Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. VII, December 1850, Vol. II

Frederick the Great used to call the French the first letter-writers of Europe, and it is probable that their national turn for clever gossip gives to their epistles a sort of general interest, for in no other country have letters formed so large a portion of published literature. This was particularly true in Frederick's own age. Never did a death or a quarrel take place – and the latter was not rare among the savants of that period – but comfort or satisfaction was sought in the immediate publication of every scrap of correspondence, to the manifold increase of disputes and heartburnings. Some of the most amusing volumes extant were thus given to the world; and Madame Dunoyer's, though scarcely of that description, must not be forgotten from the tale of its origin. When Voltaire was a young attaché to the French embassy at the Hague, with no reputation but that of being rather unmanageable by his family and confessor, he was on billet-doux terms, it seems, with madame's daughter; but madame found out that he was poor, or something like it, for in no other respect was the lady scrupulous. Her veto was therefore laid on the correspondence, which nevertheless survived under interdict for some time, till Voltaire left the embassy, and it died of itself; for he wrote the "Oedipe," became talked of by all Paris, and noticed by the Marquis de Vellers. Gradually the man grew great in the eyes of his generation, his fame as a poet and philosopher filled all Europe, not forgetting the Hague; and when it had reached the zenith, Madame Dunoyer collected his letters to her daughter, which remained in her custody, the receiver being by this time married, and published them at her own expense in a handsomely-bound volume. Whether to be revenged on fortune for permitting her to miss so notable a son-in-law, or on him for obeying her commands, it is now impossible to determine, but her book served to show the world that the early billets-doux of a great genius might be just as milk-and-watery as those of common people.

Indeed letter-publishing seems to have been quite the rage in the eighteenth century. The Secretary La Beaumelle stole all Madame de Maintenon's letters to her brother, setting forth her difficulties in humoring Louis XIV., and printed them at Copenhagen. Some copies were obligingly forwarded to Versailles, but madame assured the king they were beneath his royal notice, which, being confirmed by his confessor, was of course believed; but the transaction looks like retributive justice on her well-known practice of keeping sundry post-office clerks in pay to furnish a copy of every letter sent or received by the principal persons at court, not excepting even the royal family. Among these were copied the celebrated letters of the Dauphiness Charlotte Elizabeth of Bavaria, which now, in good plain print, present to all readers of taste in that department a complete chronicle of all the scandal, gossip, and follies of Versailles; and that princess, whose pride stood so high on her family quarterings, was gravely rebuked, and obliged to ask pardon seven years after for certain uncomplimentary passages in her epistles regarding madame when she first came to court as nursery governess to the king's children.

Dangerous approvers have old letters been from throne to cottage. Many a specious statement, many a fair profession, ay, and many a promising friendship, have they shaken down. Readers, have a care of your deposits in the post-office; they are pledges given to time. It is strange, though true, how few historical characters are benefited by the publication of their letters, surviving, as such things do, contemporary interests and prejudices, as well as personal influence.

There must be something of the salt that will not lose its savor there to make them serve the writers in the eyes of posterity. What strange confidence the age of hoop and periwig put in letter-writing! Divines published their volumes of controversy or pious exhortation, made up of epistles to imaginary friends. Mrs. Chapone's letters to her niece nourished the wisdom of British belles; while Lord Chesterfield's to his son were the glass of fashion for their brothers; and Madame de Sévigné's to her daughter, written expressly for publication, afforded models for the wit, elegance, and sentiment of every circle wherein her language was spoken. The epistolary style's inherent power of characterization naturally recommended it in the construction of their novels, and many a tale of fame and fashion in its day, besides "La Nouvelle Heloise," and "Sir Charles Grandison," was ingeniously composed of presumed correspondence.

Chinese literature is said to possess numerous fictions in that form; but it is not to be regretted that modern novelists, whose name is more than legion, pass it by in favor of direct narrative; for, under the best arrangement, a number of letters can give but a series of views, telling the principals' tale in a broken, sketchy fashion, and leaving little room for the fortunes of second-rate people, who are not always the lowest company in the novel. Tours and travels tell pleasantly in letters, supposing of course the letters to be well written; for some minds have such a wondrous affinity for the commonplace, that the most important event or exciting scene sinks to the every-day level under their pen.

Sir Andrew Mitchell, who was British embassador to Prussia during the seven years' war, writes from the camp before Prague concerning that great battle which turned the scale of power in Germany, and served Europe to talk of till the French Revolution, in a style, but for quotations from the bulletin, suitable to the election of some civic alderman; and a less known traveler, writing to a friend of the glare of Moscow's burning, which he saw from a Russian country-house, reddening the northern night, describes it as "a very impressive circumstance, calculated to make one guard against fire."

It has been remarked that, as a general rule, poets write the best, and schoolmasters the worst letters. That the former, in common with literary men of any order, should be at least interesting correspondents, seems probable; but why the instructors of youth should be generally stricken with deficiency in letter-writing is not so easy of explanation.

Some one has also observed that, independent of mental gifts and graces, characters somewhat cold and frivolous generally write the most finished letters, and instanced Horace Walpole, whose published epistles even in our distant day command a degree of attention never to be claimed by those of his superior contemporaries – the highly-gifted Burke, and the profound Johnson. It may be that the court gossip in and upon which Horace lived has done much for the letters from Strawberry Hill, but the vein must have been there; and the abilities that shine in the world of action or of letters, the conversational talents or worthiness of soul, do not make the cleverest correspondent.

Count Stadion, prime minister to the Elector of Mayence, according to Goethe, hit on an easy method of making an impression by letters. He obliged his secretary, Laroche, to practice his handwriting, which, it appears, he did with considerable success; and, says the poet in his own memoirs, being "passionately attached to a lady of rank and talent, if he stopped in her society till late at night, his secretary was, in the mean time, sitting at home, and hammering out the most ardent love-letters; the count chose one of these, and sent it that very night to his beloved, who was thus necessarily convinced of the inextinguishable fire of her passionate adorer."

"Hélas!" as Madame d'Epigny remarked, when turning over the printed epistles of a deceased friend, "one can never guess how little truth the post brings one;" but from the following tradition, it would seem the less the better. Among the old-world stories of Germany are many regarding a fairy chief or king, known from rustic times as Number Nip, or Count-the-Turnips. One of his pranks was played in an ancient inn of Heidelberg, where, on a December night, he mixed the wine with a certain essence distilled from the flowers of Elfland, which had the effect of making all who tasted it tell nothing but truth with either tongue or pen till the morning. The series of quarrels which took place in consequence round the kitchen fire belong not to the present subject; but in the red parlor there sat, all from Vienna, a poet, a student, a merchant, and a priest. After supper, each of these remembered that he had a letter to write – the poet to his mistress, the merchant to his wife, the priest to the bishop of his diocese, and the student to his bachelor uncle, Herr Weisser of Leopoldstadt, who had long declared him his heir. Somehow next morning they were all at the post-office beseeching their letters back; but the mail had been dispatched, and the tale records how, after that evening's correspondence, the poet's liege lady dismissed him, the merchant and his wife were divorced, the priest never obtained preferment, and none of the letters were answered except the student's, whom Herr Weisser complimented on having turned out such a prudent, sensible young man, but hoped he wouldn't feel disappointed, as himself intended to marry immediately.

The most curiously-characteristic letters now made public property are those of Sir Walter Raleigh to Queen Elizabeth, written from the Tower (to which the historian of the world was committed for wedding without her majesty's permission), and in the highest tone of desperation that a banished lover could assume; the correspondence between Frederick of Prussia and Voltaire, then of France, after what was called their reconciliation, beginning with the grandest compliments, and ending with reminiscences of quite another kind, particularly that from the royal pen, which opens with, "You, who from the heights of philosophy look down on the weakness and follies of mankind," and concludes with the charge of appropriating candle-ends; and the epistles of Rousseau during his residence in England, which alternate between discoveries of black conspiracies against his life and fame, and threats of adjournment to the workhouse, if his friends would not assist him to live in a better style than most country gentlemen of the period.

There are printed samples with whose writers fame has been busy; but who can say what curiosities of letter-writing daily mingle with the mass that pours through the London Post-Office? Can it be this continual custody and superintendence of so large a share of their fellow-creatures' wisdom, fortunes, and folly, that endows post-office functionaries in every quarter with such an amount of proverbial crustiness, if the word be admissible? Do they, from the nature of their business, know too much about the public to think them worth civility, so that nobody has yet discovered a very polite postmaster or man? A strange life the latter leads in our great cities. The truest representative of destiny seems his scarlet coat, seen far through street and lane: at one door he leaves the news of failure and ruin, and at another the intelligence of a legacy. Here his message is the death of a friend, while to the next neighbor he brings tidings of one long absent, or the increase of kindred; but without care or knowledge of their import, he leaves his letters at house after house, and goes his way like a servant of time and fortune, as he is, to return again, it may be, with far different news, as their tireless wheels move on. Are there any that have never watched for his coming? The dwellers in palaces and garrets, large families, and solitary lodgers, alike look out for him with anxious hope or fear. Strange it is for one to read over those letters so watched and waited for, when years have passed over since their date, and the days of the business, the friendship, or perhaps the wooing, to which they belong are numbered and finished!

How has the world without and within been altered to the correspondents since they were written? Has success or ill fortune attended the speculations by which they set such store? What have been their effects on outward circumstances, and through that certain channel, on the men? Has the love been forgotten? Have the friends become strange or enemies? Have some of them passed to the land whose inhabitants send back no letters? And how have their places been filled? Truly, if evidence were ever wanting regarding the uncertainty of all that rests on earth, it might be found in a packet of old letters.

A CHAPTER ON SHAWLS

We scarcely know a truer test of a gentlewoman's taste in dress than her selection of a shawl, and her manner of wearing it: and yet if the truth must be owned, it is the test from which few Englishwomen come with triumph. Generally speaking, the shawl is not their forte, in fact they are rather afraid of it. They acknowledge its comfort and convenience for the open carriage, or the sea-side promenade, but rarely recognize it for what it is, a garment capable of appearing the most feminine and graceful in the world. They are too often oppressed by a heap of false notions on the subject; have somehow an idea that a shawl is "old" or "dowdy;" and yet have a dim comprehension that the costly shawls which they more frequently hear of than see, must have some unimagined merits to prove an excuse for their price.

The Frenchwoman, on the contrary, has traditions about "Cashmeres," and remembers no blank of ignorance on the subject. She played at dressing her doll with one, you may be sure; chronicled as an epoch in her life, her first possession of the real thing; holds it as precious as a diamond, and as something to which appertains the same sort of intrinsic value; and shrugs her shoulders with compassionate contempt at an Englishwoman's ignorant indifference on this subject – just as a lover of olives pities the coarse palate which rejects them. Truly the taste for the shawl is a little inherent, and a great deal acquired and cultivated; as appreciation for the highest attributes of every department of art ever must be, from a relish for Canova's chefs-d'œuvres down to a relish for M. Soyer's dishes.

Of course among those we are addressing, there is a minority who do know, and duly esteem a beautiful shawl: perhaps, from the possession of wealth, they have long been accustomed to be surrounded by objects of rare and exquisite fabric, and their practiced eyes would be quick at detecting inferiority: perhaps without great riches or the personal possession of valuable attire, a fine taste may have been cultivated by circumstances: and perhaps they are Anglo-Indians, or the relatives and near friends of Anglo-Indians, who know well a "Cashmere," – measuring every other shawl in the world by and from it – and to whom the word conjures up a host of memories half sunshine and half shadow.

It was not until quite the close of the last century, that Cashmeres were prized in Europe. Travellers' tales had mentioned them, it is true, but that was before the locomotive age, and when travelers were few, and traveling unspeakably tedious; when soldiers went to India to hold and increase their country's territory; when a few traders made princely fortunes; but when every system of interchange was narrow and exclusive, and people were taught to be content with clumsy common wares, instead of raising them to excellence by the spur of competition. It is said that in the year 1787, the embassadors of Tippoo Saib left behind them at Paris a few Cashmere shawls – intended as gracious presents we presume – but which were regarded solely as curiosities, and not even much esteemed in that capacity, for we learn that they were employed as dressing-gowns, and even used for carpeting! Not till after Napoleon's expedition to Egypt did they become the rage; and a solid good resulted from that campaign in the introduction of a fabric destined to be the model of one of the most famous manufactures of the French.

Madame Emile Gaudin, a lady of Greek extraction and a reigning beauty, is reputed to have first worn a Cashmere shawl in Paris; but if we know any thing of the "Consul's Wife," or the "Empress Josephine," she was not very far behind, for her love of Cashmeres was next to her love of flowers, as more than one anecdote might be called in to testify. What scenes this history of an inanimate object conjures up to the mind's eye. These leaders of fashion when the old century went out on the young Republic of France, whose Master was already found – who were they? The wives of men who were working out the destiny of Europe, guided by a chief who, be he judged for good or evil, looms on the page of history in giant proportions!

As we have said, the Cashmere shawl became the rage. The farce of pretended equality in France was acted out, and the curtain dropped on it in preparation for quite a different tableau; people no longer risked their lives by dressing elegantly, and it was not now expected that the soubrette, the blanchisseuse, or the poissonnière should dress precisely the same as the lady of a general officer. There was wealth, too, in the land, and the enormous sums demanded for these shawls were readily forthcoming. Sums equivalent to two or three hundred pounds of our money were commonly paid even for soiled worn articles, which had done duty as turbans to Mogul soldiers, or girded a Bayadere's waist, or been the sacerdotal garment of an idolatrous priest – and had very frequently been thus used by more than one generation. It is true, the durability of the fabric and the lasting properties of the dyes, permitted the cleansing of these shawls with scarcely perceptible injury or deterioration, but still it was only the intrinsic merit of the thing, which could have overcome the natural repugnance which the known or suspected history of a Cashmere must in many instances have occasioned.

The Levant traders had now large commissions, and the result was that new shawls were soon more easily procurable, but still bearing an enormous price. This is readily accounted for, and a brief description of the manufacture of Indian shawls will show how it is that they never can be cheap: – The wool of the Thibet goat is the finest in the world, and for the best shawls only the finest even of this wool is used. The animals are shorn once a year, and a full-grown goat only produces about eight ounces of wool of this first quality. There is every reason to suppose that the climate has very much to do with the perfection of the animal, for attempts to naturalize it elsewhere have all more or less failed. The loom on which a Cashmere shawl is woven is of the rudest and most primitive description, the warp being supported by two sticks, and the woof entirely worked in by the human hand. This slow laborious process permits a neatness and exactness of finish beyond the power of any machinery to rival; and when we take into account a life-long practice in the art, and – remembering the Hindoo "castes," which usually limit a family to the exercise of a single craft – in most instances the family secrets and traditions which have been preserved, we cease to wonder at the perfection of the work. These Asiatic weavers, temperate in their habits and readily contented, receive a wage of from three-halfpence to twopence a day; but if their wants more nearly approximated to those of an European laborer, what would an Indian Cashmere be worth, when we are informed that from thirty to forty men have sometimes been employed from eighteen months to two years in the manufacture of a single shawl! There is something very kindling to the imagination in the thought of these swarthy weavers, attired perhaps in our Manchester calicoes, laboring patiently for weeks and months to produce a fabric worthy of rank and royalty, without other than most vague or false ideas of the scenes in which their work will be displayed.

The borders of these shawls are made in several pieces, sometimes as many as from ten to twenty, and are afterward sewn together to form the pattern; and by the border an Indian shawl may always be recognized from a French or Paisley one, however close an imitation the latter may appear. Every stitch of the border of the Indian shawl being worked by the hand is distinct in itself, and may be pulled out – though it is not very easily detached – without further injury to the fabric; whereas the shawl made on a French or British loom has the border formed in one piece, whence a long thread may at any time be readily drawn. Indeed there is no surer test by which a lady may know a veritable Cashmere, than by examining the border; but if she have a fine eye for color this faculty will also assist her. The preparation of the dyes which the Hindoos use is still a secret, of which they are very chary, removing their operations to a distance whenever they have reason to dread inquisitive lookers on. But the result in their fabrics is perceived in the peculiar richness and clearness of their hues, and at the same time absence of glare; the reds, blues, and greens, reminding one more of the harmonious tints of old stained glass than any thing else.

It must not, however, be supposed that in the progressive nineteenth century, even this Asiatic manufacture has remained stationary. Receiving the impetus of fashion, the shawls of Cashmere have become, within the last dozen years, richer and more elaborate than ever; their richness and elaboration of pattern necessitating even a firmer and more substantial groundwork than heretofore, but still the method of their manufacture remains unchanged, as might be expected from the conservatism inseparable from semi-barbarism. London is now one of the chief marts for Cashmeres. It may not be generally known that London dealers send quantities of shawls to France, America, Russia, and even Turkey, a convincing proof of the enterprise of British merchants. They supply many other foreigners, especially finding a market among them for the gold embroidered shawls, which are frequently worn on state occasions at foreign courts. The duty on Indian shawls is now only about five per cent. Twice a year there are public sales, to which dealers are invited by catalogues sent to Paris and other continental cities. One of the great merits of a Cashmere seems that it is really never out of date; and when, comparing even the old "pine" patterns with the large long shawls, the rich borders of which sweep in graceful flowing lines into the very centre, we feel that they are still "of one family," and hold together – if the comparison be not too fanciful – rich and poor, in right clannish fashion.

Some of the most modern and most costly Indian shawls resemble in pattern that of the long French Cashmere, simply however because the French have copied the Indian design. The gold and silver thread employed for the embroidery of Cashmere shawls is usually prepared in the following manner; and the chief seat of the manufacture is at Boorhampoor, a city of the Deccan. A piece of the purest ore is beaten into a cylindrical form about the size of a thick reed, and then beaten out in length until it will pass through an orifice the eighth of an inch in diameter; it is drawn through still finer perforations until it is reduced to the proportion of a bobbin thread. Now a different plan is pursued; the wire already produced is wound upon several reels which work upon pivots, the ends of the thread being passed through still finer holes, and then affixed to a large reel which is set rapidly in motion and still further attenuates the threads. It is afterward flattened on an anvil of highly polished steel, by a practiced and dexterous workman; and by an ingenious process, a silk thread is afterward plated, or sheathed as it were by this minute wire. It is asserted that if a lump of silver be gilt in the first instance before being drawn into wire, it will retain the gilding through all the subsequent hard usage of hammering, winding, and drawing to which it is subjected, coming out to the very last a gilded thread. It is easy to understand that gold and silver thread of this pure description, unlike tinsel finery, it is not liable to tarnish.

There are few of our readers who can require telling that China crape is made entirely of silk, and that shawls manufactured of it are generally costly in proportion to the richness of the pattern. The foundation or ground of the shawls is chiefly made at Nankin, and then sent to Canton to be embroidered. The pattern is formed by two "needlemen," who work together, the one passing the silk down, and the other from beneath passing it up, while a third workman changes the silk for them when necessary. Thus the apparent marvel of equal neatness on both sides is accounted for, by the explanation of this simple method; but we have quite failed, from examination of the work, to detect the process of fastening on and off; with such mysterious ingenuity is this needful operation performed. China crape shawls have been very fashionable of late years, and almost defying vulgar imitation, are little likely to fall into disrepute.