Read Ebook: The Atlantic Monthly Volume 14 No. 86 December 1864 A Magazine of Literature Art and Politics by Various

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somely in his solitary little ocean-house. He was a man of singular patience and intelligence, who, when our queries struck him, rang as clear as a bell in response. The light-house lamps a few feet distant shone full into my chamber, and made it as bright as day, so I knew exactly how the Highland Light bore all that night, and I was in no danger of being wrecked. Unlike the last, this was as still as a summer night. I thought, as I lay there, half awake and half asleep, looking upward through the window at the lights above my head, how many sleepless eyes from far out on the ocean-stream--mariners of all nations spinning their yarns through the various watches of the night--were directed toward my couch.

FOOTNOTES:

Bella Firenze, "Flower of all Cities and City of all Flowers," is not only the garden of Italy's intellect, but the hot-house to which many a Northern genius has been transplanted. The house where Milton resided is still pointed out and held sacred by his venerators; and Casa Guidi, gloomier and grayer now that the grand light has gone out of it, is of especial interest to every cultivated traveller. A gratified smile, born of sorrow, passes over the stranger's face, as he reads the inscription upon the tablet that makes Casa Guidi historical,--a tablet inserted by the municipality of Florence as a grateful tribute to the memory of a truly great woman, great enough to love Truth "more than Plato and Plato's country, more than Dante and Dante's country, more even than Shakspeare and Shakspeare's country."

Qu? scrisse e mor? Elisabetta Barrett Browning Che in cuore di donna conciliava Scienza di dotto o spirito di poeta E fece del suo verso aureo anello Fra Italia e Inghilterra Pone questa memoria Firenze grata 1861

Here wrote and died Elizabeth Barrett Browning!

"God be thanked, the meanest of His creatures Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with, One to show a woman when he loves her."

The unsuspected prophecy of "One Word More" has been fulfilled,--

"Lines I write the first time and the last time,"--

for Destiny has given to them other than the author's meaning: because of this destiny, we pass from the shadow of Casa Guidi with bowed head.

We wish there were a copy of Mrs. Trollope's translation of "Arnaldo da Brescia" in America, that we might make noble extracts, and cause other eyes to glisten with the fire of its passion. We can recall but one passage, a speech made by Arnaldo to the recreant Pope Adrian. It is as strong and fearless as was the monk himself.

It is not strange that the emancipated Florentines grow wild with delight when Rossi declaimed such heresy as this.

"TO THEODOSIA GARROW.

"Unworthy are these poems of the lights That now run over them, nor brief the doubt In my own breast if such should interrupt the voice Of Attic men, of women such as thou, Of sages no less sage than heretofore, Of pleaders no less eloquent, of souls Tender no less, or tuneful, or devout. Unvalued, even by myself, are they,-- Myself, who reared them; but a high command Marshalled them in their station; here they are; Look round; see what supports these parasites. Stinted in growth and destitute of odor, They grow where young Ternissa held her guide, Where Solon awed the ruler; there they grow, Weak as they are, on cliffs that few can climb. None to thy steps are inaccessible, Theodosia! wakening Italy with song Deeper than Filicaia's, or than his, The triple deity of plastic art. Mindful of Italy and thee, fair maid! I lay this sear, frail garland at thy feet."

Mrs. Trollope is still a young woman, and it is sincerely to be hoped that improved health will give her the proper momentum for renewed exertions in a field where nobly sowing she may nobly reap.

But ere turning away, we pause before one face, now no longer of the living, that of Mrs. Frances Trollope. Knowing how thoroughly erroneous an estimate has been put upon Mrs. Trollope's character in this country, we desire to give a glimpse of the real woman, now that her death has removed the seal of silence.

Frances Trollope, daughter of the Reverend William Milton, a fellow of New College, Oxford, was born at Stapleton, near Bristol, where her father had a curacy. She died in Florence, on the sixth of October, 1863, at the advanced age of eighty-three. In 1809 she married Thomas Anthony Trollope, barrister-at-law, by whom she had six children: Thomas Adolphus, now of Florence,--Henry, who died unmarried at Bruges, in Flanders, in 1834,--Arthur, who died under age,--Anthony, the well-known novelist,--Cecilia, who married John Tilley, Assistant-Secretary of the General Post-Office, London,--and Emily, who died under age.

Mr. Thomas Anthony Trollope married and became the father of a family as presumptive heir to the good estate of an uncle. The latter, however, on becoming a widower, unexpectedly married a second time, and in his old age was himself a father. The sudden change thus caused in the position and fortune of Mr. Trollope so materially deranged his affairs as to necessitate the breaking-up of his establishment at Harrow-on-the-Hill, near London. It was at this time that Miss Fanny Wright persuaded Mrs. Trollope to proceed to America with the hope of providing a career for her second son, Henry. Miss Wright was then bent on founding an establishment, in accordance with her cherished principles, at Nashaba, near Memphis, and the career marked out for Henry Trollope was in connection with this scheme, the fruit of which was disappointment to all the parties concerned. Mrs. Trollope afterwards endeavored to establish her son in Cincinnati; but these attempts were ill managed, and consequently proved futile. Both mother and son then returned to England, the former taking with her a mass of memoranda and notes which she had made during her residence in the United States. These were shown to Captain Basil Hall, whose then recent work on America had encountered bitterly hostile criticism and denial with respect to many of its statements. Finding that Mrs. Trollope's account of various matters was corroborative of his own, Basil Hall for this reason, as also from friendly motives, urged Mrs. Trollope to bring out a work on America. "The Domestic Manners of the Americans" was the result, and so immense was its success that at the age of fifty Mrs. Trollope adopted literature as a profession.

Two works of travel and social sketches, "Paris and the Parisians," and "Vienna and the Austrians," were also very extensively read. With regard to the second we deem it proper to observe that Mrs. Trollope suffered herself to be so far dazzled by the very remarkable cordiality of her reception in the exclusive society of Vienna, and by the flattering intimacy with which she was honored by Prince Metternich and his circle, as to have been led to regard the then dominant Austrian political and social system in a more favorable light than was consistent with the generally liberal tone of her sentiments and opinions.

Though late in becoming an author, Mrs. Trollope had at all periods of her life been inclined to literary pursuits, and in early youth enjoyed the friendship of many distinguished men, among whom were Mathias, the well-known author of the "Pursuits of Literature," Dr. Nott, the Italian scholar, one of the few foreigners who have been members of the Della Crusca,--General Pepe, the celebrated defender of Venice, whom she knew intimately for many years,--General Lafayette,--and others.

Mrs. Trollope realized from her writings the large sum of one hundred thousand dollars; but generous tastes and a numerous family created as large a demand as there was supply, and kept her pen constantly busy. She wrote with a rapidity which seems to have been inherited by both her sons, more particularly by Anthony Trollope. One of her novels was written in three weeks; another she wrote at the bedside of a son dying of consumption, she being bound by contract to finish the work at a given time. Acting day and night as nurse, the overtasked mother was obliged to stimulate her nervous system by a constant use of strong coffee, and betweenwhiles would turn to the unfinished novel and write of fictitious joys and sorrows while her own heart was bleeding for the beloved son dying beside her. It was no doubt owing to this constant taxation of the brain that her intellect was but a wreck of its former self during the last four years of her life. During this time her condition was but a living death, though she was physically well. She was watched over and cared for with the most unselfish devotion by her son Thomas Adolphus and his wife, who gave up all pleasures away from home to be near their mother. The favorite reading in these last days was her son Anthony's novels.

And Thomas Trollope, writing of his mother's death, says: "Though we have been so long prepared for it, and though my poor dear mother has been in fact dead to us for many months past, and though her life, free from suffering as it was, was such as those who loved her could not have wished prolonged, yet for all this the last separation brings a pang with it. She was as good and dear a mother as ever man had; and few sons have passed so large a portion of their lives in such intimate association with their mother as I have for more than thirty years."

This is a noble record for both mother and son. To her children Mrs. Trollope was a providence and support in all time of sorrow or trouble,--a cause of prosperity, a confidant, a friend, and a companion.

A grateful American makes this humble offering to her memory in the name of justice.

There is a villa too, near Florence, "on the link of Bellosguardo," as dear from association as Villino Trollope. It has for a neighbor the Villa Mont' Auto, where Hawthorne lived, and which he transformed by the magic of his pen into the Monte Bene of the "Marble Faun." Not far off is the "tower" wherein Aurora Leigh sought peace,--and found it. The inmate of this villa was a little lady with blue-black hair and sparkling jet eyes, a writer whose dawn is one of promise, a chosen friend of the noblest and best, and on her terrace the Brownings, Walter Savage Landor, and many choice spirits have sipped tea while their eyes drank in such a vision of beauty as Nature and Art have never equalled elsewhere.

What Aurora Leigh saw from her tower is almost a counterpart of what Mrs. Browning gazed upon so often from the terrace of Villa Brichieri.

Florence without the Trollopes and our Lady of Bellosguardo would be like bread without salt. A blessing, then, upon houses which have been spiritual asylums to many forlorn Americans!--a blessing upon their inmates, whose hearts are as large and whose hands are as open as their minds are broad and catholic!

A TOBACCONALIAN ODE.

O plant divine! Not to the tuneful Nine, Who sit where purple sunlight longest lingers, Twining the bay, weaving with busy fingers The amaranth eterne and sprays of vine, Do I appeal. Ah, worthier brows than mine Shall wear those wreaths! But thou, O potent plant, Of thy broad fronds but furnish me a crown, Let others sing the yellow corn, the vine, And others for the laurel-garland pant, Content with my rich meed, I'll sit me down, Nor ask for fame, nor heroes' high renown, Nor wine. And ye, ye airy sprites, Born of the Morning's womb, sired of the Sun, Who cull with nice acumen, one by one, All gentle influences from the air, And from within the earth what most delights The tender roots of springing plants, whose care Distils from gross material its spirit To paint the flower and give the fruit its merit, Apply to my dull sense your subtile art! When ye, with nicest, finest skill, had wrought This chiefest work, the choicest blessings brought And stored them at its roots, prepared each part, Matured the bud, painted the dainty bloom, Ye stood and gazed until the fruit should come. Ah, foolish elves! Look ye that yon frail flower should be sublimed To fruit commensurate with all your power And cunning art? Was it for such ye climbed The slanting sunbeams, coaxing many a shower From the coy clouds? Ye did exceed yourselves; And as ye stand and gaze, lo, instantly The whole etherealized ye see: From topmost golden spray to lowest root, The whole is fruit. Well have ye wrought, And in your honor now shall incense rise. The oaken chair, the cheerful blaze, invite Calm meditation, while the flickering light Casts strange, fantastic shadows on the wall, Where goodly tomes, with ample lading fraught Of gold of wit and gems of fancy rare, Poet and sage, mute witnesses of all, Smile gently on me, as, with sober care, I reach the pipe and thoughtfully prepare The sacrifice.

Awake, my soul! 't is time thou wert awaking! For radiant spirits, innocent and fair, Walking beside thee, hovering in the air Adown the past, thronging thy future way, Wait but thy calling and the thraldom's breaking, Which, all unworthily, to sense hath bound thee, To bless thy days and make the night around thee As bright and beautiful and fair as day. Call thou on these, my soul, and fix thee there! Name nought divine which hath not godlike in it; And if thou burnest incense, let it be That of the heart, enkindled thankfully; And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, Nor let it poison all thy sight forever; Whate'er thou hast to do of worth, begin it, Nor leave the issue free to any doubt, Forgetting never what thou art, and never Whither thou goest, to the far Forever. And then shall gentle Memory, pointing back, Show blessings scattered all along thy track; And bright-robed Hope, shaming thy dreams of youth, Shall lead thee up from dreaming to the truth; And Fancy, leaving every meaner thing, Shall see fulfilled each bright imagining. Then shall the ashes of thy musing be Only the ashes of thy naughtiness; The smoke, the remnant of thy vanity And thorny passions, which entangled thee Till thou didst pray deliverance; the clay, That empty clay e'en, hath a power to bless,-- Empty for that a gem hath passed away, To shine forever in eternal day.

HALCYON DAYS.

"Peace and good-will."

Who hath enchanted Goliath? He sleeps with a smile on his face, but his secret is hid from the charmer. The treacherous will looks abashed on the calm of his slumber, and laments, "The thing that I would I do not!"

Now while the halcyon broods through the Sabbath-days of winter, and, looking from her nest, sees the waves of a summer calm and brightness,--now while she meditates, with the eggs under her wings, of a fast-approaching time when she shall teach her song to the little flock that's coming,--let us also dream. The thing that hath been shall be. Contentment, peace, and love! Fairy folk shall not personate this blessedness for us. Who is your next-door neighbor? One face shines serenely before me, and says, "The world is redeemed!" One voice, sounding clear through all discords, has an echo, fine, true, and eternal, in the midst of the Seraphim's praise.

Therefore, thou blue-winged halcyon, shall I sit beneath the dead sycamore in whose topmost branches thy great nest is built,--finding death crowned here, as everywhere, with life; here shall be told the Christmas tale of contentment, peace, and love.

No tremulous tale of sorrow, of wrong endured and avenged; no report of that Orthodox anguish which, renouncing the present, hopes only by the hereafter; no story of desperate heroic achievement, or of long-suffering patience, or even of martyrdom's glory. The sea is calm, and the halcyon broods, and only love is eternal.

Let us not stint thee, as selfishness must; nor shame thee with praise inadequate; nor walk with shod feet, as the base-bred, into thy palaces; nor as the weak, nor as the wise, who so often profane thee, but as the loving who love thee, holy Love, may we take thy name on our lips, and lay our gift on thine altar! It is a Christmas offering, fashioned, however rudely, from an absolute truth. If thou deem the ointment precious, when I break the unjewelled box, I pour it on thy feet. Let others crown, I would only refresh thee.

Children play on this white, shining, sandy beach, under the leafless sycamore; they look for no shade, they would find no shade; there is neither rock, nor shrub, nor evergreen-tree,--nothing but the white sand, and the dead sycamore, and in the topmost branches the halcyon's great nest.

Is it not a place for children? A little flourish of imagination, and we see them,--Silas, who beats the drum, and Columbia, who carries the flag, manifest leaders of the wild little company, mermen and mermaids all; and the music is fit for the Siren, and the beauty would shame not Venus.

Suppose we stroll home to their fathers, like respectable earth-keeping creatures: the depths of human hearts have sometimes proved full of mystery as the sea; and human faces sometimes glisten with a majesty of feeling or of thought that reduces ocean-splendor to the subordinate part of a similitude.

There is Andrew, father of Silas,--Andrew Swift, says the sign. He dwells in Salt Lane, you perceive, and he deals in ship-stores,--a husband and father by no means living on sea-weed. A yellow-haired little man, shrewd, and a ready reckoner. Of a serious turn of mind. Deficient in self-esteem; his anticipations of the most humble character. A sinner, because fearful and unbelieving: for what right has a man to be such a man as to inspire himself with misgiving? But his offences offset each other: for, if he doubted, Andrew was also obstinate. And obstinacy alone led him into ventures whose failure he expected: as when he laid out the savings of years in the purchase of goods, wherewith he opened those ship-stores in Salt Lane. Ship-stores! that sounds well. One might suppose I referred to blocks of marble-faced buildings, instead of three shelves, three barrels, and their contents! The obstinacy of Andrew Swift was the foundation of his fortune. Men have built on worse.

His opposite neighbor was one Silas Dexter, a flag- and banner-maker, who went into business in Salt Lane sometime during that memorable year of Andrew's venture. Apparently this young man was no better off than Swift, between whom and himself a friendly intercourse was at once established; but he had the advantage of a quick imagination and a sanguine temperament; also the manly courage to look at Fortune with respectful recognition, as we all look at royalty,--even as though he had sometime been presented,--not with a snobbish conceit which would seem to defy her Highness.

Indeed, he was such a man as would find exhilaration of spirit even in the uncertainties of his position. The sight of his banners waving from the sign-post, showing all sorts of devices, the flags flowing round the walls of his shop, enlivening the little dark place with their many gorgeous colors, sufficed for his encouragement. Utter ruin could not have ruined the man. He could not have failed with failure. Some sense of this fact he had, and he lived like one who has had his life insured.

Not a creature looked upon him but was free to the good he might derive. The sparkling eyes, quick smile, and manly voice, the active limbs and generous heart, seemed at the service of every soul that breathed. Trashy thought and base utterance could not cheat his soul of her integrity; the vileness of Salt Lane had nothing to do with him.

And I cannot account for this by bringing his wife forward. For how came he by this wife, except by the excellence and soundness of the virtue which preferred her to the world, and made him preferred of her? Still, you see the ripe cherry, one half full, beautiful, luscious, the other a patch of skin stretched over the pit, worthless and sad to view. This, but for his choice and hers, might have served as an emblem of Dexter.

She was her husband's partner in a twofold sense: for it was DEXTER & CO. on the sign-board, and Jessie was represented by the Company. Of that woman I cannot refrain from saying what was so gracefully said of "the fair and happy milkmaid,"--"All the excellences stand in her so silently, as if they had stolen upon her without her knowledge."

The effect of these diverse influences, his wife Jessie in the house, and his neighbor Andrew to the opposite, kept the spirit of Silas Dexter at work like a ploughing Pegasus. He was full of pranks as a boy, but malice found poor encouragement of him. Andrew was his garden, and he was Andrew's sun: he shone across the lane with a brightness and a warmth sufficient to quicken the poorest earth; and the crops he perfected were various, all of the kind that flourish in heavy soil, but various and good. Do you think the good Samaritan could take the leprosy?

The sort of connection a man is bound to make between the everlasting spirit-world and this transient mortal state Dexter proved in his humble way. I doubt if spiritualists would have accepted his service as a medium. He was neither profane nor imbecile; but he sat at the foot of a ladder the pure ones could not fail to see, and by which they would not disdain to descend. If they chose to come his way, the white robes would take no taint.

Success attended Dexter with a modest grace, and Swift shared in the good fortune. I do not say the profits of either shop were forty millions a year. "Keep the best of everything," said Silas to Andrew; "don't be too hard on 'em; they'll come after they've found your way." And Swift proved the wisdom of such counsel, and tried to get the better of his grim countenance while waiting on the customers Dexter directed to his side: gradually succeeding,--proving down there in Salt Lane the truth of that ancient saying, "Art is the perfection of Nature."

So these two men lived like brothers; and if it was a pleasant thing to listen to Dexter's jokes and laughter, scarcely less profitable was it to hear Swift praise the flag- and banner-maker when he was out of sight.

Dexter's popularity had a varied character. Sea-captains and ship-builders, circus-men, a?ronauts, politicians, engineers, target-companies, firemen, the military, deputies of all sorts, looked over his goods, consulted his taste, left their orders. His interest in the several occupations represented by the men who frequented his shop, his ingenuity in devising designs, his skill and expedition in supplying orders, his cheerful speech, and love of talk, and fun, gave the shopman troops of "friends." He could read the common mass of men at a glance, and he was justifiable in the devices he made use of in order to bring his customers into the buying mood: for what he said was true,--they could satisfy themselves in his store, if anywhere.

Dexter understood himself, and Jessie understood him: such folk make no pretences; they are ineffably real.

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