Читать книгу: «The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865», страница 5

 
"Now let me tighten every cruel sinew,
And gird the whole up in unfeeling hardness,
That my swollen heart, which bleeds within me tears,
May choke itself to stillness. I am as
A shivering bather, that, upon the shore,
Looking and shrinking from the cold, black waves,
Quick starting from his reverie, with a rush
Abbreviates his horror."
 

And this of the satisfied lust of blood, uttered by a Hebrew soldier, after the slaughter:—

 
"When I was killing, such thoughts came to me, like
The sound of cleft-dropped waters to the ear
Of the hot mower, who thereat stops the oftener
To whet his glittering scythe, and, while he smiles,
With the harsh, sharpening hone beats their fall's time,
And dancing to it in his heart's straight chamber,
Forgets that he is weary."
 

After the execution of Agag by the hand of Samuel, the demons are introduced with more propriety than in the opening of the poem. The following passage has a subtle, sombre grandeur of its own:—

 
"First Demon. Now let us down to hell: we've seen the last.
 
 
"Second Demon. Stay; for the road thereto is yet incumbered
With the descending spectres of the killed.
'Tis said they choke hell's gates, and stretch from thence
Out like a tongue upon the silent gulf;
Wherein our spirits—even as terrestrial ships
That are detained by foul winds in an offing—
Linger perforce, and feel broad gusts of sighs
That swing them on the dark and billowless waste,
O'er which come sounds more dismal than the boom,
At midnight, of the salt flood's foaming surf,—
Even dead Amalek's moan and lamentation."
 

The reader will detect the rhythmical faults of the poem, even in these passages. But there is a vast difference between such blemishes of the unrhymed heroic measure as terminating a line with "and," "of," or "but," or inattention to the cæsural pauses, and that mathematical precision of foot and accent, which, after all, can scarcely be distinguished from prose. Whatever may be his shortcomings, Mr. Heavysege speaks in the dialect of poetry. Only rarely he drops into bald prose, as in these lines:—

 
"But let us go abroad, and in the twilight's
Cool, tranquillizing air discuss this matter."
 

We remember, however, that Wordsworth wrote,—

 
                                                            "A band of officers
Then stationed in the city were among the chief
Of my associates."
 

We had marked many other fine passages of "Saul" for quotation, but must be content with a few of those which are most readily separated from the context.

 
                                                            "Ha! ha! the foe,
Having taken from us our warlike tools, yet leave us
The little scarlet tongue to scratch and sting with."
 
 
"Here's lad's-love, and the flower which even death
Cannot unscent, the all-transcending rose."
 
 
                                                            "The loud bugle,
And the hard-rolling drum, and clashing cymbals,
Now reign the lords o' the air. These crises, David,
Bring with them their own music, as do storms
Their thunders."
 
 
                                                            "Ere the morn
Shall tint the orient with the soldier's color,
We must be at the camp."
 
 
"But come, I'll disappoint thee; for, remember,
Samuel will not be roused for thee, although
I knock with thunder at his resting-place."
 

The lyrical portions, of the work—introduced in connection with the demoniac characters—are inferior to the rest. They have occasionally a quaint, antique flavor, suggesting the diction of the Elizabethan lyrists, but without their delicate, elusive richness of melody. Here most we perceive the absence of that highest, ripest intellectual culture which can be acquired only through contact and conflict with other minds. It is not good for a poet to be alone. Even where the constructive faculty is absent, its place may be supplied through the development of that artistic sense which files, weighs, and adjusts,—which reconciles the utmost freedom and force of thought with the mechanical symmetries of language,—and which, first a fetter to the impatient mind, becomes at length a pinion, holding it serenely poised in the highest ether. Only the rudiment of the sense is born with the poet, and few literary lives are fortunate enough, or of sufficiently varied experience, to mature it.

Nevertheless, before closing the volume, we must quote what we consider to be the author's best lyrical passage. Zaph, one of the attendants of Malzah, the "evil spirit from the Lord," sings as follows to one of his fellows:—

 
"Zepho, the sun's descended beam
Hath laid his rod on th' ocean stream,
And this o'erhanging wood-top nods
Like golden helms of drowsy gods.
Methinks that now I'll stretch for rest,
With eyelids sloping toward the west;
That, through their half transparencies,
The rosy radiance passed and strained,
Of mote and vapor duly drained,
I may believe, in hollow bliss,
My rest in the empyrean is.
Watch thou; and when up comes the moon,
Atowards her turn me; and then, boon,
Thyself compose, 'neath wavering leaves
That hang these branched, majestic eaves:
That so, with self-imposed deceit,
Both, in this halcyon retreat,
By trance possessed, imagine may
We couch in Heaven's night-argent ray."
 

In 1860 Mr. Heavysege published by subscription a drama entitled "Count Filippo; or, the Unequal Marriage." This work, of which we have seen but one critical notice, added nothing to his reputation. His genius, as we have already remarked, is not dramatic; and there is, moreover, internal evidence that "Count Philippo" did not grow, like "Saul," from an idea which took forcible possession of the author's mind. The plot is not original, the action languid, and the very names of the dramatis personæ convey an impression of unreality. Though we know there never was a Duke of Pereza in Italy, this annoys us less than that he should bear such a fantastic name as "Tremohla"; nor does the feminine "Volina" inspire us with much respect for the heroine. The characters are intellectual abstractions, rather than creatures of flesh and blood; and their love, sorrow, and remorse fail to stir our sympathies. They have an incorrigible habit of speaking in conceits. As "Saul" is pervaded with the spirit of the Elizabethan writers, so "Count Filippo" suggests the artificial manner of the rivals of Dryden. It is the work of a poet, but of a poet working from a mechanical impulse. There are very fine single passages, but the general effect is marred by the constant recurrence of such forced metaphors as these:—

 
"Now shall the he-goat, black Adultery,
With the roused ram, Retaliation, twine
Their horns in one to butt at Filippo."
 
 
                          "As the salamander, cast in fire,
Exudes preserving mucus, so my mind,
Cased in thick satisfaction of success,
Shall be uninjured."
 

The work, nevertheless, appears to have had some share in improving its author's fortunes. From that time, he has received at least a partial recognition in Canada. Soon after its publication, he succeeded in procuring employment on the daily newspaper press of Montreal, which enabled him to give up his uncongenial labor at the work-bench. The Montreal Literary Club elected him one of its Fellows, and the short-lived literary periodicals of the Province no longer ignored his existence. In spite of a change of circumstances which must have given him greater leisure as well as better opportunities of culture, he has published but two poems in the last five years,—an Ode for the ter-centenary anniversary of Shakspeare's birth, and the sacred idyl of "Jephthah's Daughter." The former is a production the spirit of which is worthy of its occasion, although, in execution, it is weakened, by an overplus of imagery and epithet. It contains between seven and eight hundred lines. The grand, ever-changing music of the Ode will not bear to be prolonged beyond a certain point, as all the great Masters of Song have discovered: the ear must not be allowed to become quite accustomed to the surprises of the varying rhythm, before the closing Alexandrine.

"Jephthah's Daughter" contains between thirteen and fourteen hundred lines. In careful finish, in sustained sweetness and grace, and solemn dignity of language, it is a marked advance upon any of the author's previous works. We notice, indeed, the same technical faults as in "Saul," but they occur less frequently, and may be altogether corrected in a later revision of the poem. Here, also, the Scriptural narrative is rigidly followed, and every temptation to adorn its rare simplicity resisted. Even that lament of the Hebrew girl, behind which there seems to lurk a romance, and which is so exquisitely paraphrased by Tennyson, in his "Dream of Fair Women,"—

 
"And I went, mourning: 'No fair Hebrew boy
        Shall smile away my maiden blame among
The Hebrew mothers,'"—
 

is barely mentioned in the words of the text. The passion of Jephthah, the horror, the piteous pleading of his wife and daughter, and the final submission of the latter to her doom, are elaborated with a careful and tender hand. From the opening to the closing line, the reader is lifted to the level of the tragic theme, and inspired, as in the Greek tragedy, with a pity which makes lovely the element of terror. The central sentiment of the poem, through all its touching and sorrowful changes, is that of repose. Observe the grave harmony of the opening lines:—

 
"'Twas in the olden days of Israel,
When from her people rose up mighty men
To judge and to defend her: ere she knew,
Or clamored for, her coming line of kings,
A father, rashly vowing, sacrificed
His daughter on the altar of the Lord;—
'Twas in those ancient days, coeval deemed
With the song-famous and heroic ones,
When Agamemnon, taught divinely, doomed
His daughter to expire at Dian's shrine,—
So doomed, to free the chivalry of Greece,
In Aulis lingering for a favoring wind
To waft them to the fated walls of Troy.
Two songs with but one burden, twin-like tales.
Sad tales! but this the sadder of the twain,—
This song, a wail more desolately wild;
More fraught this story with grim fate fulfilled."
 

The length to which this article has grown warns us to be sparing of quotations, but we all the more earnestly recommend those in whom we may have inspired some interest in the author to procure the poem for themselves. We have perused it several times, with increasing enjoyment of its solemn diction, its sad, monotonous music, and with the hope that the few repairing touches, which alone are wanting to make it a perfect work of its class, may yet be given. This passage, for example, where Jephthah prays to be absolved from his vow, would be faultlessly eloquent, but for the prosaic connection of the first and second lines:—

 
"'Choose Tabor for thine altar: I will pile
It with the choice of Bashan's lusty herds,
And flocks of fallings, and for fuel, thither
Will bring umbrageous Lebanon to burn.'
 

     *     *     *    *     *

 
"He said, and stood awaiting for the sign,
And heard, above the hoarse, bough-bending wind,
The hill-wolf howling on the neighboring height,
And bittern booming in the pool below.
Some drops of rain fell from the passing cloud
That sudden hides the wanly shining moon,
And from the scabbard instant dropped his sword,
And, with long, living leaps, and rock-struck clang,
From side to side, and slope to sounding slope,
In gleaming whirls swept down the dim ravine."
 

The finest portion of the poem is the description of that transition of feeling, through which the maiden, warm with young life and clinging to life for its own unfulfilled promise, becomes the resigned and composed victim. No one but a true poet could have so conceived and represented the situation. The narrative flows in one unbroken current, detached parts whereof hint but imperfectly of the whole, as do goblets of water of the stream wherefrom they are dipped. We will only venture to present two brief passages. The daughter speaks:—

 
"Let me not need now disobey you, mother,
But give me leave to knock at Death's pale gate,
Whereat indeed I must, by duty drawn,
By Nature shown the sacred way to yield.
Behold, the coasting cloud obeys the breeze;
The slanting smoke, the invisible sweet air;
the towering tree its leafy limbs resigns
To the embraces of the wilful wind:
Shall I, then, wrong, resist the hand of Heaven!
Take me, my father! take, accept me, Heaven!
Slay me or save me, even as you will!"
 
 
"Light, light, I leave thee!—yet am I a lamp,
Extinguished now, to be relit forever.
Life dies: but in its stead death lives."
 

In "Jephthah's Daughter," we think, Mr. Heavysege has found that form of poetic utterance for which his genius is naturally qualified. It is difficult to guess the future of a literary life so exceptional hitherto,—difficult to affirm, without a more intimate knowledge of the man's nature, whether he is capable of achieving that rhythmical perfection (in the higher sense wherein sound becomes the symmetrical garment of thought) which, in poets, marks the line between imperfect and complete success. What he most needs, of external culture, we have already indicated: if we might be allowed any further suggestion, he supplies it himself, in one of his fragmentary poems:—

 
"Open, my heart, thy ruddy valves,—
        It is thy master calls:
Let me go down, and, curious, trace
        Thy labyrinthine halls.
Open, O heart! and let me view
        The secrets of thy den:
Myself unto myself now show
        With introspective ken.
Expose thyself, thou covered nest
        Of passions, and be seen:
Stir up thy brood, that in unrest
        Are ever piping keen:—
Ah! what a motley multitude,
        Magnanimous and mean!"
 

NEEDLE AND GARDEN

THE STORY OF A SEAMSTRESS WHO LAID DOWN HER NEEDLE AND BECAME A STRAWBERRY-GIRL

WRITTEN BY HERSELF

CHAPTER X

CONCLUSION

Although two thirds of our little patrimony had thus been devoted to the cultivation of fruit, yet the other third was far from being suffered to remain unproductive. We thoroughly understood the art of raising all the household vegetables, as we had been brought up to assist our father at intervals throughout the season. Then none of us were indifferent to flowers. There were little clumps and borders of them in numerous places. Nowhere did the crocus come gayly up into the soft atmosphere of early spring in advance of ours. The violets perfumed the air for us with the same rich profusion as in the carefully tended parterre of the wealthiest citizen. There were rows of flowering almonds, which were sought after by the bees as diligently as if holding up their delicate heads in the most patrician garden; and they flashed as gorgeously in the sun. The myrtle displayed its blue flowers in abundance, and the lilacs unfolded their paler clusters in a dozen places. Over a huge cedar in the fence-corner there clambered up a magnificent wistaria, whose great blue flowers, covering the entire tree, became a monument of floral beauty so striking, that the stranger, passing by the spot, would pause to wonder and admire. In the care of these flowers all of us united with a common fondness for the beautiful as well as the useful. It secured to us, from the advent of the earliest crocus to the departure of the last lingering rose that dropped its reluctant flowers only when the premonitory blasts of autumn swept across the garden, all that innocent enjoyment which comes of admiration for these bright creations of the Divine hand.

These little incidental recompenses of the most perfect domestic harmony were realized in everything we undertook. That harmony was the animating as well as sustaining power of my horticultural enterprise. Had there been wrangling, opposition, or ridicule, it is probable that I should never have ventured on the planting of a single strawberry. Success, situated as I was, was dependent on united effort, the coöperation of all. This coöperation of the entire family must be still more necessary in agricultural undertakings on a large scale. A wife, taken reluctantly from the city to a farm, with no taste for rural life, no love of flowers, no fondness for the garden, no appreciation of the mysteries of seed-time and harvest, no sensibility to fields of clover, to green meadows, to the grateful silence of the woods, or to the voices of birds, and who pines for the unforgotten charms of city life, may mar the otherwise assured happiness of the household. One refractory inmate in ours would have been especially calamitous.

The floral world is pervaded with miraculous sympathies. Another spring had opened on our garden, and flower after flower came out into gorgeous bloom. My strawberries, as if conscious of the display around them, and ambitious to increase it, opened their white blossoms toward the close of April. Those set the preceding autumn gave promise of an abundant yield, but not equal to that presented by the runners which crowded around the parent plants on the original half-acre. The winter had been unfriendly, sending no heavy covering of snow to shelter them; while the frost, in making its first escape from the earth, had loosened many plants, bringing some of them half-way out of the ground, while a few had been thrown entirely upon the surface, where they quickly perished.

I had read that accidents of this kind would sometimes happen, and that, when plants were thus partially dislodged by frost, the roller must be passed over them to crowd back the roots into their proper places. I had discovered this derangement immediately on the frost escaping, but we had neither roller nor substitute. As pressure alone was needed, I set Fred to walking over the entire acre, and with his heavy winter boots to trample down each plant in its old place. The operation was every way as beneficial as if the ground had been well rolled. When performed before the roots have been many days exposed to the air, it not only does no injury, but effectually repairs all damage committed by the frost.

Everything, this second season, was on a larger scale than before, requiring greater care and labor, but at the same time brightening my hopes and doubling my anticipations. I was compelled to hire a gardener occasionally to assist in keeping the ground clean and mellow, although among us we contrived to perform a large portion of the work ourselves. I found that constant watchfulness secured an immense economy of labor. It was far easier to cut off a weed when only an inch high than when grown up to the stature of a young tree. It was the same with the white clover or a grass-root. These two seem native to the soil, and will come in and take possession, smothering and routing out the strawberries, unless cut up as fast as they appear. When attacked early, before their rambling, but deeply penetrating roots obtain a strong hold, they are easily destroyed. I consider, therefore, that watchfulness may be made an effective substitute for labor, really preventing all necessity for hard work. This watchfulness we could generally exercise, though physically unable to perform much labor. Hence, when ladies undertake the management of an established strawberry-bed, a daily attention to it, with a light hoe, will be found as useful as a laborious clearing up by an able-bodied man, with the additional advantage of occasioning no injurious disturbance to the roots in removing great quantities of full-grown weeds.

The blossoms fell to the ground, the berries set in thick clusters, turning downward as they increased in size, and changing, as they enlarged, from a pale green to a delicate white, then becoming suffused with a slight blush, which gradually deepened into an intense red. It was a joyful time, when, with my mother and sister, I made the first picking. All of us were struck with the improved appearance of the fruit on the first half-acre. This was natural, as well as what is commonly observed. The plants had acquired strength with age. They had had another season in which to send out new and longer roots; and these, rambling into wider and deeper fountains of nourishment, had drawn from them supplies so copious, that the berries were not only much more numerous than the year before, but they were every way larger and finer. The contrast between the fruit on these and the new plants was very decided. Hence we had a generous gathering to begin with. It was all carefully assorted, as before; but the quantity was so large that additional baskets were required, and Fred was obliged to employ an assistant to carry it to market.

While engaged in making our second picking, carefully turning aside the luxuriant foliage to reach the berries which had ripened in concealment, with capacious sun-bonnets that shut out from observation all objects but those immediately before us, it was no wonder that a stranger could come directly up without being noticed. Thus intently occupied one afternoon, we were surprised at hearing a subdued and timid voice asking,—

"May I sell some strawberries for you?"

I looked round,—for the voice came from behind us,—and beheld a girl of some ten years old, having in her hand a basket, which she had probably found on the common, as, in place of the original bottom, a pasteboard substitute had been fitted into it. It was filled with little pasteboard boxes, stitched at the corners, but strong enough to hold fruit. I noticed, that, old as it was, it had been scoured up into absolute cleanness. The child's attire was in keeping with her basket. Though she had no shoes, and the merest apology for a bonnet, with a dress that was worn and faded, as well as frayed out into a ragged fringe about her feet, yet it was all scrupulously clean. Her features struck me as even beautiful, and her soft hazel eyes would command sympathy from all who might look into them. Her manner and appearance prepossessed me in her favor.

"But did you ever sell strawberries?" I inquired.

"No, Ma'am, but I can try," she answered.

"But it will never do to trust her," interrupted my mother. "We do not know who she is, and may never see her again."

"Oh, Ma'am, I will bring the money back to you. Dear lady, let me have some to sell," she entreated, with childish earnestness, her voice trembling and her eyes moistening with apprehension of refusal.

"Mother," said I, "this child is a beginner. Is it right for us to refuse so trifling an encouragement? Who knows to what useful ends it may lead? You remember how difficult it was for me to procure the plants, and how keenly you felt my trouble. Will you inflict a keener one on this child, whose heart seems bent on doing something for herself, and on whom disappointment will fall even more painfully than it did on me? Are we not all bound to do something for those who are more destitute than ourselves? and even if we lose what we let her have, it will never be missed."

The poor girl looked up imploringly into my face as I pleaded for her, her eyes brightened with returning hopefulness, and again she besought us,—

"Dear lady, let me have a few; my mother knows you."

"Tell me your name," I replied.

"Lucy Varick,—mother says she knows you," was the answer.

"Varick!" replied my mother, quickly, surprised as well as evidently pleased. "You shall have all you can sell."

She was the daughter of the miserable man whose terrible deathbed we had both witnessed, and my mother had no difficulty in trusting to her honesty. Her basket would contain but a few quarts, and these we had already gathered. I filled her little pasteboard boxes immediately, with the fruit just as picked from the vines. The poor child fairly capered with joy as she witnessed the operation. She saw her fortune in a few quarts of strawberries! I think that as she tripped nimbly through the gate, my gratification at seeing how cheerfully she thus began her life of toil was equal to all that she could have experienced herself.

Before the afternoon was half gone, Lucy surprised us by returning with an empty basket. She had found customers wherever she went, and wanted a fresh supply of fruit. This was promptly given to her, for she had obtained even better prices than the widow was getting for us in the market. That afternoon she made the first half-dollar she ever earned, and during the entire season she continued to find plenty of the best of customers at their own doors.

I had long since made up my mind that our pastor was entitled to some recognition of the substantial kindnesses he had extended to us at the time of our deep affliction. We had seen him regularly at the Sunday school, but he knew nothing of my conversion into a strawberry-girl. What else could we do, in remembrance of his friendship, but to make him a present of our choicest fruit? Never were strawberries more carefully selected than those with which I filled a new basket of ample size, as a gift for him. On my way to the factory the next morning, I delivered the basket at his door, with a little note expressive of our continued gratitude, and begging him to accept its contents as being fruit which I had myself raised. I knew it was but a trifle, but what else than trifles had I to offer even to the kindest friend we had ever known?

That very afternoon, while my mother and I were at our usual occupation of picking, I heard the gate open at the other end of the garden, and, looking up, saw two gentlemen approaching us. They advanced slowly around the strawberry-beds, apparently examining the plants and fruit, frequently stooping to turn over the great clusters on a portion of the ground which we had not yet picked. I saw that one of them was our pastor, but the other was a stranger. As they drew nearer, we rose to receive them. No words can describe the confusion which overcame me as I recognized in the stranger the same gentleman whom I had encountered, the preceding summer, as the first customer for my strawberries, at the widow's stand in the market-house. I had never forgotten his face. Mr. Seeley introduced him as his friend Mr. Logan. Somehow I felt certain that he also recognized me. I was confused enough at being thus taken by surprise. It is true that my sun-bonnet, though of prodigious size, was neatly cut and handsomely fashioned, even becoming, as I supposed, and that I was fortunately habited in a plain, but entirely new dress, that was more than nice enough for the work I was performing. But the hot sun, in spite of my bonnet, had already turned my face brown. My hands, exposed to its fiercest rays, were even more tanned, while the stain of fruit was visible on my fingers. I was in no condition to receive company of this unexpected description.

But the gentlemen were affable, and I soon became at ease with them. Mr. Seeley had received my basket, and had come to thank me for it. Mr. Logan had been dining with him, and was enthusiastic over the quality of my strawberries. He had never seen them equalled, though devoting all his leisure to horticulture; and learning that they were raised by a lady, insisted on coming down, not only to look into her mode of culture, but to see the lady herself. It was pleasant thus to meet our friend the pastor, and I did my utmost to render the visit agreeable to him and his companion. My mother gave up the care of their entertainment to me; so, dropping my basket in the unfinished strawberry-row, I left her to continue the afternoon picking alone.

The gentlemen seemed in no haste to leave us. I was surprised that they could find so much to interest them in a spot which I had supposed could be interesting only to ourselves. Mr. Seeley was pleased with all that he saw, but Mr. Logan was polite enough to be much more demonstrative in his admiration. I think the visit of the former would have been much briefer but for the presence of the latter, who seemed in no hurry to depart. He was generous in praise of my flowers, and was inquisitive about my strawberries. He had many of the most celebrated varieties, and was kind enough to offer me such as I might desire. He thought that I could teach him lessons in horticulture more valuable than any he had yet picked up, either in books or in his own garden, and asked permission to come down often during the fruit season, to see and learn. I was surprised that he should think it possible for a young strawberry-girl like myself to teach anything to one who was evidently so much better informed. Then I told him that what he saw was the result of an endeavor to determine whether there was not some better dependence for a woman than the needle, that I had accomplished all this by my own zeal and perseverance, and that this season promised complete success.

"I cannot give you too much praise," he observed. "Your tastes harmonize admirably with my own. I have long believed that women are confined to too small a circle of useful occupations. They too seldom teach themselves, and are too little taught by others whose duty it is to enlarge their sphere of action. All my sisters have learned what you may call trades,—that is, to support themselves, if ever required to do so, by employments particularly adapted to their talents. You have chosen the garden, and you seem in a fair way to succeed. I must know how much your strawberry-crop will yield you."

On thus discovering the object I had in view, and that this was my own experiment, his interest in all that he saw appeared to increase. The very tones of his voice became softer and kinder. There was nothing patronizing in his manner; it was deferential, and so sympathetic as to impress me very strongly. I felt that he understood the train of thought that had been running through my mind, and that he heartily entered into and approved of my plans.

My first false shame at being known as a strawberry-girl now gave place to a feeling of pride and emulation. Here was one who could appreciate as well as encourage. Hence my explanations were as full as it was proper to set before a stranger. Our pastor listened to them with surprise, as most of them were new even to him, nor did he fail to unite with his companion in encouragement and congratulation. Long acquaintance gave him the privilege to be familiar and inquisitive. It is possible that in place of being abashed and humble, I may now have been confident and boastful.