In parlors of splendor, though beauty be glancing,Bright mirrors reflecting the fairy forms dancing,In banqueting halls, by the lily cheek glowing,With flush of the wine, in the silver cup flowing,Fair fingers disporting with musical sprite,And stealthily clipping the wings of the night;I’d hie to the home where the roses are dreaming,And Hope, from those eyes, on my spirit is beaming;I’d choose the still moonlight, thro’ vine-lattice stealing,The face that I love, in its beauty revealing.I’d list to the voice that is sweeter by farThan the tones of the lute or the heartless guitar.The accents of love all my spirit are fillingWith rapture subduing, yet blissful and thrilling.Alas! the kind minutes, unkindly are speeding,For joy or for sorrow, unstaying, unheeding,Oh! dearest, mine own one, wherever may beThispresence, my spirit ne’er parteth from thee.
In parlors of splendor, though beauty be glancing,Bright mirrors reflecting the fairy forms dancing,In banqueting halls, by the lily cheek glowing,With flush of the wine, in the silver cup flowing,Fair fingers disporting with musical sprite,And stealthily clipping the wings of the night;I’d hie to the home where the roses are dreaming,And Hope, from those eyes, on my spirit is beaming;I’d choose the still moonlight, thro’ vine-lattice stealing,The face that I love, in its beauty revealing.I’d list to the voice that is sweeter by farThan the tones of the lute or the heartless guitar.The accents of love all my spirit are fillingWith rapture subduing, yet blissful and thrilling.Alas! the kind minutes, unkindly are speeding,For joy or for sorrow, unstaying, unheeding,Oh! dearest, mine own one, wherever may beThispresence, my spirit ne’er parteth from thee.
In parlors of splendor, though beauty be glancing,Bright mirrors reflecting the fairy forms dancing,In banqueting halls, by the lily cheek glowing,With flush of the wine, in the silver cup flowing,Fair fingers disporting with musical sprite,And stealthily clipping the wings of the night;I’d hie to the home where the roses are dreaming,And Hope, from those eyes, on my spirit is beaming;I’d choose the still moonlight, thro’ vine-lattice stealing,The face that I love, in its beauty revealing.I’d list to the voice that is sweeter by farThan the tones of the lute or the heartless guitar.The accents of love all my spirit are fillingWith rapture subduing, yet blissful and thrilling.Alas! the kind minutes, unkindly are speeding,For joy or for sorrow, unstaying, unheeding,Oh! dearest, mine own one, wherever may beThispresence, my spirit ne’er parteth from thee.
In parlors of splendor, though beauty be glancing,
Bright mirrors reflecting the fairy forms dancing,
In banqueting halls, by the lily cheek glowing,
With flush of the wine, in the silver cup flowing,
Fair fingers disporting with musical sprite,
And stealthily clipping the wings of the night;
I’d hie to the home where the roses are dreaming,
And Hope, from those eyes, on my spirit is beaming;
I’d choose the still moonlight, thro’ vine-lattice stealing,
The face that I love, in its beauty revealing.
I’d list to the voice that is sweeter by far
Than the tones of the lute or the heartless guitar.
The accents of love all my spirit are filling
With rapture subduing, yet blissful and thrilling.
Alas! the kind minutes, unkindly are speeding,
For joy or for sorrow, unstaying, unheeding,
Oh! dearest, mine own one, wherever may be
Thispresence, my spirit ne’er parteth from thee.
The last words melted away in the most liquid melody. “Ah! he will sing her heart away!” thought Catharine, as the magical tone died, echo-like. “How ravishingly-sweet that was! and how adoringly Clara loves music!” She sat down and leaned her head upon her hand, thinking anxiously; then suddenly taking her pencil, wrote these words:
“Dear Clara,—Listen kindly, I entreat you, to a few words, which nothing but the most anxious solicitude for your interest could induce me to intrude upon you.“Are you sure that your father, that yourmotherwould approve so great an intimacy with one so much a stranger as Mr. Brentford? Be chary of your heart, I implore you. He may be all his very prepossessing appearance seems to claim, but remember, you do not know him.“Forgive these suggestions, at once so unwelcome and so reluctant, and believe that you have no sincerer friend thanCatharine Gregory.”
“Dear Clara,—Listen kindly, I entreat you, to a few words, which nothing but the most anxious solicitude for your interest could induce me to intrude upon you.
“Are you sure that your father, that yourmotherwould approve so great an intimacy with one so much a stranger as Mr. Brentford? Be chary of your heart, I implore you. He may be all his very prepossessing appearance seems to claim, but remember, you do not know him.
“Forgive these suggestions, at once so unwelcome and so reluctant, and believe that you have no sincerer friend than
Catharine Gregory.”
She folded the little note, and stepping across the hall, laid it on Clara’s table.
As she sat at the window, reading, the next morning, the trampling of horses in the court-yard attracted her notice. There sat Clara on her horse, Brentford encouraging her graceful timidity, and caressing the fiery animal on which she was mounted. Another moment and he, too, vaulted into the saddle, and away! Nobody knew better than Brentford that he looked no where so well as on a horse, and understood nothing so well as horsemanship. Mrs. Gregory admired them all, riders and horses, as they passed, looking so elegant, so excited, and so happy.
“Perhaps she did not observe my note,” thought she.
“Do they not look beautiful!” cried Alice, entering at that moment; “Clara’s riding-dress is so becoming to her perfect form. She sits like a queen. And then Brentford—I hardly know which to admire most, him or his horse—and that is saying a great deal.”
“Your comparison is very apt, Alice,” said her mother, laughing: “for Mr. Brentford’s beauty is very much of the same character as that of the noble brute he bestrides. They certainly are both extremely handsome.”
“Well, I wouldn’t care if he were as ugly as Caliban, if I could only ride his magnificent gray. Oh! if I were only old enough to be invited! But Imust to my quadratic equations! Oh, I had forgotten—this note Clara left for you.”
Mrs. Gregory hastily opened it, and read thus,
“Clara’s father is not in the habit of troubling himself with the inspection of her affairs; and Mrs. Gregory is entreated not to burden her mind with any undue solicitude.C. L. Gregory.””
“Clara’s father is not in the habit of troubling himself with the inspection of her affairs; and Mrs. Gregory is entreated not to burden her mind with any undue solicitude.
C. L. Gregory.””
The tears sprang to the step-mother’s eyes as she read these lines; but she brushed them away, for she heard footsteps at her door. It opened, and there stood Dr. Gregory himself. A right joyous meeting was there.
“And where are the children?” he asked.
“Alice left me but a moment ago, Neddie is in the garden, at play, I believe, and Clara has gone to ride.”
“To ride?—With whom?”
“With Mr. Brentford, a young man who came to town about the time you left, and has become somewhat intimate here. I should like to have you make his acquaintance.”
“Why, what is he?”
“You will see for yourself,” answered his wife, with a smile. “But you have told me nothing about your poor sister yet.”
It was not long before Dr. Gregory had an opportunity of meeting the stranger, and holding quite a long conversation with him in his own house.
“That is the man you spoke of?” said he abruptly to his wife, as the door closed on the visitor.
She assented.
“Aman, indeed, if hair and cloth can make one. It is a pity he hadn’t a brain inside his comely cranium.”
Clara flashed a vengeful glance on her step-mother, as the doctor thus characteristically uttered himself, and sailed majestically out of the room.
——
The last rays of a June sun were streaming into Clara’s chamber through the open window at which she sat.
“There goes father into his office!” she exclaimed. “He is alone. Now or never!” and snatching her sun-bonnet, she ran quickly down the stairs and across the garden to the little white vine-covered office that stood at its foot. A moment’s hesitation, as she laid her hand on the latch, and then, with a sudden air of resolution, she opened the door and went in. Her father, who sat at the window, reading, glanced at her as she entered, nodded slightly, and went on with his book.
Clara walked across the floor to the library, and searched it diligently. Yet her father did not ask her what she wanted. She rattled gently the bones of a skeleton that hung in the corner. Still he did not look up. She played a tattoo on the skull of a Hottentot. The imperturbable doctor moved not. So she went up to him and laid her hand on the back of his chair, saying,
“Have you a few minutes for me, father?”
“Oh yes, my dear. Can you wait till I finish this article?” So she leaned upon his chair, gazing out of the window, and wishing herself back in her room.
“Well, Clara, I am ready for you,” said her father at last, closing his book.
But she seemed to have nothing ready to say, and began to pull to pieces a stray branch of woodbine that looked in at the window.
“Why what is it, my child—do you want a new frock, or what?”
“No, sir. I want—I came to ask you—why the truth is, father, that I want to be married, and beg you to tell me yes, when I ask you if I may.”
“Want to bemarried!” cried the doctor, laughing immoderately. “Now I protest, of all the fooleries, that is the last I should have thought of the child’s asking for! Why, see here, dear—how long is it since you were romping about here, in short dresses, and short hair, and all that? Want to be married!” and he gazed at her with an incredulous smile.
“I am nearly seventeen,” observed Clara, with considerable dignity.
“Oh, indeed! I beg your pardon, madam!” exclaimed her father, in a tone of profound deference, at the same time seating her on his knee. “You want to be married. Now, what for, my little lady?”
“Why, I think, without it, neither I nor one other can ever be happy.”
“And who might that other individual be?”
“I dare not tell you, for you are prejudiced against him, and will refuse me.”
“Prejudiced, am I? What, do you opine, has prejudiced me?”
“I think you adopted the opinions of another before seeing him, and so were not prepared to judge justly.”
“Is it this Brentford, you mean?”
“Yes, sir,” replied the girl, coloring deeply, and turning away her head.
“And what do you suppose would make your happiness with him?”
“We love each other!”
“What is it that you love in him?”
“Why, he is so noble, so generous, so honorable.”
“Are you quite sure that is it, Clara? Or is it that he is so handsome, so genteel, so elegantly bearded, so devoted to you? But I will not keep you on the rack, my poor child. I will tell you at once, that it is not my wish that you should marry mortal man, be he who he may, till you come to years of discretion, which is not likely to be for four or five yet.
“You do not know, now, what you will want when your taste is fully formed, your character consolidated. I am convinced that this man who now captivates you so much, possesses none, or next to none, of the qualities necessary to secure your permanent happiness and elevation in the connection you desire. He is far from being the person to whose influence I should be willing to have you subject your whole future life. And, indeed, if he met my entire approval, I should be very reluctant to have you pledge yourself so early.
“Be not in haste to assume the cares and responsibilities of life, my dear child; they will come soon enough at furthest. I would have you a strong, right-minded, well-developed woman, before you take the station and duties of a woman. I would not suffer you to marry now, unless I were willing to risk the peace of your whole life, which I am far enough from being.” And he drew down her blushing cheek, and kissed it.
“Do you not suppose your lover would find another lady as much to his taste, should you reject him?”
“Never!” replied Clara, emphatically; “he has told me a hundred times that he never loved before, and he never should again.”
“Very well,” returned her father, with a quiet smile, “if he will give you bail for his reappearance here, four years from this day, I shallbe ready to listen to his proposals, if I am alive. But why did he not proffer his suit himself like a man, instead of pilfering your heart, and then sending you, poor, quailing thing, to ask the powers if he might have it!” A heavy frown lowered on Doctor Gregory’s brow, which his daughter hastened to dissipate, saying,
“Indeed, he would have seen you, but I preferred to, because—”
“Because what?”
“I thought you would be more willing to listen to me.”
“I hope I should be reasonable with any one. You understand my wishes, Clara, and no doubt, I may depend on your acquiescence in them. You need not trouble yourself any further about a marriage, till you are of age, at least. As to Mr. Brentford, I rely on your judgment and sense of propriety, my daughter, to direct your future conduct. Of course, you will discontinue any intimate friendship with him.
“I am heartily sorry to disappoint you, love, but I have not a doubt you will be infinitely happier in the end.”
Clara’s lip quivered, and her eyes were so full of tears she dared not close them, as she rose, and pulling her sun-bonnet over her face, glided out of the office and up the garden walk. She ran up the stairs to her room, turned the key, and burst into tears.
——
Weeks have passed, and young Clara Gregory sits again, alone, at that western window, pale and troubled. The letter which she holds in her hand is the secret of her perplexity.
“He still loves me, then! He cannot give me up! He is so miserable—am I not cruel to condemn to misery one whose only crime is loving me too well? How gently he hints it—dear Brentford! But then a secret marriage seems so mean. Father, too. Then I have refused once, so positively. Shall I recant? I that am so inflexible! Indeed I should be ashamed to; still nobody would know it but Brentford himself.
“I never did disobey my father in my life; still, as this letter says, I am the best judge what is necessary to my own happiness—and it concerns me only. Father did not consult my wishes about marrying himself, and so he could not help forgiving me if I should disregard his. Shall I shut myself up at home to see that detestable step-mother exult in her success in frustrating my plans? No, Brentford, no! She shall not exult, she shall know that there are no thanks to her that I am not yours. Yet, but for her, I do not believe father would ever have objected. I will not be thwarted byher! An elopement? What is that more than a thousand ladies have consented to? Some of the very most perfect that ever were imagined, too. Why should I set myself up above all the world in my puritanism? It is no such shocking thing, after all.
“But father relies upon my honor and sense of propriety; oh, well, he will be glad afterward, when he sees how happy I am, and will like me the better, perhaps, for showing a little of his own energy. It will be just the same in the end as though I were married at home, only a bit of romance about it.”
And so the girl went on, zealously persuading her willing self that nothing could be more excusable—justifiable—commendable, than for her to abscond from her father’s house, and secretly to wed against his will.
“Yes, I come, Brentford!” she exclaimed aloud; and seizing a pen, she wrote and sealed a bond to that effect.
“Now I must go,” thought she, “for I have promised.”
That evening she asked her father’s permission to go on a few weeks’ visit to her friend Arabella, who had recently returned to her home.
“Oh yes, my dear, I shall be glad to have you go and enjoy yourself as much as you can, and as fast, too, for we cannot spare you a long while.”
Clara’s cheek burned as she thanked him, and turned away, for she knew he little imagined how long or how eventful was the absence she contemplated.
They thought she seemed strangely sad and agitated the next morning, as she bade them adieu to start on her excursion. Her sister felt a tear drop on her hand, as Clara embraced her and whispered,
“Good bye, dear,dearAlice!”
How anxious she seemed to do every little kindness for her father that morning, how solicitous to please him in all things! When he bade her “good morning,” she seemed to wait for him to say something more; but he only added,
“Be a good girl, my daughter.”
What a rush of emotions crowded each other through her mind, when she found herself seated among strangers in the railway car, speeding away like the wind from that sweet home, and the lifelong friends who loved her as themselves; from the grave of her mother—whither? To the arms of one of whose very existence she had been ignorant but a few weeks ago! For his sake she had forsaken those tried and precious friends—had parted from them with alieupon her lips. To him she was about to giveherself.
Perhaps a painful doubt crossed her mind of the honor of one who could demand from one so young, so unadvised, such a sacrifice of truth, of duty, of home, just for his sake. Perhaps a query arose whether there was enough in him to compensate for all she lost—whether the charm of his society would last through all the vicissitudes of life.
An old man sat before her, and from every wrinkle of his time-worn visage, a quiet tone seemed to ask her,
“Will your heart still cling to its hero when the rust of poverty is on his shining garments, and care has furrowed his fair forehead, and his raven hair has grown gray, and his proud form bent, and his rich voice wasted and broken?”
She felt, too, like a fugitive; she fancied that people looked suspiciously at her. Especially was there an eye that vexed her; a black, piercing eye, that peered out from a pale face through a mourning veil. It looked as though it might read the inmost secrets of one’s heart—and its frequent gaze became almost insupportable to Clara.
But they were rapidly approaching Burrill Bridge, the station where her lover had promised to join her. How intently she gazed from the window, as the Iron Horse began to halt, and the conductor shouted “Burrill Bridge!”
There he stood, as distinguished as ever among the crowd. She felt a thrill of pride as she marked the involuntary deference with which the throng made way for his lofty form, and said within herself, “He is mine!”
With him once more at her side, listening to his fascinating tones, she felt that she was in little danger of making too great a sacrifice for him; she reproached herself that she had ever faltered. Still she felt guilty and unsafe, startled at every new entrance; and it was with an emotion of dread that she glanced toward the stranger, whose observation had been so oppressive to her. But her eye brightened with an expression of relief as it caught the wave of her black garments passing into another car.
After a long, long ride of nearly forty-eight hours, they stopped.
“Oh! how far I am from dear, quiet Vernon, in this great, strange city!” thought Clara. But her heart fluttered as she heard Brentford order the hackman to “drive to —— church.”
“You shall be mine before we rest,” he whispered to her. Before another hour had passed, the solemn, irrevocable words were spoken which sealed her destiny! She felt their momentous import as she never had before.
A little group of loiterers in the vestibule gazed curiously at them as they passed out, and behind them Clara saw the same black eye that had annoyed her so much on the journey. Why shouldshebe there, in the sultry noon, from the dust and weariness of travel?
——
That same afternoon the bride sat alone in her room in a fashionable hotel. A tap at her door—it is that stranger of the black eye and mourning dress. Though amazed and not altogether pleased, Clara invited her to a seat.
“I think, ma’am, you were married this morning in —— church, to Mr. Bernal Brentford?”
Clara assented, with a faint blush.
“I could not tell you, if I should try, how sorry I am to blast your happiness; but perhaps you will be thankful to me sometime. I must tell you that he, who has just wedded you,is the husband of another. Mr. Brentford has been, for four years, a married man!”
Clara stared at the woman in blank amazement, as though she did not comprehend what monstrous tale she was trying to make her believe.
At last, however, she seemed to understand, and with a sudden burst of indignation, and flashing eyes, she exclaimed,
“Who are you, thatdaresay such a thing? It is false! I know it is false! Brentford is true—he is honorable. I say, how dare you come here with that foul, despicable slander against him, my noble husband?”
She stood directly before her visitant, and clasped her cold hands together very tightly, that she might not seem to tremble. The black eyes looked mournfully and steadily on her, as the stranger replied,
“Poor girl! I dare come here and tell you this, because I know it is the truth, and I would save an innocent young fellow-being from disgrace and misery. I know one who, five years ago, was as light-hearted a creature as ever trilled a song. Then she met Bernal Brentford. He flattered her. He sang with her. He said he loved her. He took her away from her happy, happy home in the sunny south, and carried her to the city. There he squandered her fortune, and deserted her.
“Could I be human and suffer another poor heart to be murdered in this same way?”
As she spoke she drew a paper from her pocket, and handed it to Clara, who had sunk down into a chair, pale and speechless. She took it, and opened it mechanically. It was a record of the marriage of Bernal Brentford and Bertha Vale, signed and attested in due form. She read it, again and again, then said, suddenly,
“How do I know that this is genuine?”
“There are witnesses, to whom you can refer, if you care to. The means of proof are ample.”
Clara’s ear caught the sound of a well-known footfall on the stairs.
“Youare Bertha Vale?” said she.
“Yes.”
“Sit in that recess, and be silent.”
Summoning all the fortitude of her nature, Clara resumed the book which she had dropped on the entrance of the stranger, and threw herself, in a careless attitude, on the sofa. She was glad of its support—for it seemed to her she should sink to the ground. Brentford entered, and approached her with some playful speech. But as he crossed the floor, his eye fell on the shadow of the figure in the recess. He looked at it and stood aghast. Then in a voice tremulous with passion, he cried,
“How on earth came you here?”
She made no reply, and Clara said, very calmly,
“Why should the lady not be here? She called to see me.”
“You called to see her!” he exclaimed, advancing toward the intruder, and glaring fiercely on her, “You shall not see her, you shall not speak a word to her! Get you hence!”
She rose, saying simply, “I am ready to go.”
“I tell you, Bertha Vale,” hissed her husband in her ear, “if you ever cross my path again, you shallbitterlyrue it!”
Her eye fixed itself unwaveringly on his as he spoke, while her small hand freed her arm from the grasp he had taken on it. She did not speak, and casting one pitying glance on Clara, glided out of the room. Brentford stared after her as she went, then walked to the window, to see, apparently, whether she went into the street. There he stood, motionless, for several minutes, then, placing himself, with folded arms, before the faded form upon the sofa, demanded,
“What did she say to you?”
She raised her pallid face from the hands in which it had been hidden, and said sorrowfully,
“I cannot tell what she did say, but she made me know that I have been deceived, and I want to go home.
“Yes, yes, I must go home,” she murmured to herself.
“No, no, she lied, I say. You shall not go—would you go and desert your own Brentford, dearest?”
“You are not mine,” said she, putting away the arm with which he would have encircled her, “you are another woman’s. I want to go home.”
She raised herself and strayed toward the table, where her bonnet lay. Brentford sprang after her and seized her hand, pouring forth a torrent of remonstrance, denial, invective, and command, in the utmost confusion. But Clara’s inexorable will was, for once, her good angel; and, whether he raved or implored, she was still firm. Although so weak and trembling that she could hardly support herself, she suffered him to see nothing but cold, strong resolve; but as she opened the door to go, and saw his look of dark despair, she hesitated, and gave him her hand, saying—
“I do forgive you, Brentford.”
But the gleam of hope that shot into his eyes admonished her, and she quickly shut the door and ran down stairs, without stopping to think, and was soon seated in a carriage and rattling rapidly away.
——
How like an angel’s sigh of loving pity that summer’s wind breathed on the cheek of the sufferer! How kindly the crimson sunset clouds tried to shed their own glow on its pallor, and even to fill with light the tear that glittered on it. The blush roses, too, that swayed to and fro at the open window, vied with each other who should kiss the thin, white hand that rested on the sill; and her sad eyes beamed forth a grateful blessing on them all, as she lay there, like a child, in her father’s arms.
His face bore a strange contrast to the mournful gentleness of hers; for his dark, heavy brows were knit, and his lips compressed, as though in anger; yet that firm lip quivered, as he said, tenderly—
“How much you have suffered, my poor child! No wonder that it has made you sick and delirious!”
“I have suffered no more than I deserved,” murmured Clara.
“But how did the man try to extenuate his villany?” exclaimed her father, with a sudden flash of indignation from his dark eyes.
“Don’t speak harshly, dear father?” whispered she. “He confessed, at last, that he was married, but said he had long ceased to love; and then, he loved me—so madly!”
A smile of pure scorn curled Doctor Gregory’s lip, and he clasped his child closer in his arms, as he exclaimed—
“Thank God, my daughter, you are safe in your father’s arms once more!”
“Oh, I am thankful,” said Clara, earnestly, raising her tearful eyes to her father’s face, “and I do hope that I may be a better child to you than I have ever been. I have been proud and selfish, but I do think that I am humbled now. Ah! how much I owe you, my father, to atone for the grief I have caused you. It seems to me, now, so strange that I could be so undutiful! I lived long in those few days I was absent from you—and, then,” she added, hesitating, “there is another thing for which I ought to make a long and sad confession—I have been most unkind to her you gave me in my mother’s stead. I have felt it all as I have lain upon my bed, and watched her noiseless footsteps stealing about, ministering to me. I have suffered for it as I have felt her cool, soft hand upon my burning forehead—and, most of all, have I repented it, as I have noticed the beautiful delicacy with which she avoids the most remote allusion to my ingratitude and folly.”
“God bless you, my child!” breathed Doctor Gregory, with deep emotion. “I trusted long to your good sense to correct the evil which I so much mourned. I pitied you—for I knew, but too well, whence you inherited the self-will that was your bane. But your heart is the victor, at last,” and a glow of satisfaction lighted his countenance, as he bowed his manly head to kiss the sweet face that rested on his breast. “But you will have great disappointment and loneliness to sustain, my dear Clara. I fear you will be very unhappy.”
Clara gazed cheerfully and seriously into her father’s face as she replied—
“I think I have learned to be happy in the love of home, and I shall delight in trying to repay the long forbearance and gentleness of myStep-Mother.”
SHAWLS.
———
FROM HOUSEHOLD WORDS.
———
In that part of Asia, where some of our brave countrymen have penetrated only to die—in that country where Charles Stoddart and his friend Conolly, whose faces will never be forgotten by some of us, and whose voices still sound in our ears, consoled each other through a loathsome imprisonment, and went out together to lose their heads in the market-place of the capital; in that distant and impracticable country of Bokhara, which we are ready to say we will never have any connection with—there are people always employed in our service. We are not now thinking of the Bokhara clover, which is such a treat to our cows and horses. We owe that, and lucerne, and others of our green crops, to the interior of Asia; but we are thinking of something more elaborate. In Bokhara, the camel is watched while the fine hair on the belly is growing: this fine hair is cut off so carefully that not a fibre is lost; it is put by until there is enough to spin into a yarn, unequalled for softness, and then it is dyed all manner of bright colors, and woven in strips eight inches wide of shawl patterns, such as—with all our pains and cost, with all our Schools of Design, and study of nature and art—we are not yet able to rival. These strips are then sewn together so cunningly that no European can discover the joins. The precious merchandise is delivered to traders who receive it on credit. On their return from market, they pay the price of the shawls at the Bokhara value, with 30 per cent. interest; or, if they cannot do this in consequence of having been robbed, or of any other misfortune, they stay away, and are never seen again in their native land.
Where is this market?—So far away from home that the traders wear out their clothes during their journey, and their fair skins become as brown as mulattoes. On, on, on they go, day after day, month after month, on their pacing camels or beside them, over table-lands mounting one above another; over grass, among rocks, over sand, through snows; now chilled to the marrow by icy winds; now scorched by sunshine, from which there is no shelter but the flat cotton caps with which they thatch their bare crowns: on, on, for fifteen thousand miles, to the borders of Russia, to sell the shawls which are to hang on ladies’ shoulders in Hyde Park, and where beauties most do congregate in Paris and Vienna.
The passion for shawls among all women everywhere is remarkable. In one country, the shawl may flow from the head like a veil; in another, it hangs from the shoulders; in another, it is knotted round the loins as a sash; in yet another, it is swathed round the body as a petticoat. Wherever worn at all, it is the pet article of dress. From a time remote beyond computation, the sheep of Cashmere have been cherished on their hills, and the goats of Thibet on their plains, and the camels of Tartary on their steppes, to furnish material for the choicest shawls. From time immemorial, the patterns which we know so well have been handed down in a half-sacred tradition through a Hindoo ancestry, which puts even Welsh pedigrees to shame. For thousands of years have the bright dyes, which are the despair of our science and art, been glittering in Indian looms, in those primitive pits under the palm-tree, where the whimsical patterns grow like the wildflower springing from the soil. For thousands of years have Eastern potentates made presents of shawls to distinguished strangers, together with diamonds and pearls.
At this day, when an Eastern prince sends gifts to European sovereigns, there are shawls to the value of thousands of pounds, together with jewels, perfumes, and wild beasts, and valuable horses; just as was done in the days of the Pharaohs, as the paintings on Egyptian tombs show us at this day. And the subjects of sovereigns have as much liking for shawls as any queen. At the Russian Court, the ladies judge one another by their shawls as by their diamonds. In France, the bridegroom wins favor by a judicious gift of this kind. In Cairo and Damascus, the gift of a shawl will cause almost as much heart-burning in the harem as the introduction of a new wife. In England, the daughter of the house spends the whole of her first quarter’s allowance in the purchase of a shawl. The Paris grisette and the London dressmaker go to their work with the little shawl pinned neatly at the waist. The lost gin-drinker covers her rags with the remnants of the shawl of better days. The farmer’s daughter buys a white cotton shawl, with a gay border, for her wedding; and it washes and dyes until, having wrapped all her babies in turn, it is finally dyed black to signalize her widowhood. The maiden aunt, growing elderly, takes to wearing a shawl in the house in mid-winter; and the granny would no more think of going without it at any season than without her cap. When son or grandson comes home from travel, far or near, his present is a new shawl, which she puts on with deep consideration, parting with the old one with a sigh. The Manchester or Birmingham factory-girl buys a gay shawl on credit, wears it on Sunday, puts it in pawn on Monday morning, and takes it out again on Saturday night for another Sunday’s wear, and so on, until she has wasted money that would have bought her a good wardrobe. Thus, from China round the world to Oregon, and from the queen down to the pauper, is the shawl the symbol of woman’s taste and condition. Whence come all these shawls? For it is clear that the supply which arrives from Asia—over bleak continents and wideoceans—can only be for the rich and great. Some of the shawls from Bokhara sell, in the market on the Russian frontier, for two thousand four hundred pounds each. Whence come the hundred thousand shawls that the women of Great Britain purchase every year?
Some of the richest that our ladies wear are from Lyons; and the French taste is so highly esteemed, that our principal manufacturers go to Lyons once or twice a year for specimens and patterns. Some of our greatest ladies of all, even the queen and certain duchesses and countesses offer to our chief manufacturers a sight of their treasures from India, their Cashmeres and other shawls, from a patriotic desire for the improvement of our English patterns. From these, the manufacturers of Norwich and Paisley devise such beautiful things that, but for the unaccountable and unrivaled superiority of the Orientals in the production of this particular article, we should be all satisfaction and admiration. The common cotton shawls, continually lessening in number, worn by women of the working-classes, are made at Manchester, and wherever the cotton manufacture is instituted. In order to study the production of British shawls in perfection, one should visit the Norwich or Paisley manufactures.
If any article of dress could be immutable, it would be the shawl—designed for eternity in the unchanging East—copied from patterns which are the heirloom of a caste—and woven by fatalists, to be worn by adorers of the ancient garment, who resent the idea of the smallest change. Yet has the day arrived which exhibits the manufacture of three distinct kinds of shawls in Paisley. There is the genuine woven shawl with its Asiatic patterns; and there is that which is called a shawl for convenience, but which has nothing Asiatic about it: the tartan—which name is given not only to the checks of divers colors which signify so much to the Scottish eye, but to any kind of mixed or mottled colors and fabric—woven in squares or lengths to cover the shoulder. The third kind is quite modern: the showy, slight and elegant printed shawl, derived from Lyons, and now daily rising in favor. The woven kind is the oldest in Paisley. The tartan kind was introduced from Stirlingshire—without injury to Stirlingshire—which makes as many as ever, but to the great benefit of Paisley. The printed kind has been made about six years, and it is by far the greatest and most expanding manufacture. The most devoted worshipers of the genuine shawl can hardly wonder at this, considering the love of change that is inherent in ladies who dress well, and the difference of cost. A genuine shawl lasts a quarter of a lifetime. Ordinary purchasers give from one pound to ten pounds for one, and can give more if they desire a very superior shawl: a process which it is not convenient to repeat every two or three years. The handsomest printed shawls, meantime, can be had for two pounds, and they will last two years; by the end of which time, probably, the wearer has a mind for something new. The time required for the production answers pretty accurately to these circumstances. It takes a week to weave a shawl of the genuine sort—in the same time, ten or twelve of the tartan or plaid, and twenty or thirty of the printed can be produced.
The processes employed for these three kinds of shawls are wholly different; and we will therefore look at them separately, though we saw them, in fact, under the same roof. As for the tartan shawls, there is no need to enlarge upon them, as their production is much like that of any other kind of variegated cloth. We need mention only one fact in regard to them, which is, however, very noticeable, the recent invention of a machine by which vast time and labor are saved. As we all know, the fringes of cloth shawls are twisted—some threads being twisted together in one direction, and then two of these twists being twisted in the opposite direction. Till a month ago this work was done by girls, in not the pleasantest way, either to themselves or the purchaser, by their wetting their hands from their own mouths, and twisting the threads between their palms. The machine does, in a second of time, the work of fourteen pairs of hands; that is, as two girls attend it, there is a saving of twelve pairs of hands and some portion of time, and the work is done with thorough certainty and perfection; whereas, under the old method, for one girl who could do the work well, there might be several who did it indifferently or ill. The machine—invented by Mr. Hutchinson—must be seen to be understood; for there is no giving an idea, by description, of the nicety with which the brass tongues rise to lift up the threads and to twist them; then throw them together, and rub them against the leather-covered shafts, which—instead of human palms—twist them in the opposite direction. In seeing this machine the old amazement recurs at the size, complication, and dignity of an instrument contrived for so simple a purpose. The dignity, however, resides not in the magnitude of the office, but in the saving of time and human labor.
Of the other two kinds of shawls, which shall we look at first? Let it be the true and venerable woven shawl.
The wool is Australian or German—chiefly Australian. It comes in the form of yarn from Bradford, in hanks which are any thing but white, so that they have first to be washed. Of the washing, dyeing, and warping we need not speak, as they are much the same to the observer’s—and therefore to the reader’s—eye as the preparation of yarns for carpets in Kendal, and of silk for ribbons in Coventry. While the washing and drying, and the dyeing and drying again, are proceeding, the higher labor of preparing the pattern is advancing.
But how much of the lower kind of work can be done during the slow elaboration of the higher? It really requires some patience and fortitude even to witness the mighty task of composing and preparing the pattern of an elaborate shawl. Let the reader study any three square inches of a good shawl border; let the threads be counted, and the colors, and the twists and turnings of the pattern, and then let it be remembered that the general form has to be invented,and the subdivisions, and the details within each form, and the filling up of the spaces between, and the colors—as a whole, and in each particular; and that, before the material can be arranged for the weaving, every separate stitch (so to speak) must be painted down on paper, in its right place. Is it not bewildering to think of?—Much more bewildering and imposing is it to see. As for the first sketch of the design, that is all very pretty; and, the strain on the faculties not being cognizable by the stranger, is easy enough.
There goes the artist-pencil—tracing waving lines and elegant forms, giving no more notion of the operations within than the hands of a clock do of the complication of the works. Formerly, the employers put two or three good foreign patterns into the artist’s hands, and said—“Make a new pattern out of these.” Now that we have schools of design, and more accessible specimens of art, the direction is given without the aids—“Make a new pattern,” and the artist sits down with nothing before him but pencil and paper—unless, indeed, he finds aids for himself in wild flowers, and other such instructors in beauty of form and color. By degrees, the different parts of the pattern shape themselves out, and combine—the centre groups with the ends, and the ends grow out into the sides with a natural and graceful transition. Then the portions, properly outlined, are delivered to the colorers, who cover the drawing with oiled paper, and begin to paint. It would not do to color the outlined drawing, because there are no outlines in the woven fabric. It is dazzling only to look upon. Much less minute is the transferring to the diced paper which is the real working pattern. The separate portions of the finished pattern of a single shawl, when laid on the floor, would cover the carpet of a large drawing-room. The taking down such a pattern upon paper occupies four months.
The weaving is done either by “lashing” or from Jacquard cards. The Jacquard loom answers for the eternal patterns, and the “lashing” method suffices for those which are not likely to be repeated. The man seated at the “piano-machine,” playing on a sort of keys from the colored pattern stuck up before his eyes, is punching the Jacquard cards, which are then transferred in their order to the lacing-machine, where they are strung together by boys into that series which is to operate upon the warp in the weaving, lifting up the right threads for the shuttle to pass under to form the pattern, as in other more familiar manufactures. The “lashing” is read off from the pattern, too, in the same way as with carpet patterns at Kendal; so many threads being taken up and interlaced with twine for a red stitch, and then so many more for a green, and so on. Boys then fasten each symbol of a hue to a netting of whipcord, by that tail of the netting which, by its knots, signifies that particular hue; so that, when the weaving comes to be done, the boy, pulling the symbolic cord, raises the threads of the warp—green, blue, or other—which are required for that throw of the shuttle. Thus the work is really all done before-hand, except the mere putting together of the threads; done, moreover, by any body but the weaver, who is—to say the truth—a mere shuttle-throwing machine. The poor man does not even see and know what he is doing. The wrong side of the shawl is uppermost—and not even such a wrong side as we see, which gives some notion of the pattern on the other. Previous to cutting, the wrong side of a shawl is a loose surface of floating threads of all colors; of the threads, in fact, which are thrown out of the pattern, and destined to be cut away and given to the papermakers to make coarse gray paper. One pities the weaver, who sits all day long throwing the shuttle, while the boy at the end of his loom pulls the cords which make the pattern, and throw up nothing but refuse to the eye. He has not even the relief of stopping to roll up what he has done; for a little machine is now attached to his loom, which saves the necessity of stopping for any such purpose. It is called “the up-taking motion.” By it a few little cogwheels are set to turn one another, and, finally, the roller, on which the woven fabric is wound as finished.
The bundles of weaving-strings and netting which regulate the pattern, are called “flowers.” From the quantity of labor and skill wrought up in their arrangement, they are very valuable. A pile of them, on a small table, were, as we were assured, worth one thousand pounds. We may regard each as the soul or spirit of the shawl—not creating its material, but animating it with character, personality, and beauty. We have said that it takes a man a week to weave a shawl: but this means a “long” shawl, and not a “square.” The square remain our favorites; but the female world does not seem to be of our mind. It is true the symmetry of the pattern is spoiled when the white centre hangs over one shoulder. It is true, the “longs” are heavy and very warm, from being twice doubled. But they have one advantage, which ladies hold to compensate for those difficulties; they can be folded to any size, and therefore to suit any figure—tall or short, stout or thin. We are assured that, for one square shawl that is sold, there are a hundred “longs.”
A capital machine now intervenes, with its labor-saving power; this time of French invention. Formerly, it took two girls a whole day to cut off the refuse threads from the back of a shawl. But this machine, superintended by a man, does it in a minute and a half. A horizontal blade is traversed by spiral blades fixed on a cylinder, the revolving of which gives to the blades the action of a pair of scissors. The man’s office is to put in the shawl, set the machine going, and to beat down the refuse as fast as it is cut off.
The upper surface of the shawl remains somewhat rough—rough enough to become soon a rather dirty article of dress, from the dust which it would catch up and retain. It is therefore smoothed by singing. This very offensive process is performed by a man who must have gone through a severe discipline before he could endure his business. He heats his iron (which is like a very large, heavyknife, turned up at the end) red hot, spreads the shawl on a table rather larger than itself, and passes the red-hot iron over the surface, with an even and not very rapid movement. What would that Egyptian dragoman have said, who, being asked to iron out an English clergyman’s white ducks, burned off the right leg with the first touch of his box-iron? That box-iron was not red-hot, nor any thing like it; yet there is no such destruction here. There is only the brown dust fizzing. Pah! that’s enough! let us go somewhere else.
In a light, upper room, women and girls are at work, sitting on low stools, each with a shawl stretched tightly over her knees. Some of these are darning, with the utmost nicety, any cracks, thin places, or “faults” in the fabric; darning each in its exact color. Some are putting silk fringes upon the printed shawls, tacking them in with a needle, measuring each length by eye and touch, and then knotting, or, as it is called, “netting” the lengths by cross-ties. One diminutive girl of nearly ten, is doing this with wonderful quickness, as she sits by her mother’s knee. The girls do not come to work before this age; nor the boys before twelve. In other rooms, women are seated at tables, or leaning over them, twisting the fringes of plaid shawls, or picking out knots and blemishes with pincers, and brushing all clean, and then folding them, with sheets of stiff pasteboard between, ready for the final pressure in the hydraulic press, which makes them fit for the shop.
The fabric for the printed shawls is light and thin, in comparison with the woven. The thinness is various; from the barège to the lightest gossamer that will bear the pressure of the block. The whole importance of the production consists in printing; for the fabric is simple and common enough. A man can weave ten yards per day of the barège; and the silk gauze, striped or plain, requires no particular remark.
The designing is done with the same pains and care as for the genuine shawl, but the range of subjects is larger. While something of the Oriental character of the shawl patterns must be preserved, much of the beauty of French figured silks and brocades and embroidery may be admitted. Thus the designing and coloring-rooms contain much that pleases the eye, though one does not see there the means and appliances which fill some apartment or another of Birmingham factories—the casts from the antique, the volumes of plates, the flower in water, and so on. The preparation of the blocks for printing, and yet more the application of them, reminded us of the paper-staining, which we had certainly never thought of before in connection with shawls. The wood used is lime-wood. Some of the blocks are chiseled and picked out, like those of the paper-stainer. The cast-blocks are more curious. A punch is used, the point or needle of which is kept hot by a flame, from which theworkman’s head is defended by a shield of metal. He burns holes by puncturing with this hot needle along all the outlines of the block he holds in his hands, much as a little child pricks outlines on paper on a horse-hair chair-bottom. There is a groove along the face of each block, to allow the metal to run in. The burned blocks are screwed tight in a press, their joined tops forming a saucer, into which the molten metal (composed of tin, bismuth and lead) is poured. In it goes, and down the grooves, penetrating into all the burnt holes; and, of course, when cool, furnishing a cast of the patterns desired, in the form of upright thorns or spikes on a metallic ground or plate. These plates are filed smooth at the back, and fixed on wood, and you have the blocks ready to print from; one representing one color, another another, and so on, till the plates for a single shawl of many colors may mount up in value to a very large sum.
Before printing, the fabric has been well washed; the barège being passed, by machinery, over cylinders which apply and squeeze out a wash of soap, soda, and glue. All roughness had previously been removed by a “cropping” machine. After drying, it comes to the printing-table, where it is treated much like a paper-hanging. This is all very well; but what is to be done in case of a shower of rain? a not improbable incident in the life of a shawl. A paper-hanging would not stand a driving rain. Are ladies imposed upon in this matter, when they are offered a gay-printed shawl as wearable out of doors? By no means. Nobody knows how it is, but the fact is certain, that a good steaming, at a tremendous heat, fixes the colors by some chemical action, without in the least hurting their lustre: so the shawls go into the steaming-box, and come out of it able to bear as many washings as you please, without any change of color. After drying, in a heat of one hundred and ten degrees, they go up stairs to be surveyed, fringed, folded and pressed.
It seems a pity that the fat, easy, lazy Bokharian, and the slim, lithe, patient Hindoo, should not come to Paisley, and see how shawls are made there. To the one, shaving his camel on the plain, and the other, throwing his antique shuttle under the palm, how strange would be the noise, and the stench, and the speed, and the numbers employed, and the amount of production! To the one, it may be the work of years to furnish to the traveling merchant strips of eight inches wide, enough to make a shawl; and to the other, the production of such an article is an event in life; while here, at Paisley, if the pattern requires months, the weaving of the most genuine and valuable kind occupies only a week. We do not believe that the simple and patient Oriental will be driven out of the market by us, because there is no promise, at present, of our overtaking their excellence. We hope there will be room in the world of fashion for them and us forever—(the “forever” of that world.) We shall not go back to their methods, and it is not very likely that they should come up to ours; so we shall probably each go on in our own way, which is what everybody likes best.