Chapter VIII: England. 1870 (3)

And here I would say, apropos of Carlyle, Tennyson, Irving, Borrow, Whitman, and some others whom I have met, that with such men in only one or two interviews, one covers more ground and establishes more intimacy than with the great majority of folk whom we meet and converse with hundreds of times. Which fact has been set forth by Wieland in his work on Democritus or the Abderites so ingeniously, as people expressed it a century ago, or so cleverly, as we now say, or so sympathetically, as an Italian would say, that my pen fails to utter the thoughts which arise in me compared to what he has written.

When the summer came, or on the 1st of August, we started on a grand tour about England. First we went to Salisbury. I was deeply interested in the Cathedral there, because it is possibly the only great Gothic structure of the kind in Europe which was completed in a single style during a single reign. Stonehenge was to me even more remarkable, because it is more mysterious. Its stupendous barbarism or archaic character, involving a whole lost cycle of ideas, contrasts so strangely with the advanced architectural skill displayed in the cutting and fitting of the vast blocks, that the whole seems to be a mighty paradox. This was the work of many thousands of men--of very well directed labour under the supervision of architects who could draw and measure skilfully with a grand sense of _proportion_ or symmetry, who had, however, not attained to ornament--a thing without parallel in humanity. This is absolutely bewildering, as is the utter want of all indication as to its real purpose. The old British tradition that the stones were brought by magic from Africa, coupled with what Sir John Lubbock and others declare as to similar remains on the North African coast, suggest something, but what that was remains to be discovered. Men have, however, developed great works of the massive and simple order in poetry, as well as in architecture. The Nibelungen Lied is a Stonehenge. There are in it only one or two similes or decorations. "Simplicity is its sole ornament."

From Salisbury we went to Wells. The cathedrals of England form the pages of a vast work in which there is written the history of a paradox or enigma as marvellous as that of Stonehenge; and it is this--that the farther back we go, even into a really barbarous age, almost to the time when Roman culture had died and the mediaeval had not begun, the more exquisite are the proportions of buildings, the higher their tone, and, as in the case of Early and Decorated English, the more beautiful their ornament. That is to say, that exactly in the time when, according to all our modern teaching and ideas, there should have been _no_ architectural art, it was most admirably developed, while, on the contrary, in this end of the nineteenth century, when theory, criticism, learning, and science abound, it is in its lowest and most depraved state, its highest flights aiming at nothing better than cheap imitation of old examples. The age which produced the Romanesque architecture, whether in northern Italy, along the Rhine as the Lombard, or in France and England as Norman, was extremely barbarous, bloody, and illiterate; and yet in the noblest and grandest conceptions of architectural art it surpassed all the genius of this our time as the sun surpasses a star. While we _know_ that man has advanced, it still remains true that the history of architecture alone for the past thousand years indicates a steady retrogression and decay in art, and this constitutes the stupendous paradox to which I have alluded. But Milton has fully explained to us that when the devils in hell built the first great temple or palace--Pandemonium--they achieved the greatest work of architecture ever seen!

York Cathedral made on me a hundred times deeper and more sympathetic impression than St. Peter's of Rome. There is a grandeur of unity and a sense of a single cultus in it which the Renaissance never reached in anything. Even from the days of Orcagna there is an element of mixed motives and incoherence in the best of Italian architecture and sculpture. It requires colour to effect that which Norman or Gothic art could produce more grandly and impressively with _shade_ alone. It is the difference between a garden and a forest. This is shown in the glorious mediaeval _grisaille_ windows, in which such art proves its absolute perfection. While I was looking at these in rapt admiration, an American friend who did not lack a certain degree of culture asked me if I did not find in them a great want of colour!

I made in York the acquaintance of a youth named Carr, son of a former high sheriff, who, by the way, showed us very great hospitality whenever we visited the city. This young man had read Labarthe and other writers on archaeology, and was enthusiastic in finding relics of the olden time. He took me into a great many private houses. I visited every church, and indeed saw far more than do the great majority of even the most inquiring visitors. The Shambles was then and is still perhaps one of the most curious specimens of a small mediaeval street in the world. I felt as if I could pass a life in the museum and churches, and I did, in fact, years after, remain there, very busy, for three weeks, sketching innumerable corbels, gargoyles, goblins, arches, weather-worn saints and sinners. And in the Cathedral I found the original of the maid in the garden a-hanging out the clothes. She is a fair sinner, and the blackbird is a demon volatile, who, having lighted on her shoulder, snaps her by the nose to get her soul. The motive often occurs in Gothic sculpture.

We may trace it back--_vide_ the "Pharaohs, Fellahs, and Explorers" of Amelia B. Edwards (whom I have also met at an Oriental Congress)--to Roman Harpies and the Egyptian _Ba_, depicted in the "Book of the Dead" or the "Egyptian Bible."

THE END.

Footnotes:

{1} As I was very desirous of learning more about this celebrated fireplace, I inserted a request in the _Public Ledger_ for information regarding it, which elicited the following from some one to me unknown, to whom I now return thanks:--

"MR. CITY-EDITOR OF THE _Public Ledger_,--In your edition of this
date, I notice a communication headed 'To Local Antiquarians.' Without
any well-founded pretensions to the designation 'Antiquarian,' as I
get older I still take a great interest in the early history of our
beloved city. I remember _distinctly_ the fact, but not the date, of
reading a description of the 'mantelpiece.' It was of wood,
handsomely carved on the pillars, and under the shelf, and on the
centre between the pillars, was the following quaint and witty
_hieroglyphic_ inscription:--

When the grate is M. T. put:
When it is . putting:

which is a little puzzling at first sight, but readily translated by
converting the punctuation points into written words.

SENIOR.

"_Frankford_, _May 24_, _1892_."

I can add to this, that the chimney-piece was originally made for wood- fires, and that long after a grate was set in and the inscription added.

{13} Also given as Delaund or Dellaund in one copy. De Quincey was proud of his descent from De la Laund. I may here say that John Leyland, who is a painstaking and conscientious antiquarian and accomplished genealogist, has been much impressed with the extraordinary similarity of disposition, tastes, and pursuits which has characterised the Lelands for centuries. Any stranger knowing us would think that he and I were nearly related. It is told of the manor of Leyland that during the early Middle Ages it was attempted to build a church there in a certain place, but every morning the stones were found to be removed. Finally, it was completed, but the next dawn beheld the whole edifice removed to the other spot, while a spirit-voice was heard to call (one account says that the words were found on a mystic scroll):

"Here shall itt bee,
And here shall itt stande;
And this shall bee called:
Ye Churche of Leyland."

{16} A similar incident is recorded in _Kenelm Chillingly_. I had long before the publication of the work conversed with Lord Lytton on the subject--which is also touched on in my _Sketch-Book of Meister Karl_, of which the illustrious author had a copy.

{56} Since writing the foregoing, and by a most appropriately odd coincidence or mere chance, I have received with delight a copy of this work from Jesse Jaggard, a well-known dealer in literary curiosities in Liverpool, who makes a specialty of _hunting up_ rarities to order, which is of itself a quaint business. The book is entitled "Curiosities for the Ingenious, Selected from the Most Authentic Treasures of Nature, Science and Art, Biography, History, and General Literature. London: Thomas Boys, Ludgate Hill, 1821." Boys was the publisher of the celebrated series of "The Percy Anecdotes." I should here, in justice to Mr. Jaggard, mention that I am indebted to him for obtaining for me several rare and singular works, and that his catalogues are remarkably well edited.

{98} May I be pardoned for here mentioning that Mr. Symonds, not long before his death, wrote a letter to one of our mutual friends, in which he spoke "most enthusiastically" of my work on "Etruscan Roman Traditions in Popular Tradition." "For that alone would I have writ the book."

{101} "Susan Cushman was extremely pretty, but was not particularly gifted; in personal appearance she was altogether unlike Charlotte; . . . the latter was a large, tall woman" ("Gossip of the Century," vol. ii.). John Du Solle took me for the first time to see Charlotte Cushman, and then asked me what I thought she looked like. And I replied, "A bull in black silk."

{156} He was the real head, and the most sensible, of that vast array of wild antiquaries, among whom are Faber, Godfrey Higgins, Inman, Bryant, and several score more whom I in my youth adored and devoured with a delight surpassing words.

{225} (Here I forgot myself--this occurred in New York.)

{237} Herzen once sent me a complete collection of all his books.

{242} Abraham Lincoln once remarked of the people who wanted emancipation, but who did not like to be called Abolitionists, that they reminded him of the Irishman who had signed a temperance pledge and did not like to break it, yet who sadly wanted a "drink." So going to an apothecary he asked for a glass of soda-water, adding, "an', docther dear, if yees could put a little whisky into it _unbeknownst_ to me, I'd be much obliged to yees." I believe that I may say that as Mr. Lincoln read all which I published (as I was well assured), I was the apothecary here referred to, who administered the whisky of Abolition disguised in the soda-water of Emancipation.

{252} Chapman Biddle himself was a very remarkable man as a lawyer, and a person of marked refinement and culture. He became my friend in after years, as did his son Walter. Both are now departed. I wrote and publicly read an "In Memoriam" address and poem on his death, in delivering which I had great pains to refrain from weeping, which was startling to me, not being habitually expressive of emotion.

{266a} In reference to "heaving out" by main force, cannon from some deep slough, perhaps of stiff clay, which holds like glue, or, what I think far more wearisome, urging them along for miles over the heaviest roads or broken ways, when the poor exhausted mules have almost given out. Though, as he says, he was only nineteen and seemed very fragile, the indomitable pluck and perseverance of Gilder in all such trials were such as to call special commendation from my brother Henry, who was not habitually wasteful of praise.

{266b} "Well do I remember" also what accursed work it was, the ground consisting chiefly of broken stone, and how a number of Paddies, who were accustomed to such labour, assembled above and around us to enjoy the unusual sight of "jontlemen" digging like "canawlers," and how I, while at my spade, excited their hilarity and delight by casting at them scraps of "ould Eerish," or Irish. The fight of the section here alluded to was, I believe, rather of the nature of an improvised rencontre, albeit two or three rebels were killed in the artillery duel. Corporal Penington was, I believe, as usual, the inspiring Mephistopheles of the affair.

{267} This reply, which is much better in every respect than that of "The old guard dies but never yields," was made in the face of far more overwhelming numbers, and has few parallels for sheer audacity, all things considered, in the history of modern warfare. It passed into a very widely-spread popular _mot_ in America. It is more than an _on dit_, for I was nearly within ear-shot when it was uttered, and it was promptly repeated to me. Yet, if my memory serves me right, there is something like this, "Come and take it!" recorded in the early Tuscan wars in Villari's introduction to the "Life of Machiavelli," translated by his accomplished wife. I have, as I write this note, just had the pleasure of meeting with the Minister and Madame Villari at a dinner at Senator Comparetti's in Florence, which is perhaps the reason why I recall the precedent. And I may also recall as a noteworthy incident, that at this dinner Professor Milani, the great Etruscologist and head of the Archaeological Museum, congratulated me very much on having been the first and only person who ever discovered an old Etruscan word still living in the traditions of the people--_i.e._, _Intial_, the Spirit of the Haunting Shadow. This is a little discursive--_mais je prends mon bien ou je le trouve_, and it is all autobiographic! "It is all turkey," as the wolf said when he ate the claws.

The proposal of General Smith to resist with us alone the tremendous maddened rush of half of Lee's veterans has its re-echo in my ballad, where Breitmann attempts with his Bummers to stem the great army of the South. The result would have probably been the same--that is, we should have been "gobbled up." But he would have undoubtedly tried it without misgiving. I have elsewhere narrated my only interview with him.

{268} The thunder of the artillery at Gettysburg was indeed something to be long and well remembered. It was so awful that on the field wild rabbits, appalled by the sound, ran to the gunners and soldiers and tried to take refuge in their bosoms. Those who have only heard cannon fired singly, or a single discharge of cannon, can have no conception of what such sounds when long sustained are like.

{274} Apropos of Olcott he did good and noble work in the war, in the field, and also out of it as a Government detective, and I am very far from being ashamed to say that I aided him more than once in the latter capacity. There was a lady in Philadelphia who availed herself of a distinguished position in society so as to go and come from Richmond and act as spy and carry letters between rebel agents. I knew this and told Olcott of it, who put a stop to her treason. I also learned that a rascally contractor had defrauded Government with adulterated chemicals. Olcott had him heavily fined.

{309} The reader may find some interesting references to Robert Hunt in the Introduction by me to the _Life of James Beckwourth_, the famous chief of the Crow Indians. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1893.

{333} "CUSTER was the life and soul of the greatest hand-to-hand victory ever gained over the Indians of the Plains--except Patsy Connor's Bear River Fight."--_The Masked Venus_, by RICHARD HENRY SAVAGE.

{334} Miss Owen is well known to all folk-lorists as the first living authority on _Voodoo_.

{346} I am revising this MS. in the beautiful palazzo built for Ristori, 22 Lung Arno Nuovo, Florence. It is now the Pensione Pellini. On the ground floor are statues representing Ristori in different parts.

{349} Scallawag, from the Gaelic _scallag_, a vagabond.--_D. MacRitchie_.

{372} For _depuisse-quand_, _vide_ Paul de Kock.

{373} On due reflection, I believe that I have here had a slip of memory. I was not till after a year, when returning from Italy, that these incidents occurred. But as it is all strictly true in every detail, I let it remain, as of little consequence.