Kitabı oku: «The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862», sayfa 17
QUISQUIS ILLE EST!
Winning, witty, wicked, and wise,
A je ne sais quoi about thee lies,
Charming the cold, cheering the sad,
Giving gaiety to the glad;
Brilliant, brave, bewitchingly bright,
Playful, pranksome, proudly polite;
Softly sarcastic, shyly severe,
Falsely frank, which fascinates fear!
Not handsome—no hero 'half divine,'
Features not faultless, fair, and fine;
With raven locks, O! 'Rufus the Red,'
I can't in conscience cover thy head;
Nor shall I stoop to falsehood mean,
And swear thine eyes are not sea-green:
Discard deceit in thy defence,
Secure in wit—a man of sense,
So gracefully kind in look and tone,
I think his thoughts are all my own!
Ah! false as fickle—well I know
To scorn the words that charm me so.
Still do I catch the golden bait,
Admiring—where I thought to hate!
'Bien-c'est gentil, ca!' as Jullien used to say at the concerts of his own performers. Still do we opine that 'Rufus' has been well hit off, and should be grateful for his place among those to come.
Yet another correspondent. This one discourseth of the little ones:
Glendale, Wis., Sept. 16th, 1862.
Dear Continental: We rejoice, most of the time, in a house pet, a human puppet, a domestic toy, in the shape of 'Donny.' Would you ever believe that that name had been originally Charles, and passed, by the subtle alchemy of nicknames, to its present form?
Donny lately donned for the first time his first suit of jacket and trousers.
No one was in the house save the half-blind nurse who put them on. And poor Donny wished so much to be admired! 'All dressed up and nobody to see.'
An idea struck him. He 'paddled off' for the hennery. I was behind the bushes and noted him. Walking in a great state before a party of hens, he cried aloud:
'Look at me, chickens!'
I should possibly have forgotten this domestic legend, but that it was recalled yesterday by the fact that our Cousin Joe made a good application of it. There is a very well-educated and very able young theological friend of ours, who has this one weakness—when he has read a book, or taken in a new idea of any kind, he can get no rest until he has fully reproduced it in a 'bold-face, full-display, double-lead' sort of manner to somebody else. Show it off he must, and exhibit himself at the same time. His last acquisition was a mass of entomology—he having had by some means access to a copy of 'Harris on Insects Injurious to Vegetation; and this he reproduced liberally, during an entire evening, to half a dozen undeveloped intellects of tender age. How the words came out—how he did give them the Latin!
'What did you think of him?' I inquired of Joe.
'Look at me, chickens!' was the reply. I saw the point—wonder if I shan't see its application frequently ere I have 'wound up my worsted,' and shovelled up the mortal coal of this life.
There are a great many men, dear Continental, who quite unwittingly are ever crying aloud, 'Look at me, chickens.' After all, 'tis only the old fable of the lion cubasinized.
Thine ever,Chickens.
Our Chicago friend, J.M., will accept our thanks for his favor. Chicago is a warm friend to our Magazine.
Editor of Continental:
Dear Sir,—Occasionally a 'good thing' comes up to illustrate this wicked rebellion, which all patriots are striving to put down, in our once happy land. When the news of the taking of New Orleans reached our city, a friend meeting on the street another, who, like our worthy President, is fond of a good story, spake as follows:
'Wonder what Jeff. Davis will think now?'
'It reminds me of a little story,' was the answer.
'Fire away then.'
'When Ethan Allen was a prisoner of war in London, a party of wags, who had made his acquaintance, and who were pleased with his drolleries, and who were in the habit of giving him dinners for the pleasure of his company, discovered in him a marvellous great fondness for pickles. On this platform they procured some East India peppers—which are about as hot as live hickory coals—and placed them in front of his seat at table, in as tempting a position as possible: which done, they sat down to dinner. While the first course was being served, Allen could not restrain his love for the article; and very quietly transferred one of them from the plate to his mouth, giving it a quick pressure of the jaws for the purpose of hastily disposing of it; when, lo and behold! instead of the luscious vegetable he so much enjoyed, he found he had taken into his capacious mouth something about as hot and burning as fire itself. To relieve his agony, he applied his hand to his mouth, at the same time using his napkin to remove the tears and perspiration, and also conceal the contractions of his face, when, hastily casting a glance around the table, he at once discovered the point of the joke in the countenances of those around him. Summoning all his coolness for the instant, he very deliberately deposited the 'pesky' thing in his hand, and then returned it to the plate with all the gravity he could command, remarking at the same time, 'With your permission, gentlemen, I will put that d—d thing back!'
Whether Jeff. Davis and his satellites would not like to perform the same operation with their pet dogma, Secession, I leave for your readers to decide; remarking that, in my own opinion, they would sleep better if they were back again, as in 1860. Prisons and halters are not pleasant to reflect on and anticipate, particularly when they are remarkably well deserved, as they are.
Old Ethan Allen! Would he were alive again! Oh, for one hour of that Dundee! Well, the time will answer its own needs, and this war will not pass by without its man of iron. He cometh! Who is he to be? George McClellan, you have it in you!
Put on steam, and win us the great victory of all time!
Should any man ever collect into a volume all the stories told of the great American showman, we trust that he will not omit the following:
BARNUM'S PIGEON
Barnum sat in his office. It was a warm summer afternoon, but the B was busy, as usual. He had before him a plan for exhibiting the great Guyascutus on improved principles, a letter from a man who owned a wife with three arms (to be had cheap), and another from the fortunate proprietor of the great Singing Pig. An offer or petition from the great 'ex' J– s B– n to lecture cheaply had been considered and rejected.
'He's played out!' was the brief reflection of Barnum. As he said this the door opened, and there entered a manifest German, who bore a covered cage.
'Vat you bedinks of dat! exclaimed the Deutscher, removing the cloth.
It was a beautiful bird; of perfect pigeon shape, but of an exquisite golden yellow lustre, such as no fowl which Mr. Barnum had ever seen—and his ornithological observations had not been limited—ever wore.
'I sells her dretful cheap,' remarked the bearer, 'verflucht cheap. I gifs him to you for 'pout den or sieben thaler.'
'H'm—no—don't want it,' replied Barnum.
'Den I goes down mit mine brice to five thaler and dere I stops.'
'No—got birds enough,' said Barnum. 'They don't pay. Now, if it was the great Japanese earthworm, a yard long—'
'Goot py. I sorry you no pys it. I dinks I colored her foost rate.'
'Ha!—what!—HOW!' cried Barnum, deeply interested; 'artificially colored! Good! I must have that!'
The German smiled a heavy, beery, winky, Limburgy smile, with both eyes shut tightly.
'Yas, I golors de bichin yellows unt creen and plue unt all sorts golors. Only five thalers der piece.'
'Do you think,' said Mr. Barnum, 'that you could prepare a great Patriotic National Lusus Naturæ, recently found perching on Independence Hall, Philadelphia—or hold—that's better—Mount Vernon? Could you color an eagle, with red stars on his breast, and blue and white stripes running down big tail?'
The Dutchman thought he could, if the eagle's bill were tied, and his claws each stuck into a cork.
'Well, try your hand at it. But hold—go up stairs and put the pigeon into the Happy Family.'
The Dutchman stumped away. In about ten minutes Mr. Feathers, the ornithologist of the Museum, came rushing down, in a wild state of fluttering excitement.
'Good God, Mr. Barnum, you're not going to put that bird into the Happy Family!'
'Why not?' inquired Mr. Barnum, serenely.
'Why—it is the greatest curiosity you own. Heavens! a YELLOW pigeon! Sir, it is an anomaly—an undiscovered rarity—a—a—why, sir, it's an incredibility! I say, to my shame, I never heard of it. From Australia, I presume? There are some undiscovered marvels still left in that queer country.'
'No; it's the California golden pigeon.' ('That will take very well,' quoth Barnum to himself.)
So the pigeon went up to the Happy Family, and entered cordially into the innocent amusements of that blessed band. He sat on the cat's head, and on the dog's back, and suffered the mice to nestle under his wings, and never made them afraid. As for the owl, she fairly made love to him.
Time rolled on.
There came to New York ' a great old boy,' in the person of California Grizzly Bear Adams. 'Old Adams' he liked to be called, though he wasn't very aged. He was 'one of 'em.'
'See here, Barnum,' quoth he one day, in his rough voice; 'you've got a bird in your show which I've got to have. It's the Californy golden pigin. It's a sort o' mine anyhow—mine's a show of Californy critters, and nothing else.'
'You can't have that, Adams,' said Mr. Barnum. ' That's the greatest curiosity in the known world. Nothing like it—unique.'
'Sha—a—aw!' was the reply. 'Stuff! Don't run more o' that con-tusive stuff on me. Rare!! here he winked; 'why, I've seen them yallar pigeons, three and four hundred in a flock, up round Los Angeles and Cabeza del Diablo, and them places. The miners find where the gold is, by 'em.'
'Why didn't you bring some on with you?' inquired Barnum.
'Fact was, they were so everlastin' common that it didn't seem to me they were worth bringin'. Why, you can git a dozen of 'em any day in 'Frisco.'
With much feigned reluctance Barnum yielded his pigeon up to the California show, and all went well—for a time.
Perhaps two weeks had elapsed, when Old Adams burst into the office, excited.
'Barnum!' he cried, 'you infarnal old humbug—that California golden pigin is a darned swindle! It's painted!'
'Why, how you talk!' replied Barnum. 'Humbug, indeed! Haven't you seen golden pigeons, three and four hundred in a flock, in California?'
'It's painted and gilded, I tell you!' cried Adams. 'The color is all coming off the edges of the wings, and its tail is 'most rubbed white!'
'The idea!' replied Barnum, mildly, but with a droll, merry light in his eyes. 'You know you can send out to the San Francisco market any day and get a dozen!'
That is the legend of Ye Golden Pigeon. No—hold on; it is told in the Museum that one day a lady charged Mr. Barnum with having had his Angel Fish artificially colored.
'Indigo,' she remarked.
But the golden pigeon captivated her, and she implored Mr. B. for one of its eggs. He evaded the request on the ground that the 'sect' to which the pigeon belonged was not of the egg-laying kind.
So we should think. Apropos of the Angel Fish, the Continental heard a lady remark lately that they were well named, and lovely enough to have been caught in the ponds of paradise. 'They certainly must be the kind,' she added, 'which they fish for with golden hooks.'
And ah! the merry summer-tide!' as a Minnisinger and many another singer have sung. As we write, summer is losing its last traces in the peach-time of September. Bartlett pears are dead ripe—like the engagements formed at Newport and Saratoga—and china-asters and tuberoses tell of coming frosts. Well, 'tis over—the second season of the year is with the snows of year before last.
'Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan!'
and we may continue the service by singing a
LAMENT FOR SUMMER
BY J. W. LEEDS
Like an argosy deep laden
With the wealth of Indian sands,
Sailing down a summer ocean
To far-off Northern lands,—
Like a golden-visioned story—
Like the hectic's bright decay,
Dying in the painted glory
Of the autumn sere and hoary,
Fade the summer days away.
Persons who insist that 'after all, the Rebels are slandered as to waging warfare in a barbarous manner,' will do well to cast their eyes over the following from the Richmond Dispatch of September 24:
"The Yankees are about to send their army captured at Harper's Ferry against the Indians. Has the Government no means of retaliating for such a breach of faith?'
'A breach of faith!' So, then, we are to understand that the latest uprising of the Indians, as well as that led by that brutal Falstaff, Albert Pike, the Southwest, are all in the service of the Confederacy? For where is there a breach of faith unless the Indians in question are the allies of our Southern foes? This is, we presume, a part of 'the defensive policy of exhausting in detail the superior numbers of the invading North,' which has been proposed as forming a portion of the Confederate policy—other items of which consist of killing prisoners by neglect, and having torpedoes and mines in abandoned villages. We commend this admission of alliance with savages to the special consideration of the London Times.
We observe that a new planet has been discovered at Bilk, in Germany. Well, we have no doubt of the fact, but we don't like the name of the place where they found it. A Bilk planet is extremely suggestive of a Moon hoax. And, talking of hoaxes, has anybody with a sharp stick been as yet deputed by the government to look after the man who gets up proposals of peace for the Philadelphia Inquirer? Ancient friend of ours, such yarns (unintentionally) do harm. They are reprinted in Dixie, and the Dixians say that we are frightened, while Northern doughfaces grasp at them, and get to thinking. Excellent Inquirer! this is not a good time to set people to thinking over peace proposals and compromises.
Does our friend know, by the way, what sort of fowl are hatched from mares' nests'? They are canards. Don't let there be too many of them hatched in serious times like these.
A lady friend, who has brothers in the war, has kindly suggested that, in these days of patriotism, the songs of the Revolution should have more than usual zest, and has kindly copied for us a number, from which we select the following:
TO THE LADIES
[Published in the Boston News Letter, in 1769.]
Young ladies in town, and those who live 'round,
Let a friend at this season advise you,
Since money's so scarce, and times growing worse,
Strange things may soon hap to surprise you:
First, then, throw aside your top-knots of pride,
Wear none but your own country linen;
Of economy boast, let your pride be the most
To show clothes of your own make and spinning;
This do without fear, and to all you'll appear
Fair, charming, true, lovely and clever;
Though the times remain darkish, young men may be sparkish,
And love you much stronger than ever,
Well! that song is as good now as ever it was; and the next is not far off from it:
WAR SONG.—1776
Hark, hark! the sound of war is heard,
And we must all attend,
Take up our arms, and go with speed,
Our country to defend.
Husbands must leave their loving wives,
And sprightly youths attend,
Leave their sweethearts and risk their lives,
Their country to defend.
May they be heroes in the field,
Have heroes' fame in store;
We pray the Lord to be their shield,
Where thundering cannons roar.
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AYER'S CHERRY PECTORAL
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AYER'S CATHARTIC PILLS
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