his own soul with the Devil, in the other the hero plays and wins a wife,–and to beg for a chess-story _minus_ wives and devils; but such grumblers are worthless baggage, and ought to be checked. The Chess Library has now become an important collection. Time was, when, if one man had Staunton’s “Handbook,” Sarratt, Philidor, Walker’s “Thousand Games,” and Lewis on “The Game of Chess,” he was regarded as uniting the character of a chess-scholar with that of the antiquary. But now we hear of Bledow of Berlin with eight hundred volumes on chess; and Professor George Allen, of the University of Pennsylvania, with more than a thousand! Such a literature has Chess collected about it since Paolo Boi, “the great Syracusan,” as he was called, wrote what perhaps was the first work on chess, in the middle of the sixteenth century.
But such numbers of works on chess are very rare, and when the reader hears of an enormous chess library, he may be safe in recalling the story of Walker, whose friend turned chess author; seven years after, he boasted to Walker of the extent of his chess library, which, he affirmed consisted of one thousand volumes _minus_ eighteen! It turned out that eighteen copies of his work had been sold, the rest of the edition remaining on his hands.
Though these old works are like galleries of old and valuable pictures to the chess enthusiast, they contain very little that is valuable to the general reader. Their terms and signs are to the uninitiated suggestive of a doctor’s prescription. But the anecdotes of the game are, many of them, remarkable; and we believe they are known to have less of the mythical about them than those told in other departments. One who knows the game will feel that it is sufficiently absorbing to be woven in with the textures of government, of history, and of biography. It is of the nature of chess gradually to gather up all the senses and faculties of the player, so that for the time being he is an automaton chess-player, to whom life and death are abstractions.
How seriously, even religiously, the game has always been regarded by both Church and State may be judged by the account given by old Carrera of one whom we have already named as probably the earliest chess author, as he certainly is one of the greatest players known to fame. “In the time of our fathers,” says this ancient enthusiast, “we had many famous players, of whom _Paolo Boi_, Sicilian, of the city of Syracuse, and commonly called the Syracusan, was considered the best. He was born in Syracuse of a rich and good family. When a boy, he made considerable progress in literature, for he had a very quick apprehension. He had a wonderful talent for the game of Chess; and having in a short time beaten all the players of the city, he resolved to go to Spain, where he heard there were famous players, honored and rewarded not only by noblemen, but also by Philip II., who took no small delight in the game. He first beat with ease all the players of Sicily, and was very superior in playing without seeing the board; for, playing at once three games blindfold, he conversed with others on different subjects. Before going into Spain, he travelled over all Italy, playing with the best players, amongst others with the Pultino, who was of equal force; they are therefore called by Salvio the light and glory of chess. He was the favorite of many Italian Princes, and particularly of the Duke of Urbino, and of several Cardinals, and even of Pope Pius V. himself, who would have given him a considerable benefice, if he would have become a clergyman; but this he declined, that he might follow his own inclinations. He afterward went to Venice, where a circumstance happened which had never occurred before: he played with a person and lost. Having afterward by himself examined the games with great care, and finding that he ought to have won, he was astonished that his adversary should have gained contrary to all reason, and suspected that he had used some secret art whereby he was prevented from seeing clearly; and as he was very devout, and was possessed of a rosary rich with many relics of saints, he resolved to play again with his antagonist, armed not only with the rosary, but strengthened by having previously received the sacrament: by these means he conquered his adversary, who, after his defeat, said to him these words,–‘Thine is more potent than mine.'”
Some of the earliest writers on chess have given their idea of the all-absorbing nature of the game in the pleasant legend, that it was invented by the two Grecian brothers Ledo and Tyrrheno to alleviate the pangs of hunger with which they were pressed, and that, whilst playing it, they lived weeks without considering that they had eaten nothing.
But we need not any mythical proof of its competency in this direction. Hyde, in his History of the Saracens, relates with authenticity, that Al Amin, the Caliph of Bagdad, was engaged at chess with his freedman Kuthar, at the time when Al Mamun’s forces were carrying on the siege of the city with a vigor which promised him success. When one rushed in to inform the Caliph of his danger, he cried,–“Let me alone, for I see checkmate against Kuthar!” Charles I. was at chess when he was informed of the decision of the Scots to sell him to the English, but only paused from his game long enough to receive the intelligence. King John was at chess when the deputies from Rouen came to inform him that Philip Augustus had besieged their city; but he would not hear them until he had finished the game. An old English MS. gives in the following sentence no very handsome picture of the chess-play of King John of England:–“John, son of King Henry, and Fulco felle at variance at Chestes, and John brake Fulco’s head with the Chest-borde; and then Fulco gave him such a blow that he almost killed him.” The laws of chess do not now permit the king such free range of the board. Dr. Robertson, in his History of Charles V., relates that John Frederic, Elector of Saxony, whilst he was playing with Ernest, Duke of Brunswick, was told that the Emperor had sentenced him to be beheaded before the gate of Wittenberg; he with great composure proceeded with the game, and, having beaten, expressed the usual satisfaction of a victor. He was not executed, however, but set at liberty, after five years’ confinement, on petition of Mauritius. Sir Walter Raleigh said, “I wish to live no longer than I can play at chess.” Rousseau speaks of himself as _forcene des echecs_, “mad after chess.” Voltaire called it “the one, of all games, which does most honor to the human mind.”
“When an Eastern guest was asked if he knew anything in the universe more beautiful than the gardens of his host, which lay, an ocean of green, broad, brilliant, enchanting, upon the flowery margin of the Euphrates, he replied,–‘Yes, the chess-playing of El-Zuli.'” Surely, the compliment, though Oriental, is not without its strict truth. When Nature rises up to her culmination, the human brain, and there reveals her potencies of insight, foresight, analysis, memory, we are touched with a mystic beauty; the profile on the mountain-top is sublimer than the mountain. But we must heed well Mr. Morphy’s advice, and not suffer this fascinating game to be more than a porter at the gate of the fairer garden. Only when it secures, not when it usurps the day, can it be regarded as a friend. There is a myriad-move problem, of which Society is the Sphinx, given us to solve.
He who masters chess without being mastered by it will find that it discovers essential principles. In the world he will see a larger chess-field, and one also shaped by the severest mathematics: the world is so because the brain of man is so,–motive and move, motive and move: they sum up life, all life,–from the aspen-leaf turning its back to the wind, to the ecstasy of a saint. See the array of pawns (_forces_, as the Hindoo calls them): the bodily presence and abilities, power of persistence, endurance, nerve, the eye, the larynx, the tongue, the senses. Do they not exist in life as on the board, to cut the way for royal or nobler pieces? Does not the Imperial Mind win its experiences, its insight, through the wear and tear of its physical twin? Is not the perfect soul “perfect through sufferings” for evermore? For every coin reason gets from Nature, the heart must leave a red drop impawned, the face must bear its scar. See, then, the powers of the human arena: here Castle, Knight, Bishop are Passion, Love, Hope; and above all, the sacred Queen of each man, his specialty, his strength, by which he must win the day, if he win at all. Here is the Idea with reference to which each man is planned; it preexisted in the universe, and was born when he was born; it is King on the board,–that lost, life’s game is lost. By his side stands the special Strength into whose keeping it is given, making, in Goethe’s words, “every man strong enough to enforce his conviction,”–his _conviction_, mark! Pawns and pieces form themselves about that Queen; they are all to perish, to perish one by one,–even the specialty,–that the King may triumph. Over our largest, sublimest individualities the eternal tide flows on, and the grandest personal strides are merged in the general success. The old author dreamed that the heroes of the Trojan War were changed by Zeus into the warriors of the mimic strife in order that such renowned exploits should be perpetuated among men forever: rather must we reverse the dream, and apotheosize the powers of the board, that they may appear in the sieges, heroisms, and victories of life.
* * * * *
SPRING-SONG.
Creep slowly up the willow-wand,
Young leaves! and, in your lightness, Teach us that spirits which despond
May wear their own pure brightness.
Into new sweetness slowly dip,
O May!–advance; yet linger:
Nor let the ring too swiftly slip
Down that new-plighted finger.
Thy bursting blooms, O spring, retard! While thus thy raptures press on,
How many a joy is lost, or marred
How many a lovely lesson!
For each new sweet thou giv’st us, those Which first we loved are taken:
In death their eyes must violets close Before the rose can waken.
Ye woods, with ice-threads tingling late, Where late was heard the robin,
Your chants that hour but antedate
When autumn winds are sobbing!
Ye gummy buds, in silken sheath
Hang back, content to glisten!
Hold in, O earth, thy charmed breath! Thou air, be still, and listen!
* * * * *
MODEL LODGING-HOUSES IN BOSTON.
The present sanitary condition of our great cities is a reproach to our intelligence not less than to our humanity. Our system of self-government, so far as regards the protection of the mass of the dwellers in cities from the worst physical evils, is now on trial. The tests to which it is exposed are severe. We may boast as we like of our national prosperity, of the rapidity of our material progress,–we may take pride in liberty, in wide extent of territory, in the welcome to our shores of the exiled and the poor of all other lands, or in whatsoever matter of self-gratulation we choose,–but by the side of all these satisfactions stands the fact, that in our chief cities the duration of life is diminishing and the suffering from disease increasing. The question inevitably arises, Is this a consequence of our political system? and if so, is political liberty worth having, are democratic principles worth establishing, if the price to be paid for them is increased insecurity of life and greater wretchedness among the poor? If the origin of these evils is to be found in the incompetency of the government or the inefficiency of individuals in a democracy, a remedy must be applied, or the whole system must be changed.
The intimate connection between physical misery and moral degradation is plain and generally acknowledged. We are startled from time to time at the rapid growth of crime in our cities; but it is the natural result of preexisting physical evils. These evils have become more apparent during the last twenty years than before, and it has been the fashion to attribute their increase, with their frightful consequences, mainly to the enormous Irish immigration, which for a time crowded our streets with poor, foreign in origin, and degraded, not only by hereditary poverty, but by centuries of civil and religious oppression. This view is no doubt in part correct; but the larger share of the evils in our cities is due to causes unconnected in any necessary relation with the immigration,–causes contemporaneous with it in their development, and brought into fuller action by it, rather than consequent upon it.
More than half the sickness and more than half the deaths in New York (and probably the same holds true of our other cities) are due to causes which may be prevented,–in other words, which are the result of individual or municipal neglect, of carelessness or indifference in regard to the known and established laws of life. More than half the children who are born in New York (and the proportion is over forty per cent. in Boston) die before they are five years old. Much is implied in these statements,–among other things, much criminal recklessness and wanton waste of the sources of wealth and strength in a state.
In Paris, in London, and in other European cities, the average mortality has been gradually diminishing during the last fifty years. In New York, on the contrary, it has increased with frightful rapidity; and in Boston, though the increase has not been so alarming, it has been steady and rapid. [Footnote: The facts upon winch these statements are based are recorded in the Report of the Sanitary Commission of Massachusetts, 1850,–in the Annual Reports of the Boston City Registrar,–in the Annual Reports of the New York Society for Improving the Condition of the Poor,–and in other public documents.
It appears that the ratio of deaths to population was,
In New York, in 1810, 1 in 46.46
” 1840, 1 in 39.74
” 1850, 1 in 33.52
” 1857, 1 in 27.15
In Boston, in 1830, 1 in 48
” 1840, 1 in 45
” 1850, 1 in 38
” 1858, 1 in 41
It is probable that the ratio for the year 1858 showed somewhat more improvement even than appears from the above figures. The proportion is based on the population as ascertained in 1855. Up to 1858, the population was somewhat, though not greatly, increased, and any increase would serve to render the proportion in 1858 more favorable to the health of the city. But it was a year in which the number of deaths was less than it had been since 1850; it was, therefore, an exceptional year; and the change in the ratio of the deaths is, we fear, not the sign of the beginning of a progressive improvement.]
But more and worse than this is the fact, that in these two cities the average duration of life (and this means the material prosperity of the people) has of late terribly decreased. While out of every hundred people more die than was the case ten, twenty, thirty years ago, those who die have lived a shorter time. Life is not now to be reckoned by its “threescore years and ten.” Its average duration in Boston is little above twenty years; in New York it is less than twenty years. [Footnote: In Boston, from 1810 to 1820, the average age of all that died was 27.85 years; in 1857, leaving deaths by casualty out of the calculation, it was but 20.63 years; in 1858, it was 21.76. In New York, from 1810 to 1820, it was 26.15; for the last ten years of which the statistics are known, it was less than 20.] Is the diminution of the length of life to go on from year to year?
This needless sacrifice and shortening of life, this accumulating amount of ill health, causes an annual loss, in each of our great cities, of productive capacity to the value of millions of dollars, as well as an unnatural expense of millions more. This is no figure of speech. The community is poorer by millions of dollars each year through the waste which it allows of health and life. Leaving out of view all humane considerations, all thought of the misery, social and moral, which accompanies this physical degradation, and looking simply at its economical effects, we find that it increases our taxes, diminishes our means of paying them, creates permanent public burdens, and lessens the value of property. An outlay of a million of dollars a year to reduce and to remove the causes of these evils would be the cheapest and most profitable expenditure of the public money by the municipal government. The principal would soon be returned to the general treasury with all arrears of interest.
The main causes of this great and growing misery are patent. The remedies for them are scarcely less plain. The chief sources of that disease and death which may be prevented by the action of the community are, first, the filthy and poisonous houses into which a large part of the people are crowded; second, the imperfect ventilation of portions of the city,–its narrow and dirty streets, lanes, and yards; and, third, the want of sufficient house and street drainage and sewerage. It is important to note in relation to these sources of evil, that, while the poverty of our poor is generally not such complete destitution as that of many of the poor in foreign cities, their average condition is worse. The increase of disease and mortality is a result not so much of poverty as of condition. “The pith and burden of the whole matter is, that the great mass of the poor are compelled to live in tenements that are unfit for human beings, and under circumstances in which it is impossible to preserve health and life.”
To improve the dwellings of the poor, to make them decent and wholesome, is, then, the first step to be taken in checking the causes of preventable disease and death in our cities. This work implies, if it be done thoroughly, the securing of proper ventilation, sewerage, and drainage.
Most of the houses which the poor occupy are the property of persons who receive from them a rent very large in proportion to their value. No other class of houses gives, on an average, a larger return upon the capital invested in it. The rents which the poor pay, though paid in small sums, are usually enormous in comparison with the accommodation afforded. The houses are crowded from top to bottom. Many of them are built without reference to the comfort or health of their occupants, but with the sole object of getting the largest return for the smallest outlay. They are hotbeds of disease, and exposed to constant peril from fire. Now it seems plain that here is an occasion for the interposition of municipal authority. In spite of the jealousy (proper within certain limits) with which governmental interference with private property is regarded in this country, it is a manifest dereliction of duty on the part of our city authorities not to exercise a strict supervision over these houses. The interests which are chiefly affected by their condition are not private, but public interests. There are legal means for abating nuisances; and there is no reason why houses which affect the health of whole districts should not be treated in the same way as nuisances which are more obtrusive, though less pernicious. In some of the cities of Europe, in Nuremberg, for instance, there is a public architect, to whom all plans for new buildings are submitted for approval or rejection according as they correspond or not with the style of building suitable for the city. What is done abroad to secure the beauty of a city might well be done here to secure its health. Again, by legal enactment, we have prevented the overcrowding of our emigrant ships: the same thing should be done in our cities, to prevent the overcrowding of our tenement-houses. No house should be allowed to receive more than a fixed maximum of dwellers in proportion to its size and accommodations. These are simple propositions, but, if properly carried out by enactment, they would secure an incalculable good.
[Footnote: Since writing the preceding sentences, we have been gratified to see that a bill proposing the creation of a Metropolitan Board of Health has been introduced into the Legislature of New York. If the bill becomes a law, as we trust it may, the board will be invested with power “to enact ordinances for the proper government and control of buildings erecting or to be erected, … to compel the lessees or owners of dwellings to put the same in proper order, and to provide sufficient means of egress in case of fire.” The New-York Evening Post of March 23, in giving an account of this bill, says,–and there is no exaggeration in its statements,–
“The nearly one million of souls of this great city are left to take care of themselves,–to be crowded mercilessly by landlords into houses without light, air, or water, and without means of egress in case of fire; and the street filth is allowed to accumulate till the city has become as the famous Pontine Marshes, to breathe whose exhalations is certain disease. All this results, as is proved by comparison with other cities, in the unnecessary loss of five thousand to eight thousand lives annually, and of many millions of dollars expended for unnecessary sickness, and the consequent loss of time and strength,–all of which might be saved, as they are actually saved in other and larger cities, by the application of sanitary laws by intelligent and efficient officers.
“And yet our Common Council are unmoved to apply the corrective, and the Legislature postpones action upon the numerous petitions of the people upon the subject. How long these bodies will be suffered to abuse the patience of our citizens we cannot tell; but the breaking out of a pestilence which shall sweep a thousand a week into the grave, and bring this city to financial ruin, will be but a natural issue of the present neglect. The Health Bill now before the Legislature has been prepared under the auspices of the Sanitary Association. Its provisions are sweeping; but the importance of the subject, the uniform filthy condition of our streets, and the wretched and unsafe condition of our tenement-houses imperatively demand changes of the most radical nature. The general provisions of the bill seem to cover the points most requiring legislation; and while in some of its details it could probably be improved, it is difficult to imagine that the present state of sanitary regulations could be made worse, and certain that the proposed reforms, if carried out, would be of great advantage.”
In Massachusetts, statutes have existed for some years, giving to the Boards of Health of the different cities or towns powers of a similar nature to those granted by the bill proposed for New York, but of far too limited scope. By Chapter 26, Sec. 11, of the General Statutes, which are to go into operation this year, the Boards of Health are authorized to remove the occupants of any tenement, occupied as a dwelling-place, which is unfit for the purpose, and a cause of nuisance or sickness either to the occupants or the public,–and may require the premises, previously to their reoccupation, to be properly cleansed at the expense of the owner. But the penalty for a violation of this article is too light, being a fine of not less than ten nor more than fifty dollars. To secure any essential good from this law, it must be energetically enforced, with a disregard of personal consequences, and an enlightened view of public and private rights and necessities, scarcely to be expected from Boards of Health as commonly constituted. We require a law upon this subject conveying far ampler powers, enforced by far heavier penalties. It should embrace oversight of the construction as well as of the condition of the dwellings of the poor. Until we obtain such a law, the community is bound to insist upon a rigid enforcement of the present imperfect statute.
[The bill above alluded to by our correspondent has since been rejected by the Legislature of New York.–EDS. ATLANTIC.]]
Still, however much may be done by public authority, the condition of the dwellings of the poor must be determined chiefly by the interest and the legal responsibility of their individual owners. That men may be found willing to make fortunes for themselves by grinding the faces of the poor is certain; but there are, on the other hand, many who would be willing to use some portion, at least, of their means to provide suitable homes for the destitute, could they be assured of receiving a fair return upon the property invested. It has been a matter of doubt whether proper houses could be built for the dwellings of the lower classes, with all necessary accommodations for health and comfort, at such a cost that the rents could be kept as low as those paid for the common wretched tenements, and at the same time be sufficient to afford a reasonable interest upon the investment. Toward the solution of this doubt, an experiment which has been tried in Boston during the last five years has afforded important results.
In the spring of 1853, a number of gentlemen having subscribed a sufficient sum for the purpose of building a house or houses on the best plan, as Model Dwellings for the Poor, a society was formed, which, in the next year, received an act of incorporation from the Legislature under the style of “The Model Lodging-House Association.” A suitable lot of land having been obtained upon favorable terms, at the corner of Pleasant Street and Osborn Place, the Directors of the Association proceeded to erect two brick houses, of different construction, each containing separate tenements for twenty families. The plans of the buildings were prepared with great care to secure the essentials of a healthy home,–pure air, pure water, efficient drainage, cleanliness, and light. In their details, strict regard was had to the most economical and best use of a limited space, and ample precautions were taken to reduce to its least the risk of fire. In each house, double staircases, continuous to the roof, (and in one of them of iron,) and two main exits were provided; and more recently, the two buildings, which are separated from each other by a passage-way some feet in width, have been connected by throwing an iron bridge from roof to roof, by which, in case of alarm in one of them, escape may be readily had through the other. Each house was, moreover, divided in the middle by a solid brick partition-wall.
The houses are five stories in height, not including the basement or cellar, with four tenements in each story. The reduced plans, on the opposite page, exhibit the general arrangements of the houses, and show the complete separation of each set of apartments from the others, each one opening by a single door upon the common stairs or passage. Their relation is scarcely closer than that of separate houses in a common continuous block. Each tenement, it will be observed, consists of a living-room, and two or three sleeping-rooms, according to the space, a wash-room, with sink and cupboards, and a water-closet. The stories are eight feet and six inches in height, which is ample for the necessities of ventilation. In one of the buildings, each tenement is provided with shafts for dust and offal, communicating with receptacles in the cellar. The roofs of both are fitted with conveniences for the drying of clothes, properly guarded; and in the cellars of both are closets, one for each tenement, to hold fuel or stores. In the basement of house No. 1 there are also two bathing-rooms, which have been found of great use.
[Illustration: PLAN OF MODEL HOUSE, No. 1 OSBORN PLACE, BOSTON.]
[Illustration: PLAN OF ONE-HALF OF MODEL HOUSE, No. 3 OSBORN PLACE, BOSTON.]
It would be difficult, after some years’ experience, to pronounce which of the two houses is the best fitted for its object. Their cost was nearly the same. The plan of No. 1 is original and ingenious; its large open central space is valuable for purposes of ventilation, and as affording opportunity for exercise under cover in stormy weather for infants and infirm people. This advantage is perhaps compensated for in the other house by the fact of each tenement reaching from back to front of the house, thus securing within itself the means of a thorough draught of fresh air. Both plans are excellent, and may be unqualifiedly recommended.
The houses were ready for occupation about the beginning of 1855, and since that time have been constantly full. The applicants for tenements, whenever one becomes vacant, are always numerous.
The cost of these two buildings was a little over $18,000 each, exclusive of the cost of the land upon which they stand. The land cost about $8,000; and the whole cost of the buildings, including some slight changes subsequent to their original erection, and of the lot on which they stand, would be more than covered by the sum of $46,000.
The rents were fixed upon a scale varying with the amount of accommodation afforded by the separate tenements, and with their convenience of access. They run from $2 to $2.87 per week. By those familiar with the rents paid by the poor these sums will be seen to be not higher than are frequently paid for the most unhealthy and inconvenient lodgings. The total annual amount of rent received from each house is $2,353, which, after paying taxes, water-rates, gas-bills, and all other expenses, including all repairs necessary to keep the building in good order, leaves a full six per cent. interest upon the sum invested.
A portion of the land purchased by the Association not having been occupied by the two houses already described, it was determined to erect a third house upon it, of a somewhat superior character, for a class just above the line of actual poverty, but often forced by circumstances into unhealthy and uncomfortable homes. This was accordingly done, at a cost, including the land, of about $26,000. The house, of which the plan is well worthy of imitation, contains a shop and nine tenements. These tenements, which form not only comfortable, but agreeable homes, are rented at from two to three hundred dollars a year, and the gross income derived from the building is about $2,500.
During the five years since the first occupation of the houses no loss of rents has occurred. For the most part, the rent has been paid not only punctually, but with satisfaction, and the expressions which have been received of the content of the occupants of the tenements have been of the most gratifying sort. The houses, as we know from personal inspection, are now in a state of excellent repair, and show no signs of carelessness or neglect on the part of their occupants. Few private houses would have a fresher and neater aspect after so long occupancy. The tenants have been, with few exceptions, Americans by birth, and they have taken pains to keep up the character of their dwellings.
One of the Trustees of the Association, a gentleman to whose good judgment and constant oversight, as well as to his sympathetic kindness tor the occupants of the houses and interest in their affairs, much of the success of this experiment is due, says, in a letter from which we are permitted to quote,–“From my experience in the management of this kind of property, I believe that it may in all cases with proper care be made _safe and permanent for investment_. But what I think better of is the good such houses do in elevating and making happier their tenants, and I much rejoice in having had an opportunity to test their usefulness.”
As a comment upon these brief, but weighty sentences, we would beg any of our readers, who may have opportunity, to look for himself at the substantial and not unornamental buildings of the Association, with their showier front on Pleasant Street, and their imposing length and height of range along the side of Osborn Place,–to see them affording healthy and convenient homes to fifty families, many of whom, without some such provision, would be exposed to be forced into the wretched quarters too familiar to the poor,–and then to compare them with the common lodging-houses in any of the lower streets or alleys of Boston or New York.
A similar work to that performed by the Boston Association was undertaken shortly afterward by a society in New York, who in 1854-5 erected a building containing ninety tenements of three rooms each, under the name of “The Working-Men’s Home.” The cost of this enormous building, which was well designed, was about $90,000. It is fifty-five feet in breadth by one hundred and ninety feet in length; it is nearly fireproof, and is provided with double stairways. It has been occupied from the first by colored people, and we regret to learn that it has not proved a success, so far as regards the annual return upon the property invested. After paying the heavy city tax of 1 3/4 per cent., and the charges for gas and water, the sum remaining for an annual dividend is not more than four per cent.
This want of success is not, we believe, inherent in the plan itself, but is the result of a want of proper management and supervision. We learn that the tenants often leave without paying rent, and that the building is more or less injured by their neglect. The class of tenants has undoubtedly been of a lower grade than that which has occupied the Boston houses, and the habits of the blacks are far inferior to those of the white American poor in personal neatness and care of their dwellings. But we have no doubt, that, in spite of these drawbacks, a good revenue might be derived from the rents paid by this class of tenants. The success of the Boston experiment is due in considerable part to the employment by the Association of a paid Superintendent, living with his family in one of the buildings, who has a general oversight of the houses, collects the rents, and determines the claims of occupants of the tenements. Such an officer is indispensable for the proper carrying on of any similar undertaking on so large a scale. We trust that no effort will be spared in New York to bring out more satisfactory results from this great establishment. Benevolence is one thing, and good investments another; but benevolence in this case does not do half its work, unless it can be proved to pay. It must be profitable, in order to be in the best sense a charity.
The effect which the Boston houses have already had, in proving that homes for the poor can be built on the best plan for the health and comfort of their inmates and at the same time be good investments of property, is manifest in many private undertakings. Several large houses have already been built upon similar plans; old lodging-houses have been in several instances remodelled and otherwise improved; blocks of small dwellings for one or two families have been erected with every convenience for the class who can afford to pay from three to six dollars a week for their accommodations. The example set by the Association promises to be widely followed.
Much, however, yet remains to be done, and associate or private energy is needed for the trial of new and not less important experiments than that already well performed. The means for some of them are at hand. It will be remembered that the late Hon. Abbott Lawrence, to whose beneficence during his life the community was so largely indebted, and whose liberal deeds will long be remembered with gratitude, left by will the sum of $50,000 to be held by Trustees for the erection of dwellings for the poor. This sum will in a short time be ready for employment for its designated purpose, and it may be hoped that those who control its disposal will not so much imitate the work already done as perform a work not yet accomplished, but not less essential. The houses of the Association are, as we have stated, not occupied by the most destitute poor,–and it is for this lowest class that the most pressing need exists for an improvement in their habitations. If the cellar-dwelling poor can be provided with healthy homes, and these homes can be made to pay a fair rent, the worst evil in the condition of our cities will be in a way to be remedied. It is very desirable that a house should be erected in one of the crowded quarters of the city, and at a distance from the buildings of the Association, in which each room should be arranged for separate occupation. The rooms might be of different sizes upon the different floors, to accommodate single men who require only a lodging-place, or a man and wife. Perhaps on one floor rooms should be made with means of opening into each other, to supply the need of those who might require more than one of them. The house should be heated throughout by furnaces, to save the necessity of fires in the rooms; and as no private meals could be cooked in the house, an eating-room, where meals could be had or provisions purchased ready for eating, should form part of the arrangements of the house in the lower story. There can be no doubt that such a house would be at once filled,–and but little, that, if properly built and managed, under efficient superintendence it would pay well, at the lowest rates of rent. Even with a possibility of its failing to return a net annual income of six per cent upon its cost, it is an experiment that ought to be tried,–and we earnestly hope that the Trustees of Mr. Lawrence’s bequest will not hesitate to make it. Putting out of question all considerations of profitable investment, it would be, as a pure charity, one of the best works that could be performed.
We must restore health to our cities, and, to accomplish this end, we must provide fit homes for the poor. The way in which this may be done has been shown.
* * * * *
A SHORT CAMPAIGN ON THE HUDSON.
The campaigner marched out of a lawyer’s office in Nassau Street, New York.
“Shyster,” said our old man, as he called me into his own den, or rather lair,–(for den, I take it, is the private residence of a beast of prey, and lair his place of business. I do not think that this definition is mine, but I forget to whom it belongs,)–“I suppose you would not dislike a trip into the country? Very well. These papers must be explained to General Van Bummel, and signed by him. He lives at Thunderkill, on the Hudson. Take the ten-o’clock train, and get back as soon as you can. Charge your expenses to the office.”
“What luck!” thought I, as I dashed down-stairs into the street,–determined to obey his last injunction to the letter, whatever course I might think fit to adopt about the one preceding it. No one who has not been an attorney’s clerk at three dollars a week, copying declarations and answers from nine A.M. to six P.M., in a dusty, inky, uncarpeted room, with windows unwashed since the last lease expired, can form a correct notion of the exhilaration of my mind when I took my seat in the railroad-car. The great Van Bnmmel himself never felt bigger nor better.
It was in that loveliest season of the year, the Indian summer,–a week or ten days of atmospheric perfection which the clerk of the weather allows us as a compensation for our biting winter and rheumatic spring. The veiled rays of the sun and the soft shadows produce the effect of a golden moonlight, and make even Nature’s shabbiest corners attractive. To be out-of-doors with nothing to do, and nothing to think of but the mere pleasure of existence, is happiness enough at such times. But I was looking at a river panorama which is one of Nature’s best efforts, I have heard; and on that morning it seemed to me impossible that the world could show anything grander.
It was very calm. The broad glittering surface of the river showed here and there a slight ripple, when some breath of air touched it for a moment; but wind there was none,–only a few idle breezes lounging about, waiting for orders to join old Boreas in his next autumnal effort to crack his cheeks. The bright-colored trees glowed on the mountain-sides like beds of living coals.
“How the deuse,” thought I, as I stared at them, “can a discerning public be satisfied with Cole’s pictures of ‘American Scenery in the Fall of the Year’? You see on his canvas, to be sure, red, green, orange, and so on, the peculiar tints of the leaves; but Nature does more (and Cole does not): she blends the variegated hues into one bright mass of bewitching color by the magic of this soft, golden, hazy sunshine. I wish, too, that the great company of story-tellers would let scenery rest in peace. The charm of a landscape is entireness, unity; it strikes the eye at once and as a whole. Examination of the component parts is quite a different thing. Who ean build up a view in his mind by piling up details like bricks upon one another? Most people, I suspect, will find, as I do, that, no matter what author they may be reading, the same picture always presents itself. A vague outline of some view they have seen arises in the memory,–like the forest scene in a scantily furnished theatre, which comes on for every play. The naked woods, trees, rocks, lake, river, mountain, would have done the business just as well, and saved a deal of writing and of printing. The most successful artist in this line I know of is Michael Scott, whose tropical sketches in ‘Tom Cringle’s Log’ are unequalled by any landscape-painter, past or present, who uses pen and ink instead of canvas and colors.”
My trance was broken by the voice of the brakeman shouting, “Thunderkill,” into the car, as the train drew up at a wooden station-house. Jumping out, I asked the way to General Van Bummel’s. A man with a whip in his hand offered his services as guide and common carrier. I determined to experience a new sensation,–for once in my life to anathematize expenditure, and charge it to the office. So, climbing into a kind of leathern tent upon wheels, I was soon on my way to the leaguer of the General. A drive of a mile brought us to two stout stone gateposts, surmounted each by a cannon-ball, which marked Van Bummel’s boundary. We turned into a lane shut in by trees. While busily taking an inventory of the General’s landed possessions for future use, my attention was drawn off by loud shouts, the sound of the gallop of horses and the rattling of wheels. Imagining at once that the General’s family-pair must be running away with his family-coach, I eagerly urged my driver to push on; but the cold-hearted wretch only laughed and said he “guessed there was nothing particular the matter.” At last, we _debouched_ (excuse the word; I have not yet got the military taste out of my mouth) upon a lawn, across which a pair of large bay horses, ridden postilion-fashion by one man, were dragging a brass six-pounder, upon which sat another in full uniform.
“What the Devil is that?” said I.
“That’s the Gineral and his coachman a-having a training,” answered my driver.
As he spoke, the officer shouted, “Halt!”
Coachy pulled up.
“Unlimber!” thundered the chief; and, aided by his man, obeyed his own orders.
“Load!” and “Fire!” followed in rapid succession.
I saw and smelt that they used real powder. This over, the horses were made fast again, John, bestrode his nag, the General clambered on to his brazen seat and down they came at a tearing pace directly towards us. Luckily I had read “Charles O’Malley,” and knew how to behave in such cases. I jumped from the wagon, and, tying my handkerchief to the ferule of my umbrella, advanced, waving it and shouting, “A flag of truce!” The General ordered a halt and despatched himself to the flag. As he approached I beheld a stout, middle-aged, good natured looking man, dressed in the graceless costume of Uncle Sam’s army; but I must say that he wore it with more grace than most of the Regulars I have seen. Our soldiers look unbecomingly in their clothes,–there is no denying it,–a good deal like _sups_ in a procession at the Bowery. A New-York policeman sports pretty much the same dress in much better style. You hardly ever see an officer or private, least of all the officer, with the _air militaire_. I also noticed with pleasure that the General had not on his head that melodramatic black felt, feather-bedecked hat, which some fantastic Secretary of War must have imagined in a dream, after seeing “Fra Diavolo” at the opera, or Wallack in Massaroni. In place of this abomination, a cap covered with glazed leather surmounted his martial brow. When we met, I lowered my umbrella and offered my card, with the office pasteboard. He took them with great gravity, read the names, and requested me to fall back to the rear and await orders. Then rejoining his gun, he was driven slowly towards the house,–my peaceful _ambulance_ following at a respectful distance. When I reached the door, the six-pounder had disappeared behind a clump of evergreens, and the General stood waiting to receive me. His manner was affable.
“How d’ye do, Mr. Shyster? Glad to see you, Sir. Walk into the library, Sir.”
I complied, and while the General was absent, engaged in carrying out some hospitable suggestions for my refreshment, I examined the room. It was large, and handsomely furnished. I looked into the bookcases: the shelves were filled with works on War, from Caesar’s Commentaries down to Louis Napoleon on Rifled Cannon. In one corner stood a suit of armor; in another a stand of firearms; between them a star of bayonets. On the mantelpiece I perceived a model of a small field-piece in brass and oak, and, what interested me more, a cigarbox. I raised the lid; the box was half full of highly creditable-looking cigars. My soul expanded with the thought of a probable offer of at least one.
“None of your Flor de Connecticuts,” I thought, “from the Vuelta Abajo of New-Windsor, but the genuine Simon Puros.”
A second glance at the inside of the lid caused grave doubts to depress my spirits. I beheld there, in place of the usual ill-executed lithograph with its _fabricas_ and its _calles_, three small portraits. The middle one was the General in full uniform; I recognized him easily; the other two were no doubt his aides-de-camp;–all evidently photographs; they were so ugly. I dropped the lid in disappointment, and turned to the side-table. On it lay a handsome sword in an open box lined with silk. Over it hung, framed and glazed, the speech of the committee appointed by his fellow-soldiers of the county to present the sword to the General, together with the General’s “neat and appropriate” answer and acceptance.
I began to be a little astonished. I certainly did not expect anything of this sort. Our old man called him General, to be sure; but General means nothing, in the rural districts, but a certain amount of wealth and respectability. It has taken the place of Squire. But here was I with a man who took his title _au serieux_. What with the uniform, the cannon, and the coachman, I began to feel like an ambassador to a potentate with a standing army.
Here the General reappeared, bearing in his august hands a decanter and a pitcher. After due refreshment, I produced my papers, made the necessary explanations, and executed my commission so much to his satisfaction that he invited me cordially to dine and spend the night, instead of taking the evening-train down. I accepted, of course,–such chances seldom fell into my way,–and was shown into a nice little bedroom, in which I was expected to dress for dinner. Dress, indeed! I had on my best, and did not come to stay. Novel-heroes manage to remain weeks without apparent luggage; but a modern attorney’s clerk, however moderate may be his toilette-tackle, finds it inconvenient to be separated from it. However, I did what I could,–washed my hands, settled the bow of my neck-tie, smoothed my hair with my fingers, and thought, as I descended to the drawing-room, of the travelling Frenchman, who, after a night spent in a diligence, wiped out his eyes with his handkerchief, put on a paper false collar, and exclaimed,–“_Me voici propre!_”
The General, in a fatigue-dress, presented me to Mrs. Van Bummel, a good-looking woman of pleasant dimensions,–to Miss Bellona Van Bummel, who evidently thought me beneath her notice,–and to the Reverend Moses Wether, whose mild face, white cravat, and straight-cut collar proclaimed him. As I came in, his Reverence attempted to slip meekly out, but was stopped energetically by the General.
“How is this? Mr. Wether, you know you cannot leave, Sir.”
“But, my dear General, I only dropped in for a few moments; and really I have so much to do!”
“I am sorry, Sir,” rejoined the General, sternly, “but you cannot be excused. You accepted the position of Chaplain to the Regiment. You neglected to attend the last two reviews. You were condemned by a Court Martial, over which I presided, to twenty-four hours’ arrest, which you must now submit to.”
“But, my dear General,” feebly expostulated the man of prayer, “you know I thought the nomination a mere pleasantry; I had no idea you were serious, or I should never have listened to the proposition.”
“Can’t help that, Sir. You accepted the commission, you neglected your duty, and you must take the consequences.”
Just then, as the poor perplexed parson was about to make another attempt for liberty, a side-door swung open; a well-built, comely servant-girl, dressed like Jenny Lind in the “Fille du Regiment,” appeared. Bringing the back of her hand to her forehead, she said,–
“General, dinner is ready.”
Van Bummel muttered something about “joining our mess,” and led the way to the banqueting-hall. I was too hungry to be particular about names, and did ample justice to an excellent spread and well-selected tap,–carefully avoiding eating with my knife or putting salt upon the table-cloth, which I had often heard was never done by the aristocracy. As I kept my eyes upon the others and imitated them to the best of my ability, I hope I did not disgrace Nassau Street.
The evening passed quickly and agreeably. I played chess with the reverend prisoner. The man of war read steadily folio history of Marlborough’s campaigns, making occasional references to maps and plans. As the clock struck nine, an explosion on the lawn made the windows rattle again. I jumped to my feet, but, seeing that the rest of the company looked surprised at my vivacity, I sat down, guessing that the six-pounder and the coachman had something to do with it.
“Don’t be alarmed, Sir,” said the General, “it’s only gun-fire. We retire about this time.”
I took the hint, requested to be shown to my room, undressed, jumped into a camp bedstead, and tried to sleep. Impossible!–the novelty of my day’s experiences, the beauty of the night, (for the full moon was shining into the windows,) or perhaps a cup of strong coffee I had swallowed without milk after dinner because the others took it, kept me awake. Finding sleep out of the question, I got up and dressed myself. My chamber was on the ground-floor, and opened upon the lawn. I stepped quietly out into the hazy moonlight, lighted a cigar, and walked towards the river. It was a remarkably fine evening, certainly, but a very damp one. Heavy dew dripped from the trees. I found, as my weed grew shorter, that my fondness for the romantic in Nature waned, and slowly retraced my steps to the house, muttering to myself some of Edgar Poe’s ghostly lines:–
“I stand beneath the mystic moon;
An opiate vapor, dewey, dim
Exhales from out her golden rim,
And softly dripping, drop by drop, Upon the quiet mountain-top,
Steals drowsily and musically
Into the universal valley.”
I was about entering, when a figure advanced suddenly from behind a pillar of the veranda, holding a something in its hand which glittered in the moonlight, and which rattled as it dropped from the perpendicular to the horizontal, pointing at me.
“Who goes there?” said the apparition, in a hoarse voice. “Stand, and give the countersign!”
I recognized the voice of the soldier-servant of the morning. There he was again, that indefatigable coachman, doing duty as sentinel with a musket in his hands. Not knowing what else to say, I replied,–
“It is I, a friend!”
My good grammar was thrown away upon the brute.
“The countersign,” he repeated.
“Pooh, pooh!” said I, “I do not know anything about the countersign. I am Mr. Shyster, who came up this morning, when you and the General were doing light-artillery practice on the lawn. Please let me go to my room.”
But the brute stood immovable. As I advanced, I heard him cock his musket.
“Good God!” thought I, “this is no joke, after all. This stupid stable-man may have loaded his musket. What if it should go off? If I retreat, I must camp out,–no joke at this season;–rheumatism and a loss of salary, to say the least. This will never do.”
And I screamed,–
“General! General Van Bummel!”
“Silence! or I’ll march you to the guard-house,” thundered the sentinel.
Luckily the General lay, like Irene, “with casement open to the skies.” He heard the noise. I recognized his martial tones. I hurriedly explained my situation. He gave me the word; it was Eugene; countersign, Marlborough. This satisfied the Coach-Cerberus, and I passed into bed without further mishap.
The first sound I heard the next morning was the rat-tat-too of a drum. “There goes that d—-d coachman again,” I said to myself, and turned over for another nap; but a shrill bugle-call brought me to my seat.
Running to the window, I saw two men on horseback in dragoon equipments. The horses were the artillery-nags of yesterday; the riders, the General and his man-at-all-arms. Hurrying on my clothes, I got out of doors in time to see them go at a gallop across the lawn, leap a low hedge at the end of the grass-plot, and disappear in the orchard. Thither I followed fast to see the sport. They reached the boundary-line of the Van-Bummel estate, wheeled, and turned back on a trot. When the General espied me, he waved his sabre and shouted, “Charge!” They galloped straight at me. I had barely time to dodge behind an apple-tree, when they passed like a whirlwind over the spot I had been standing on, and covered me with dirt from the heels of their horses. I walked back to the house, very much annoyed, as men are apt to be, when they think they have compromised their dignity a little by dodging to escape danger from another’s mischief or folly. At breakfast, accordingly, I remonstrated with the chief; but he only laughed, and asked me why I did not form a hollow square and let the front rank kneel and fire.
“As soon as you have finished your coffee,” he added, “I will take you into the trenches, and there you will be out of danger.”
I could not refuse. The trenches were at the bottom of the garden, near the entrance-drive. I had seen them yesterday, and in my ignorance thought of celery; now, I knew better. This morning, a tent was pitched a few yards from a long low wall of sods; and between the tent and the sods there was a small trench, about large enough to hold draining-tiles. Pointing to the wall, the general said,–
“There is Sebastopol,” (pronouncing it correctly, accent on the _to_,) “and here,” turning to the tent, “are my head-quarters. My sappers have just established a mine under the Quarantine Battery. In a few moments I shall blow it up, and storm the breach, if we make a practicable one.”
Here the Protean coachman made his appearance with a leather apron and a broad-axe. He signified that all was ready. A lucifer was rubbed upon a stone, the train ignited, bang went the mine, and over went we all three, prostrated by a shower of turf and mud. The mine had exploded backward, and had annihilated the storming party. Fortunately, the General had economised in powder. Gradually we picked ourselves up, considerably bewildered, but not much hurt. Van Bummel attempted to explain; but I had had enough of war’s alarms, and yearned for the safety and peace of Nassau Street. So I bade the warrior good-morning, and took the first down-train, _multa mecum volvens_; “making a revolver of my mind,” Van Bummel would have translated it. I knew that our soil produced more soldiers even than France, the fertile mother of red-legged heroes; but I did not expect, in the Nineteenth Century and in the State of New York, to have beheld an avatar of the God Mars.
* * * * *
THINE.
The tide will ebb at day’s decline:
_Ich bin dein!_
Impatient for the open sea,
At anchor rocks the tossing ship, The ship which only waits for thee;
Yet with no tremble of the lip
I say again, thy hand in mine,
_Ich bin dein!_
I shall not weep, or grieve, or pine. _Ich bin dein!_
Go, lave once more thy restless hands Afar within the azure sea,–
Traverse Arabia’s scorching sands,– Fly where no thought can follow thee,
O’er desert waste and billowy brine: _Ich bin dein!_
Dream on the slopes of Apennine:
_Ich bin dein!_
Stand where the glaciers freeze and frown, Where Alpine torrents flash and foam,
Or watch the loving sun go down
Behind the purple hills of Rome,
Leaving a twilight half divine:
_Ich bin dein!_
Thy steps may fall beside the Rhine: _Ich bin dein!_
Slumber may kiss thy drooping lids Amid the mazes of the Nile,
The shadow of the Pyramids
May cool thy feet,–yet all the while, Though storms may beat, or stars may shine, _Ich bin dein!_
Where smile the hills of Palestine,
_Ich bin dein!_
Where rise the mosques and minarets,– Where every breath brings flowery balms,– Where souls forget their dark regrets
Beneath the strange, mysterious palms,– Where the banana builds her shrine,–
_Ich bin dein!_
Too many clusters break the vine:
_Ich bin dein!_
The tree whose strength and life outpour In one exultant blossom-gush
Must flowerless be forevermore:
We walk _this_ way but once, friend;–hush! Our feet have left no trodden line:
_Ich bin dein!_
Who heaps his goblet wastes his wine: _Ich bin dein!_
The boat is moving from the land;– I have no chiding and no tears;–
Now give me back my empty hand
To battle with the cruel years,– Behold, the triumph shall be mine!
_Ich bin dein!_
* * * * *
THE REPRESENTATIVE ART.
No art is worth anything that does not embody an idea,–that is not representative: otherwise, it is like a body without a soul, or the image of some divinity that never had existence. Art needs, indeed, to be individualized, to betray the characteristics of the artist, to be himself infused into his work; but more than this, it needs to typify, to illustrate the character of the age,–to be of a piece with other expressions of the sentiment that animates other men at the time. It must be one note in the concert, and that not discordant,–neither behind time nor ahead of it,–neither in the wrong key nor the other mode: you don’t want Verdi in one of Beethoven’s symphonies; you don’t want Mozart in Rossini’s operas. No art ever has lived that was not the genuine product of the era in which it appeared; no art ever can live that is not such a product: it may, perchance, have a temporary or fictitious success, but it can neither really and truly exert an influence at the moment of its highest triumph, nor afterwards remain a power among men, unless it reflect the spirit of the epoch, unless it show the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.
All greatness consists in this: in being alive to what is going on around one; in living actually; in giving voice to the thought of humanity; in saying to one’s fellows what they want to hear or need to hear at that moment; in being the concretion, the result, of the influences of the present world. In no other way can one affect the world than in responding thus to its needs, in embodying thus its ideas. You will see, in looking to history, that all great men have been a piece of their time; take them out and set them elsewhere, they will not fit so well; they were made for their day and generation. The literature which has left any mark, which has been worthy of the name, has always mirrored what was doing around it; not necessarily daguerreotyping the mere outside, but at least reflecting the inside,–the thoughts, if not the actions of men,–their feelings and sentiments, even if it treated of apparently far-off themes. You may discuss the Greek republics in the spirit of the modern one; you may sing idyls of King Arthur in the very mood of the nineteenth century. Art, too, will be seen always to have felt this necessity, to have submitted to this law. The great dramatists of Greece, like those of England, all flourished in a single period, blossomed in one soil; the sculptures of antiquity represented the classic spirit, and have never been equalled since, because they were the legitimate product of that classic spirit. You cannot have another Phidias till man again believes in Jupiter. The Gothic architecture, how meanly is it imitated now! What cathedrals built in this century rival those of Milan or Strasbourg or Notre Dame? Ah! there is no such Catholicism to inspire the builders; the very men who reared them would not be architects, if they lived to-day. And the Italian painters, the Angelos and Raphaels and Da Vincis and Titians, who were geniuses of such universal power that they builded and carved and went on embassies and worked in mathematics only with less splendid success than they painted,–they painted because the age demanded it; they painted as the age demanded; they were religious, yet sensuous, like their nation; they felt the influence of the Italian sun and soil. Their faith and their history were compressed into The Last Judgment and the Cartoons; their passion as well as their power may be recognized in The Last Supper and The Venus of the Bath.
There is always a necessity for this expression of the character of the age. This spirit of our age, this mixed materialistic and imaginative spirit,–this that abroad prompts Russian and Italian wars, and at home discovers California mines,–that realizes gorgeous dreams of hidden gold, and Napoleonic ideas of almost universal sway,–that bridges Niagara, and under-lays the sea with wire, and, forgetful of the Titan fate, essays to penetrate the clouds,–this spirit, so practical that those who choose to look on one side only of the shield can see only perjured monarchs trampling on deceived or decaying peoples, and backwoodsmen hewing forests, and begrimed laborers setting up telegraph-poles or working at printing-presses,–this spirit also so full of imagination,–which has produced an outburst of music (that most intangible and subtile and imaginative of arts) such as the earth never heard before,–which is developing in the splendid, showy life, in the reviving taste for pageantry that some supposed extinct, in the hurried, crowded incidents that will fill up the historic page that treats of the nineteenth century,–this spirit is sure to get expression in art.
The American people, cosmopolitan, concrete, the union, the result rather of a union of so many nationalities, ought surely to do its share towards this expression. The American people surely represents the century,–has much of its spirit: is full of unrest; is eminently practical, but practical only in embodying poetical or lofty ideas; is demonstrative and excitable; resembles the French much and in many things,–the French, who are at the head of modern and European civilization,–who think and feel deeply, but do not keep their feelings hidden. The Americans, too, like expression: when they admire a Kossuth or a Jenny Lind, a patriot exile or a foreign singer, all the world is sure to know of their admiration; when they are delighted at some great achievement in science, like the laying of an Atlantic Cable, they demonstrate their delight. They make their successful generals Presidents; they give dinners to Morphy and banquets to Cyrus Field. They are thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the age. Therefore they are artistic.
How amazed some will be at the proposition,–amazed that the age should be called an artistic one,–amazed that Americans should be considered an artistic nation! Yet art is only the expression in outward and visible form of an inward and spiritual grace,–the sacrament of the imagination. Art is an incarnation in colors or stone or music or words of some subtile essence which requires the embodiment. We all have delicate fancies, lofty imaginings, profound sentiments; the artist expresses them for us. If, then, this age be one that requires expression for its ideas, that is practical, that insists on accomplishing its designs, on creating its children, on producing its results, it is an artistic age. For art works; a poet is a maker, according to the Greeks: and all artists are poets; they all produce; they all do; they all make. They do just what all the practical men of this practical age are doing, what even the Gradgrinds are doing: they embody ideas; they put thoughts into facts. A quiet, contemplative age is not an artistic one; art has ever flourished in stirring times: Grecian wars and Guelphic strife have been its fostering influences. An artist is very far from being an idle dreamer; he works as hard as the merchant or the mechanic,–works, too, physically as well as mentally, with his hand as well as his head.
This is all statement: let us have some facts; let us embody our ideas. Do you not call Meyerbeer, with his years of study and effort and application, a worker? Do you not call Verdi, who has produced thirty operas, a worker? Do you not imagine that Turner labored on his splendid pictures? Do you not know how Crawford toiled and spun away his nerves and brain? Have you not heard of the incessant and tremendous attention that for many months Church bestowed on the canvas that of late attracted the admiration of English critics and their Queen? Was Rachel idle? Have these artists not spent the substance of themselves as truly as any of your politicians or your soldiers or your traders? Can you not trace in them the same energy, the same effort, the same determination as in Louis Napoleon, as in Zachary Taylor, as in Stephen Girard? Are not they also representative?
And their works,–for by these shall ye know them,–do they reflect in nothing this fitful, uneasy, yet splendid intensity of to-day? Can you not read in the colors on Turner’s canvas, can you not see in the rush of Church’s Niagara, can you not hear in the strains of the Traviata, can you not perceive in the tones and looks of Ristori, just what you find in the successful men in other spheres of life? Rothschild’s fortune speaks no more plainly than the Robert le Diable; George Sand’s novels and Carlyle’s histories tell the same story as Kossuth’s eloquence and Garibaldi’s deeds. The artists are as alive to-day as any in the the world. For, again and again, art is not an outside thing; its professors, its lovers, are not placed outside the world; they are in it and of it as absolutely as the rest. You who think otherwise, remember that Verdi’s name six months ago was the watchword of the Italian revolutionists; remember that certain operas are forbidden now to be played in Naples, lest they should arouse the countrymen of Masaniello; remember, or learn, if you did not know, how in New York, last June, all the singers in town offered their services for a benefit to the Italian cause, and all the _habitues_, late though the season was, crowded to their places to see an opera whose attractiveness had been worn out and whose novelty was nearly gone. You who think that art is an interest unworthy of men who live in the world, that it is a thing apart, what say you to the French, the most actual, the most practical, the most worldly of peoples, and yet the fondest of art in all its phases,–the French, who remembered the statues in the Tuileries amid the massacres of the First Revolution, and spared the architecture of antiquity when they bombarded the city of the Caesars?
Consider, too, the growing love for art in practical America; remark the crowds of newly rich who deck their houses with pictures and busts, even though they cannot always appreciate them; remember that nearly every prominent town in the country has its theatre; that the opera, the most refined luxury of European civilization, considered for long an affectation beyond every other, is relished here as decidedly as in Italy or France. In New York, Boston, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, and New Orleans, there are buildings exclusively appropriated to this new form of art, this exotic, expensive amusement. These opera-houses, too, illustrate most aptly the progress of other arts. They are adorned with painting and gilding and carving; they are as sumptuous in accommodation as the palaces of European potentates; they are lighted with a brilliancy that Aladdin’s garden never rivalled; they are thronged, with crowds as gayly dressed as those that fill the saloons of Parisian belles; and the singers and actors who interpret the thoughts of mighty foreign masters are the same who delight the Emperor of the French when he pays a visit to the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. Orchestras of many instruments discourse most eloquent music, and involuted strains are criticized in learned style, in capitals thousands of miles from the seashore. And there is no appreciation of art in all this! there is no embodiment of the love of the age for material magnificence, there is no poetry incarnated into form, in this combination of splendors rivalling the opium-eater’s visions! The Americans are a dull, stupid people, immersed in business; art has no effect upon them; it is despised among them; it can never prosper here!
The stage, indeed, in its various forms, seems more fully to manifest and illustrate the artistic influence among Americans than any other art. It often addresses those whom more refined solicitations might never reach. Those who would turn from Church’s or Page’s pictures with indifference are frequently attracted by the representations in a theatre. The pictures there are more alive, more real, more intense, and fascinate many unable to appreciate the recondite charms of the canvas. The grace of attitude, the splendid expression, the intellectual art of Ristori or Rachel may impress those who fail to discover the same merits in colder stone, in Crawford’s marble or the statues of Palmer; and they may sometimes learn to relish even the delicate beauties of Shakspeare’s text, from hearing it fitly declaimed, who would never spell out its meaning by themselves. The drama is certainly superior to other arts while its reign lasts, because of its veriness, its actuality. He must be dull of imagination, indeed, who cannot give himself up for a while to its illusions; he must be stupid who cannot open his senses to its delights or waken his intellect to receive its influences.
Neither can a taste for the stage be declared one which only the ignorant or vulgar share. Though away in the wilds of California a theatre was often erected next after a hotel, the second building in a town, and the strolling player would summon the miners by his trumpet when not one was in sight, and instantly a swarm peeped forth from the earth, like the armed men who sprang from the furrows that Cadmus ploughed,–though the wildest and rudest of Western cities and the wildest and rudest inhabitants of Western towns are quick to acknowledge the charms of the stage,–yet also the most highly cultured and the most intellectual Americans pay the same tribute to this art. We have all seen, within a few years, one of the most profound scholars and most prominent divines in the country proclaiming his approbation of the drama. We may find, to-day, in any Eastern city, members of the liberal clergy at an opera, and sometimes at a play. The scholars and writers and artists and thinkers, as well as the people of leisure and of fashion, frequent places of amusement, not only for amusement, but to cultivate their tastes, to exercise their intellects, ay, and oftentimes to refine their hearts. The splendid homage paid in England not long ago to the drama, when the highest nobility and the first statesmen in the land were present at a banquet in honor of Charles Kean, is evidence enough that no puerile or uncultivated taste is this which relishes the theatre. Goethe presiding over the playhouse at Weimar, Euripides and Sophocles writing tragedies, the greatest genius of the English language acting in his own productions at the Globe Theatre, people like Siddons and Kean and Cushman and Macready illustrating this art with the resources of their fine intellects and great attainments,–surely these need scarcely be mentioned, to relieve the drama from the reproach that some would put upon it, of puerility.
New York is, perhaps, more of a representative city than any other in the land. It is an aggregation from all the other portions of the country; it is the result, the precipitate, of the whole. It has no distinctive, individual character of its own; it is a condensation of all the rest, a focus. Thither all the country goes at times. Restless, fitful, changing, yet still the same in its change; like the waves of the sea, that toss and roll and move away, and still the mighty mass is ever there. New York, in its various phases and developments, its crowded and cosmopolitan population, its out-door kaleidoscopic splendor, is indeed a representative of the entire country. It has not the purely literary life of Boston, nor so distinctive an intellectual character; it is not so stamped by the impress of olden times as Philadelphia; but it has an outside garb significant of the inward nature. It is like the face of a great actor, splendid in expression, full of character, changing with a thousand changing emotions, but betraying a great soul beneath them all. New York is artistic just as America is artistic, just as the age is artistic: not, perhaps, in the loftiest or most refined sense, but in the sense that art is an expression, in tangible form, of ideas. New York is a great thought uttered. It is like those fruits or seeds which germinate by turning themselves inside out; the soul is on the outside, crusted all over it, but none the less soul for all that.
And New York illustrates this idea of the drama being the representative art of to-day. The theatre there, including the opera, is a great established fact,–as important nearly as it was in the palmiest days of the Athenian republic, or on the road to be of as much consequence as it is in Paris, the representative city of the world. Fifty thousand people nightly crowd twenty different theatres in New York. From the splendid halls where Grisi and Gazzaniga and La Borde and La Grange have by turns translated into sound the ideas of Meyerbeer and Bellini and Donizetti and Mozart, to the little rooms where sixpenny tickets procure lager-beer as well as music for the purchaser, the drama is worshipped. And this not only by New-Yorkers: not only do those who lead the busy, excited life of the metropolis acquire a taste, as some might say, for a factitious excitement, but all strangers hasten to the theatres. The sober farmer, the citizens from plodding interior towns, the gay Southerners, accustomed almost exclusively to social amusements, the denizens of rival Bostons and Philadelphias all frequent the operas and playhouses of New York. When the richer portion of its inhabitants have left the hot and sultry town, or, in mid-winter, are immersed in the more exclusive pleasures of fashionable life, even then the theatres are thronged; and in September and October you shall find all parts of the country represented in their boxes and parquets,–proving that this is not an exclusively metropolitan taste, that it is shared by the whole nation, that in this also New York is truly representative.
Boston typifies a peculiar phase of American life; it is the illustration, the exponent, of the cultivated side of our nationality; its thought, its action, its character are taken abroad as symbols of the national thought and action and character, in whatever relates to literature or art. The Professor said truly, Boston does really in some sort stand for the brain of America. Well the brain of America appreciates the stage. It is but a few months since the culture and distinction of Boston nightly crowded a small and inferior theatre, to witness the personations of the young genius who is destined at no distant day to rival the proudest names of the drama. The most brilliant successes Edwin Booth has yet achieved have been achieved in Boston; scholars and wits and poets and professors crowd the boxes when he plays; women of talent write poems in his praise and publish them in the “Atlantic Monthly”; professors of Harvard College send him congratulatory letters; artists paint and carve his intellectual beauty; and fashion follows in the wake of intellect, alike acknowledging his merits. Boston recognized those merits, too, when they were first presented to its appreciation; and now that they verge nearer upon maturity, her appreciation is quickened and her applause redoubled. It cannot be said that the taste or culture of the nation is indifferent to histrionic excellence, when absolute excellence is found.
No other art is yet on such a footing among us. Neither is this because of our partially developed civilization. It is equally so abroad; where the nations are oldest and best established in culture, there, too, a similar state of things exists. No school in painting, no style of sculpture, no kind of architecture has made such an impression on the age as its music, as its dramatic music, its opera. This speaks to all nations, in all languages. No writer, though he write like Tennyson, or Longfellow, or Lamartine, or Dudevant, can hope for such an audience as Verdi or Meyerbeer. No orator speaks to such crowds as Rossini; no Everett or Kossuth, or Gavazzi or Spurgeon, has so many listeners as Donizetti. For the stage is the art of to-day,–perhaps more especially, but still not, exclusively, the operatic stage; the theatre in its various forms represents the feeling of the time so as Grecian and Gothic architecture and Italian painting have in their time done for their time,–so as no pictures, no architecture, no statuary can now do. Painting and statuary, when they do anything towards representing this age, incarnate the dramatic spirit; the literature that has most influence today is journalism,–the effective, present, actual, short-lived, dramatic newspaper, where all the actors speak for themselves: other literature has its listeners, but it lags behind; other art has its appreciators, but it cannot keep pace with the march of armies, with the rush to California, with the swarm to Australia; there is no art on these outskirts but the dramatic. That travels with the advancing mass in every exodus; that went with Dr. Kane to the North Pole (he had private theatricals aboard the Resolute); that alone gave utterance immediately to the latest cry of humanity in the Italian War.
Neither can it be said that the theatre has no more consequence now than it has always enjoyed. At the time when Gothic architects and Italian painters expressed the meaning of their own ages, there was nothing like a real drama in existence, and the Roman theatre was never comparable with ours. The Greeks, indeed, had a stage which was an important element of their civilization, and which took the character of their time, giving and receiving influence; but their stage was essentially different from that of the moderns. Its success did not depend upon the individual performer; its pageantry was perhaps as splendid as what we now see; but the play of the countenance, that great intellectual opportunity offered an actor by our drama, was not known. In this see also a characteristic of the present age. Individuality is a distinctive peculiarity of the nineteenth century; it has been for centuries gradually becoming more possible; but every man now works his own way, acts himself, more completely than ever before. Therefore appropriate is it that the drama should give importance to the individual, and allow a great actor to incarnate and illustrate in his own form and face feelings and passions that formerly were only hinted at; for remember that the Greek players usually wore masks, while their amphitheatres were so large that in any event the expression of the features was lost.
With this individuality, this opportunity for each to develop his own identity and intensity, the nineteenth century strangely combines another peculiarity, that of association. All these units, these atoms, so marvellously distinct, are incorporated into one grand whole; though each be more, by and of himself, than ever before, yet the great power, the great motor, is the mass. The mass is made powerful by the added importance given to each individual. And you may trace without conceit a state of things behind the scenes very similar to this in front of the footlights. In the theatre, also, the many workers contribute to a grand result. The manager would be as powerless in his little empire, without important assistants, as a monarch without ministers and people. What makes the French army and the American so irresistible is the thought that each private is more than a machine, is an intellectual being, understands what his general wants, fights with his bayonet at Solferino or his musket at Monterey on his own account, yet subject to the supreme control. And the theatre, with all its actors and scene-painters and costumers and carpenters and musicians, is only an army on a different scale. The forces of the stage answer to the generals and colonels, the marshals and privates, all marching and working and fighting for the same end. Those splendid dramatic triumphs of Charles Kean were only illustrations of the principle of association,–only illustrations of the readiness of the stage to adapt itself to the times, to seize hold of whatever is suggested by the outside world, to appropriate the discoveries of Layard and the revelations of Science to its own uses,–illustrations, too, of the importance of the individual Kean, as well as of the crowd of clever subordinates.
That the theatre feels this reflex influence, that it appreciates all that is going on around it, that it is not asleep, that it is penetrated with the spirit of the century, whether that spirit be good or evil, the selection of plays now popular is another proof. In France, where the success of the histrionic art now culminates, a contemporaneous drama is flourishing, the absolute society of the day is represented. That society has faults, and the stage mirrors them. “La Dame aux Camelias,” “Les Filles de Marbre,” “Le Demi-Monde” reflect exactly the peculiarities of the life they aim to imitate. And these very plays, whose influence is so often condemned, would never have had the popularity they have attained in nearly every city of the civilized world, had there not been Marguerite Gautiers and Traviatas outside of Paris as well as in it. Another attempt, perhaps not an entirely successful one, but still a significant attempt, has been made in this country to produce a contemporaneous drama. “Jessie Brown” and “The Poor of New York,” and other plays directly daguerreotyping ordinary incidents, at any rate show that the drama is an art that responds instantly to the pulses of the time.
But it ia not necessary for the stage to daguerreotype; it mirrors more truly when it embodies the spirit. And never before was there an age whose spirit was more theatrical, in the best sense of the term; full of outside expression, but also full of inside feeling; working, accomplishing, putting into actual form its ideas; incarnating its passions; intellectual, yet passionate; lofty in imagination, yet practical in exemplification; showy, but significantly showy,–theatrical. An art, then, that is all this, surely expresses as no other art does or can the character of the nineteenth century,–surely is the representative art.
* * * * *
ROBA DI ROMA.
THE EVIL EYE AND OTHER SUPERSTITIONS.
I have already, in a former article, spoken of some of the superstitions belonging to the Church which are prevalent in Italy; but there are other, and, so to speak, _lay_ superstitions, which also claim a place,–and to them this chapter shall be dedicated.
It is dangerous ground, a twilight marsh, where the will-o’-wisps light us, over which I propose to lead you; and had I not armed myself with all sorts of amulets, I should shrink from the enterprise. But the famous weapon with which Luther drove away the Evil One is at my side, potent as evil, I hope, so long as a pen can be put into it,–and Saint Dunstan’s friend is in the corner, ready, at a pinch, for service; and having shut out all those spirits which so sorely tempted Saint Anthony, and locked my door to dark eyes and blue eyes and dark hair and blonde hair, I may hope to get through my dangerous chapter, and–
Strange fatality!–one of Saint Anthony’s spirits tempts me from the other room, even at the moment I boast; but I resist,–manfully dipping my pen into Luther’s stronghold,–and it vanishes, and leaves me face to face with–the Evil Eye. Yes! it is the Evil Eye, the _Jettatura_ of Italy, that we are boldly to face for an hour.
This is one of the oldest and most interesting superstitions that have come down to us from the past; and as it still lives and flourishes in Italy with a singular vitality and freshness, it may be worth while to trace it back to some of its early sources. Its birth-place was the East, where it existed in dillomnt forms amongst almost every people. Thence it was imported into Greece, where it was called _Baskania_, and was adopted by the Romans under the name of _Fascinum_. Solomon himself alludes to it in the Book of Wisdom. Isigonus relates that among the Triballi and Illyrii there were men who by a glance fascinated and killed those whom they looked upon with angry eyes; and Nymphodorus asserts that there were fascinators whose voices had the power to destroy flocks, to blast trees, and to kill infants. In Scythia, also, according to Apollonides, there were women of this class, “_quoe vocantur Bithyoe_”; and Phylarchus says that in Pontus there was a tribe, called the Thibii, and many others, of the same nature and having the same powers. The testimony of Algazeli is to the same effect; and he adds, that these fascinators have a peculiar power over women. We have also the testimony of Aristotle, Pliny, and Plutarch, who all speak as believers, while Solinus enumerates certain families of fascinators who exerted their influence _voce et lingua_, and Philostratus makes special mention of Apolloius Thyaneus as having been possessed of these wonderful powers. Indeed, nearly all the old writers agree in recognizing the existence of the faculty of fascination; and among the Romans it was so universally admitted, that in the “Decemvirales Tabulae” there was a law prohibiting the exercise of it under a capital penalty:–“_Ne pelliciunto alienas segeles, excantando, ne incantando; ne agrum defraudanto._” Some jurisconsults skilled in the ancient law say that boys are sometimes fascinated by the burning eyes of these infected men so as to lose all their health and strength. Pliny relates that one Caius Furius Cresinus, a freedman, having been very successful in cultivating his farms, became an object of envy, and was publicly accused of poisoning by arts of fascination his neighbors’ fruits; whereupon he brought into the Forum his daughter, ploughs, tools, and oxen, and, pointing to them, said,–“These which I have brought, and my labor, sweat, watching, and care, (which I cannot bring,) are all my arts.” Let those who consider the moving of tables as wonderful listen to the surprising statement of Pliny as to an occurrence in his own time, when a whole olive-orchard belonging to a certain Vectius Marcellus, a Roman knight, crossed over the public way, and took its place, ground and all, on the other side. [Footnote: Plinii _Nat. Hist._ Lib. xvii. cap. 38.] This same fact is also alluded to by Virgil in his Eighth Eclogue, on _Pharmaceutria_ (all of which, by the way, he stole from Theocritus):–
“Atque satas alio vidi traducere messes.”
“Now,” says the worthy Vairus, who has written an elaborate treatise on this subject in Latin, well worthy to be examined, “let no man laugh at these stories as old wives’ tales, (_aniles nugas_,) nor, because the reason passes our knowledge, let us turn them into ridicule, for infinite are the things which we cannot understand, (_infinita enim prope sunt quorum rationem adipisci nequimus_); but rather than turn all miracles out of Nature because we cannot understand them, let us make that fact the beginning and reason of investigation. For does not Solomon in his Book of Wisdom say, ‘_Fascinatio malignitatis obscurat bona’?_ and does not Dominus Paulus cry out to the Galatians, ‘_O insensati Galatoe, quis vos fascinavit’?_ which the best interpreters admit to refer to those whose burning eyes (_oculos urentes_) with a single look blast all persons, and especially boys.”
It seems to have been a peculiarity in the superstitions as to the _fascinum_, that boys and women were specially susceptible to its influence; and in this respect, as well as in some of the symptoms of fascination, it bears a curious resemblance to the effects of modern witchcraft as practised in New England. Dionysius Carthusianus, speaking of the nomad tribes of the Biarmii and Amaxobii, who, according to him, were most skilful fascinators, says that they so affected persons with their curse that they lost their freedom of will and became insane and idiotic, and often wasted away in extreme leanness and corruption, and so perished: “_ut liberi non sint nec mentis compotes, soepe ad extremam maciem deveniant, et tabescendo dispereant._” Olaus Magnus agrees with him in these symptoms; and Hieronymus says, that, when infants suddenly grow lean, waste away, twist about as if in pain, and sometimes scream out and cry in a wonderful way, you may be certain that they have been fascinated. This, to be sure, looks mightily like a diagnosis for worms; but we would not measure our wits with the grave Hieronymus. Still, as an amulet against such fascination, “Jaynes’s Vermifuge” might be suggested as efficient, or at least a grain or two of _Santonina_.
In Abyssinia, it is supposed that men who work in iron or pottery are peculiarly endowed with this fatal power of fascination, and in consequence of this prejudice they are expelled from society and even from the privilege of partaking of the holy sacrament. They are known by the name of _Buda_, and, though excluded from the more sacred rites of the Church, profess great respect for religion, and are surpassed by none in the strictness of their fasts. All convulsions and hysterical disorders are attributed to these unfortunate artificers; and they are also supposed to have the power of changing themselves into hyenas and other ravenous beasts. Nathaniel Pearce, the African traveller, relates that the Abyssinians are so fully convinced that these unhappy men are in the habit of rifling graves in their character of hyenas, that no one will venture to eat _quareter_ or dried meat in their houses, nor any flesh, unless it be raw, or unless they have seen it killed. These Budas usually wear earrings of a peculiar shape, and Pearce states that he has frequently seen them in the ears of hyenas that have been caught or trapped, and confesses, that, although he had taken considerable pains to investigate the subject, he had never been able to discover how these ornaments came there; and Mr. Coffin, his friend, relates a story of one of these transformations which took place under his own eyes. [Footnote: Herodotus makes the same statement as to the Buda. “They are said to be evil-minded and enchanters,” he says, “that for a day every year change themselves into wolves. This the Scythians and Greeks who dwell there affirm with great oaths. But they do not persuade me of it.”–Herod. Lib. iii. cap. 7.
See on this subject _Life and Adventures of Nathaniel Pearce_, and _Nubia and Abyssinia_, by Rev. Michael Russell. Petronius’s story of a Versipelles is well known.]
This is the old superstition of the were-wolf, which existed also among the Greeks and Romans. Those endowed with this power of transforming themselves into beasts were called _Versipelles_. Pliny makes mention of them, and cites from a Greek author the case of a man “who lived nine years in the shape of a wolf”; but, credulous as he is, he says that the superstition “is a fabulous opinion, not worthy of credit.” For myself, I can say that I have known many men who were wolves; and we all remember what Queen Labe used to do with her lovers.
Fascination was of two kinds, moral and natural. Those in whom the power was moral could exert it only by the exercise of their will; but those in whom it was natural could but keep exercising it unconsciously. And these latter were the most terrible. It is generally explained by ancient writers as being a power of the spirit or imagination, (as they termed it.) exhibited in persons of a peculiar organization, and diffusing _radios salutares vel perniciosos_. Though the terms employed by them, as well as their notions of its origin, are very unphilosophical and vague, it is plain that they considered it as a species of mesmeric or biologic power, operating by nervous impression. The fascinator generally endeavored to provoke in his victims an excited and pleased attention, for in this condition they were peculiarly predisposed to his influence. And inasmuch as persons are thrown off their guard of reserve and attracted by praise, those who flattered excessively were looked upon with suspicion; and it was a universally recognized rule of good manners and morals, that every one in praising another should be careful not to do so immoderately, lest he should fascinate even against his will. Hieronymus Fracastorius, in his treatise “On Sympathy and Antipathy,” thus states the fact and the philosophy,–and who shall dare gainsay the conclusions of one so learned in science, medicine, and astrology as this distinguished man?–“We read,” he says, “that there were certain families in Crete who fascinated by praising, and this is doubtless quite possible. For as there exists in the nature of some persons a poison which is ejaculated through their eyes by evil spirits, there is no reason why infants and even grown persons should not be peculiarly injured by this fascination of praise. For praise creates a peculiar pleasure, and pleasure in turn, as we have already said, first dilates and opens the heart and then the spirit, and then the whole face and especially the eyes,–so that all these doors are opened to receive the poison which is ejaculated by the fascinator. Wherefore it is most proper, whenever we intend to praise a person, that we should warn him, and use some form to avert the ill effects of our words, as by saying, ‘May it be of no injury to you!’ There are, indeed, some, who, when they are praised, avert their faces, not to indicate that praise in itself is unpleasant, but to avoid fascination; it being thought that fascination is often effected by means of praise”;[1] or in other words, the poison being given in the honey of flattery. Now in order to close up this _dilatationem_ or opening of the system, a _corona baccaris_ was worn, which, by its odoriferous and constipating qualities, produced this effect, as Dioscorides assures us.[2] Virgil, in his Seventh Eclogue, alludes to the same, antidote:–
“Aut si ultra placitum laudant, baccare frontem Cingite, ne vati noceat mala lingua futuro.”
[Footnote 1: Hier. Fracastorius, _De Sympathia et Antipathia_, Lib. i. cap. 23. See also Vincentius Alsarius, _De Invid. et Fasc. Vet._, in Graevius, _Thes. Rom. Antiq._ Vol. xii. p. 890.]
[Footnote 2: Lib. iii. cap. 46, confirmed also by Athenaeus, _Deipnos_. Lib. iii.]
Tertullian, in his work “De Virginibus Velandis,” states the same fact as Fracastorius, and says that among the heathens there are persons who are possessed of a terrible somewhat which they call _Fascinum_, effected by excessive praise: _”Nam est aliquod etiam apud Ethnicos metuendum, quod Fascinum vocant, infeliciorem laudis et gloriae enormioris eventum_.”
To avert this evil influence, every well-mannered person among the ancients said, “_Proefiscine_,” before wishing well to another,–as clearly appears from the following passage cited by Charisius [Footnote: _Inst. Gram._ Lib. iv.] from Titinius in “Setina.” One person exclaims, “_Paula mea, amabo—-_” Whereupon a friend who stands by says, “He was going to praise Paula!” “_Ecce qui loquitur, Paulam puellam laudare parabat!_” And another friend present cries out, “By Pollux! you should better say, ‘_Proefiscini_,’ or you may fascinate her”: “_Pol! tu in laudem addito Proefiscini, ne puella fascinaretur_.” [Footnote: See also Turnebi _Comm. in Orat. Sec. contra P.S. Rullum de Leg. Agrar._ M.T. Ciceronis.] This same custom exists at the present day among the Turks, who always accompany a compliment to you or to anything belonging to you with the phrase, _”Mashallah!”_ (God be praised!)–thus referring the good gifts you possess to the Higher Spirit. To omit this is a breach of courtesy, and in such case the other person instantly adds it in order to avert fascination; for the superstition is, that, if this phrase be omitted, we may seem to refer all good gifts to our own merit instead of God’s grace, and so provoke the divine wrath. The same custom also exists in Italy; and the common reply to any salutation in which your looks or health may be complimented is, “_Grazia a Dio!_” In some parts of Italy, if you praise a pretty child in the street, or even if you look earnestly at it, the nurse will be sure to say, “_Dio la benedica!_” so as to cut off all ill-luck; and if you happen to be walking with a child and catch any person watching it, such person will invariably employ some such phrase to show you that he does not mean to do it injury, or to cast a spell of _jettatura_ upon it. The modern Greeks are even more jealous of praise, and if you compliment a child of theirs, you are expected to spit three times at him and say, [Greek: Na maen baskanthaes], (“May no evil come to you!”) or mutter [Greek: Skordo], (“Garlic,”) which has a special power as a counter-charm. So, too, in Corsica, the peasants are strict believers in the _jettatura_ of praise, which they call _l’annocchiatura_,–supposing, that, if any evil influence attend you, your good wishes will turn into curses. They are therefore very careful in praising, and sometimes express themselves in language the very reverse of what they intend,–as, “‘_Va, coquine!’_ says Bandalaccio, in M. Merimee’s pleasant story of “Colomba,” ‘_sois excommuniee, sois maudite, friponne!’ Car Bandalaccio, superstitieux comme tous les bandits, craignait de fasciner les enfans en les addressant les benedictions et les eloges. On sait que les puissances mysterieuses qui president a l’annocchiatura ont la mauvaise habitude d’executer le contraire de nos souhaits._” Perhaps our familiar habit of calling our children “scamp” and “rascal,” when we are caressing them, may be founded on a worn-out superstition of the same kind.
But it is not only praise administered by others which may inflict evil upon us,–we must also be specially careful not to have too “gude a conceit of ourselves,” lest we thereby draw down upon us the fate of a certain Eutelidas, who, having regarded his image in the water with peculiar self-satisfaction and laudation, immediately lost his health, and from that time forward was afflicted with sore diseases. During a supper at the house of Metrius Florus, where, among others, Plutarch, Soclarus, and Caius, the son-in-law of Florus, were guests, a curious and interesting conversation took place on the subject of the _Fascinum_, which is reported by Plutarch in one of his Symposia. The existence of the power of fascination was admitted by all, and a philosophical explanation of its phenomena was attempted. In reply to some suggestions of Plutarch, Soclarus says there is no doubt that their ancestors fully believed in this power, and then cites the case of Eutelidas as being well known to his auditors, and celebrated by some poet in these lines:–
“Eutelidas was once a beauteous youth, But, luckless, in the wave his face beholding, Himself he fascinates, and pines away.” [1]
[Footnote 1: Plutarchi _Symp_. V. Prob. VII.]
Fascination was excited by touch, voice, and look. The fascination by touch was simply mesmerism, or rather the biology of the present day, in an undeveloped stage. There were said to be four qualities of touch,–_calidus, humidus, frigidus, et siccus_, or hot, cold, moist, and dry,–according to which persons were active or passive in the exercise of the fascinum. Its function was double, by raising or by lowering the arm,–“_modo per arteriae elevationem, modo per ejusdem submissionem_” says the worthy Vairits; “for,” he continues, “when the artery is thrown out and is open, the spirits are emitted with wonderful celerity, and in some imperceptible manner are carried to the thing to fascinate it. And because the artery has its origin in the heart, the spirits issuing thence retain its infected and vitiated nature, and according to its depravity fascinate and destroy.”
This power of touch is recognized in all history and in all climes. All who saw Christ desired to touch his garment, and so receive some healing virtue; and his miracles of cure he almost always performed by his hand. When the woman who had the issue of blood came behind him and touched him, Jesus asked who touched him, and said,–“Somebody hath touched me; for I perceive that virtue is gone out of me.” It has always been a popular superstition that the scrofula could be cured by the touch of a king or of the seventh son of a seventh son. The old belief that the body of a murdered man would distill blood, if his murderer’s hand were placed on him, is also of the same class.
Descending to the sphere of animals, we find some curious facts having relation to this power. The electrical eel, for instance, has the faculty of overcoming and numbing his prey by this means. And among the Arabs, according to Gerard, the French lion-killer, whoever inhales the breath of the lion goes mad.
Dr. Livingstone, in his interesting travels in South Africa, makes a curious statement bearing upon this subject. He was out shooting lions one day, when, “after having shot once, just,” he says, “as I was in the act of ramming down the bullets, I heard a shout. Starting and looking half round, I saw the lion just in the act of springing upon me. I was upon a little height; he caught my shoulder as he sprang, and we both came to the ground below together. Growling horribly close to my ear, he shook me as a terrier-dog does a rat. The shock produced a stupor similar to that which seems to be felt by a mouse after the first shake of the cat. It caused a sort of dreaminess, in which there was no sense of pain nor feeling of terror, though quite conscious of all that was happening. It was like what patients partially under the influence of chloroform describe, who see all the operation, but feel not the knife. This singular condition was not the result of any mental process. The shake annihilated fear, and allowed no sense of horror in looking round at the beast. This peculiar state is probably produced in all animals killed by the _carnivora_, and, if so, is a merciful provision by our benevolent Creator for lessening the pain of death.”
The next method of fascination was by the Voice. Aristotle speaks of it as the cause of fascination, and says that the mere sound of the fascinator’s voice has this wondrous power, independently of his good or ill will, as well as of the words he uses. And Alexander Aphrodisiensis calls the fascinators poisoners, who poison their victim by intently looking at him _carmine prolato_, “with a measured song or cadence.” The same peculiarity is observable in all experiments with the moving tables or rapping spirits, which are more successful when accompanied by constant music. Circe fascinated with incantation; and the Psalmist alludes to it as a means of charming. Serpents, as well as men, are thus charmed. Virgil says, that, if to this incantation by words certain herbs are joined, the fascination works with more terrible effect:–
“Pocula si quando saevae infecere novercae, Miscueruntque herbas et non irmoxia verba, Auxilium venit, ac membris agit atra venena.”
It is related of a certain magician, that, when he whispered in the ear of a bull, he could prostrate him to the earth as if he were dead; [Footnote: Vairus, _De Fascino_. p. 24.] and in our own time we have had an example of the same wonderful faculty in Sullivan, the famous horse-whisperer, whose secret died with him, or, at least, never was made public. Pliny also relates, that tigers are rendered so furious by the sound of the drum, that they often end by tearing themselves limb from limb in their rage; but I am afraid this is one of Pliny’s stories. Plutarch, however, agrees with him in this belief.[Footnote: Plut. _Praecepta Conjugialia_.]
And next as to the Evil Eye ([Greek: ophthalmos baskanos]). From the earliest ages of the world, the potency of the eye in fascination has been recognized. “Nihil oculo nequius creatum” says the Preacher; and the philosopher calls it alter animus, “another spirit.” “It sends forth its rays,” says Vairus, “like spears and arrows, to charm the hearts of men”: “veluti jacula et sagittae ad effascinandorum corda.” And it carries disease and death, as well as love and delight, in its course: “Totumque corpus inficiunt, atque ita (nulla interposita mora) arbores, segetes, bruta animalia et homines perniciosa qualitate inficiunt et ad interitum deducunt.” Vairus relates that a friend of his saw a fascinator simply with a look break in two a precious gem while in the hands of the artist who was working upon it. Horace thua alludes to it:–
“Non isthic obliquo oculo mea commoda quisquam Limat; non odio obscuro morsuque venenat.”
Among the diseases given by a glance are ophthalmia and jaundice, say the ancients; and in these cases, the fascinator loses the disease as his victim takes it A similar peculiarity is to be remarked in the superstition of the basilisk, who kills, if he sees first, but when he is seen first, dies. No animals, it is said, can bear the steady gaze of man, and there are some persons who by this means seem to exercise a wonderful power over them. Animals, however, have sometimes their revenge on man. It is an old superstition, that he whom the wolf sees first loses his voice. Among themselves, also, they use this power of charming,–as in the case of the serpent, who thus attracts the bird, and of the toad, the “jewels in whose head” have a like magical influence. Dr. Andrew Smith, in his excellent work on “Reptilia,” gives the following interesting account of the power of the serpent, and of other animals, to fascinate their prey. Speaking of the _Bucephalus Capetisis_, he says,–
“It is generally found upon trees, to which it resorts for the purpose of catching birds, on which it delights to feed. The presence of a specimen in a tree is generally soon discovered by the birds of the neighborhood, who collect round it and fly to and fro, uttering the most piercing cries, until some one, more terror-struck than the rest, actually scans its lips, and, almost without resistance, becomes a meal for its enemy. During such a proceeding, the snake is generally observed with its head raised about ten or twelve inches above the branch round which its body and tail are entwined, with its mouth open and its neck inflated, as if anxiously endeavoring to increase the terror, which it would almost appear it was aware would sooner or later bring within its grasp some one of the feathered group.
“Whatever may be said in ridicule of fascination, it is nevertheless true that birds, and even quadrupeds, are, under certain circumstances, unable to retire from the presence of certain of their enemies, and, what is even more extraordinary, unable to resist the propensity to advance from a situation of actual safety into one of the most imminent danger. This I have often seen exemplified in the case of birds and snakes; and I have heard of instances equally curious, in which antelopes and other quadrupeds have been so bewildered by the sudden appearance of crocodiles, and by the grimaces and distortions they practised, as to be unable to fly or even move from the spot towards which they were approaching to seize them.”
The fascination which fire and flame exercise upon certain insects is well known, and the beautiful moths which so painfully insist on sacrificing themselves in our candle are the commonplaces of poets and lovers. They are generally supposed to be attracted by the light and ignorantly to rush to their destruction; but this simple explanation does not fully account for all the facts. Dr. Livingstone says, that “fire exercises a fascinating effect upon some kinds of toads. They may be seen rushing into it in the evenings, without even starting back on feeling pain. Contact with the hot embers rather increases the energy with which they strive to gain the hottest parts, and they never cease their struggles for the centre even when their juices are coagulating and their limbs stiffening in the roasting heat. Various insects also are thus fascinated; but the scorpions may be seen coming away from the fire in fierce disgust, and they are so irritated as to inflict at that time their most painful stings.”
May it not be that flame exercises upon certain insects and animals an influence similar to that produced upon man by the moon, rendering them mad when subjected too long to its influence? Is not the moon the Evil Eye of the night?
A curious story, bearing upon this subject, is told in one of a series of interesting articles in “Household Words,” called “Wanderings in India.” The author is talking with an old soldier about a cobra-capello, which has been known to the latter for thirteen years.
“This cobra,” says the soldier, “has never offered to do me any harm; and when I sing, as I sometimes do when I am alone here at work on some tomb or other, he will crawl up and listen for two or three hours together. One morning, while he was listening, he came in for a good meal, which lasted him some days.”
“How was that?”
“I will tell you, Sir. A minar was chased by a small hawk, and, in despair, came and perched itself on the top of a most lofty tomb at which I was at work. The hawk, with his eyes fixed intently on his prey, did not, I fancy, see the snake lying motionless in the grass; or, if he did see him, he did not think he was a snake, but something else,–my crowbar, perhaps. After a little while, the hawk pounced down, and was just about to give the minar a blow and a grip, when the snake suddenly lifted his head, raised his hood, and hissed. The hawk gave a shriek, fluttered, flapped his wings with all his might, and tried very hard to fly away. But it would not do. Strong as the eye of the hawk was, the eye of the snake was stronger. The hawk, for a time, seemed suspended in the air; but at last he was obliged to come down and sit opposite the old gentleman, (the snake,) who commenced with his forked tongue, and keeping his eyes on him all the while, to slime his victim all over. This occupied him for at least forty minutes, and by the time the process was over the hawk was perfectly motionless. I don’t think he was dead,–but he was very soon, however, for the old gentleman put him into a coil or two and crackled up every bone in the hawk’s body. He then gave him another sliming, made a big mouth, distended his neck till it was as big round as the thickest part of my arm, and down went the hawk like a shin of beef into a beggar-man’s bag.” [Footnote: _Household Words_, Jan. 23, 1858, vol. xvii., P. 139.]
The same writer, in another paper, relates a case in which he was cured of a violent attack of _tic-douloureux_, from which he “suffered extreme agonies,” by the steady gaze of a native doctor, who was called in for the purpose. He used no other method than a fixed, steady gaze, making no mesmeric passes; and in this way he cured his patients by “locking up their eyes,” as he termed it. His power seemed to have been very great; and what is curious is, that, “with one exception, and that was in the case of a Keranu, a half-caste, no patient had ever fallen asleep or had become ‘_beehosh_’ (unconscious) under his gaze.” He related several cases, one of which was of “a sahib who had gone mad,” drink-delirious. “His wife would not suffer him to be strapped down, and he was so violent that it took four or five other sahibs to hold him. I was sent for, and at first had great difficulty with him, and much trembling. At last, however, I locked his eyes up as soon as I got him to look at me, and kept him, for several hours, as quiet as a mouse. I stayed with him two days, and whatever I told him to do he did immediately. When I got his eyes fixed on mine, he could not take them away,–could not move.”
All these different kinds of fascination have now become united together and go under the general name of _Jettatura_, in Italy, though the eye is considered as the most potent and terrible charmer. The superstition is universal, and pervades all modes of thought among the ignorant classes, but its sanctuary is Naples. There it is as much a matter of faith as the Madonna and San Gennaro. Every coral-shop is filled with amulets, and everybody wears a counter-charm,–ladies on their arms, gentlemen on their watch-chains, lazzaroni on their necks. If you are going to Italy,–and as all the world now goes to Italy, you will join the endless caravan, of course,–it becomes a matter of no small importance for you to know the signs by which you may recognize the fascinator, and the means by which you may avert his evil influence; for, should you fall in his way and be unprotected, direful, indeed, might be the consequences. Sudden disease, like a pestilence at mid-day, might seize you, and on those lovely shores you might pine away and die. Dreadful accidents might overwhelm you and bury all your happiness forever. Therefore be wise in time.
“Women,” says Vairus, “have more power to fascinate than men”; but the reason he gives will not, I fear, recommend itself to the sex,–for the worthy _padre_ feared women as devils. According to him, their evil influence results from their unbridled passions: “_Quia irascendi et concupiscendi animi vim adeo effrenatam habent, ut nullo modo ab ira et cupiditate sese temperare valeant_.” (Certainly, he _is_ a wretch.) But it will be some consolation to know that the young and beautiful have far less power for evil than “little old women,” (_aniculas_,) and for these you must specially look out. But most of all to be dreaded, male or female, are those who are lean and melancholy by temperament, (“lean and hungry Cassiuses,”) and who have double pupils in their eyes, or in one eye a double pupil and in the other the figure of a horse. Perhaps Mr. Squeers and all of his kind come within this class, as having more than one pupil always in their eye,–but, specially, this rule would seem to warn us against jockey schoolmasters, with a horse in one eye and several pupils in the other. Those, too, are dangerous, according to Didymus, who have hollow, pit-like eyes, sunken under concave orbits, with great projecting eyebrows,–as well as those who emit a disagreeable odor from their armpits, (_con rispetto_,) and are remarkable for a general squalor of complexion and appearance. Persons also are greatly to be suspected who squint, or have sea-green, shining, terrible eyes. “One of these,” says Didymus, “I knew,–a certain Spaniard, whose name it is not permitted me to mention,–who, with black and angry countenance and truculent eyes, having reprimanded his servant for something or other, the latter was so overcome by fear and terror, that he was not only affected with fascination, but even deprived of his reason, and a melancholic humor attacking his whole body, he became utterly insane, and, in the very house of his master, next the Church of St. James, committed suicide, by hanging himself with a rope.” [Footnote: The passage from Didymus is this: “Macilenti et melancholici, qui binas pupillas in oculis habent, aut in uno oculo geminam pupillam, in altero effigiem equi,–quique oculos concavos ac veluti quibusdam quasi foveis reconditos gerunt, exhaustoque adeo universo humore ut ossa,–quibus palpebrae coherent, eminere, hirquique sordibus scatere cernuntur,–quibus in tota cute quae faciem obducit squallor et situs immoderatus conspicitur, facillime fascinant. Strabones, glaucos, micantes et terribiles oculos habentes quaecumque et iratis oculis aspiciunt fascino inficiunt. Et _ego_ hisce oculis Romae quondam Hispanum genere vidi, quem nominare non licet, qui cum truculentis oculis tetro et irato vultu servum ob nescio quod objurgasset, adeo servus ille timore ac terrore perterritus fuit, ut non modo fascino affectus, sed rationis usu privatus fuerit, et melancholico humore totum ejus corpus invadente, ita ad insaniam redactus fuit, ut in domo sui heri prope ecclesiam Divi Jacobi sibi mortem consciverit et laqueo vitam finiverit.”]
_Moral_.–If you ever meet with such an agreeable person as this Spaniard appears to have been,–look out!
In this connection, the reader will recall the similar power of Vathek, in Beckford’s romance, who killed with his eye,–and the story of Racine, whom a look of Louis XIV. sent to his grave.
The famous Albertus Magnus, master of medicine and magic, devotes a long chapter to the subject of eyes, giving us, at length, descriptions of those which we may trust and those which we must fear, some of them terrible and vigorous enough. From among them I select the following:–“Those who have hollow eyes are noted for evil; and the larger and moister they are, the more they indicate envy. The same eyes, when dry, show the possessors to be faithless, traitorous, and sacrilegious; and if these eyes are also yellow and cold, they argue insanity. For hollow eyes are the sign of craft and malignity; and if they are wanting in darkness, they also show foolishness. But if the eyes are too hollow, and of medium size, dry and rigid,–if, besides this, they have broad, overhanging eyebrows, and livid and pallid circles round them, they indicate impudence and malignity.” [Footnote: Albertus Magnus, _De Anima_.] If this be not enough to enable you, O my reader, to recognise the Evil Eye at sight, let me refer you to the whole chapter, where you will find ample and very curious rules laid down, showing a singular acuteness of observation.
Things have, indeed, somewhat changed since the days of Didymus, in this respect, that men are now thought to be more potent for evil _jettatura_ than women; but his general views still coincide with those entertained at the present time in Italy. Ever since the establishment, or rather decadence, of the Church in the Middle Ages, monks have been considered as peculiarly open to suspicion of possessing the Evil Eye. As long ago as the ninth century, in the year 842, Erchempert, a _frate_ of the celebrated convent of Monte Cassino, writes,–“I knew formerly Messer Landulf, Bishop of Capua, a man of singular prudence, who was wont to say, ‘Whenever I meet a monk, something unlucky always happens to me during the day.'” And to this day, there are many persons, who, if they meet a monk or priest, on first going out in the morning, will not proceed upon their errand or business until they have returned to their house and waited awhile. In Rome there are certain persons who are noted for this evil power, and marked and avoided in consequence. One of them is a most pleasant and handsome man, attached to the Church, and yet, by odd coincidence, wherever he goes, he carries ill-luck. If he go to a party, the ices do not arrive, the music is late, the lamps go out, a storm comes on, the waiter smashes his tray of refreshments,–something or other is sure to happen. “_Sentite_,” said some one the other day to me. “Yesterday, I was looking out of my window, when I saw —- coming along. ‘Phew!’ said I, making the sign of the cross and pointing both fingers, ‘what ill-luck will happen now to some poor devil that does not see him?’ I watched him all down the street, however, and nothing occurred; but this morning I hear, that, after turning the corner, he spoke to a poor little boy, who was up in a tree gathering some fruit, and no sooner was out of sight than smash! down fell the boy and broke his arm.” Even the Pope himself has the reputation of possessing the Evil Eye