I grieve, I mourn, I lament, I weep, I suffer, I pine, I droop, I sink, I despair, I writhe in agony, I feel bad.
_Damphool_ has departed this life.
He is buried, but he is not dead; he is entombed, but he is still alive.
After a metropolitan existence of a few months had partially relieved him of his rural verdure; after having seen with appreciating eyes the suburbs of a town which alone contains the entire and undivided _elephant_, he has voluntarily exiled himself to a stagnant village in the Western wilderness--a sleepily-ambitious little townlet, vainly, for many years, aspiring to the dignity of cityhood, but which still remains a very baby of a city, not yet (metaphorically speaking) divested of those rudimentary triangular garments peculiar to weaklings in an undeveloped state--without energy enough to cry when it is hurt, or go-aheadism sufficient to keep its nose clean.
A somnambulistic town--for in spite of all the efforts made for its glorification, it has obstinately refused to shake off its munic.i.p.al drowsiness.
A very Rip Van Winkle of a town, now in the midst of its twenty years"
nap, and which will arouse some time and find itself so dilapidated that its former friends won"t recognize it.
A town which actualizes that ancient fable of the hare and tortoise--and, trusting in its capability of speed, has gone fast asleep at the beginning of the course, only to awake some future day to the fact that all its tortoise neighbors have pa.s.sed it on the way, and it has been distanced in the race, rather than be disturbed in its comfortable snooze.
A very sepulchre of a town, into which, if a would-be voyager in the stream of earnest life be cast away and stranded, he is as much lost to the really _living_ world, as if he were embalmed with oriental spices, and shelved away in the darkest tomb of the Pharaohs.
A town whose future greatness exists only in the imagination of its deluded habiters, whose enterprise and public spirit are as fabulous as the Ph[oe]nix.
A town which will never be a city, save in name, until telegraphs, railroads, colleges, churches, libraries, and busy warehouses become indigenous to the soil of the Wolverines, and spring like mushrooms from the earth, without the aid of human mind to plan, or human will to urge the work, or human hand to place one single stone.
For, sooner than this dormant town shall be matured into a flourishing city by the men who now doze away their time within its sleepy limits, the dead men of Greenwood shall rise from their mossy graves and pile their marble monuments into a tradesman"s market-house.
A town, where, in former days, some few short-sighted business men did congregate, who commenced great stores, hotels and warehouses, and the other tools by help of which the world does "_business_," but which said men, too wise to remain faithful to a place which all their toil would ever fail to permanently rouse from its persevering sleep, soon left for ever, after, by united effort, they had galvanized it into a spasmodic life, and taken advantage of its transient vitality to hastily sell their property, before its slumber should come on again. These men are now remembered by the great hotel their enterprise erected, and which is to this day unfinished, and the warehouses (now deserted, save by rats,) which they put up, and the other ma.s.sive structure, the work on which was going bravely on, until the drowsy genius of the place congealed the energy of the founders, and left the unroofed walls and rotting timbers a crumbling landmark in the desolate dearth, to show where another business man was wrecked.
A rusty village which has not enterprise enough to keep its public buildings in repair, and whose very Court-house, now in the last decrepit years of a slothful life, has for years leaked dirty water on the heads of the sleepy lawyers who burrow in its dingy lower rooms; and which, in a soaking rain, could not boast a dry corner to protect the dignified caput of the supreme judge from the aqueous visitation.
A town where every one is poorer than his neighbor, and no one man is rich in this world"s goods, save those few treacherous pilots, who, being charged to guide the vessels of their fellows, have placed false lights on hidden rocks, run the confiding craft to ruin, and fattened on the plunder of the wreck.
A distant and remote extreme of the hurrying world, which is so separated from the "heart of business" that no single drop of its vital life ever reaches this defunct and amputated member.
A place where the inactivity and inertia of the people infects even the animal and vegetable worlds; and the cows and pigs are too lazy to eat enough to ensure their pinguitude, but drawl about the streets, perambulating specimens of embodied animated laziness, displaying through their skins their osseous economy.
Where the very trees don"t leaf out till August and the flowers are too backward to bloom till snow comes, and where the river itself, too lazy to run down hill, sometimes from sheer indolence stops flowing, to take a rest; dams itself up, and overflows the railroad.
Yet here has the late lamented Damphool resolved to bury himself, establishing thereby an undisputed t.i.tle to the expressive name he bears; and I can only hope that in his exile some stray copy of this book may be wrecked within his reach, that he may come to know the present heartfelt lament of me, Doesticks.
I have ever tried, O mighty Damphool, to forgive thy faults and overlook thy frailties!
Some have said that thou wert lazy, but such have never seen thee eat.
What though thou wert foppish to a degree.
I could forgive thy Shanghae coats, thy two-acre turn-down collars and thy pantaloons so tight thou hadst to pull them on with boot-hooks; thy gorgeous cravat, with its bow projecting on either side like a silken wing; thy lemon-colored kids; thy cambric handkerchiefs, dripping with compounds to me unknown; and thy blanket shawl, which made thee resemble a half-breed Scotchman.
I could overlook the boarding-school-ism of the Miss Nancyish "Journal,"
filled with poetry rejected of the press, with unmeaning prose, with dyspeptic complaints of hard fortune, or bilious repinings at thy lot, and all the senseless silliness which thou didst inscribe therein.
I could endure the affected airs thou didst a.s.sume before the lady boarders, that they might think and call thee _Poet_; the abstracted air, the appearance of being lost in thought, and the sudden recovery of thy truant wits with a spasmodic start; the shirt-collar loose at the neck, and turned romantically down over the coat; the long hair brushed back behind thy noticeable ears, to show thy "marble forehead."
I could admire that self-appreciation of personal charms which made thee certain all the young ladies were smitten unto matrimony with thy fascinations.
How faithful wert thou in thy gastronomical affections! how constant to thy first love--fried oysters; and how attentive to the choice of thy mature judgment--boiled turkey, with celery.
How unwavering in thy economy, never parting with a dime in charity, in generosity, or in friendly gift, but only disbursing the same for a full equivalent in the wherewithal to decorate the outer man, or gratify the inner individual.
How consistent in thy devotion to music and the drama; always attending the opera or theatre whenever generous friends would buy the tickets.
What an intense appreciation hadst thou of literature, always going fast asleep over anything more substantial than the morning paper. How fashionably sincere in all thy professions of piety, attending church on Sunday, reading the responses when they could be easily found, and sleeping through the sermon with as much respectability as any Church member of them all; truly, most estimable Damphool, I shall greatly miss thy intermittent religion.
How lovely wert thou in disposition, how amiable in manners; with what an affectionate air couldst thou kick the match-boy out doors, box the ears of the little candy-girl, and tell the more st.u.r.dy apple-woman to go to the devil.
With what a charitable look couldst thou listen to the tale of the shivering beggar child, could see the bare blue feet, and view the scanty dress, while thy generous hand closed with a tighter grasp upon the cherished pennies in thy pocket.
Anatomically speaking, friend Damphool, I suppose thou hadst a heart; emotionally, not a trace of one; the feeble article which served thee in that capacity knew no more of generous thoughts and n.o.ble impulses than a Shanghae pullet knows of the opera of Norma.
Go, immerse thyself in that Western town where, like the rest who dwell therein, thy abilities will be undeveloped, thy talents will be veiled, thy energies rust out, and thou wilt become, like them, a perambulating, pa.s.sive, perpetual sacrifice to the lazy G.o.ds of Sloth and Sanct.i.ty.
I shall mourn thy taper legs; I shall lament thy excruciating neck-tie; I shall weep that last coat that did so very long a tail unfold; I shall sorrow for thy unctuous hairs, and grieve for thy perfumed whiskers.
I shall look in vain for thy polished boots and jeweled hands; I shall miss thy intellectual countenance, radiant with innocent imbecility; and I shall lose my daily meditation upon the precarious frailty of those intangible legs.
But, ancient friend, when hereafter all the rustic maidens have yielded their hearts before thy captivating charms; when thy manly beauty is fully appreciated, and thy intellectual endowments acknowledged by the world, deign to cast one condescending glance downward toward thy former friend and perpetual admirer, and give one gracious thought of kind remembrance to sorrowing, disconsolate me, Doesticks.
Damphool, thou art superlative--there is none greater.
Farewell! Henceforth, friendship to me is but a name, and I survive my bereavement only to concentrate my affections upon my embryonic whiskers. I remain inconsolable, till the bell rings for dinner.
[Ill.u.s.tration: The Wine Cellar near Cincinnati.]
x.x.xIV.
Keeping the Maine Law.
By the enduring perseverance of the lovers of cold water, laws have been pa.s.sed in most of the Western States forbidding the sale of those beverages which make men rich, happy, dizzy, and drunk, all in the s.p.a.ce of half an hour; so that now a good horn is not, as formerly, to be purchased at every corner grocery, and travellers are forced to carry a couple of "drunks" in a willow-covered flask in their overcoat pocket.
The usual "bitters" are not forthcoming in the morning, and old topers who have for years regularly paid their morning devotions to the decanter or the black bottle, must now perforce become votaries of the hydrant and the rain water barrel.
Not a few men have, within the last four months, drunk more water than for years before, to the great astonishment of their stomachs, which would, at first, almost rebel against the unusual visitor.
Many an habitual guzzler whose convivial habits have generally sent him to bed at five o"clock every afternoon, has been amazed to discover what a difference the new drink makes in the stability of the village const.i.tuents; and it will be a matter of wonder to find that at four in the afternoon the town is in comparatively the same situation it was in the morning; that the tavern sign is _not_ over the shoe-maker"s shop, nor the horse-trough in the front-parlor; that the pump is in the street instead of the church belfry, the confectioner"s shop _not_ in the livery stable, the livery horses _not_ in the bakery, the bakery _not_ a hardware store, the hardware store _not_ full of shingles and building stuff; that the poplar-trees in front of the minister"s house are right end up, and the flower-garden of the minister"s wife is in a state of ordinary propriety, with no snow-b.a.l.l.s growing on the strawberry vines, or strawberries on the lilacs; no blue-bells on the locust-trees, violets on the currant bushes, or lilies in the onion-beds; that there are no tulips on the pickets, and no moss-rose buds springing from the shed,--and that the boy who waters the stage-coach horses every afternoon as the clock strikes quarter to five, does _not_ lead them tail first up the church lightning rod, and make them drink from the ridge-pole, as he had always thought.
In short he finds a serious and sudden change in the world around him, and that all the curious phenomena before mentioned and which formerly were always present in the afternoon to his confused vision, immediately after imbibing his seventeenth gla.s.s of rum and water, have ceased to occur, and that every thing is now right side up, and front end foremost to his ever before bewildered optics.
And not a few men who would be ashamed to own that they really care anything for the drop of spirits which they occasionally take for the "stomach"s sake" will be seriously incommoded by this new stringency in temperance principles; and the deacon or elder who in the privacy of his closet kept a spiritual comforter of half pint dimension will miss, more seriously than he would like to own, even to himself, this pious dram.