"We don't allow niggers to put on such airs," he said. "I'm your master. You've got to live with me; and you may as well make up your mind to it first as last."
He glowered at her savagely for a moment; and drawing from his pocket an embroidered slipper, he added,—
"Ever since I picked up this pretty thing, I've been determined to have you. I expected to be obliged to wait till Noble got tired of you, and wanted to take up with another wench; but I've had better luck than I expected."
At the sight of that gift of Alfred's in his hated hand, at the sound of those coarse words, so different fromhisrespectful tenderness, her pride broke down, and tears welled forth. Looking up in his stern face, she said, in tones of the deepest pathos,—
"Oh, Sir, have pity on a poor, unfortunate girl! Don't persecute me!"
"Persecute you?" he replied. "No, indeed, my charmer! If you'll be kind to me, I'll treat you like a princess."
He tried to look loving, but the expression was utterly revolting. Twelve years of unbridled sensuality had rendered his countenance even more disgusting than it was when he shocked Alfred's youthful soul by his talk about "Duncan's handsome wench."
"Come, my beauty," he continued, persuasively, "I'm glad to see you in a better temper. Come with me, and behave yourself."
She curled her lip scornfully, and repeated,—
"I will never live with you! Never!"
"We'll see about that, my wench," said he. "I may as well take you down a peg, first as last. If you'd rather be in the calaboose with niggers than to ride in a carriage with me, you may try it, and see how you like it. I reckon you'll be glad to come to my terms, before long."
He beckoned to two police-officers, and said, "Take this wench into custody, and keep her on bread and water, till I give further orders."
The jail to which Loo Loo was conveyed was a wretched place. The walls were dingy, the floor covered with puddles of tobacco-juice, the air almost suffocating with the smell of pent-up tobacco-smoke, unwashed negroes, and dirty garments. She had never seen any place so loathsome. Mr. Jackson's log-house was a palace in comparison. The prison was crowded with colored people of all complexions, and almost every form of human vice and misery was huddled together there with the poor victims of misfortune. Thieves, murderers, and shameless girls, decked out with tawdry bits of finery, were mixed up with modest-looking, heart-broken wives, and mothers mourning for the children that had been torn from their arms in the recent sale. Some were laughing, and singing lewd songs. Others sat still, with tears trickling down their sable cheeks. Here and there the fierce expression of some intelligent young man indicated a volcano of revenge seething within his soul. Some were stretched out drowsily upon the filthy floor, their natures apparently stupefied to the level of brutes. When Loo Loo was brought in, most of them were roused to look at her; and she heard them saying to each other, "By gum, dat ar an't no nigger!" "What fur dey fotchherhere?" "She be white lady ob quality,shebe."
The tenderly-nurtured daughter of the wealthy planter remained in this miserable place two days. The jailer, touched by her beauty and extreme dejection, offered her better food than had been prescribed in his orders. She thanked him, but said she could not eat. When he invited her to occupy, for the night, a small room apart from the herd of prisoners, she accepted the offer with gratitude. But she could not sleep, and she dared not undress. In the morning, the jailer, afraid of being detected in these acts of indulgence, told her, apologetically, that he was obliged to request her to return to the common apartment.
Having recovered somewhat from the stunning effects of the blow that had fallen on her, she began to take more notice of her companions. A gang of slaves, just sold, was in keeping there, till it suited the trader's convenience to take them to New Orleans; and the parting scenes she witnessed that day made an impression she never forgot. "Can it be," she said to herself, "that such things have been going on around me all these years, and I so unconscious of them? What should I now be, if Alfred had not taken compassion on me, and prevented my being sent to the New Orleans market, before I was ten years old?" She thought with a shudder of the auction-scene the day before, and began to be afraid that her friends could not save her from that vile man's power.
She was roused from her reverie by the entrance of a white gentleman, whom she had never seen before. He came to inspect the trader's gang of slaves, to see if any one among them would suit him for a house-servant; and before long, he agreed to purchase a bright-looking mulatto lad. He stopped before Loo Loo, and said, "Are you a good sempstress?"
"She's not for sale," answered the jailer. "She belongs to Mr. Grossman, who put her here for disobedience." The man smiled, as he spoke, and Loo Loo blushed crimson.
"Ho, ho," rejoined the stranger. "I'm sorry for that. I should like to buy her, if I could."
He sauntered round the room, and took from his pocket oranges and candy, which he distributed among the black picaninnies tumbling over each other on the dirty floor. Coming round again to the place where she sat, he put an orange on her lap, and said, in low tones, "When they are not looking at you, remove the peel"; and, touching his finger to his lip, significantly, he turned away to talk with the jailer.
As soon as he was gone, she asked permission to go, for a few minutes, to the room she had occupied during the night. There she examined the orange, and found that half of the skin had been removed unbroken, a thin paper inserted, and the peel replaced. On the scrap of paper was written: "When your master comes, appear to be submissive, and go with him. Plead weariness, and gain time. You will be rescued. Destroy this, and don't seem more cheerful than you have been." Under this was written, in Madame Labassé's hand, "Soyez tranquille, ma chère."
Unaccustomed to act a part, she found it difficult to appear so sad as she had been before the reception of the note. But she did her best, and the jailer observed no change.
Late in the afternoon, Mr. Grossman made his appearance. "Well, my beauty," said he, "are you tired of the calaboose? Don't you think you should like my house rather better?"
She yawned listlessly, and, without looking up, answered, "I am very tired of staying here."
"I thought so," rejoined her master, with a chuckling laugh. "I reckoned I should bring you to terms. So you've made up your mind not to be cruel to a poor fellow so desperately in love with you,— haven't you?"
She made no answer, and he continued: "You're ready to go home with me,—are you?"
"Yes, Sir," she replied, faintly.
"Well, then, look up in my face, and let me have a peep at those devilish handsome eyes."
He chucked her under the chin, and raised her blushing face. She wanted to push him from her, he was so hateful; but she remembered the mysterious orange, and looked him in the eye, with passive obedience. Overjoyed at his success, he paid the jailer his fee, drew her arm within his, and hurried to the carriage.
How many humiliations were crowded into that short ride! How she shrank from the touch of his soft, swabby hand! How she loathed the gloating looks of the old Satyr! But she remembered the orange, and endured it all stoically.
Arrived at his stylish house, he escorted her to a large chamber elegantly furnished.
"I told you I would treat you like a princess," he said; "and I will keep my word."
He would have seated himself; but she prevented him, saying, "I have one favor to ask, and I shall be very grateful to you, if you will please to grant it."
"What is it, my charmer?" he inquired. "I will consent to anything reasonable."
She answered, "I could not get a wink of sleep in that filthy prison; and I am extremely tired. Please leave me till to-morrow."
"Ah, why did you compel me to send you to that abominable place? It grieved me to cast such a pearl among swine. Well, I want to convince you that I am a kind master; so I suppose I must consent. But you must reward me with a kiss before I go."
This was the hardest trial of all; but she recollected the danger of exciting his suspicions, and complied. He returned it with so much ardor, that she pushed him away impetuously; but softening her manner immediately, she said, in pleading tones, "I am exceedingly tired; indeed I am!"
He lingered, and seemed very reluctant to go; but when she again urged her request, he said, "Good night, my beauty! I will send up some refreshments for you, before you sleep."
He went away, and she had a very uncomfortable sensation when she heard him lock the door behind him. A prisoner, with such a jailer! With a quick movement of disgust, she rushed to the water-basin and washed her lips and her hands; but she felt that the stain was one no ablution could remove. The sense of degradation was so cruelly bitter, that it seemed to her as if she should die for very shame.
In a short time, an elderly mulatto woman, with a pleasant face, entered, bearing a tray of cakes, ices, and lemonade.
"I don't wish for anything to eat," said Loo Loo, despondingly.
"Oh, don't be givin' up, in dat ar way," said the mulatto, in kind, motherly tones. "De Lord ain't a-gwine to forsake ye. Ye may jus' breeve what Aunt Debby tells yer. I'se a poor ole nigger; but I hab 'sarved dat de darkest time is allers jus afore de light come. Eat some ob dese yer goodies. Ye oughter keep yoursef strong fur de sake ob yer friends."
Loo Loo looked at her earnestly, and repeated, "Friends? How do you know Ihaveany friends?"
"Oh, I'se poor ole nigger," rejoined the mulatto. "I don't knows nottin'."
The captive looked wistfully after her, as she left the room. She felt disappointed; for something in the woman's ways and tones had excited a hope within her. Again the key turned on the outside; but it was not long before Debby reappeared with a bouquet.
"Massa sent young Missis dese yer fowers," she said.
"Put them down," rejoined Loo Loo, languidly.
"Whar shall I put 'em?" inquired the servant.
"Anywhere, out of my way," was the curt reply.
Debby cautioned her by a shake of her finger, and whispered, "Massa's out dar, waitin' fur de key. Dar's writin' on dem ar fowers." She lighted the lamps, and, after inquiring if anything else was wanted, she went out, saying, "Good night, missis. De Lord send ye pleasant dreams."
Again the key turned, and the sound of footsteps died away. Loo Loo eagerly untwisted the paper round the bouquet, and read these words: "Be ready for travelling. About midnight your door will be unlocked. Follow Aunt Debby with your shoes in your hand, and speak no word. Destroy this paper." To this Madame Labassé had added, "Ne craigner rien, ma chère."
Loo Loo's heart palpitated violently, and the blood rushed to her cheeks. Weary as she was, she felt no inclination to sleep. As she sat there, longing for midnight, she had ample leisure to survey the apartment. It was, indeed, a bower fit for a princess. The chairs, tables, and French bedstead were all ornamented with roses and lilies gracefully intertwined on a delicate fawn-colored ground. The tent-like canopy, that partially veiled the couch, was formed of pink and white striped muslin, draped on either side in ample folds, and fastened with garlands of roses. The pillow-cases were embroidered, perfumed, and edged with frills quilled as neatly as the petals of a dahlia. In one corner stood a small table, decorated with a very elegant Parisian tea-service for two. Lamps of cut glass illumined the face of a large Pscyche mirror, and on the toilet before it a diamond necklace and ear-rings sparkled in their crimson velvet case. Loo Loo looked at them with a half-scornful smile, and repeated to herself:
"He bought me somewhat high;Since with me came a heart he couldn't buy."
She lowered the lamps to twilight softness, and tried to wait with patience. How long the hours seemed! Surely it must be past midnight. What if Aunt Debby had been detected in her plot? What if the master should come, in her stead? Full of that fear, she tried to open the windows, and found them fastened on the outside. Her heart sank within her; for she had resolved, in the last emergency, to leap out and be crushed on the pavement. Suspense became almost intolerable. She listened, and listened. There was no sound, except a loud snoring in the next apartment. Was it her tyrant, who was sleeping so near? She sat with her shoes in her hand, her eyes fastened on the door. At last it opened, and Debby's brown face peeped in. They passed out together,—the mulatto taking the precaution to lock the door and put the key in her pocket. Softly they went down stairs, through the kitchen, out into the adjoining alley. Two gentlemen with a carriage were in attendance. They sprang in, and were whirled away. After riding some miles, the carriage was stopped; one of the gentlemen alighted and handed the women out.
"My name is Dinsmore," he said. "I am uncle to your friend, FrankHelper. You are to pass for my daughter, and Debby is our servant."
"And Alfred,—Mr. Noble, I mean,—where is he?" asked Loo Loo.
"He will follow in good time. Ask no more questions now."
The carriage rolled away; and the party it had conveyed were soon on their way to the North by an express-train.
It would be impossible to describe the anxiety Alfred had endured from the time Loo Loo became the property of the cotton-broker until he heard of her escape. From motives of policy he was kept in ignorance of the persons employed, and of the measures they intended to take. In this state of suspense, his reason might have been endangered, had not Madame Labassé brought cheering messages, from time to time, assuring him that all was carefully arranged, and success nearly certain.
When Mr. Grossman, late in the day, discovered that his prey had escaped, his rage knew no bounds. He offered one thousand dollars for her apprehension, and another thousand for the detection of any one who had aided her. He made successive attempts to obtain an indictment against Mr. Noble; but he was proved to have been distant from the scene of action, and there was no evidence that he had any connection with the mysterious affair. Failing in this, the exasperated cotton-broker swore that he would have his heart's blood, for he knew the sly, smooth-spoken Yankee was at the bottom of it. He challenged him; but Mr. Noble, notwithstanding the arguments of Frank Helper, refused, on the ground that he held New England opinions on the subject of duelling. The Kentuckian could not understand that it required a far higher kind of courage to refuse than it would have done to accept. The bully proclaimed him a coward, and shot at him in the street, but without inflicting a very serious wound. Thenceforth he went armed, and his friends kept him in sight. But he probably owed his life to the fact that Mr. Grossman was compelled to go to New Orleans suddenly, on urgent business. Before leaving, the latter sent messengers to Savannah, Charleston, Louisville, and elsewhere; exact descriptions of the fugitives were posted in all public places, and the offers of reward were doubled; but the activity thus excited proved all in vain. The runaways had travelled night and day, and were in Canada before their pursuers reached New York. A few lines from Mr. Dinsmore announced this to Frank Helper, in phraseology that could not be understood, in case the letter should be inspected at the post-office. He wrote: "I told you we intended to visit Montreal; and by the date of this you will see that I have carried my plan into execution. My daughter likes the place so much that I think I shall leave her here awhile in charge of our trusty servant, while I go home to look after my affairs."
After the excitement had somewhat subsided, Mr. Noble ascertained the process by which his friends had succeeded in effecting the rescue. Aunt Debby owed her master a grudge for having repeatedly sold her children; and just at that time a fresh wound was rankling in her heart, because her only son, a bright lad of eighteen, of whom Mr. Grossman was the reputed father, had been sold to a slave-trader, to help raise the large sum he had given for Loo Loo. Frank Helper's friends, having discovered this state of affairs, opened a negotiation with the mulatto woman, promising to send both her and her son into Canada, if she would assist them in their plans. Aunt Debby chuckled over the idea of her master's disappointment, and was eager to seize the opportunity of being reunited to her last remaining child. The lad was accordingly purchased by the gentleman who distributed oranges in the prison, and was sent to Canada, according to promise. Mr. Grossman was addicted to strong drink, and Aunt Debby had long been in the habit of preparing a potion for him before he retired to rest. "I mixed it powerful, dat ar night," said the laughing mulatto; "and I put in someting dat de gemmen guv to me. I reckon he waked up awful late." Mr. Dinsmore, a maternal uncle of Frank Helper's, had been visiting the South, and was then about to return to New York. When the story was told to him, he said nothing would please him more than to take the fugitives under his own protection.
Mr. Noble arranged the wreck of his affairs as speedily as possible, eager to be on the way to Montreal. The evening before he started, Frank Helper waited upon Mr. Grossman, and said: "That handsome slave you have been trying so hard to catch is doubtless beyond your reach, and will take good care not to come within your power. Under these circumstances, she is worth nothing to you; but for the sake of quieting the uneasiness of my friend Noble, I will give you eight hundred dollars to relinquish all claim to her."
The broker flew into a violent rage. "I'll see you both damned first," he replied. "I shall trip 'em up yet. I'll keep the sword hanging over their cursed heads as long as I live. I wouldn't mind spending ten thousand dollars to be revenged on that infernal Yankee."
Mr. Noble reached Montreal in safety, and found his Loo Loo well and cheerful. Words are inadequate to describe the emotions excited by reunion, after such dreadful perils and hairbreadth escapes. Their marriage was solemnized as soon as possible; but the wife being an article of property, according to American law, they did not venture to return to the States. Alfred obtained some writing to do for a commercial while Loo Loo instructed little girls in dancing and embroidery. Her character had strengthened under the severe ordeals through which she had passed. She began to question the rightfulness of living so indolently as she had done. Those painful scenes in the slave-prison made her reflect that sympathy with the actual miseries of life was better than weeping over romances. She was rising above the deleterious influences of her early education, and beginning to feel the dignity of usefulness. She said to her husband, "I shall not be sorry, if we are always poor. It is so pleasant to helpyou, who have done so much forme! And Alfred, dear, I want to give some of my earnings to Aunt Debby. The poor old soul is trying to lay up money to pay that friend of yours who bought her son and sent him to Canada. Surely, I, of all people in the world, ought to be willing to help slaves who have been less fortunate than I have. Sometimes, when I lie awake in the night, I have very solemn thoughts come over me. It was truly a wonderful Providence that twice saved me from the dreadful fate that awaited me. I can never be grateful enough to God for sending me such a blessed friend as my good Alfred."
They were living thus contented with their humble lot, when a letter from Frank Helper announced that the extensive house of Grossman & Co. had stopped payment. Their human chattels had been put up at auction, and among them was the title to our beautiful fugitive. The chance of capture was considered so hopeless, that, when Mr. Helper bid sixty-two dollars, no one bid over him; and she became his property, until there was time to transfer the legal claim to his friend.
Feeling that they could now be safe under their own vine and fig-tree, Alfred returned to the United States, where he became first a clerk, and afterward a prosperous merchant. His natural organization unfitted him for conflict, and though his peculiar experiences had imbued him with a thorough abhorrence of slavery, he stood aloof from the ever-increasing agitation on that subject; but every New Year's day, one of the Vigilance Committees for the relief of fugitive slaves received one hundred dollars "from an unknown friend." As his pecuniary means increased, he purchased several slaves, who had been in his employ at Mobile, and established them as servants in Northern hotels. Madame Labassé was invited to spend the remainder of her days under his roof; but she came only in the summers, being unable to conquer her shivering dread of snow-storms.
Loo Loo's personal charms attracted attention wherever she made her appearance. At church, and other public places, people pointed her out to strangers, saying, "That is the wife of Mr. Alfred Noble. She was the orphan daughter of a rich planter at the South, and had a great inheritance left to her; but Mr. Noble lost it all in the financial crisis of 1837." Her real history remained a secret, locked within their own breasts. Of their three children, the youngest was named Loo Loo, and greatly resembled her beautiful mother. When she was six years old, her portrait was taken in a gypsy hat garlanded with red berries. She was dancing round a little white dog, and long streamers of ribbon were floating behind her. Her father had it framed in an arched environment of vine-work, and presented it to his wife on her thirtieth birth-day. Her eyes moistened as she gazed upon it; then kissing his hand, she looked up in the old way, and said, "I thank you, Sir, for buying me."
A friend, who happens to have an idea or two of his own, is constantly advising his acquaintances in no case to become parties to a regular correspondence. He is a great letter-writer himself, but never answers an epistle, unless it contain queries as to matters of fact, or be an invitation to a ball or a dinner,—unless, in a word, real, not what he considers conventional politeness requires; in which event, his reply is despatched at once. Under all other circumstances, he ignores the last missive from him or her to whom his envelope is addressed. He studiously frames his own communications in such wise, that they do not call for an answer. He will totally neglect an intimate friend for months, then let fly at him epistle after epistle, and then give no sign of life for a long while again. If asked to exchange letters once a week or once a fortnight, he solemnly inquires whether the wind goes by machinery, and is, after a given interval, invariably at such o'clock,—adding, that it is his aim, not to keep up, but to keep down, correspondence. If accused of "owing a letter," he repudiates the obligation, and affirms that he will go to jail sooner than pay it off. If taxed with heartlessness, he retorts by asking whether it can be the duty of a moral being to insult a man by writing to him when there is nothing to say.
That these notions, whether they did or did not originate in an unfortunate love-affair, which my friend is said to have gone through in his youth, contain grains of truth may be easily shown.
I drop a letter in the New York post-office to-day; my friend in Boston receives it to-morrow and pens a reply at once, which finds me in New York within twenty-four hours. He may have understood and really answered my epistle. But suppose him to have waited a week. New matters have, meantime, taken possession of both his mind and mine; the topics, which were fresh when I wrote, have lost their interest; the bridge between us is broken down. His reply is worth little more to me than water to flowers cut a month since, or seed to a canary that was interred with tears last Saturday.
Correspondence is conversation carried on under certain peculiar conditions, but subject to the same rules as conversation by word of mouth, except so far forth as they may be modified by those necessary conditions. You do not take your partner's bright saying home with you and bring a repartee to the next ball, by which time she has forgotten what herbon motwas, and has another, every whit as good, upon her lips; you do not return a lead in whist at the next rubber; you do not postpone the laugh over the jokes of the dinner-table, as is fabulously narrated of Washington, until you have retired for the night. In social intercourse, minds must meet before one person can be brought to another's mood or both to a middle ground; it is the friction of contact, that creates conversation. A remark, not answered the instant after it has been made, is never answered. The bores and boors of society, not the gentlemen and ladies, ruminate upon what has been said, elaborate replies at leisure, and serve them up unseasonably.
For the purposes of correspondence, one may and must throw himself back into the immediate past and assume the mood that was his when he wrote and in which alone a reply can find him. But there is a limit to this power, which is soon reached. Not many letters will keep sweet more than two days. A little indulgence may, perhaps, be shown toward persons who are a week or a fortnight from us by the post, since otherwise we could never converse together. But even they should reply to only the weightier matters suggested, since what they say will probably be stale before it reaches the eyes for which it was written. For the like reasons, I hold a Californian or European correspondence to be an impossibility. As for him whose want of politeness fixes a gulf, a week broad, between himself and his correspondent, there is no excuse. As one reads a letter, an answer to whatever worth answering may be in it leaps to the lips; to give it utterance that moment is the only natural, courteous, and truthful course. Ten days hence, the reply, which now comes of its own accord, cannot be found; what might have been a source of pleasure to two persons will have become a piece of thankless drudgery. In vain the conscientious correspondent, at the appointed time, takes the letter which she would answer out of the compartment of her portfolio, whereon stationers, cunningly humoring a popular weakness, have gilded,—"UNANSWERED LETTERS." In vain she cons it with care, comments upon every observation in it, answers all its questions one by one, and propounds a series of her own, as a basis for the next epistle. Everything has been done decently and in order; but the laboriously-produced letter is a letter which killeth, and contains no infusion of the spirit that giveth life. This is not the writer's fault. It is and must be all but impossible, after a lapse of time, to reproduce the natural reply to a remark, or to concoct one that shall be vital and satisfactory to the other party.
Lovers, of all persons, it would seem, might with least danger postpone answering each other's missives, since their common topic of interest is always with them, and thebillet-doux, after having been carried in the bosom a week, is as fresh as when taken from the post-office. What need for "sweet sixteen" to consume the very night of its reception in essaying a reply, which she might have written next week as well, since next week they two will stand in substantially the same relations to one another as now? "Sweet sixteen" smiles at such coldblooded logic. "To you others," thinks she to herself, "all sunsets may be alike; but in our horizon are constant changes, delicate tones of color, each
'Shade so finely touched love's sense must seize it.'
The mood into which Walter's note put me may never return again. Now it is correspondent to the mood in which he wrote; now or never must I reply. In this way alone can we keep up a correspondence between our natures."
But the stupid world will not accept, cannot even understand, these fine sayings. It looks at the question with very different eyes from those of lovers, boarding-school misses, and persons in the first moon of a first marriage. The peculiar relations between them may supply inspiration and vitality to such correspondence. But would Dean Swift have put the daily record of his life upon paper for another than Stella to peruse? Would Leander have swum the Hellespont for the sake of meeting any girl but Hero upon the distant shore? As it was, he was drowned for his pains. The rest of us cannot swim Hellesponts, keep diaries, nor correspond, as foolish young people have done and do. We have books to read, business to attend to, duties to perform, tastes to gratify, ambition to feed. Who could bear to have his correspondents always upon his hands? Who could endure such a tax upon his patience as they would become? Who would send for his letters? Who would not rather run away from the postmen, for fear of the next discharge?
In the analogy between conversation and correspondence may, perhaps, be found a key to the problem. Those of us who are not lovers, school-girls, or spinsters are not desirous of keeping up a colloquy, day in and day out. Nor are we in the habit of resuming a subject, in the next interview, at the precise point where we left it. A "regular" conversation, after the fashion of a regular correspondence, is, as between two individuals mutually unknown, or as among a number, invariably a failure. However recently persons may have parted company, at meeting they commencede novo; a new talk grows out of the circumstances and thoughts of the moment, which ends as naturally as it began, when the talkers get tired or are obliged to stop. Sometimes but one of two or three opens her lips, but conversation, nevertheless, goes on; since an open ear is the most pointed question, and sympathy is the same, whether or not put into words.
To conversation carried on at a distance of space and time, through the pen, not the lips, the simple and obvious principles upon which people act in the drawing-room or the fireside-circle are easily applied. Between those who really wish to talk together letters should fly as rapidly as the post can deliver them. If only one feels like writing, he should pour forth his heart to his friend, although that friend remain as silent as the grave. It would be as absurd to say that either party "owes the letter," as to charge him who had the penultimate word in a dialogue with the duty of making the first remark the next time he encounters her who had the last word. When the topic of immediate interest has been disposed of, a correspondence is over. It matters as little who contributed the larger proportion to it, as who contributes the most to a dialogue. When the end is reached, the story is done. It is for the party who is first in the mood of writing, after an interval of silence, to open a new correspondence, in which there shall be no reference to previous communications, and which may die with the first letter or be protracted for a week or a month.
Thus we are brought to a position not very far from that taken by my eccentric friend. General or regular correspondence is useless, baneful, and in most cases impossible; but special correspondence, born of the necessities of man as a social being, and circumscribed by them, may be from time to time possible. There can be no harm in an occasional exchange of bulletins of health and happiness, like the "good morning" and "how d'ye do" of the street and the parlor, or in making new-year's calls, as it were, annually upon one's distant friends. I know two ladies who have done this as respects each other for twenty years. But, as a rule, the shorter epistles of this description are, the better. Some simple formula, which might be printed for convenience's sake, would answer the purpose, and complete the analogy with the practice of paying three-minute visits of ceremony or of leaving a card at the door.
The employment of a printed formula in all cases, indeed, where one feels not impelled, but obliged to write, would save both time and temper. We lay down nine out of ten of our letters with feelings of disappointment. Were we to imitate the Scotch servant who returned hers to the postmaster, after a glance at the address had assured her of the writer's health, we should be quite as well off as we are now. My correspondent often begins with the remark, that he has nothing to communicate. Then why in the world did he write? Why has he covered four pages with specimens of poor chirography, which it cost him an hour to put upon paper, and us almost as much time to decipher? He sends me news which was in the papers a week ago; or speculations upon it, which professional journalists have already surfeited me with; or short treatises, after the fashion of Cicero's epistolary productions. He talks about the weather, past, present, and to come. He serves up, with piquant sauce, occurrences which he would not have thought worthy of mention at his own breakfast-table. He spins out his two or three facts or ideas into the finest and flimsiest gossamer; or tucks them into a postscript, which alone, with the formula, should have been forwarded. He writes in a large hand, and resorts to every kind of device to fill up his sheet, instead of taking the manly course of writing only so long as he had something to say, or, if nothing, of keeping silence. A kindly sentence or two may redeem the epistle from utter condemnation; for love, according to Solomon, makes a dinner of herbs palatable. But "LOVE," written beneath a formula, would have answered as well.
I should not dare to describe the productions of my female correspondents in detail. Suffice it to say, that most of them contain a smaller proportion of useless information, and a larger proportion of sentiment, vague aspiration, and would-be-picturesque description, than those of the men who pay postage on my behalf. They are longer, and sometimes crossed; it is therefore a greater task to read them.
My "fair readers"—as the snobs who write for magazines call women— have not, I trust, misapprehended my meaning and lost patience with me. I would not be understood as expressing a preference for one description of letters over another. Every person to his tastes and his talents. But a letter, which does not represent the writer's real mood, reflect what is uppermost in his or her mind, deal with things and thoughts rather than with words, and express, if not strengthen, the peculiar ties between the person writing and the person written to,—a letter which is not genuine,—is no letter, but a sham and a lie. A real letter, on the other hand, whatever its topic, cannot fail to be worth reading. Great thoughts, profound speculations, matters of experience, bits of observation, delicate fancies, romantic sentiments, humorous criticisms on people and things, funny stories, dreams of the future, memories of the past, pictures of the present, the merest gossip, the veriest trifling, everything, nothing, may form the theme, if naturally spoken of, not hunted up to fill out a page.
No reason for modifying my conclusions occurs to me. It may be said, that, after all, a poor letter is better than none, because advices from distant friends are always welcome. But would not a glance at the well-known handwriting supply this want as fully as the perusal of a lengthy epistle, written with the hand, but not with the heart? Does not our chagrin at finding so little of our friends in their letters more than counterbalance our gratification that they have been (presumably) kind and thoughtful enough to write? Would we not gladly give four of their ordinary letters for one of their best? But the instant they strike off the shackles of regular correspondence, and despatch letters only when they feel inclined, replies only while they are fresh, and formulas at other times, if need be, we have our wish; the miles between our friends and ourselves shorten, they are really with us now and then, and we take solid pleasure in chatting with them.
Am I told, that, until these ideas find general acceptance, it is dangerous to act upon them? that for an individual here and there to go out of the common course is only to make himself notorious, a stranger or a bore to his friends? Were such statements true, they would still be cowardly. We should be faithful to our convictions of what is due to truth and manhood and self-respect, be the consequences what they may. Because a few are so, the world moves. The general voice always comes in as a chorus to a few particular voices. As for friends who cannot appreciate independence of character or of conduct, the fewer one has of them, the better.
Such suggestions as have been thrown out are too obvious to have escaped any one who has given the subject a moment's thought. But who has time for that? People live too fast, in these days, to pay such attention as should be paid to those who are more valuable as individuals than as parts of the great world. The good offices of friendship, which are the fulfilment of the highest social duties, are poorly performed, and, indeed, little understood. Not many of those who think at all think beyond the line of established custom and routine. They may take pains in their letters to obey the ordinary rules of grammar, to avoid the use of slang phrases and vulgar expressions, to write a clear sentence; but how few seek for the not less imperative rules which are prescribed by politeness and good sense! Of those who should know them, no small proportion habitually, from thoughtlessness or perverseness, neglect their observance.
I know men, distinguished in the walks of literature, famed for a beautiful style of composition, who do not write a tolerable letter nor answer a note of invitation with propriety. Their sentences are slipshod, their punctuation and spelling beyond criticism, and their manuscript repulsive. A lady, to whose politeness such an answer is given, has a right to feel offended, and may very properly ask whether she be not entitled to as choice language as the promiscuous crowd which the "distinguished gentleman" addresses from pulpit or desk.
How the distinguished gentleman would open his eyes at the question! He is sure that what he sent her was well enough for a letter. As though a letter, especially a letter to a lady, should not be as perfect in its kind as a lecture or sermon in its kind! as though one's duties toward an individual were less stringent than one's duties toward an audience! Would the distinguished gentleman be willing to probe his soul in search of the true reason for the difference in his treatment of the two? Is he sure that it is not an outgrowth from a certain "mountainous me," which seeks approbation more ardently from the one source than from the other?
There are those who indite elegant notes to comparative strangers, but, probably upon the principle that familiarity breeds or should breed contempt, send the most villanous scrawls to their intimate friends and those of their own household. They are akin to the numerous wives, who, reserving not only silks and satins, but neatness and courtesy, for company, are always in dishabille in their husbands' houses.
Pericles, according to Walter Savage Landor, once wrote to Aspasia as follows:—
"We should accustom ourselves to think always with propriety in little things as well as in great, and neither be too solicitous of our dress in the parlor nor negligent because we are at home. I think it as improper and indecorous to write a stupid or silly letter to you, as one in a bad hand or upon coarse paper. Familiarity ought to have another and a worse name, when it relaxes in its efforts to please."
The London Pericles, the Athenian gentleman,—and there are a few such as he still extant,—writes to his nearest and dearest friend none but the best letters. It appears to him as ill-bred to say stupid or silly things to her, as to say what he does say clownishly. He cannot conceive of doing what is so frequently done now-a-days. He brings as much of Pericles to the composition of a letter as to the preparation of a speech. We may feel sure, that, unless he acted counter to his own maxims, he never wrote a line more or a line less than he felt an impulse to write, and that he had no "regular correspondents."
It is not every one that can write such letters as are in that delightful book of Walter Savage Landor, or as charmed the friends of Charles Lamb, the poet Gray, and a few famous women, first, and the world afterwards. It is not every one who can, with the utmost and wisest painstaking, produce a thoroughly excellent letter. The power to do that is original and not to be acquired. The charm of it will not, cannot, disclose its secret. Like the charm of the finest manners, of the best conversation, of an exquisite style, of an admirable character, it is felt rather than perceived. But every person, who will be simply true to his or her nature, can write a letter that will be very welcome to a friend, because it will be expressive of the character which that friend esteems and loves. The bunch of flowers, hastily put together by her who gathered them, speaks as plainly of affection, although not in so delicate tones, as the most tastefully-arranged bouquet. But who desires to be presented with a nosegay of artificial flowers? Who can abide dead blossoms or violent discords of color? Freshness, sweetness, and an approach to harmony, that shall bring to mind the living, growing plants, and the bountiful Nature from whose embrace flowers are born, the acceptable gift must have.
To attempt a closer definition of a good letter than has been given would be a fruitless, as well as difficult task. "Complete letter-writers" are chiefly useful for the formulas—notes of invitation, answers to them, and the like—which they contain, and for their lessons in punctuation, spelling, and criticism. Their efforts to instruct upon other points are and must be worse than useless, because their precepts cramp without inspiring. A few good examples are more valuable, but a little practice is worth them all. Letter-writing is, after all, apas seul, as it were; the novice has no partner to teach him manners, or the figures of the dance, or to set his wits astir. By effort, and through numerous failures, he must teach himself. The difficulties of the medium between him and his distant friend, who is generally in a similar predicament, must be surmounted. Gradually stiffness gives place to ease of composition, roughness to elegance, awkwardness to grace and tact, until his letters at length come to represent his mood, and to interest, if not to delight, his correspondent. A rigid adherence to times and places and ceremonial retards this process of growth and advance, which is slow enough, at best.
But, although most correspondence is, from want of truthfulness, thoughtfulness, life, good judgment, and good breeding, very unsatisfactory, it cannot be denied that many good letters are written every day. Between lovers, parents and children, real and hearty friends, they pass. Young men on the threshold of life, while discussing together the grave questions then encountered, write them. Women, before their time to love and to be loved has come, or after it is passed,—women, who, disappointed in the great hope of every woman's life, turn to one another for support and shelter,—are sending them by every post. Mr. De Quincey somewhere says, that in the letters of English women, almost alone, survive the pure and racy idioms of the language; and the German Wolf is said to have asserted, that in corresponding with his betrothed he learnt the mysteries of style.
Such letters as these are worth one's reading, because the utterance is genuine and genial. The writers feel and express in every line an interest in what they are writing, and do not recognize the conventional rules which obtain where people rely less upon inspirations from within than upon fixed general maxims for their guidance. As in the drawing-room the gentleman or lady behaves naturally, and not according to the dancing-master, so in their correspondence the best-bred people act from nature, and not from instruction.
* * * * *
THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. [Continued.]
Novit etiam pictura tacens in parietibus loqni.
Christian art began in the catacombs. Under ground, by the feeble light of lanterns, upon the ceilings of crypts, or in the semicircular spaces left above some of the more conspicuous graves, the first Christian pictures were painted. Imperfect in design, exhibiting often the influence of pagan models, often displaying haste of performance and poverty of means, confined for the most part within a limited circle of ideas, and now faded in color, changed by damp, broken by rude treatment, sometimes blackened by the smoke of lamps,—they still give abundant evidence of the feeling and the spirit which animated those who painted them, a feeling and spirit which unhappily have too seldom found expression in the so-called religious Art of later times. Few of them are of much worth in a purely artistic view. The paintings of the catacombs are rarely to be compared, in point of beauty, with the pictures from Pompeii,— although some of them at least were contemporary works. The artistic skill which created them is of a lower order. But their interest arises mainly from the sentiment which they imperfectly embody, and their chief value is in the light which they throw upon early Christian faith and religious doctrine. They were designed not so much for the delight of the eye and the gratification of the fancy, as for stimulating affectionate imaginations, and affording lessons, easily understood, of faith, hope, and love. They were to give consolation in sorrow, and to suggest sources of strength in trial. "The Art of the first three centuries is entirely subordinate,— restrained partly by persecution and poverty, partly by a high spirituality, which cared more about preaching than painting."
With the uncertain means afforded by the internal character of these mural pictures, or by their position in the catacombs, it is impossible to fix with definiteness the period at which the Christians began to ornament the walls of their burial-places. It was probably, however, as early as the beginning of the second century; and the greater number of the most important pictures which have thus far been discovered within the subterranean cemeteries were probably executed before Christianity had become the established religion of the empire. After that time the decline in painting, as in faith, was rapid; formality took the place of simplicity; and in the course of the fourth and fifth centuries the native fire of Art sank, till nothing was left of it but a few dying embers, which the workmen from the East, who brought in the stiff conventionalisms of Byzantine Art, were unfit and unable to rekindle.
In the pictures of the most interesting period, that is, of the second and third centuries, there is no attempt at literal portraiture or historic accuracy. They were to be understood only by those who had the key to them in their minds, and they mostly arranged themselves in four broad classes. 1st. Representations of personages or scenes from the Old Testament regarded as types of those of the New. 2d. Literal or symbolic representations of personages or scenes from the New Testament. 3d. Miscellaneous figures, chiefly those of persons in the attitude of prayer. 4th. Ornamental designs, often copied from pagan examples, and sometimes with a symbolic meaning attached to them.
It is a noteworthy and affecting circumstance, that, among the immense number of the pictures in the catacombs which may be ascribed to the first three centuries, scarcely one has been found of a painful or sad character. The sufferings of the Saviour, his passion and his death, and the martyrdoms of the saints, had not become, as in after days, the main subjects of the religious Art of Italy. On the contrary, all the early paintings are distinguished by the cheerful and trustful nature of the impressions they were intended to convey. In the midst of external depression, uncertainty of fortune and of life, often in the midst of persecution, the Roman Christians dwelt not on this world, but looked forward to the fulfilment of the promises of their Lord. Their imaginations did not need the stimulus of painted sufferings; suffering was before their eyes too often in its most vivid reality; they had learned to regard it as belonging only to earth, and to look upon it as the gateway to heaven. They did not turn for consolation to the sorrows of their Lord, but to his words of comfort, to his miracles, and to his resurrection. Of all the subjects of pictures in the catacombs, the one, perhaps, more frequently repeated than any other, and under a greater variety of forms and types, is that of the Resurrection. The figure of Jonah thrown out from the body of the whale, as the type that had been used by our Lord himself in regard to his resurrection, is met with constantly; and the raising of Lazarus is one of the commonest scenes chosen for representation from the story of the New Testament. Nor is this strange. The assurance of immortality was to the world of heathen converts the central fact of Christianity, from which all the other truths of religion emanated, like rays. It gave a new and infinitely deeper meaning than it before possessed to all human experience; and in its universal comprehensiveness, it taught the great and new lessons of the equality of men before God, and of the brotherhood of man in the broad promise of eternal life. For us, brought up in familiarity with Christian truth, surrounded by the accumulated and constant, though often unrecognized influences of the Christian faith upon all our modes of thought and feeling, the imagination itself being more or less completely under their control,— for us it is difficult to fancy the change produced in the mind of the early disciples of Christ by the reception of the truths which he revealed. During the first three centuries, while converts were constantly being made from heathenism, brought over by no worldly temptation, but by the pure force of the new doctrine and the glad tidings over their convictions, or by the contagious enthusiasm of example and devotion,—faith in Christ and in his teachings must, among the sincere, have been always connected with a sense of wonder and of joy at the change wrought in their views of life and of eternity. Their thoughts dwelt naturally upon the resurrection of their Lord, as the greatest of the miracles which were the seal of his divine commission, and as the type of the rising of the followers of Him who brought life and immortality to light.
The troubles and contentions in the early Church, the disputes between the Jew and the Gentile convert, the excesses of spiritual excitement, the extravagances of fanciful belief, of which the Epistles themselves furnish abundant evidence, ceased to all appearance at the door of the catacombs. Within them there is nothing to recall the divisions of the faithful; but, on the contrary, the paintings on the walls almost universally relate to the simplest and most undisputed truths. It was fitting that among these the types of the Resurrection should hold a first place.
But the spiritual needs of life were not to be supplied by the promises and hopes of immortality alone. There were wants which craved immediate support, weaknesses that needed present aid, sufferings that cried for present comfort, and sins for which repentance sought the assurance of direct forgiveness. And thus another of the most often-repeated of the pictures in the catacombs is that of the Saviour under the form of the Good Shepherd. No emblem fuller of meaning, or richer in consolation, could have been found. It was very early in common use, not merely in Christian paintings, but on Christian gems, vases, and lamps. Speaking with peculiar distinctness to all who were acquainted with the Gospels, it was at the same time a figure that could be used without exciting suspicion among the heathen, and one which was not exposed to desecration or insult from them; and under emblems of this kind, whose inner meaning was hidden to all but themselves, the first Christians were often forced to conceal the expression of their faith. This figure recalled to them many of the sacred words and most solemn teachings of their Lord: "I am the Good Shepherd; the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep." Often the good shepherd was represented as bearing the sheep upon his shoulders; and the picture addressed itself with touching and effective simplicity to him whom fear of persecution or the force of worldly temptations had led away. When one of his sheep is lost, doth not the shepherd go after it until he find it? "And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing." "There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth." How often, before this picture, has some saddened soul uttered the words of the Psalm: "I have gone astray like a lost sheep: seek thy servant, for I do not forget thy commandments"! And as if to afford still more direct assurance of the patience and long-suffering tenderness of the Lord, the Good Shepherd is sometimes represented in the catacombs as bearing, not a sheep, but a goat upon his shoulders. It was as if to declare that his forgiveness and his love knew no limit, but were waiting to receive and to embrace even those who had turned farthest from him. In a picture of very early date in the Catacomb of St. Callixtus, the Good Shepherd stands between a goat and a sheep, "as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats; and he shall set the sheep on his right hand and the goats on his left." But in this picture the order is reversed,—the goat is on his right hand and the sheep on his left. It was the strongest type that could be given of the mercy of God. Sometimes the Good Shepherd is represented, not bearing the sheep on his shoulders, but leaning on his crook, and with a pipe in his hands, while his flock stand in various attitudes around him. Here again the reference to Scripture is plain: "He calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out;… and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice." Thus, under various forms and with various meanings, full of spiritual significance, and suggesting the most invigorating and consoling thoughts, the Good Shepherd appears oftener than any other single figure on the vaults and the walls of the catacombs. It is impossible to look at these paintings, poor in execution and in external expression as they are, without experiencing some sense, faint it may be, of the force with which they must have appealed to the hearts and consciences of those who first looked upon them. It is as if the inmost thoughts and deepest feeling of the Christians of those early times had become dimly visible upon the walls of their graves. The effect is undoubtedly increased by the manner in which these paintings are seen, by the unsteady light of wax tapers, in the solitude of long-deserted passages and chapels. In such a place the dullest imagination is roused, troop on troop of associations and memories pass in review before it, and the fading colors and faint outlines of the paintings possess more power over it than the glow of Titian's canvas, or the firm outline of Michel Angelo's frescoes.
Another symbol of the Saviour which is frequently found in the works of the first three centuries, and which soon afterwards seems to have fallen almost entirely into disuse, is that of the Fish. It is not derived, like that of the Good Shepherd, immediately from the words of Scripture; though its use undoubtedly recalled several familiar narratives. It seems to have been early associated with the well-known Greek formula, [Greek: iaesous christos theon uios sotaer], Jesus Christ the Saviour Son of God, arranged acrostically, so that the first letters of its words formed the word [Greek: ichthus], fish. The first association that its use would suggest was that of Christ's call to Peter and Andrew, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men,"—and thus we find, among the early Christian writers, the name of "little fish,"pisciculi, applied to the Christian disciples of their times. But it would serve also to bring to memory the miracle that the multitude had witnessed, of the multiplication of the fishes; and it would recall that last solemn and tender farewell meeting between the Apostles and their Lord on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias, in the early morning, when their nets were filled with fish,—and "Jesus then cometh, and taketh bread, and giveth them, and fish likewise." And with this association was connected, as we learn from the pictures in the catacombs, a still deeper symbolic meaning, in which it represented the body of our Lord as given to his apostles at the Last Supper. In the Cemetery of Callixtus, very near the recently discovered crypt of Pope Cornelius, are two square sepulchral chambers, adorned with pictures of an early date. Those of the first chamber have almost utterly perished, but on the wall of the second may be seen the image of a fish swimming in the water, and bearing on his back a basket filled with loaves of the peculiar shape and color used by the Jews as an offering of the first fruits to their priests; beneath the bread appears a vessel which shows a red color, like a cup filled with wine. "As soon as I saw this picture," says the Cavaliere de Rossi, in his account of the discovery, "the words of St. Jerome came to my mind,— 'None is richer than he who bears the body of the Lord in an osier basket and his blood in a glass.'"
In the same cemetery, very near the crypt of St. Cecilia, there is a passage wider than common, upon whose side is a series of sepulchral cells of similar form, and ornamented with similar pictures. In one of them a table is represented, with four baskets of bread on the ground, on one side, and three on the other, while upon it three loaves and a fish are lying. In another of the chambers is a picture of a single loaf and of a fish upon a plate lying on a table, at one side of which a man stands with his hands stretched out towards it, while on the other side is a woman in the attitude of prayer. It seems no extravagance of interpretation to read in these pictures the symbol of that memorial service which Jesus had established for his followers,—a service which has rarely been celebrated under circumstances more adapted to give to it its full effect, and to awaken in the souls of those who joined in it all the deep and affecting memories of its first institution, than when the bread and wine were partaken of in memory of the Lord within the small and secret chapels of the early catacombs. To the Christians who assembled there in the days when to profess the name of Christ was to venture all things for his sake, his presence was a reality in their hearts, and his voice was heard as it was heard by his immediate followers who sat with him at the table in the upper chamber. [1]
[Footnote 1: The Cavaliere de Rossi, in his very learned tract,De Christianis Monumentis [Greek: IChThUN] exhibentibus, expresses the belief that these pictures, besides their direct and simple reference to the Lord's Supper, exhibit also the Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence in the Eucharist. The bread he considers as the obvious material symbol, the fish the mystical symbol of the transubstantiation. His interpretation is at least doubtful. The bread was to be eaten in remembrance of the Lord, and the fish was represented as the image which recalled his words, that have been perverted by materialistic imaginations so far from their original meaning,—"This is my body which is given for you." But the date of the origin of false opinions is a matter of comparative unimportance.]
There are several instances, among these subterranean pictures, of a symbolic representation of the Saviour, drawn, not from Scripture, but from a heathen original. It is that of Orpheus playing upon his lyre, and drawing all creatures to him by the sweetness of his strains. It was a fiction widely spread soon after the introduction of Christianity among the Gentiles, that Orpheus, like the Sibyls and some other of the characters of mythology, had had some blind revelation of the coming of a saviour of the world, and had uttered indistinct prophecies of the event. Forgeries, similar to those of the Sibylline Verses, professing to be the remains of the poems of Orpheus, were made among the Alexandrian Christians, and for a long period his name was held in popular esteem, as that of a heathen prophet of Christian truth. Whether the paintings in the catacombs took their origin from these fictions must be uncertain; but driven, as the Roman Christians were, to hide the truth under a symbol that should be inoffensive, and should not reveal its meaning to pagan eyes, it was not strange that they should select this of the ancient poet. As he had drawn beasts and trees and stones to listen to the music of his lyre, so Christ, with persuasive sweetness and compelling force, drew men more savage than beasts, more rooted in the earth than trees, more cold than stones, to listen to and follow him. As Orpheus caused even the kingdom of Death to render back the lost, so Christ drew the souls of men from the very gates of hell, and made the grave restore its dead. And thus from the old heathen story the Christian drew new suggestions and fresh meaning, and beheld in it an unconscious setting-forth of many holy truths.
A subject from the Gospels, which is often represented, and which was used with a somewhat obscure symbolic meaning, is that of the man sick of the palsy, cured by the Saviour with the words, "Arise, take up thy bed, and go to thine house." It belongs, according to the ancient interpretation, to the series of subjects that embody the doctrine of the Resurrection. It is thus explained by St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and others of the fathers. They understood the words of Christ as addressed to them with the meaning, "Arise, leave the things of this world, have faith, and go forward to thy abiding home in heaven." Such an interpretation is entirely congruous with the general tone of thought and feeling exhibited in many other common paintings in the catacombs. But later Romanist writers have attempted to connect its interpretation with the doctrine of the Forgiveness of Sins, as embodied in what is called the power of the Church in the holy sacrament of Penance. They lay stress on the words, "Be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee," and suppose that the picture expresses the belief that the delegated power of forgiving sins still remained on earth. Undoubtedly the painting may well have recalled to mind these earlier words of the narrative, as well as the later ones, and with the same comforting assurance that was afforded by the emblem of the Good Shepherd; but there seems no just reason for supposing it to have borne any reference to the peculiar doctrine of the Roman Church. The pictures themselves, so far as we are acquainted with them, seem to contradict this assumption; for they, without exception, represent the paralytic in the last act of the narrative, already on his feet and bearing his bed. [2]
[Footnote 2: One picture of this scene in the Catacombs of St. Hermes is said to be in immediate connection with the sacrament of Penance "represented literally, in the form of a Christian kneeling on both knees before a priest, who is giving him absolution." We have not seen the original of this picture, and we know of no copy of it. It is not given either by Bosio or in Perret's great work. Before accepting it in evidence, its date must be ascertained, and the possibility of a more natural explanation of it excluded. How is one figure known to be that of a priest? and in what manner is the act of giving absolution expressed?]
Among the favorite subjects from the Old Testament are four from the life of Moses,—his taking off his shoes at the command of the Lord, his exhibiting the manna to the people, his receiving the tables of the Law, and his striking the rock in the desert. Of these, the first and the last are most common, and the truths which they were intended to typify seem to have been most dwelt upon. Moses was regarded in the ancient Church as the type, in the old dispensation, of our Saviour in the new. Thus as the narrative of the command to Moses to take off his shoes was immediately connected with the promise of the deliverance of the children of Israel from the land of bondage, so it was regarded as the figure under which was to be seen the promise of the greater deliverance of the world through faith in Jesus Christ, and its freedom from spiritual bondage. Moreover, the shoes were put off, "for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground"; and it is a natural supposition to regard the act as having been considered the symbol of that Holiness to the Lord which was the necessary preparation for the great deliverance. Like so many other of the paintings, it led forward the thoughts and the affections from time to eternity. And this figure was also, we may well suppose, taken as an immediate type of the Resurrection, in connection with the words of Jesus, "Now that the dead are raised even Moses showed at the bush, when he calleth the Lord" (or, as it should be translated, "when, in telling you of the bush, he says that the Lord called himself") "the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. For God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." With this interpretation, it affords another instance of the constancy with which the Christians connected the thought of immortality with the presence of death.
So also the smiting of the rock, so that the water came forth abundantly, was adopted as the sign of the giving forth of the living water springing up into everlasting life. "The rock was Christ," said St. Paul, and it is possible, that, with a secondary interpretation, the smiting of the rock was sometimes regarded as typical of the sufferings of the Saviour. The picture of this miracle is repeated again and again, and one of the noblest figures in the whole range of subterranean Art, a figure of surpassing dignity and grandeur, is that of Moses in this sublime scene in one of the chapels of the Cemetery of St. Agnes. In the performance of this miracle, Moses is represented with a rod in his hand; and a similar rod, apparently as the sign of power, is seen in the hands of Christ, in the paintings which represent his miracles. It is a curious illustration of the gradual progress of the ideas now current in the Roman Church, that upon sarcophagi of the fourth and fifth centuries St. Peter is found sculptured with the same rod in his hands,—emblematic, unquestionably, of the doctrine of his being the Vicegerent of Christ,—and on the bottom of a glass vessel of late date, found in the catacombs, the miracle of the striking of the rock is depicted, but at the side of the figure is the name, not of Moses, but of Peter,—for the Church had by this time advanced far in its assumptions.
The story of Jonah appears also in four different scenes upon the walls of the chapels and burial-chambers. In the first, the prophet appears as being cast into the sea; in the second, swallowed by the great fish; in the third, thrown out upon dry land; and in the fourth, lying under the gourd. They are not found together, or in series; but sometimes one and sometimes another of these scenes was painted, according to the fancy or the thought of the artist. The swallowing of Jonah, and his deliverance from the belly of the whale, has already been referred to as one of the naturally suggested types of the Resurrection. When the prophet is shown as lying under a gourd, (which is painted as a vine climbing over a trellis-work, to represent the booth that Jonah made for himself,) the picture may perhaps have been read as a double lesson. As God "made the gourd to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief," so he would deliver from their grief those who now trusted in him; but as he also made the gourd to wither, so that "the sun beat upon the head of Jonah that he fainted and wished in himself to die," it was for them to remember their utter dependence on the will of God, to prepare themselves for the sorrows as for the joys of life. Nor was this all; the story of Jonah was one especially fitted to remind the recent convert of the long-suffering and grace of God, and to suggest to those who were enduring the extremities of persecution the rebuke with which the Lord had chastened even his prophet for his desire for vengeance upon those who had long dwelt in evil ways. It recalled to them the new commandment of love to their enemies, and it bade them welcome with rejoicing even the latest and most reluctant listener to the truth. It repressed spiritual pride, and checked too ready anger. Was not Rome even greater "than Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six-score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand, and also much cattle"? Such were some, at least, of the meanings which the Christians of the catacombs may have seen in these pictures. It would be long to enter into the more subtile and less satisfactory interpretations of their symbolic meanings which are to be found in the works of some of the later fathers, and which afford, as in many other instances, illustrations of the extravagance of symbolism into which the studies of the cell, the darkness of their age, and the insufficiency of their education often led them.
Two subjects are of frequent repetition in the catacombs, which bear a direct reference to the personal circumstances in which the Christians from time to time found themselves. One is that of Daniel in the lions' den,—the other that of the Three Children of Israel in the fiery furnace. Both were types of persecution and of deliverance. "Thy God, whom thou servest continually, he will deliver thee." Daniel is uniformly represented in the attitude of prayer,—the attitude adopted by the early Christians, standing with arms outstretched. Very often single figures with no names attached to them are thus represented above or by the side of graves. They were probably intended as figures of those who lay within them, figures of those who had been constant in prayer; and this conjecture is almost established as a certainty by the existence of a few of these figures with names inscribed above them,—as, for instance, "HILARA IN PACE."
Noah in the ark is also one of the repeated subjects from the Old Testament; the ark being represented as a sort of square box, in the middle of which Noah stands, sometimes in prayer, and sometimes with the dove flying towards him, bearing a branch of olive. It was the type of the Church, the whole body of Christians, floating in the midst of storms, but with the promise of peace; or, with wider signification, it was the type of the world saved through the revelation of Christ. It bore reference also to the words of St. Peter, in his First Epistle, concerning the ark, "wherein few, that is eight souls, were saved by water; the like figure whereunto, even baptism, doth also now save us by the resurrection of Jesus Christ." Sometimes, indeed, the act of baptism is represented in a more literal manner, by a naked figure immersed in the water; sometimes, perhaps, by still other types.
Paintings of the temptation and the fall of Adam and Eve, in which the composition often reminds one of that adopted by the later masters, are often seen on the walls; and the sacrifice of Abraham, in which with reverent and just simplicity the interference of the Almighty is represented by a hand issuing from the clouds, is a common subject. Less frequent are pictures of David with his sling, of Tobit with the fish, of Susanna and the elders, treated symbolically, and some few other Old Testament stories. Their typical meaning was plain to the minds of those who frequented the catacombs. From the Gospels many scenes are represented in addition to those we have already mentioned: among the most common are the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves; our Saviour seated, with two or more figures standing near him; and his restoring sight to the blind. Every year's new excavations bring to light some new picture, and our acquaintance with the Art of the catacombs is continually receiving interesting additions.
There appears to have been no definite rule in respect to the combination of subjects in a single chapel. The ceilings are generally divided into various compartments, each filled with a different subject. Thus, for example, we find on one of them the central compartment occupied by a figure of Orpheus; four smaller compartments are filled with sheep or cattle; and four others with Moses striking the rock, Daniel in the lions' den, David with his sling, and Jesus restoring the paralytic. At the angles of the vault are doves with branches of olive; and the ornaments of the ceiling are all of graceful and somewhat elaborate character. The purely ornamental portions of the paintings, though obviously formed on heathen originals, are almost universally of a pleasing and joyful character, and in many cases possess a symbolic meaning. Flowers, crowns of leaves, garlands, vines with clustering grapes, displayed more to the Christian's eyes than mere beauty of form. In these and other similar accessories the symbolism of the early Church delighted to manifest itself. On their terracotta lamps, fixed in the mortar at the head of graves, on their sepulchral tablets, on their rings, on their glass cups and chalices, the Christians put these emblems of their faith, keeping in mind their spiritual significance. Many of these symbols have preserved their inner meaning to the present day, while others have long lost it. Thus, the crown and the laurel were the emblems of victory; the palm, of triumph; the olive, of peace; the vine loaded with grapes, of the joys of heaven. The dove was at once the figure of the Holy Spirit, and the symbol of innocence and purity of heart; the peacock the emblem of immortality. The ship reminded the Christian of the harbor of safety, or recalled to him the Church tossed upon the waves; the anchor was the sign of strength and of hope; the lyre was the symbol of the sweetness of religion; the stag, of the soul thirsting for the Lord; the cock, of watchfulness; the horse, of the course of life; the lamb, of the Saviour himself.