Chapter XXIII (1)

There was naturally great surprise when Walter Monroe returned home to dinner and Alice was found to be missing. It was evident that it was not an accidental detention, for her trunk had been sent for an hour previous, and the messenger either could not or would not give any information as to her whereabouts. Mrs. Monroe was excessively agitated,--her faculties lost in a maze, like one beholding an accident without power of thought or motion. To Walter it was a heavy blow; he feared that his own advances had been the occasion of her leaving the house, and he reproached himself bitterly for his headlong folly. Their dinner was a sad and cheerless meal; the mother feeling all a woman's solicitude for a friendless girl; the son filled with a tumult of sorrow, remorse, love, and pity.

"Poor Alice!" said Mrs. Monroe; "perhaps she has found no home."

"Don't, mother! The thought of her in the streets, or among suspicious strangers, or vulgar people, is dreadful. We must leave no means untried to find her. Did she leave no word, no note?"

"No,--none that I know of."

"Have you looked?"

She shook her head. Walter left his untasted food, and hastily looked in the hall, then in the parlor, and at last in the library. There was the note in her own delicate hand.

"DEAR WALTER,--

"Don't be offended. I cannot eat the bread of idleness now that your fortune is gone and your salary stopped. If I need your assistance, you will hear from me. Comfort your mother, and believe that I shall be happier earning my own living. We shall meet in better times. God bless you both for your kindness to one who had no claim upon you!

"ALICE."

"The dear creature!" said Mrs. Monroe, taking the note and kissing it.

"Why did you let her trunk go, mother? You might have detained the man who came for it, and sent for me. I would have followed him to the ends of the earth."

"I don't know, my son. I was confused. I hardly knew what happened. I shook so that I sat down, and Bridget must have got it."

Tears ran down her cheeks, and her hands trembled so that her fork dropped.

"Never mind, dear mother. Pray, be calm. I did not wish to disturb you."

There was a ring at the door. A gentleman wished to see Mr. Monroe. Rising from the table, he went into the parlor.

"Mr. Monroe," began the stranger, in an agitated manner, "do you know anything of a young lady named Lee,--Alice Lee?"

"Yes," replied Monroe, with equal excitement, "I know her well. What of her? Where is she? Have you found her?"

"Found her?" said the other, with surprise. "Is she not here?"

"No,--she left this morning."

"And left no word where she was going?"

"None."

"Let me beg of you not to trifle with me. Did she not hear my voice, my step, and attempt to excuse herself through you?"

"Sir!" exclaimed Walter.

"I beg pardon. I have been in search of her for two days. I could not believe she had eluded me just at the last. I do not wish to doubt your word."

"And who may you be, Sir, to take such an interest in the lady?"

"I can satisfy you fully. My name is Greenleaf."

"The painter?"

"Yes. You must have heard her speak of me."

"Never, to my recollection."

"Have you known her long?"

"She is my cousin. It is only recently that she came here, and her acquaintances of a year ago might naturally have been passed over."

"You seem surprised at her leaving you so abruptly. You will join me in making search for her?"

"I shall search for her, myself, as long as there is hope."

"Let me confess," said Greenleaf, "that I have the strongest reasons for my haste. She is betrothed to me."

"Since you have honored me with your confidence, I will return it, so far as to tell you what I heard from her this morning. I think I can remember the precise words:--'I have received a wound from the faithlessness of one lover, which never will heal.' If you are the person, I hope the information will be as agreeable to you as her absence and ill-judging independence are to me. I wish you good morning."

"Then she has heard!" said Greenleaf, soliloquizing. "I am justly punished." Then aloud. "I shall not take offence at your severity of tone. I have but one thought now. Good morning!"

He left the house, like one in a dream. Alice, homeless in the streets this bitter day,--seeking for a home in poverty-stricken boarding-houses,--asking for work from tailors or milliners,--exposed to jeers, coarse compliments, and even to utter want!--the thought was agony. The sorrows of a whole life were concentrated in this one hour. He walked on, frantically, peering under every bonnet as he passed, looking wistfully in at the shop-windows, expecting every moment to encounter her sad, reproachful face.

Walter had been somewhat ill for several days, and the accumulation of misfortunes now pressed upon him heavily. He did not tell his mother of the strange interview, but sat down moodily by the grate, in the library. He was utterly perplexed where in the city to search for Alice; and with his mental depression came a bodily infirmity and nervousness that made him incapable of effort. An hour passed in gloomy reverie,--drifting without aim upon a shoreless ocean, under a sullen sky,--when he was roused by the entrance of Easelmann.

"In the dumps? I declare, Monroe, I shouldn't have thought it of you."

"I am really ill, my friend."

"Pooh! Don't let your troubles make you believe that. Cheer up. You'll find employment presently, and you'll be surprised to find how well you are."

"I hope I shall be able to make the experiment."

"Well, suppose you walk out with me. There is a tailor I want you to see."

"A tailor? I can't sew or use shears, either."

"No,--nor sit cross-legged; I know that. But this tailor is no common Snip. He is a man of ideas and character. He has something to propose to you."

"Indeed! I am much obliged to you. To-morrow I will go with you; but, really, I feel too feeble to-day," said Monroe, languidly.

"Well, as you please; to-morrow it shall be. How is your mother?"

"Quite well, I thank you."

"And the pretty cousin, likewise, I hope?"

"She was quite well this morning."

"Isn't she at home?"

"No,--she has gone out."

"Confound you, Monroe! you have never let me have a glimpse of her. Now I am not a dangerous person; quite harmless, in fact; received trustfully by matrons with grown-up daughters. You needn't hide her."

"I don't know. Some young ladies are quite apt to be fascinated by elderly gentlemen who know the world and still take an interest in society."

"Yes,--a filial sort of interest, a grand-daughterly reverence and respect. The sight of gray hair is a wonderful antidote to any tenderer feeling."

"I am very sorry not to oblige you; but the truth is, that Cousin Alice, hearing of my losses, has left the house abruptly, to earn her own living, and we do not know where she has gone."

"The independent little minx! Now I rather like that. There's the proper spirit. She'll take good care of herself; I haven't a doubt."

"But it is a most mortifying step to us. It is a reflection upon our hospitality. I would have worked my fingers off for her."

"No doubt. But she will merely turn hers into nutmeg-graters, by pricking them with her needle, and save you from making stumps of your own. Oh, never fear,--we shall find her presently. I'll make a description of her, and leave it with all the slop-shop fellows. 'Strayed or stolen: A young lady answering to the name of Alice; five feet and no inches; dressed in black; pale, blue-eyed, smiles when properly spoken to; of no use to any person but the owner. One thousand dollars reward, and no questions asked.' Isn't that it? It won't be necessary to add, that the disconsolate advertiser is breaking his heart on account of her absence."

"My dear Easelmann, I know your kindly heart; but I cannot be rallied out of this depression. I have only the interest of a cousin, a friend, a protector, in the girl; but her going away, after my other misfortunes, has plunged me into an abyss. I can't be cheerful."

"One word more, my dear fellow, and I go. You know I threatened to bore you every day; but I sha'n't continue the terebrations long at a time. You told me about the way your notes were disposed of. Now they are yours, beyond question, and you can recover them from the holder; he has no lien upon them whatever, for Sandford was not authorized to pledge them. It's only a spoiling of the Egyptians to fleece a broker."

"Perhaps the notes themselves are worthless, or will be. Nearly everybody has failed; the rest will go shortly."

"I see you are incurable; the melancholy fit must have its course, I suppose. But don't hang yourself with your handkerchief, nor drown yourself in your wash-basin. Good bye!"

On his way down Washington Street, Easelmann met his friend Greenleaf, whom he had not seen before for many days.

"Whither, ancient mariner? That haggard face and glittering eye of yours might hold the most resolute passer-by."

"You, Easelmann! I am glad to see you. I am in trouble."

"No doubt; enthusiastic people always are. You fretted your nurse and your mother, your schoolmaster, your mistress, and, most of all, yourself. A sharp sword cuts its own scabbard."

"She is gone,--left me without a word."

"Who, the Sandford woman? I always told you she would."

"No,--I left her, though not so soon as I should."

"A fine story! She jilted you."

"No,--on my honor. I'll tell you about it some other time. But Alice, my betrothed, I have lost her forever."

"Melancholy Orpheus, how? Did you look over your shoulder, and did she vanish into smoke?"

"It is her father who has gone over the Styx. She is in life; but she has heard of my flirtation"--

"And served you right by leaving you. Now you will quit capering in a lady's chamber, and go to work, a sadder and a wiser man."

"Not till I have found her. You may think me a trifler, Easelmann; but every nerve I have is quivering with agony at the thought of the pain I have caused her."

"Whew-w-w." said Easelmann. "Found her? Then she's eloped too! I just left a disconsolate lover mourning over a runaway mistress. It seems to be epidemic. There is a stampede of unhappy females. We must compress the feet of the next generation, after the wise custom of China, so that they can't get away."

"Whom have you seen?"

"Mr. Monroe, an acquaintance of mine."

"The same. The lady, it seems, is his cousin,--and is, or was, my betrothed."

"And you two brave men give up, foiled by a country-girl of twenty, or thereabouts!"

"How is one to find her?"

"What is the advantage of brains to a man who doesn't use them? Consider; she will look for employment. She won't try to teach, it would be useless. She is not strong enough for hard labor. She is too modest and reserved to take a place in a shop behind a counter, where she would be sure to be discovered. She will, therefore, be found in the employ of some milliner, tailor, or bookbinder. How easy to go through those establishments!"

"You give me new courage. I will get a trades-directory and begin at once."

"To-morrow, my friend. She hasn't got a place yet, probably."

"So much the better. I shall save her the necessity."

"Go, then," said Easelmann. "You'll be happier, I suppose, to be running your legs off, if it is to no purpose. A lover with a new impulse is like a rocket when the fuse is lighted; he must needs go off with a rush, or ignobly fizz out."

"Farewell, for to-day. I'll see you to-morrow," said Greenleaf, already some paces off.

[To be continued.]

PRAYER FOR LIFE.

Oh, let me not die young!
Full-hearted, yet without a tongue,--
Thy green earth stretched before my feet, untrod,--
Thy blue sky bending over,
As her most tender lover,
With infinite meaning in its starry eyes,
Full of thy silent majesty, O God!
And wild, weird whispers from the solemn deep
Of the Great Sea ascending, with the sweep
Of the Wind-angel's wings across the skies,
Burdened with hints of awful memories,
Whose half-guessed grandeur thrills us till we weep!--
I love thy marvellous world too well--
Its sunny nooks of hill and dell,
Its majesty of mountains, and the swell
Of volumed waters--for my heart to yearn
Away from the deep truth which veils its splendor
In beauty there less dazzling, but more tender.
With grave delight I turn
To all its glories, from the tiniest bloom
Whose hour-long life just sweetens its own tomb
As with funereal spices,
To the far stars which burn
And blossom in fire through their vast periods,--
Borne in thy palm,
Like the pale lotus in the hand of Isis,
When throned white, and calm,
In solemn conclave of the mythic gods.

Oh, let me not die young,
A brother unclaimed among
The countless millions of thy happy flock,
Whose deepest joy is to obey,
Whereby they feel the measured sway
Of thy life in them, their own living part,
Whether in centuried pulses of the rock
By slow disintegration
Ascending to its higher,
Or the quick fluttering of the Storm-god's heart,--
An instant's palpitation
Through all its arteries of fire!
One common blood runs down life's myriad veins,
From Archangelic Hierarchs who float
Broad-winged in the God-glory, to the mote
That trembles with a braided dance
In the warm sunset's vivid glance;
And one great Heart that boundless flow sustains!
In all the creatures of thy hand divine

Thy love-light is a living guest,
Whether a petal's palm confine
Its glitter to a lily's breast,
Or in unbounded space a starry line
Stretches, till flagging Thought must droop her wing to rest.

Oh, let me not die young,
A powerless child among
The ancient grandeurs of thy awful world!
I catch some fragment of the mighty song
Which, ere to darkness hurled,
My elder brothers in the eternal throng
Have caught before,--
Faint murmurs of the surge,
The deep, surrounding, everlasting roar
Of a life-ocean without port or shore,--
Ere I depart, compelled to urge
My fragile bark with trembling from the verge
Of this Earth-island, into that Unknown,
Where worlds, like souls forlorn, go wandering alone!

Oh, let me not die young,
With all that song unsung,
A swift and voiceless fugitive,
From darkness coming and in darkness lost,
Before thy solemn Pentecost,
Dawning within the soul, shall give
The burning utterance of its flaming tongue,--
The boon whereby to other souls we live!
Thy worlds are flashing with immortal splendor,
For human speech on heights of human song
Faintly to render,
And pour back along
Its mountain grandeur, the accumulate rain
Of star-light, dream-light, thoughts of joy and pain,
Of love, hate, right and wrong,
In floods of utterance sublime and strong,
In dewy effluence beautiful and tender.

The kindred darknesses
Of caverned earth and fathomless thought,
Of Life and Death, and their twin mysteries,
Before and After, on my spirit press
Tempting and awful, with high promise fraught,
And guardian terrors, whose out-flashing swords
Beleaguer Paradise and the holy Tree
Sciential. Step by step the way is fought
That leads from Darkness, through her miscreant hordes,
Back to the heavens of wise, and true, and free:
Minerva's Gorgon, Ammon's cyclic Asp,
And the fierce flame-sword of the Cherubim,
That flashed like hate across the pallid gasp
Of exiled Eve and Adam, flare, and glare,
And hiss venenate, round the steps of him
Who thirsts for heavenly Wisdom, if he dare
Climb to her bosom, or with artless grasp
Pluck the sweet fruits that hang around him, ripe and fair.

Oh! glorious Youth
Is the true age of prophecy, when Truth
Stands bared in beauty, and the young blood boils
To hurl us in her arms, before the blur
Of time makes dim her rounded form,
Or the cold blood recoils
From the polluted swarm
Of armed Chimeras that environ her.
But worthy Age to ripened fruit shall bring
The glorious blooming of its hopeful spring,
And pile the garners of immortal Truth
With sheaves of golden grain,
To sow the world again,
And fill the eager wants of the New Age's youth.

A thousand flashes of uncertain light
Cleave the thick darkness, driving far athwart
The up-piled glooms, as lightnings plough their bright
Fire-furrows through the barren cloud
They sow with thunders. Thought on burning thought
Shatters the doubts and terrors which have bowed
Weak hearts on weaker leaning in a crowd
Self-crushing and self-fettering; gleams are caught
From some far centre set by God to keep
His brave world spinning, or some drifting isle
Of swift wildfire shot out by the wide sweep
Of wings demoniac,
Far winnowing and black,
Our cheated souls to 'wilder and beguile.
Only the years, the imperturbable,
Impassionate years, can sheave the scattered rays
Into one sun, these mingled arrows tell
Each to its quiver, the divine and fell,
And life's lone meteors to their centre trace.

O Father, let me not die young!
Earth's beauty asks a heart and tongue
To give true love and praises to her worth;
Her sins and judgment-sufferings call
For fearless martyrs to redeem thy Earth
From her disastrous fall.
For though her summer hills and vales might seem
The fair creation of a poet's dream,--
Ay, of the Highest Poet,
Whose wordless rhythms are chanted by the gyres
Of constellate star-choirs,

That with deep melody flow and overflow it,--
The sweet Earth,--very sweet, despite
The rank grave-smell forever drifting in
Among the odors from her censers white
Of wave-swung lilies and of wind-swung roses,--
The Earth sad-sweet is deeply attaint with sin!
The pure air, which incloses
Her and her starry kin,
Still shudders with the unspent palpitating
Of a great Curse, that to its utmost shore
Thrills with a deadly shiver
Which has not ceased to quiver
Down all the ages, nathless the strong beating
Of Angel-wings, and the defiant roar
Of Earth's Titanic thunders.

Fair and sad,
In sin and beauty, our beloved Earth
Has need of all her sons to make her glad;
Has need of martyrs to re-fire the hearth
Of her quenched altars,--of heroic men
With Freedom's sword, or Truth's supernal pen,
To shape the worn-out mould of nobleness again.
And she has need of Poets who can string
Their harps with steel to catch the lightning's fire,
And pour her thunders from the clanging wire,
To cheer the hero, mingling with his cheer,
Arouse the laggard in the battle's rear,
Daunt the stern wicked, and from discord wring
Prevailing harmony, while the humblest soul
Who keeps the tune the warder angels sing
In golden choirs above,
And only wears, for crown and aureole,
The glow-worm light of lowliest human love,
Shall fill with low, sweet undertones the chasms
Of silence, 'twixt the booming thunder-spasms.
And Earth has need of Prophets fiery-lipped
And deep-souled, to announce the glorious dooms
Writ on the silent heavens in starry script,
And flashing fitfully from her shuddering tombs,--
Commissioned Angels of the new-born Faith,
To teach the immortality of Good,
The soul's God-likeness, Sin's coeval death,
And Man's indissoluble Brotherhood.

Yet never an age, when God has need of him,
Shall want its Man, predestined by that need,
To pour his life in fiery word or deed,--
The strong Archangel of the Elohim!
Earth's hollow want is prophet of his coming:
In the low murmur of her famished cry,
And heavy sobs breathed up despairingly,
Ye hear the near invisible humming
Of his wide wings that fan the lurid sky
Into cool ripples of new life and hope,
While far in its dissolving ether ope
Deeps beyond deeps, of sapphire calm, to cheer
With Sabbath gleams the troubled Now and Here.

Father! thy will be done,
Holy and righteous One!
Though the reluctant years
May never crown my throbbing brows with white,
Nor round my shoulders turn the golden light
Of my thick locks to wisdom's royal ermine:
Yet by the solitary tears,
Deeper than joy or sorrow,--by the thrill,
Higher than hope or terror, whose quick germen,
In those hot tears to sudden vigor sprung,
Sheds, even now, the fruits of graver age,--
By the long wrestle in which inward ill
Fell like a trampled viper to the ground.
By all that lifts me o'er my outward peers
To that supernal stage
Where soul dissolves the bonds by Nature bound,--
Fall when I may, by pale disease unstrung,
Or by the hand of fratricidal rage,
I cannot now die young!

* * * * *

ODDS AND ENDS FROM THE OLD WORLD

My first visit to Turin dates as far back as 1831. We are so personal, that our impressions of things depend less on their intrinsic worth than on such or such extrinsic circumstance which may affect our mental vision at the moment. I suppose mine was affected by the mist and rain which graced the capital of Piedmont on the morning of my arrival there. Another incident, microscopic, and almost too ludicrous to mention, had no less its weight in the scale of prepossession. I was tired and hungry, and, while the _diligence_ was being unloaded, I entered a _caffé_ close by, and called for some buttered toast. My hair (I had plenty at that time) stood on end at the answer I received. There was no buttered toast to be had, the waiter said. "It was not the custom." I confess I augured ill of a city from whose _caffés_, unlike all others throughout Italy, such a staple of breakfast was banished.

I am fond of buttered toast, I own. If it is a weakness, I candidly plead guilty. My mother--bless her soul!--brought me up in the faith of buttered toast. I had breakfasted upon it all my life. I could conceive of no breakfast without it. Hence the shock I felt. "Not the custom!" Why not, I wondered. A problem of no easy solution, I can tell you! It has been haunting me for the last seven-and-twenty years. If I had a thousand dollars,--a bold supposition for one of the brotherhood of the pen,--I would even now found a prize, and adjudge that sum to the best memoir on this question:--"Why is buttered toast excluded from the _caffés_ of Turin?" It is not from lack of proper materials,--for heaps of butter and mountains of rolls are to be seen on every side; it is not from lack of taste,--for the people which has invented the _grisini_, and delights in the white truffle, shows too keen a sense of what is dainty not to exclude the charge of want of taste.

"Pray, what are the _grisini?_ what is the white truffle?" asks the inquisitive reader.--The _grisini_ are bread idealized, bread under the form of walking-sticks a third of a little finger in diameter, and from which every the least particle of crumb has been carefully eliminated. It is light, easy of digestion, cracks without effort under your teeth, and melts in your mouth. It is savory eaten alone, excellent with your viands, capital sopped in wine. A good Turinese would rather have no dinner at all than sit down to one without a good-sized bundle of these torrified reeds on his right or left. Beware of the spurious imitations of this inimitable mixture of flour, which you will light on in some _passages_ in Paris! They possess nothing of the _grisini_ but the name.

"I have it!" I fancy I hear some imaginative reader exclaim at this place. "The passion for the _grisini_ accounts most naturally for the want of buttered toast in Turin. Don't you see that it is replaced by the _grisini?_"

A mistake, a profound mistake. _Grisini_ are _never_ served with your coffee or chocolate. Try again.

The white truffle,--white, mark you, and not to be confounded with its black, hard, knotty, poor cousin of Périgord,--well, the white truffle is--the white truffle. There are things which admit of no definition. It would only spoil them. Define the Sun, if you dare. "Look at it," would be your answer to the indiscreet questioner. And so I say to you,--Taste it, the white truffle. Not that you will relish it, on a first or second trial. No. It requires a sort of initiation. Ambrosia, depend upon it, would prove unpalatable, at first, to organs degraded by coarse mortal food. It has,--the white truffle, I mean, not the ambrosia, which I have never tasted,--it has a shadow of a shade of mitigated garlic flavor, which demands time and a certain training of the gustatory apparatus, to be fully appreciated. Try again, and it will grow upon you,--again and again, and you will go crazy after the white truffle. I have seen persons, who had once turned up their noses at it, declare themselves capable of any crime to get at it. Nature gave it to Piedmont, "_e poi ruppe la stampa_." Gold you may find in different places, and under different latitudes;--the white truffle is an exclusive growth of Piedmont.

To return. If it is not the want of proper materials, or of taste to use them, what can be the cause of the unjust ostracism against buttered toast?

A Genoese friend of mine accounts for it on the same principle on which another friend of mine, a Polish refugee in London, accounted for the difference, nay, in many points, the direct opposition, between English and French habits of life,--that is to say, on the principle of national antagonism. Why does the English Parliament hold its sittings at night? my Polish friend would ask. The reason is obvious. _Because_, the French Parliament sits in broad day, when it sits at all. Why is winter the season of _villeggiatura_ in England? _Because_ in France it is summer and autumn. Why are beards and moustaches tabooed in Great Britain? _Because_ it is common to wear them in France. Why are new pipes preferred in England for smoking? _Because_ in France the older and more _culottée_ a pipe, the more welcome it is. And so on, _ad infinitum_.

Arguing on the same principle, my Genoese friend avers that buttered toast is proscribed at Turin _because_ it is so justly popular in Genoa. The Genoese, in fact, excel in the preparation of that dainty article. They have, for the purpose, delicious little rolls, which they cut in two and suit to all tastes and whims. The upper or under crust, soft or hard, deep brown or light brown, with much or little butter, with cold or hot butter, with butter visible or invisible:--be as capricious in your orders as you like, and never fear tiring the waiter. Proteus himself never took so many shapes.

There is some speciousness in my Genoese friend's argument. The _Superba_, naturally enough, cannot forget that she was first and is now second. Turin, on her side, does not intend to have her official supremacy disputed. No wonder that the two noble cities should look at each other rather surlily, and stick to their own individuality. "Hence it is," concludes my friend, "that the comparatively easy Apennines have proved to this day an impassable barrier to the buttered toast on one side, and to the _grisini_ on the other."

"But not so to the white truffle," I put in, triumphantly. "The Genoese have adopted that; and honor to them for having done so! What do you say to this, eh?"

My friend scratched his head in quest of a new argument. We will leave him to his embarrassment, and have done with this string of digressions.

I was saying, that my first visit to Turin dated as far back as 1831. On that journey I had a singular travelling-companion, a beautiful fish, a John Dory, carefully wrapped up, and neatly laid in a wicker-basket, like a babe in its cradle. The officers of the _octroi_, who examined my basket, complimented me on my choice,--nay, grew so enthusiastic about my John Dory, that, if I remember right, they let it pass duty-free. The mistress of the house, at whose table it was served, paid it a well-deserved tribute of admiration, but lamented the unskilfulness of the hand which had cleaned it: "How stupid to cut it to the very throat! See what a gap!" I laughed in my sleeve and held my tongue. It was a frightful gap, to be sure,--but not bigger than was necessary to admit of an oilskin-covered parcel, a pound at least in weight, a parcel full to the brim of treasonable matter, revolutionary pamphlets, regulations of secret societies, and what not. My John Dory was a horse of Troy in miniature. But Turin stood this one better than Troy the other.

Turin was, or seemed to me, gloomy and chilly at that time, though the season was mild, and the sky had cleared up. Jesuits, carabineers, and spies lorded it; distrust was the order of the day. People went about their business, exchanged a hasty and well-timed _sciaô_, (_schiavo_,) and gave up all genial intercourse. Far keener than the breath of neighboring snow-capped Mount Cenis, the breath of despotism froze alike tongues and souls. How could buttered toast, emblem of softness, thrive in so hard a temperature? I left as soon as I could, and with a feeling of relief akin to joy.

I was in no haste to revisit Turin, nor, had I been, would circumstances have permitted my doing so. The fish had a tail for me as well as for many others, and a very long tail too. Most of the years intervening between 1831 and 1848 I had to spend abroad,--out of Italy, I mean. Time enough for reflection. Plenty of worry and anxiety, and difficulties of many a kind. Rough handling from the powers that were, cold indifference from the masses. A flow of gentle sympathy, now and then, from a kindred heart or two,--God bless them!--a live spring in a desert. A hard apprenticeship,--still, useful in many ways, to develop the sense of realities, to teach one to do without a host of things deemed indispensable before to keep the soul in tune. I declare, for my part, I don't regret those long years of erratic life. I bless them, on the contrary; for they opened my eyes to the worth of my country. The right point of view to take in physical or moral beauty, in its fulness, is only at a distance.

The great convulsion of '48 flung wide the gates of Italy to the wanderer, and I returned to Turin. I had left it at freezing-point, and I found it at white-heat. Half Europe revolutionized,--France a republic, Vienna in a blaze, Hungary in arms, Radetzky driven out of Milan, a Piedmontese army in Lombardy,--there was more than enough to turn the heads of the Seven Sages of Greece. No wonder ours were turned. Serve a splendid banquet and pour out generous wine to a shipwrecked crew who have long been starving, and ten to one they will overfeed themselves and get drunk and quarrel. We did both, alas!--and those who are drunk and quarrel are likely to be overpowered by those who keep sober and united. We were divided about the sauce with which the hare should be dressed, and, in the heat of argument, lost sight of this little fact, that a hare, to be dressed at all, must first be caught. The first reverses overtook us thus occupied. They did not sober us; quite the contrary; we fell to doing what Manzoni's capons did.

By-the-by, since that revered name comes under my pen, I may as well state, what every one will be glad to hear, that the author of the "Promessi Sposi" has perfectly recovered from his late illness. It cannot be but that the wail of a nation has reached even across the Atlantic, without the aid of an electric cable. He looks strong and healthy, and likely to be long spared to the love and veneration of his country. I have this on the authority of a witness _de visu et auditu_, a friend of his and mine, who visited the great man, not a fortnight ago, in his retreat of Brusuglio, near Milan.

To leave the author for his book. Do you recollect Renzo tying four fat capons by the legs, and carrying them, with their heads hanging down, to Signor Azzeccagarbugli,--and the capons, in that awkward predicament, finding no better occupation than to peck at each other? "As is too often the case with companions in misfortune," observes the author, in his quiet, humoristic way. We were just as wise. Instead of saying, _Mea culpa_, we began to recriminate, and find fault with everything and everybody. It was the fault of the Ministers, of the _Camarilla_, of the army, of the big epaulets, of the King. Dynastic interest, of course, was not forgotten in the indictment.

Dynastic interest, forsooth! So long as it combines and makes but one with the interest of the nation, I should like to know where is the great harm of it. As if kings alone were defiled with that pitch! As if we had not, each and all of us, low and high, rich and poor, our dynastic interest, and were not eager enough in its pursuit! As if anybody scrupled at or were found fault with for pushing on his sons, enlarging his business, rounding his estate, in the view of transmitting it, thus improved, to his kindred and heirs!

But who thought of such things under the smart of defeat? I do not intend, by this _post-facto_ grumbling, to give myself credit for having been wiser than others. By no means. I played my part in the chorus of fault-finders, and cried out as loud as anybody. The upshot was what might have been expected. Independence went to the dogs--for a while. Liberty, thank God, remained in this little corner, at least,--liberty, the great lever for those who use it wisely. I know of nations, far more experienced than we are in political matters, and whose programme in 1848 was far less complicated than ours, who cannot say as much for themselves.

The times were unpropitious to the buttered-toast question, and it had quite slipped out of my mind. I have never traced the string of associations which reminded me of it, on one certain morning. Once more I made bold to ask if I could have buttered toast. "Impossible," said the waiter, curtly. I was piqued. "How impossible?" said I. "Erase that word from your Dictionary, if you are to drive the Austrians from Italy. Take a roll, cut it in halves, have it toasted, and serve hot with butter." Long was the manipulation, and the result but indifferent,--the toast hard and cold, the butter far from fresh; but it was a step in advance, and I chuckled over it. For a short time, alas! Mine was the fate of all reformers. Routine stood in my way. The waiters fled at my approach, and vied with each other as to who should _not_ serve me. I gave up the attempt in disgust. Shortly after, I left Turin,--without joy this time, but also without regret.

Ten years have elapsed, and here I am again, on my third visit. The journey from Genoa to Turin took, ten years ago, twenty-four hours by _diligence_. Now it is accomplished in four by railway. To say that this accelerated ratio of travelling represents but fairly the average of progress realized in almost all directions, within this space of time, is no mere form of speech. To whatever side I turn, my eyes are agreeably surprised by material signs of improvement. From what but yesterday was waste land, where linen was spread to dry, steam-engines raise their shrill cry, and a double terminus sends forth and receives, in its turn, merchandise, passengers, and ideas. At the gate of the city, so to say, a gigantic work, the piercing of Mount Cenis, is actually going on. Where I left, literally left, cows browsing in peace, two new quarters have risen, as if by magic,--that of Portanuova, aristocratic and rich, and that of San Salvario, less showy, but not less comfortable. A third is in contemplation; nay, already begun,--to be raised on the spot where once stood the citadel, (and prison for political offenders,) of sinister memory, now levelled with the ground. I take this last as a capital novelty. Another, more significant still, is the Protestant Temple, which stares me in the face,--a poor work of Art, if you will, but no less the embodiment of one of the most precious conquests, religious freedom. I would fain not grow emphatic,--but when I contrast the present with the past, when I recollect, for instance, how the Jews were formerly treated, and see them now in Parliament, I cannot help warming up a little. Monuments to Balbo, the stanch patriot and nervous biographer of Dante,--to General Bava, the conqueror at Goito,--to Pepe, the heroic defender of Venice, grace the public walks. One to Gioberti, the eminent philosopher, is in course of preparation. If these are not signs of radically changed times, and changed for the better, I don't know what are.

Nor is the moral less improved than the material physiognomy of the city. I see a thriving, orderly community,--no trace of antagonism, but a free, good-natured intercourse between all classes, and a general look of ease and contentment. Of course, there are poor in Turin, as everywhere else,--except Japan, if we may credit travellers; but nowhere are my eyes saddened by the spectacle of that abject destitution which blunts, nay, destroys, the sense of self-respect. The operatives, especially,--what are here called the _braccianti_,--this salt of all cities, this nursery of the army and navy, this inexhaustible source of production and riches, impress me by their appearance of comfort and good-humor. It gladdens one's heart to watch them, as they walk arm in arm of an evening, singing in chorus, or fill the pits of the cheaper theatres, or sit down at fashionable _caffés_ in their jackets, with a self-confidence and freedom of manner pleasant to behold. The play of free institutions is not counteracted here, thank God, by the despotism of conventionalities. No shadow of frigid respectability hangs over people's actions and freezes spontaneousness.

But this is all on the surface; let us go deeper, if we can, and have a peep at the workings beneath. I knock for information on this head at the mind and heart of all sorts of people. I note down the answers of the Minister and of the Deputy, as well as those of the waiter who serves my coffee and of the man who blacks my shoes, and here is what I find,--a growing sense of the benefits of liberty, a deep-rooted attachment to the _Rè galantuomo_, (the King, honest man,) a juster appreciation of the difficulties which beset the national enterprise, (the freeing of Italy from Austria,) and an honest confidence of overcoming them with God's help. This last feeling, I am glad to say, is, as it ought to be, general in the army. This is what I find in the bulk. There is no lack of dissenters, who regret the past, and take a gloomy view of the future. I describe no Utopia. Unanimity is no flower of this earth.

This improved state of things and feelings, within so short a period of time, reflects equal credit on the people which benefits by it and on the men who have lately presided over its destinies. Among these last it were invidious not to mention, with well-deserved praise, the active and accomplished statesman who introduced free trade, caused Piedmont to take its share in the Crimean War, and last, not least, by a bold and skilful move, brought the Italian question before the Congress of Paris.

During the summer of 1848, I rented a couple of rooms in the Via dell' Arcivescovado. There often fell upon my ear, wafted across the court from the windows opposite mine, a loud and regular declamation. I fancied it was a preacher learning by heart his sermon, or an actor his part. I was told one day that it was Count Cavour, the owner of the house, who, as a prelude to his parliamentary career, was addressing an imaginary assembly. The fact struck me the more, as the Count was not a member of Parliament at the time. He was elected a Deputy and took his seat not long after. I was present at his _début_. It was not brilliant. Count Cavour was not born an orator; his delivery was far from fluent. He had many things to say, and wanted to say them all at once. The sense of the House was not favorable to the new member,--that of the public galleries still less so. No man was less spoiled by popularity than he. I have no other reason for mentioning these particulars than to put in relief the strength of will and the perseverance which one so situated must have brought to bear, in order to conquer his own deficiencies and the popular prejudice, and attain, against wind and tide, the high place he holds in the estimation of Parliament and of the country. That Count Cavour has made himself, if not properly an orator, in the high sense of the word, a nervous, fluent, and most agreeable speaker, is sufficiently attested by the untiring attention with which his speeches, occupying sometimes two whole sittings, are listened to in both Houses. He never puts them in writing, and seldom, if ever, makes use of notes.

Life is substantial in Turin, and on a broad, homely scale. By which you are not to understand, either that the male portion of the inhabitants feast on whole oxen, like Homer's heroes, or that, the fair sex are draped in tunics of homespun wool, like the Roman matrons of old. They are not so primitive as that. You may have at any restaurant a smaller morsel than an ox or even an ox's shoulder; and as to ladies' finery, there is no _article de Paris_, no indispensable inutility, no crinoline, hoop, or cage, of impossible materials, shape, and dimensions, which you may not find under the Portici, or in Vianuova, a facility of which the Turinese beauties give themselves the benefit rather freely. What I meant to say, when I spoke of life on a broad, homely scale, was simply this:--that in Turin, generally speaking, the great art of putting the appearance in the place of the substance, and juggling the principal under the accessories, has yet to be learned. If you ask for a room, a dinner, a bath, they take you in good earnest, and supply you with the genuine article. When I put up at the _Hôtel de Londres_, from which I am writing, I had to run no gantlet between a double line of solemn-looking, white-cravated waiters; yet I have only to ring my bell, to be attended to with promptitude, with zeal, nay, _con amore_. My kind hostess, Signora Viarengo, does not wear a triple or quadruple row of flounces, but looks after my wardrobe when I am out, and, if anything wants mending, has it mended. The room which I occupy is not furnished in a dashing style, nor has it a _parquet ciré_, but it is on the first floor, and thrice as large and lofty and half as dear as that I had at Meurice's on the _quatrième_; and a Titan might stretch himself down at ease on the bed in which I sleep. The dining-room of the hotel is not glittering with gilt stucco and chandeliers; but the dinner served to me there (and served at any hour) is copious and first-rate,-- four dishes of _entremets_, butter, _salame_, celery, radishes, to whet the appetite,--a soup,--a first course of three dishes, two of meat, one of vegetables,--a second of three dishes, one of them a roasted fowl, --salad, a sweet dish,--a mountain of Parmesan, or Gorgonzola, with peaches, pears, and grapes, for dessert. Gargantua would cry for mercy. For all this, and a bottle of wine, I pay three francs. For the bath establishment, close by, I lack the satisfaction, it is true, of seeing my revered image reproduced _ad infinitum_, by a vista of mirrors; but I have a bathing-tub like a lake, and linen enough to dry a hippopotamus. If I go to the theatre, (there are five open at this season, November, without reckoning three or four minor ones: Italian opera at the Nazionale and the Carignano; Italian play at the Gerbino and the Alfieri; French _vaudeville_ at the d'Angennes,)--if I go to the theatre, the relative obscurity of the house, I own, allows me to enjoy but imperfectly the display of fine toilets and ivory shoulders; but the concentration of light on the stage enhances the scenic effect, and is on the side of Art. At least, they think so here, and like it so. It is the custom.

This takes me back some twenty-seven years, to the waiter's answer, _à propos_ of buttered toast, "It is not the custom," and recalls to me that important question. Well, even that has not remained stationary in the general movement. Not that buttered toast has received its great or even small letters of naturalization. But you have only to ask for it, and it will be served without demur. So far the neck of routine is broken. What next? We shall find out on our fourth visit, if God grants us life. Meanwhile I feel that Turin will be regretted this time.

* * * * *

TWO SNIFFS.

From the lounge where Fred Shaw was lying, he could easily look out of the low window into Senter Place, and at the usually "uninterrupted view across the street." Just now it was interrupted so fully with a driving snow-storm, that the houses opposite were scarcely visible. The wind tossed the great flakes up and across and whirled them in circles, as if loath to let them go at all to the ground. There was something lively and merry in it, too, as if the flakes themselves were joyful and dancing in the abundance of their life,--as if they and the wind had a life of their own, as well as poor stupid mortals, that cowered under cover, and shut themselves away from the broad, free air. How foolish it is, to be sure! Here comes one now, turning into the place,--well covered, a fur tippet about his face,--slapping his arms on his chest, --a defiant smile on his brown face, and a look of expectancy in his eyes. Yes! there they are at the window,--wife and children! The smile melts into a broad laugh, as the snow-flakes dash madly at his eyes and nose. There they are,--rosy, well, and warm! From the warmest corner of his heart comes up a quick throb that takes away his breath;--he runs up the steps,--the door opens,--one, two, three little faces,--it shuts. The snow-flakes gallop on again, madly, joyfully.

Behind the man who ran up the steps, a girl of eighteen walked swiftly and firmly over the drifting heaps on the sidewalk. Her eyes glanced upward at the sky. There are four immense clouds, of a very light gray, with silver edges, trying to meet over a speck of blue. They tumble and clamber, and press all for the same point; but whether the wind is too variable for them to gather in one mass, or for whatever meteorological reason, she does not guess, but she is attracted to the sky and gazes at it as she walks rapidly on.

Fred recognizes the blue eyes and glowing face, as they go past the window. It is only Sister Minnie. Not coming here, after all! No. And the clouds could not overcome and hide the blue sky. It shone out serenely and hopefully, like Minnie's own encouraging spirit. She breasts the storm gallantly. If she can only get round the corner into C-- Street! But here all the tempest seems collected to battle with her--She wraps herself a little closer, and holds her breath. A few steps more,--she turns round,--places her back full at the driving storm,--and draws a long breath. Now for it! The flakes stop suddenly, as if awed by the quiet determination in the young face. They fall to the ground, stilly. The blue sky looks out, the sun shimmers white for five minutes. Minnie walks rapidly, runs up the steps,--rings, and takes into the house with her a full, fresh life, that vibrates from cellar to attic in harmonious energy.

The afternoon wanes. Fred has dined. He takes his meerschaum from the teapoy by his side and examines it critically. How for the color? Is it just the right shade to stop? No. A very little darker. This is growing quite beautiful. Almost like an agate. Which of those six is the prettiest, after all? He thinks a seventh, which he remembers lying on Little's mantel-piece, outdoes the whole. That of Little's was not carved, nor silver-mounted even, and yet connoisseurs pronounced it worth a hundred and fifty dollars. Not one of these is worth ten. He smokes again, and looks at the cannel coal as it leaps into flame. The room is very still; not a footfall can be heard in the house;--partly because the doors are hung with a view to silence and the floors thickly carpeted, and partly because there are only two servants in-doors, and those men. The cook cannot speak English, and Fred's own man, a jewel in his way, is taciturn to a fault. If Fred would be honest with himself, he would acknowledge that the third-hand chatter of anybody's kitchen would often be a delightful relief to his solitude. But then how could he follow up his system of self-culture? That and society are quite incompatible things. However, he yawns fearfully.

But what then? Has the man no mind, no cultivation, no taste? Things do not indicate any such want. The walls of the room in which he is just now lounging have their crimson and gold almost covered with pictures,--copies of rare Murillos and Raphaels, and an original head of a boy, by Greuze, with the lips as fresh as they were a hundred years ago. An exquisite "Dying Stork," in bronze, stands on a bracket below Sassoferrato's sweetest Madonna, and Retzsch's "Hamlet" lies open on a side-table. The three Canovian Graces stand in a corner opposite him, and he glances at the pedestal which stands ready to receive "Eve at the Fountain." The pedestal has been there two weeks already, waiting for the "Oxford" to arrive with its many precious Art-burdens. It stands near the window; it will be a good light for it. Fred wishes, for the hundredth time, that it would come along. There are books, surely? Oh, yes, one side of the room is a complete bookcase,--tasteful, inside and out.

The small room which opens into this luxurious sitting-room has a high north window, and near it stands Fred's easel, with a half-finished head on a canvas. Already it has changed its aspect twenty times. Sometimes it is a Nymph, sometimes a Naiad, sometimes Undine. Once, he dashed all the green of the wood-nymph's forest, with one stroke, into green water, intending to put in Undine, with a boat. He has not fulfilled his intention; but he works on, with the luxurious abandonment of genius to its spell, be it what it may. He does not care what it ends in. One of Fred's theories is, that the imagination, by constant and intense exercise, may so project the image it conceives, as to make it the subject of ocular contemplation and imitation. Why not? All objects of sight are painted on a flat surface, and it is by experience, comparison, nay, in some measure by the will, that we get our ideas of their shape and distance. Poor Blake's insane painting of imaginary heads, which he saw three or six feet from him, was the only true and rational method of painting at all. Think of your thought,--intensify it,--create it,--create it perfectly,--define it carefully,--group it gracefully, --color it exquisitely,--project it, by an intense effort of the will, into the space before you. There it stands. Now paint it.

He is fond of dwelling on this theory; and as nobody takes the trouble to contradict him, he has come to believe it truth, through hearing it often repeated. He has explained it to Minnie more than twenty times, and says he is almost ready to paint. Not quite. He must lie on the sofa a year, perhaps two years longer, before he will be able to satisfy himself. But then, what is a year, two, ten years, in an eternity of fame?