BANKS OF THE POTOMAC.
No.—State-street—(storm without)—apartment strewed with sundry bachelor appurtenances, fronting on the Battery—a gentleman, in dressing-gown and embroidered slippers, measuring the room with hasty strides—exclaimeth impatiently—
North-east by the flags of the shipping in the bay! North-east by the chill rain dashing on the window panes! North-east by the weather-cocks on all the steeples, from St. Paul’s to the dog-vane on the stable end!North-eastby the ache of every bone in my body! Eheu! What’s to be done? No going abroad in this torrent. I’ve read all the landlady’s little library. How shall I kill the enemy? I’ll whistle; vulgar. Sing; I can’t. There are the foils and the gloves. Pshaw! I have no friend to pommel or pink; besides, the old lady in the room below, has nerves. Whew! how it pours. I’ll—I’ll—stand and look out into the street. Jupiter! how near the bread-cart came to going over the chimney sweep. Poor Sooty—how he grins! He owes the worm no silk—whatever obligations his rags may be under to the sheep. Poor fellow! Holloa! ho! blackey; catch this quarter, and get you a hot breakfast. There goes that confoundedbattery gate again! bang—bang—night and day. There’s never a loafer takes his morning promenade, or even siesta on the grass, but must needs follow his dirty face through that particular gate.
Alas! me miserable. What shall I do? The spirit of ennui rides me as thoroughly as did the “old man of the sea” Sinbad the sailor. Eh! they’re the dumb bells. Diminish nervous excitability, by muscular exertion. Good!—humph; and there’s the old lady’s nerves below. How the wind roars and rumbles round the chimney tops. Rain—rain—rain. There! that tin spout is choked, and the gutter is pouring over a young cataract. Oh! that I were a newspaper carrier, or a whale—or the sea serpent, chasing the down East fishermen—or—in short, any thing, so that I need not mind the wet. Hum—hum—what shall I do? I have it. Eureka! I have it. I’ll sit down and give my friend of the American an account of my last ramble.
(Rolleth his chair up to the table at the fire—crosseth his legs on the fender—and proceedeth to nib his pen.) Now for it. (Writes.)
You well recollect, my dear Mr. Editor, the arguments that I used, to induce you to make a short journey to the South with me last summer; and your answer, “I can’t leave the paper.” You well recollect that I urged that we were not born to work alone; that lifewas short; that sixteen or sixty, its term was but a flash; that we were rushing on with increased velocity to that bourne, whose sands are marked, by no returning foot-print—that bourne where the sceptre and diadem of the monarch lie contemptuously hurled with the goad and chain of the slave—where, their service ended, the broken wain of the yeoman, and the grim cannon of the soldier, interlock their shattered wheels; the bayonet and pruning-hook—the sword and the ploughshare rest without a name. You well recollect that I reproached you, the rather, with too great love for the green fields and giant elms around your cottage at Elizabethtown; that I swore by my faith! and I believed in the doctrine of Pythagoras, that I should look to see thy immortal part, transferred on its exit, from its present habitation to one of those huge trees towering into the blue ether; that there, in the sunny mornings of summer, for sonnets which do enliven thy columns, I should hear the joyous call of the robin—the shrill whistle of the scarlet oriole; for sparkling wit,—the dew of night glittering on thy leaves in the early sunbeams; for wise old saws, and dreamy legends, venerable moss gathering upon thy trunk and branches, while, alike in the evening wind or howling blast, thou shouldest stand firm against casuistry or dictation. “Wilt go? Wilt join me?”—with soft persuasion murmured I. “The paper—the paper—the pa—per,” quoth thou. “Presto,” quothI—and without more ado started in my usual heels-over-head fashion, alone on my journey.
I swept over the broad breast of the Delaware-dashed down the enemy insulted Chesapeake—bounded through the city of riots and beauty, and came down on my feet at the cottage of my whole-souled friend, Tom B——, on the banks of the Potomac. The afternoon of my arrival was warm and still, and every thing in nature, even the birds, seemed wrapped in indolent repose. Slowly sauntering through the long vistas of sycamores and elms, which adorned the grounds in picturesque avenues, the airy East Indian cottage of my friend suddenly broke upon my sight, peering from a whole load of flowering vines and sweet briars, tall white lilies, and moss roses, from thick beds of myrtle at their feet, climbing into the half open lattices, while two towering pines almost crossed their extended branches above its lowly roof. I stole quietly through the open door, examining the choice Italian landscapes hanging upon the walls of the airy grass-matted hall,—slid through the drawing-rooms, stopping for a moment to scan the crouching Venus and dying Gladiator on their pedestals; to admire the exquisite Magdalen of Carlo Dolce—the lovely Claude, the Cenci, and Flora beneath their silken tassels,—and coming out upon the verandah overlooking the river, suspended in his grass hammock, found master Tom, enjoying his luxurious siesta. His double-barrelled gunand game-bag—his linen shooting jacket, huge sombrero, and hunting-boots, were tumbled promiscuously in one corner of the piazza,—while half a dozen fine plover, turning up their plump breasts, a partridge, and some score of yellow-legged snipe, with the powder-flask and shot-belt, were thrown across the back of the rustic settee, trophies of his morning’s sport, beneath which, with their noses extended between their legs in like luxurious repose, lay the huge old Newfoundlander, “Bernard,” and his favourite pointer, “Soho.”
The mild breeze bore in the sweet perfume of the honey-suckle from a neighbouring arbour, and the broad Potomac, stretched tranquilly onwards, undisturbed save by the occasional jibe of the boom, or lazy creak of the rudder of some craft, reflected with her white sails upon its surface. The garden, with its white-gravelled walks, bordered with box, descended in parterres to the river’s edge—an embroidered carpet of flowers; and lemon and orange trees, released from their winter’s confinement, displayed their golden fruit, hanging amid the green leaves in tempting profusion. I bent over and looked into the hammock, and could not but admire the serenity of the manly features, the measured heave of the broad chest, and the masses of raven locks, playing around the white forehead of the sleeper, as they were slowly lifted by the play of the passing wind. I thought it were a sin to disturb him, so drawing out my cigar case, I stretched myself onthe settee at his side, complacently reclining my head upon its arm. Whiles watching the blue smoke of my “Regalia,” as it slowly wreathed and floated above my head—whiles watching the still dreamy flow of the river—and whiles—if I must confess it—cogitating which had been the wisest, myself the bachelor, or Tom the married man,—Tom, myself, the dogs, forming a tolerably correct picture ofstilllife,—a still life that remained unbroken for some half hour, when through the glass door of the drawing-room a beautiful boy of three or four years came galloping into the piazza, and bounding towards the dogs, threw himself full length upon the shaggy Newfoundlander, manfully striving to pull open his huge jaws with his little hands. The Newfoundlander opening his eyes, saw me, and raising himself on his legs, gave a low growl; while the child, relinquishing his hold upon the ears to which he had clung, as the dog rose to his feet, came slowly up to me, and placing his plump little hands upon my knee, looked curiously and inquiringly into my face, his golden locks falling in a profusion of ringlets down his superb sunburnt shoulders. I was charmed with the confidence, and innocence, and sweetness beaming from his gaze, and took him upon my knee, his hand playing with my watch guard, while his beautiful blue eyes remained fixed in the same look of curious inquiry on mine. I said it was a picture ofstilllife. Tom, aroused by the dog, slowly lifted his head over theedge of the hammock, rubbed his eyes as if uncertain whether he were in a dream, as I calmly and silently returned his astonished gaze, and then, with a single swing, was at my side, both of my hands clasped in his. The next moment, I fancy the picture was other thanstilllife.
Why should I tell you of the tea-table, loaded with delicacies in the matted hall, as the soft evening sun-set poured its last rays through it? of the symmetrical figure clad in snowy whiteness—the Grecian features, the dark Andalusian eyes, beaming with kindness from behind the glittering silver at its head? Why, that the youngster tied by the handkerchief in the high chair at his mother’s side, pertinaciously kicked his tiny red shoes about him in frolic glee, while my little knight of the golden locks, did the duty of the trencher at his father’s elbow? Why, that as the shades of evening faded into twilight, that the young gentry were snugly ensconced in their little bed, the mother’s soft cheek pressed against the forehead of the eldest as he lisped his evening prayer? and why, as soon “like twin roses on one stalk,” as they were wrapped in innocent slumber, we sat in the fading twilight, talking over old scenes and boyish recollections, retracing our steps back to those days which, softened by the lapse of time, appear divested of every thing save brightness and sunshine? why but to tell you that we were aroused from those retrospections, by the sound of the church-going bell, musically chiming in the distance.