Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863

PROMOTED!

'You will not bid me stay!' he said,
'She calls for me – my native land!
And stay? ah, better to be dead!
A coward dare not ask your hand!

'My crimson sash you'll tie for me,
My belted sword you'll fasten, love!
I swear to both I'll faithful be,
To these below! to God above!

'And if, perchance, my sword shall win
A laurel wreath to crown your name,
He will not count it as my sin,
That I for you have prayed for fame!'

* * *

His name rings thro' his native land,
His sword has won the hero's prize;
Why comes he not to ask her hand?
Dead on the battle field he lies.

HENRIETTA AND VULCAN

Time, O well beloved, floweth by like a river; sweepeth on by turreted castles and dainty boat-houses, great old forests and ruined cities. Tender, cool-eyed lilies fringe its rippling shores, straggling arms of longing seaweeds are unceasingly wooing and losing its flying waves; and on its purple bosom by night, linger merrily hosts of dancing stars. Bright under its limpid waters gleam the towers of many a 'sunken city.' Strong and clear through the night-silence of eager listening, ring the chimes of their far-off bells, the echoes of joyous laughter: and to waiting, yearning ones come, ever and anon, deep glances from gleaming eyes, warm graspings from outstretched hands. And well windeth the river into grim old caves, and even the merriest boat that King Cole ever launched flitteth by the dark doors, intent only on the brilliant chateaux, that shimmer above in the gorgeous sunlight of a brave Espagne. But laughing imps, with flying feet, venture singly into these realms of the Unknown. Bright streameth the light there from carbuncles and glowing rubies; but of the melodies that there bewilder them, no returning voice ever speaketh, for are they not Eleusinian mysteries? But when thou meetest, O brother, sailing down the stream under gay flags and rounding sails, some Hogarth or some Sterne, who playeth rouge et noir with keen old Pharaohs, and battledore with Charlie Buff; who singeth brave Libiamos, and despiseth not the Christmas plums of Johnny Horner; who payeth graceful court to the great and learned, and warmeth the pale hearts of the shivering poor with his kind cheer and gentle words; who sitteth with Socrates and Pericles at the feet of an ever-lovely Aspasia, and whispereth capricios to Anna Maria at the opera; know then, O beloved, if thou hast ever trodden the mystic halls, that this man is the brother of thy soul! Selah!

But the bravest stream that ever was born on a mountain side has its shoals and quicksands, and far out in the sounding sea rise slowly coral reefs. Now, if on every green, growing isle newly rising to the sunlight, the glorious jealousy of some Jove should toss a Vulcan, how would our Venuses be suddenly charmed by the beauties of a South Sea Scheme! how would their tiny shallops dot the curling waves, and what new flowers would spring upon the smiling shores to greet their rosy feet!

'And why a Vulcan?' says the elegant Narcissus Hare, with a shiver; 'a great, grim, solemn, limping monster, that Brummel would have spurned in disgust! And he to win our ladies with their delicate loveliness! Faugh, sir! are you a Cyclops yourself?'

Alas! my Tinkler, do you remember that Salmasius began his vituperations of Milton with gratuitous speculations upon his supposed ugliness, and that great was his grief when he was assured that he contended with an ideal of beauty. Have you forgotten that the Antinöus won the distinguished favor of his merry, courteous queen Christina, and that the satirist and man of 'taste' died of obscurity in a year? Beware, my little Narcissus, lest the next autumn flowers bloom above your grave in Greenwood, and your fair Luline be accepting bouquets and bonbons from me.

You, Roland, are pale from the very contemplation of such a catastrophe, such an unprecedented hægira of dames! It is as if from every gay watering place, some softly tinkling bell should summon the fair mermaids. Beplaided and betrowsered, with their little gypsy hats, would they float out beyond the breakers, waving aside with farewell, airy kisses, the patent life boats and the magical preservers, and pressing on, like Gebers, with their rosy faces and great, hopeful eyes ever laughingly, merrily turned to the golden east – their Morgen Land!

Ah! but – have we no Vulcans among us? 'Fair Bertha, Beatrice, Alys,' come out of the Christmas ecstatics of the dear old year that has just streamed out like a meteor among the stars; —you know, fair ones, that the stars are only years, and the planets grave old centuries; lock away the jewels and the lace sets – charming, I know – the glove boxes and the statuettes, the cream-leaved books, and the fragile, graceful babioles; pull up the cushions, and group your bright selves around the register – it's very cold to-day, you roses – and let us settle the question – have we a Vulcan among us?

Magnificent essayists, O dearly beloved, have handled 'Our Husbands,' 'Our Wives,' 'Our Sons' and 'Our Daughters' in a masterly style. Very praiseworthy, no doubt, but so unromantic! Why, there's not a green leaf in the whole collection! The style is decidedly Egyptian, solid and expressive, but dreadfully compact. No arabesques, those offshoots of lazy, dreamy hours and pleasantly disconnected thoughts, disgrace the solemnly even tenor of these fathers of 'Ephemeral Literature,' as some 'rude Iconoclast' has irreverently styled the butterfly journeyings of our magazine age. But we, O merry souls and brave, are still young and frivolous: we still look at pictures with as much zest as before our dimly remembered teens; and we belong to that happy branch of the Scribbleri family, that prefer the sympathy of bright eyes and gay laughter, to the approving shake of any D'Orsay's 'ambrosial curls,' or the most unqualified smile from the grimmest old champion who even now votes in his secret heart against the New Tariff, or charges with unparalleled bravery imaginary or windmill giants on the floor of a Platform or of a Legislature.

But this, our paper, purporteth to be, in some wise, a disquisition on Beaux, and, by our faith, we had well-nigh forgotten it. Retournons à nos moutons, as the ancient lawyers used to say (and many a tyro, in the interim, hath said the same) when they grew so entangled in the mazes of Jack Shepherd cases that they lost sight of their original designs. And lest I should grow wearisomely prosaic, and see the yawn behind your white hand, belle Beatrice, let me make my disquisition a half story, and point my moral, not as fairies do, with a pinch, but with the shadow of a tale.

And here, signorina, though in courage I am a Cæsar, here I shrink. The birdseye view I would take of a few leaves of beau-dom, should be from the standing point of your own unquiet, peering eyes; and if even Cupid is blindfold, how may I, to whom you are all tormentingly delicious enigmas, hope in my own unaided strength to enter the charmed citadel of your experiences? Oh, no! But happy is the man, who, with an inquiring mind, has also a sister! Thrice happy he whose sisters have just now flitted down the staircase, from their own inner sanctuaries, into the little library, bearing with them in noisy triumph the Harry of all Goodfellows, the truant Henrietta Ruyter! Ah! she is the key that will unlock for me those treasures of thought and observation that I will shortly lay before you, O readers!

And now to you, O much-traduced star, that presided at my début into this vale of tears, may the most glorious rocket ascend that Jackson ever said or sung, one that shall break out in pæans of brilliant stars! —for, when I entered the charmed presence, the very ball that I had been wishing to roll was upon the carpet. But of this I was unconscious as I admired Fanny's new dress, the mysterious earrings of our stately Bertha, and ventured upon a slight compliment to Henrietta, who lounged upon the divan. With admirable dexterity, the young lady caught the fleurette upon her crochet needle, reviewed it carelessly, and finally decided to accept it; an event that I had undoubtedly foreseen, for the compliment was a graceful and artistic one. But brothers, as you, Gustav, my boy, have long since discovered, are not events, and I was presently consigned to the 'elephant chair' in the corner, with a portfolio of sketches that Henrietta had brought from over the sea – and the dames continued, in charming obliviousness of my presence.

'Girls,' said Henrietta, having deposited my compliment snugly in her little workbasket, whence it may issue to the delectation of some future young lady group, 'how are you going to entertain me? Such a Wandering Jew as I am! A perfect Ahasuerus! What a novelty it will be that will interest me!' and with a most laughingly wearied air, the pretty eyebrows were raised, and waves of weariness floated over the golden hair in its scarlet net.

Fanny looked concerned. 'We may have a week of opera.'

'I've been – in – Milan,' returned Henrietta, with a well-counterfeited air of the disdain with which Mrs. De Lancy Stevens views all republican institutions since her year in Europe. Bertha laughed.

'You have grown literary, astronomical perhaps, with your star gazing, and Len has become such a Mitchellite of late, that two shelves of his bookcase are filled with works on the heavenly bodies. What a rapture you will be in at the sight!'

'Quite an Aquinas,' said Henrietta, with gravity.

'How so, Harry,' asked Fanny, after a pause, during which she had been deciding that her friend meant – Galileo!

'Oh, he wrote about angels, you know; said these heavenly bodies were made of thick clouds, and some other nonsense, of which I remember nothing.'

I, in my corner, was devoutly thankful that angels now assume more tangible shapes, which chivalric sentiment, finding expression only in my eyes, was recognized but by Henrietta, who rewarded me with a lightning smile.

'Bertha, my queen,' continued she, as that lady's serene countenance beamed upon her in apparently immovable calmness, 'does anything ever arouse you? Have you forgotten, my impenetrable spirit, the sad days of yore, when we sobbed out grand arias to the wretched accompaniment of Professor Tirili, blistered our young fingers on guitar strings, waded unprofitably in oceans of Locke and Bacon, and were oftener at the apex of a triangle than its comfortable base? And you always as calm as though 'sailing over summer seas!' Come – I am absolutely blue;' and the half-fretful belle, who had really exhausted her strength and amiability by a grand pedestrian tour in the Central Park that morning, stretched out demurely her gaiter boots, and drew with an invisible pencil on imaginary paper, the outline of her boldly arched instep.

'If Landon would only come,' sighed Fanny, musingly, counting the beads for the eye of the Polyphemus she was embroidering on a cushion for that gentleman's sofa meditations, 'he would entertain you, as well as the – one – two – three – witches in Macbeth.'

'No doubt of it,' said Henrietta.

'Five blues and two blacks,' said Fanny, not heeding the reply. 'See, girls,' and she held up the glittering orb, 'what a lovely eye!'

The enthusiasm of her audience was delirious but subdued. I caught an occasional 'Such a love!' 'How sweet – how fierce!'

'Now,' said Henrietta, decidedly, 'if Medusa had but one eye, and this dear creature two, I should die as miserably as the lady who loved the Apollo Belvidere. I have had oceans of knights errant – but such! I think of writing a natural history like – Cuvier.'

'Yes,' said Bertha, quietly, 'or Peter Parley.'

'Suppose I read you the advance sheets some morning?'

'Charming,' said Fanny, with a little shrug of approaching delight.

'Mr. Landon Snowe, Miss Fanny,' said a crusty voice, and from under a tower of white turban, Sibyl's face looked out – at the door.

'We will see him here, Sibyl,' said Fanny, brightly; 'and oh, Sibyl, ask Mott to make a macaroon custard for dinner, for Miss Ruyter.'

'Excellent,' said that lady, again with the De Lancy Stevens air, 'I ate – those – in – Paris. They actually flavor them there with Haut Brion! and they are delicious!' and Henrietta's lips fairly quivered at the remembrance, that was by no means a recollection of the long-ago enjoyed dainties.

'Such extravagance!' said Fanny, opening her eyes, and arranging sundry little points in her attitude that were intended to be very piercing indeed to the gentleman, whose step was now heard in the hall. 'Such extravagance, Harry! Your father, I suppose. You'll get nothing better than Port here. Good morning, Mr. Snowe.'

'Talking of ports, ladies,' said that gentleman, airily, after he had prostrated himself, figuratively as well as disfiguratively, before Miss Henrietta, bowed over Bertha's hand, and drew his chair to Fanny's sewing stand, for the triple purpose of confusing her zephyrs, flirting at a side table, and ascertaining whether Henrietta had fulfilled the luxuriant promise of her earlier youth. Snowe was, womanly speaking, as you will see, 'a perfect love of a man.' 'Newport, for example, and charming drives? Williamsport and the Susquehanna, Miss Fanny?'

Very statesmanly, O Landon G. Snowe, Esq., both the glance beneath which my poor little sister's eyes fell, and the allusions twain to the scenes of many a pleasure past. But Fanny, though not mistress of her blushes, can, at least, control her words.

'You are not a very good Œdipus, Mr. Snowe; we were discussing imports.'

'Such as laces and silks?' —

'And punch,' suggested Henrietta.

Mr. Snowe's eyeglass was here freshly adjusted, and his attention bestowed upon the young lady who talked of punch, a thing unheard of in society! The prospect was refreshing. Henrietta was stylish, piquant, and pretty. Fanny was uncertain, indifferent, but, for the moment, divine. He magnanimously sacrificed himself to the impulse of the moment, and the courtesies of hospitality, and walked courageously over to Henrietta, under cover of a huge book.