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

'They were views from the White Mountains, he believed. Had Miss Ruyter seen them? Allow him;' and he wheeled her sofa nearer the table, and unfurled the book. Henrietta was charmed.

'The Schwartz Mountains? She had not understood. These are glaciers? How they glisten! And these little flowers below are violets? Such pretty, modest, ladylike flowers. Had Mr. Snowe a favorite among flowers?'

Mr. Snowe was prepared. He had answered the question exactly five hundred and ten times. To Cecilia Lanner, who was almost a religieuse, and who wore her diamond cross from principle, he was the very poet of a passion flower, such holy mysteries as its opening petals disclosed to him! To Lucy Grey, who wore pensive curls, and had a sweet voice, he presented constantly fragrant little sprays of mignonette, cunning moss baskets with a suspicion of heliotrope peeping out, and crushed myrtle blossoms between the leaves of her most exquisitely bound books. To Katy Lessing, who rowed a small green boat somewhere up the Hudson in the summer, he confided the fact that water lilies were his admiration: he loved the limpid water; its restless waves were like heart throbbings (this nearly overwhelmed poor Katy). All great and noble souls loved the water; – he forgot the sacred fakirs, and the noble lord who preferred Malmsey wine! He had repeatedly assured Regina Ward that the camelia was his flower, so proudly beautiful! His soul was 'permeated with loveliness,' and asked no fragrance. Regina is a great white creature, lovely to behold, and, perfectly conscious of her perfection, no more actively charming than the Ino of Foley. He won Milly White's favor by applauding her love for wild flowers, declaring that a field of buttercups reminded him of the 'spangled heavens,' and that on summer days he was constantly envying the cool little Jacks in their green pulpits.

A pretended Lavater – and there have been such – would have convicted Snowe at once of the most artful penetration, could he have seen the lowering curve of his brows as he watched the nervous fluttering of Henrietta's hands over the pictures, and the decided but softly pleasant rounding of her white chin. But it was the general unconsciously powerful indifference of manner, that advised him to prefer, in reply to her question:

'The snapdragon, yes, beyond the shadow of a doubt. I have an odd fashion (very odd, Gustav!), Miss Ruyter, of associating ladies with flowers, and that gorgeous three-bird snapdragon always looks to me like some brilliant belle, who holds her glittering sceptre and wields it, capriciously perhaps, but always charmingly.'

'A sort of Helen,' observed Henrietta, calmly.

'A witching, arbitrary, lovely Helen,' promptly returned Snowe, who had a vague idea of Greek helmets and golden apples, wooden horses, a great war, and 'all for love.'

Henrietta heard the magnificent vagueness, and became so intently interested in a view, that Snowe came softly over to my window, and looked into the garden. Lilly Brennan coming in just then, the conversation became general, and presently Snowe accompanied her down the street.

'Fanny,' said Henrietta, with an inquisitorial air, after the girls had decided that the slides on the bows of Lilly's dress were too small, and that her 'Bird of Paradise' was lovely enough to fly away with them all, 'Fanny, are you the 'bright, particular star' of that man?'

'I believe so,' said Fanny, with a stare.

'Do you intend to beam on him for any length of time?' persisted Henrietta.

'I haven't decided,' said Fan, honestly. 'I love beauty, and Landon Snowe is magnificent.'

'So is the Venus de Medicis,' said Henrietta, fiercely; 'but look at her spine! What sort of a brain do you think could flourish at the top of such a spine? Not that I suppose that man to have the least fragment of one; don't suspect such a thing! Don't you observe his weak, disjointed way of carrying his head, and the Pisan appearance of his sentences? I should dread an earthquake for such a man as Mr. Snowe – you'd have nothing but remnants to remember him by, Fanny.'

'But earthquakes are phenomena,' said Fanny, stoutly, 'and I'm not in the least like one. As long as Landon never fails except spiritually, I am contented – and even in that light I never knew him to trip,' and the child was as indignant as her indolent nature would permit.

'Trip! of course not,' echoed Henrietta, 'when he's buried like a delicate Sphinx up to his shoulders in the sands of your good opinion, and the mummy cloths of his own conceit; but just remove these, and you'll see a downfall. My dear Francesca, this man is your Cecco, and he'd far better retire into a monastery than hope to win you. Why, I'd rather marry you myself, Francesca! Such charms!' and Henrietta, with her own delicate perception and enjoyment of the beautiful, kissed my sister's deprecatingly extended hand, and, as the dinner bell rang, waltzed her out of the room.

'It's perfectly bewildering the interest some people take in music,' she resumed later, building a little tent on the side of her plate with the débris of fish. 'There's Bartlett Browning, telling me the other evening a melancholy story of some melodious fishes, off the coast of —Weiss nicht wo; oysters, I suppose; conceive of it! the most phlegmatic of creatures. I suppose some poor fisherman heard a merlady singing in her green halls, and fancied it the death song of some of his shells. But that's nothing to some of Bartlett Browning's musical tales. The man's a perfect B flat himself!'

'Well,' said Nelly, Phil's little girl, who had come around to show her new velvet basque, 'but shells do sing, for I've often listened to mamma's, and Bessy gives it to me at night to put me to sleep. You know, Aunt Bertie, for you once made me learn what it said:

'Oh, sweet and far, from cliff and scar,
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!'

'Fish-land, my beauty,' said Henrietta, playfully; 'let us hear your song, fishlet,' and she held a little gleaming shrimp by his tail, and looked expectantly at his silent mouth. And here I remember, with a smile of amusement and some astonishment, that Herman Melville, in nervous fear of ridicule, apologized, most gracefully, of course, for his beauteous Fayaway's primitive mode of carving a fish; but I fancy I hear myself, or you either, sir, begging the community to shut its dear eyes, while Harry's little victim, all unconscious of his fate, disappeared behind the walls, coral and white, of her lips and teeth.

Oh, isn't it perfectly delicious to meet a real, frank, merry, wise sort of a girl, who doesn't wear spectacles or blue stockings, nor disdain the Lancers or a new frock with nineteen flounces? Just fancy it, Gustav, my dear fellow, chatting with the Venus of Milo, in a New York dining room, and she all done up in blue poplin, with cords and tassels and all that, with that lovely hair tumbling about in a scarlet net, and such a splendid enjoyment of her own great grace, and royal claiming of homage! Eating mashed potatoes too, and celery, and roast beef, to keep up that magnificent physique of hers! Oh, it's rare!

But Henrietta couldn't forget Snowe, any more than Snowe could forget himself; so, after she had gazed with delight at the red veins of wine that threaded the jelly-like custard, with its imprisoned macaroons, looking like gold fish asleep in a globe of sun-dyed water, she went on, as if the conversation had not been interrupted:

'Do you know, Fan, that he reminds me constantly of champagne. If there's anything on earth or in a cellar that I do detest, its champagne; such smiling, brilliant-looking impudence, that comes out fizz – bang! and that's the end of it; there's not so much as the quaver of an echo. You drink it, and instead of seeing cool vineyards and purple waters and cataracts of icicles in your glass, you find a pale, gaunt spectre, or a poor, half-drowned Bacchus, staring at you. It's just so with your Landon Snowe. You, and other people, too, have a habit of admiring him, a great creature with eyes of milky blue, who goes about disbursing his small coin like some old Aladdin! Why, my dear children, the man, I don't doubt, is this moment congratulating himself, in his solitude at Delmonico's, upon his great penetration. Didn't you see him studying me with a great flourish of deference, and throwing his old, three-birded snapdragons into my White Mountains? If he had been as ugly as a Scarron, now, and had known what he said, I could have loved him for that, for, of all things, I do delight in dragons! Such sieges as I have had at zoological gardens and menageries, from Dan to Beersheba, just to see one; and ugly old lizards have been pointed out to me, and scorpions, and every imaginable object but a dragon. But one day I dug a splendid old manuscript – a perfect fossil – out of some old library in Spezia, and opening it, by the merest chance came upon a most lovely, illuminated, full-grown dragon, the very one, I suppose, that Confucius couldn't find! I gazed in raptures, my dearest; he perfectly sparkled with emeralds; his eyes were the most luminous opals. Dear, happy old Indians, who had their dragons at the four corners of the earth, and could go and look over at the lordly creatures whenever they felt melancholy. And besides, I have a little private system of dragonology of my own, that approaches the equator more nearly. I've always worn opals since that day on every possible occasion; I mean to be married in them.'

Hurra! belle Henriette! thou hast a weakness. At the end of a long aisle, shrouded in sumptuously colored perfumed light, stands an altar, and white surplices gleam through the effulgence. – Thou queen! and that thy crowning!

'Len,' said Fanny the next morning, as I sat, after breakfast, over the paper, 'don't you think Harry is a little, just a little, satirical, and – well – not perfectly ladylike and kind, to talk so dreadfully of one's friends?'

'Satirical!? Bless your little, tender heart, not the least mite in the world; she's quite too straightforward for that. Unladylike! Why, my dear Fanny, don't you know 'the wounds of a friend'? Did you never think, little sister, that some girls are sent into the world to perform the office of crumb-scrapers for your serene highnesses, and themselves as well?'

'Like a lady, who gives a dinner party, jumping up and brushing off her own table,' said Fanny with an amused laugh.

'Just so, dear; and as they go wandering about, not a fragment can be omitted. Now, a little dwarf of a thing like you couldn't do that with any grace; but Harry could, you know, and make everybody think it was charming. So, if fragments of poor Snowe fall under her unsparing hand, and she brushes them off carelessly, don't let anybody's tears go rolling after, don't let anybody's heart ache, for such a trifle; think of the dessert, Fanny, that is sure to follow.'

'Then you too, Len, you want me to give up Landon?'

'Yes, my dear, let Landon – slide.'

Fanny here boxed my ears with emphasis, and retreated, with an expression of great disgust on her pretty face.

'Come back here, my child,' I said, pulling her down on my knee, 'and let me reason with you.'

Such an oracle as I am with the girls! There's nothing like it, Gustav; for every fan or bracelet you give your sisters, you'll be amply rewarded by revelations and love; and it's something to have a dear, white, undulating wreath of a girl in your arms, and rosy lips on yours, even if it is your sister. Bless the sweet creatures!

'What do you want to marry Snowe for?'

'Well, you see, Len, it's so grand to have such a great beauty always at one's hand, and the girls are all dying for him; and, you know, Len, the truth is,' (very low,) 'he loves me, as you see, and – we girls are such silly creatures – and I suppose the compliment pleases me,' and the frank, darling face crimsoned, and tears stood in the blue eyes. I kissed them both, and laid her hands on my shoulders.

'Pet,' I said, earnestly, 'you are worth a gross of Landon Snowes. He loves you, of course – he'd have been an icicle to have failed in so obvious a duty; but it's only a matter of pure admiration, scarcely of any complicated feelings. Besides, dear, these whitewashed, sinewless, variable fellows fade like the winter sun, without any twilight; their features go wandering off in search of becoming expressions, and they would want a wife like a chameleon to satiate their variety-loving natures. No, dear; give Landon to Henrietta, and when Napoleon comes back, I will enter no protest, even Harry will be silent, and' —

'Oh, Len, what nonsense! couldn't you recommend me to the man in the moon, through a telescope?'

Fanny laughed, and we went again into the library, where Harry, as usual, was tapping her rings with the carved handle of the crotchet needle, that was as ornamental, and about as useful, as Cleopatra's.

'I am going to live in a new country,' said she, gravely, as we entered the room; 'I would go sailing off like a squirrel on a piece of bark. I begin to have intense yearnings after my double. Where do you suppose I'm to find him, the gorgeous, tropical anomaly?'

'In Pompeii, or the Cities of the Plain?' I suggested.

'Fanny,' she continued, laughingly, 'is very grave about her vanishing Snowe-flakes; but for poor me, who have been persecuted by the most distressing men, she has no pity. Girls, I promised you an inventory of these treasures.'

'Oh yes,' said Fan, gleefully; 'go out, Len, or you will never be able to endure Harry afterward, for your counterpart will be peeping out, and then woe to your pride!'

'No danger,' said Henrietta, 'that's perfectly invulnerable. Lenox may remain; it will be a wholesome discipline for him – a warning, you know, my hero; although, girls, Lenox is tolerably faultless,

'Little he loves but a Frau or a feast,
Little he fears but a protest or priest.'

Praed altered. Sit down, disciple, at my feet if you will; I am in the oratorical mood to-day. Hypatia, if you please, not Grace the Less.'

There was a pretty picture of the Immaculée Conception over the sofa, one of those lithographs that you see in every bookstore, that Bertha fancied because it was 'sweet.' The Virgin, a woman with a child-angel's face, and the mezzo-luna beneath her feet. That artist knew what he was about, sir. I'd give more for a picture with a good, deep idea, boldly launched forth, than for a thousand of your smiling, proper, natural 'studies,' and Bridal Scenes, and Dramatic or Historical Snatches. If artists, now, were all poets and scholars, as they should be, it would be the work and delirious rapture of a life to go through a gallery as large as our Dusseldorf. Men would go there to write novels and histories, and women to learn to be good and beautiful – that is, to learn to think. Oh, what a school for great and small! But when is this new era of the real and the true in art to begin? You boy artists, who are just opening glad eyes to the glorious light, the great world looks to you to inaugurate the new, to pour ancient lore and mystic symbols and grand old art into the waiting crucible, and melt the whole, with your burning, creative genius, into forms and conceptions before which, hearts shall be silent in very rapture. But the time is not yet. One here and there cannot change the Iron to a Golden Age, and it is to thoughts rather than their great embodiments that earnest art-worshippers now bow. And yet men fancy they are artists, dream of a fame glorious as that of Phidias! Why there's young Acajou, who chiselled a very respectable hound out of a stray lump of marble, stealthily, by a candle, or more probably a spirit lamp, in his father's cellar – was discovered and straightway heroized. I don't say the boy hasn't talent, genius if you will; but it isn't the genius that will overflow his soul and etherealize his whole nature. Yet already he 'progresses like a giantess,' has attracted some attention in the Academy, and will directly be sent to Rome. But the idea! I know him too well! The other night I heard him criticizing Michael Angelo! and when I gave him an engraving of that delicious Psyche of Theed's to admire, the creature talked as if she were a manikin or a robed skeleton! Is there nothing due to the idea, Acajou? 'The idea!' dear me, why he didn't exactly know what the idea was! So he'll go trolling about the Louvre and the Luxembourg gallery, the Pitti palace and all Rome, and his mind will be as full of elbows and collar bones as the catacombs; he'll talk to you of the Grecian line of beauty and of 'pose,' and sketch you such a glorious arm or ankle that you, fair lady, wouldn't know it from your own! But do you see a single softened line in his own face? Has he ever drunk deep draughts from old fountains of poesy? Has he ever thought of the Vatican library – even though to long is all he may do? Oh no! He says mythology is a wornout dream, and insulting to a Christian age; that it's all well enough to know Jupiter and Bacchus (Silenus too?) and Venus and the head men back there, but this century wants originality, progress! Oh, pshaw!

Oh, but I was saying that Our Lady stood over the half moon, and Henrietta sat below it, with that soft cashmere morning dress, fighting all around her to see which fold should cling most lovingly to her graceful form. It was all a delicious poem to me, and if I were Horace, you would have had a splendid ode. Oh, well!

'Why, what a Joseph he is!' said Henrietta, waking me out of this reverie.

'Oh,' said I, starting, 'how did you know that?'

'Only conjecture, my dear friend; but when we see a man with his eyes fixed in that ghostly way, and his mustaches and all in perfect repose, we reasonably imagine that he's seeing visions; and I suppose you'll come flaming out presently with some dreams that shall have, for remote consequences, a throne in some Eastern paradise, and a princess, perhaps – who knows?'