing the bell violently, he ordered his servant to take the village carpenter and a bottle of oil, and have the weather-cock examined and greased. He and his visitor watched the whole proceeding from the window – the bringing forth of the ladders, the making them fast with ropes, the perilous ascent, and then the long operations which seemed much more complicated than the mere process of greasing the rusty weather-cock. "What can the fools be about?" said Parr. In the end, however, the deed, whatever it was, was done; and the servant and the carpenter descended, and came toward the house. By this time the weather-cock had whirled round, pointing directly to the west, and the Doctor asked eagerly, as soon as the men appeared. "Well, sir – well: what prevented the vane from turning?"

"A large nail, sir," answered the man.

"I will never trust a weather-cock again," cried Parr.

"Nor your own sensations either, Doctor," said his friend, "unless you are very sure they are right ones; for if you pin them to a weather-cock, there may be people who will find it for their interest to pin the weather-cock to the post."

The two poor pupils from that day forward lost their advantage; but they had six weeks of fun out of it, and, like the fishes in the Arabian tale, "were content."

There is an old proverb, that "Fancy is as good for a fool as physic," and I believe the saying might be carried further still; for there is such a thing as corporeal disease, depending entirely upon the mind; and that with very wise men too. The effect of mental remedies we all know, even in very severe and merely muscular diseases. Whether Doctor Parr was cured of his aguish sensations or not, I can not tell; but I have known several instances of mental remedies applied with success; to say nothing of having actually seen the incident displayed by old Bunbury's caricature of a rheumatic man enabled to jump over a high fence by the presence of a mad bull. I will give you one instance of a complete, though temporary cure, performed upon a young lady by what I can only consider mental agency. One of the daughters of a Roman Catholic family, named V – , a very beautiful and interesting girl, had entirely lost the use of her limbs for nearly three years, and was obliged to be fed and tended like a child. Her mind was acute and clear, however, and as at that time the celebrated Prince Hohenloe was performing, by his prayers, some cures which seemed miraculous, her father entered into correspondence with him, to see if any thing could be done for the daughter. The distance of some thousand miles lay between the Prince and the patient; but he undertook to pray and say mass for her on a certain day, and at a certain hour, and directed that mass should also be celebrated in the city where she resided, exactly at the same moment. As the longitude of the two places was very different, a great deal of fuss was made to ascertain the precise time. All this excited her imagination a good deal, and at the hour appointed the whole family went to mass, leaving her alone, and in bed. On their return they found Miss V – , who for years had not been able to stir hand or foot, up, dressed, and in the drawing-room. For the time, she was perfectly cured; but I have been told that she gradually fell back into the same state as before.