Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 22, August, 1878

Ladies who make a profession of pleasing become irresistibly alluring. Actresses have abundant hair, fine teeth, all physical beauty, because they train themselves to beauty, though not originally better endowed than most others. Actresses' voices are set habitually, not in complaining, whining, creaking or vociferating keys, but in chest-tones clear and calm in quality. Actresses do not grow old, partly in consequence of their constant attention to the toilette, partly in consequence of the fact that they have hope and ambition, and enough occupation and enough rest, and do not worry over trifles.

To remain young is one of the difficulties of being agreeable. Whoever does so is obliged to adopt the Aristotelian maxim of moderation, Placidity of temper is necessary to the clear-pencilled eyebrow and the magnolia complexion. Frowns, weeping, excitement, despair and laughter wrinkle the face. Nature keeps women's forms well rounded to extreme old age, and their faces remain agreeable when they take the trouble to keep them so. The brow, the fair front, need never be furrowed. Of all we meet in the street, very few have tranquil, undistorted faces: the old are screwed out of shape, the young are going to be so. A well-preserved beauty is one who neither puckers her face into wrinkles nor mauls it with her hands: she never buries her knuckles in her cheeks, nor rests cheek on palm or chin on hand, nor folds her fingers around her forehead while reading, nor rubs her "argent-lidded eyes." She veils her face from the wind; she does not work with uncovered neck and arms: therefore they do not become tawny. She avoids immoderate toil, which makes the hair to fall, the features sharp, the skin clammy and yellow. She avoids immoderate laziness, as causing obesity and a greasy complexion or pallor, lassitude and loss of vitality. Such are; the difficulties of being agreeable.

M. D.

OUR SUB-GARDENER

He who doubts that civilized progress and industry is beneficial to birds, and promotes their comfort and multiplication, never saw the robin and the purple grakle following the plough on a summer's morning. The ploughman is not more punctually afield than his unbidden but welcome feathered attendants. They are ahead of him, perched patiently in the trees that dot fence or hedgerow. They see the team afar off, and as the gate rattles in opening for its admission the glad tidings is sent down the line in whistle or chirrup, the most musical of breakfast-bells. The worm that but for the intrusive ploughshare would blush unseen beneath the soil, and but for the feathered detective on the lookout for him would regain his subterranean retreat, might take a less cheery view of the philosophy of the matter; but he too is, taken collectively, favored by tillage and fattens on high-farming like an English squire. But we are not at present occupied with his feelings. Somebody must suffer in the battledore game of eat and be eaten, and we shall let the chain of continuous destruction rest here with the grub that reaps where he hath not sown. Horse, man and bird are honestly and harmoniously picking up a living at the expense of a fourth party that also thrives in the long run.

Not many of us get out with the plough at the orthodox hour of sunrise. It is a privilege few, comparatively, possess, and fewer still enjoy. The doctors recommend it warmly, on the ground that, though perhaps productive of rheumatism, it is death to dyspepsia. The faculty have, however, on this point piped to us in vain, and it is not at all in consequence of their advice that those who luxuriate in early agriculture adopt that system of hygiene, any more than the birds, who, as we have remarked, are first up and out, and who, at this season, in flat defiance of all medical rules, adopt a purely animal diet. Later, long after Lent, their food is varied with fruits and seeds, but never to such an extent as to amount to vegetarianism. This carnivorous taste ranks high in the "charm of earliest birds" so interesting to the cultivator. He, as a rule, is not wrapped up in the strawberry or the cherry that in the fulness of time comes to be levied on, in very moderate percentage, by a few of his musical associates. We do not forget that the blackbird has a weakness for planted maize, and that the quota of the cornhill is very truly and safely stated in the doggerel—

One for de blackbird, one for de crow,Two for de cut-worm, and two for to grow.

The cut-worm is here correctly defined as the enemy, while the excise claimed by the birds is head-money for his extirpation. An adaptation of this instructive couplet to gardening for the guidance of those of us who do not farm, but garden in a small way, would naturally enlarge the allowance of the cut-worm. From the more limited demesne the crow and the grakle are generally excluded. What is their loss is the cut-worm's gain. Nowhere does he run (or burrow) riot more successfully than in old gardens. Living in darkness, from an apparent consciousness that his deeds are evil, he seems to be fully advised of all that goes on above ground. One would fancy that he has a complete system of subterranean telegraphs, like those coming into vogue in Europe. He learns within a few hours or minutes of every new lot of plants sprouting from the seed or set out from the hotbed. Upon both he sets systematically to work, following his row with a precision and thoroughness at once admirable and exasperating. You go out of a May afternoon, and with the tenderest care establish in their summer homes your very choicest plants. Reverse "One counted them at break of day, and when the sun set where were they?" and the tale that greets you the next morning is told. Did the spoiler need them for food, you would be partly reconciled to his proceedings, or at least would know how to frame some sort of an excuse for them. But he merely divides the succulent stem close to the surface of the ground, above or below, and leaves the wreck unutilized even by him. A comfort is that flight is not his forte. He is generally to be found by the exploring penknife or trowel close by the scene of his crime, and is thus easily subjected to condign punishment. But his wife, family and friends survive in different spots of the adjacent underworld, to give evidence of their existence only in subsequent havoc. The titillative rake or the peremptory hoe does not help you much in their discovery; for their color is that of the soil, their size as various as that of bits of gravel, and they are not easily perceptible to a cursory glance from the ordinary height of the eye. Here is where keener optics than yours, sharpened perhaps by a keener impulse—that of the stomach—come to the rescue. The catbird, whose imploring mew you listened to from your bed some time before thinking proper to respond to it, is intently watching operations from the other end of the border or the square. His lusty youngsters have been trained, after the good old fashion, to early hours, and they are impatient for breakfast. Their parent sees what you do not, and astonishes you by suddenly pouncing upon a bit of earth you have just broken and seizing a stout worm. This stranger, if presentable to the family circle, he is at once off with, his spouse taking his place in the field. Or the youngsters may still be in futuro. All the same: whatever turns up is welcome to him. His appetite seems as insatiable as that of half a dozen nestlings: they, you know, will eat three or four times their own weight in twelve hours. He is thus immensely useful to you, but your appreciation of that fact is as nothing to his estimate of your value to him. He accepts you as a being sent for his benefit. You are a part of his scheme of providence. True, he pities while he rejoices over you. Your blindness and stupidity in not seeing the fat and luscious tidbits he snaps up from almost beneath your feet is of course a subject of wonder and disdain. But he learns to make allowances for you, and comes to view your failings charitably, especially as they enure to his benefit, and so lean to Virtue's side. Fear of you he has none. Indeed, you inspire in him a certain sense of protection, for in your presence his habitual vigilance is lulled, and his apprehensive glances over his right and left shoulders fall to a lower figure per minute. He has learned there to feel safe from hawk and cat, and knows enough of other birds to be sure that none of them will "jump" his little claim of fifty feet square whereof you are the moving centre. His individual audacity gives him the sway of that small empire, and he doubts not that you will support him in acting up to the motto of the Iron Crown of the Lombards. His cousin the robin may, and very probably does, hover on the outskirts, but an exact distance measures the comparative boldness and familiarity of the two species. The catbird is, say, ten yards more companionable than his red-vested relative in the latter's most genial and trustful mood; and his faith is of a more robust type and less easily and permanently weakened by rebuffs. The robin rarely hovers round you, but likes to have the whole premises quietly to himself. His attachment does not take a personal hue, but is rather to locality. His acquaintanceship with you is never so intimate as that of the catbird, who soon recognizes your step, your dress and the peculiar touch and cadence of your hoe, even as a college oarsman will identify the stroke of a chum or a rival a quarter of a mile off. If the robin does fix your individuality in his mind, he deigns to make no sign thereof. At most he accepts you as part of the mechanism of creation. You make no draft upon his bump of reverence. He does not set you on his Olympus. This mark of the spirit which makes him, on the whole, a more respectable and dignified character than his less gayly-dressed cousin tends in some sense to commend him the less to you, since we all like the homage of the "inferior animals," birds or voters. You half dislike the independence of the robin, who is equally at home in the parterre or the forest, on the gravel-walk or in the upper air. On the other you have more hold. He is rarely seen higher than twenty feet above ground, and is strictly an appendage of the shrubbery and the orchard. Even in his unhappy voice there is a domestic tone, closely imitated as it is from Grimalkin. Imitated, we say, for we have never been able fully to believe that this mew is the bird's original note. We shall ever incline to the impression that it is an acquired dialect, picked up in the mere wantonness born of a conscious and exceptional power of mimicry.

E. C. B.

A NEW AND INDIGNANT ITALIAN POET

Mrs. Leo Hunter's selection of an "Expiring Frog" as a subject for poetical composition has lately been surpassed by a new Italian poet. The latter, Signer Giovanni Rizzi, has just published at Milan a small volume of sonnets, chiefly ironical in character, in which he gives vent to his disgust at the positive and materialistic tendencies of the present day. The theme of the three most remarkable among these productions is that useful but not very æsthetic animal, the hog.

Signer Rizzi is the professor of literature at the military school and the high school for girls in Milan. Not long ago his three sonnets to the hog—or, more literally, the boar (maiale)—appeared in an Italian journal called Illustrazione Italiana, prefaced by a letter to the editor, in which the author stated that as apes, toads and caterpillars have now been triumphantly introduced into literature, he no longer felt any hesitation about bringing forward in the same way his esteemed friend the boar. These three pieces, together with others of the same form and character, have now been published as a book under the title of Un Grido. This work begins with an address to the reader, in which the poet laments the prevailing tendency of public opinion, and protests against what he considers a determined war on all old and honored beliefs and feelings, and a substitution therefor of a vague and revolting materialism. Then come five sonnets to Pietro Aretino, the witty poet and scoffer of the Renaissance era. Aretino is invited to reappear among men, for the world, says Rizzi, has again become worthy of such a man's presence. Leaving Dante to Jesuits, and Beatrice to priests, it has made Aretino its favorite model, and has, consequently, said farewell to everything resembling shame. In the last of these five sonnets the poet addresses his beloved thus: "And we too, O Love! do we still keep holy honor, home, faith, prayer, truth and noble sorrow?"

After the five sonnets to Aretino come the three to the boar (Al Maiale) which have already been mentioned. Here the author enters into a mock glorification of that animal, and declares himself ready to give up all pretensions to any superiority over it. He proceeds to "swear eternal friendship" with it, and offers it his hand to solemnize the compact; but, suddenly remembering that such old-fashioned practices must be very distasteful to his new friend, he immediately apologizes for having conformed to such a ridiculous old prejudice. He does not expect his "long-lost brother" to make any effort to elevate himself or to change his swinish nature in any particular, but thinks we should all bring ourselves down to the boar's mental and physical level as soon as we can. The closing verses of the third sonnet may be freely rendered as follows:

And when, at last, the grave shall close above us,No solemn prayer our resting-place should hallow,No flowers be strewn by hands of those that love us.But if, at times, you'll come where we are lying,O worthy friend! upon our graves to wallow,That thought should give us joy when we are dying.

The last piece in this little collection is addressed to "The Birds of my Garden" (Agli Uccelletti del mio Giardino). Though inferior to the others in boldness and originality of conception, it is much more graceful and attractive, and shows that the writer is by no means deficient in elegance of style and delicacy of treatment.

Signor Rizzi may, it is probable, be taken as a type of a large class among his countrymen, to which the iconoclastic tendencies of our time seem strange and horrible. Indeed, it is possible that he is one of the earliest heralds of a widespread reaction in opinion and feeling throughout his native land. At any rate, his poems can hardly fail to become popular, and to produce some effect among a people so susceptible to the influences of witty and sarcastic poetry as are the Italians even at this day.

W. W. C.

A NEZ PERCÉ FUNERAL

"Call me, Washington, when they are going to bury him," said the doctor.

George Washington, evidently not quite sure that he understood the doctor, said with an interrogative glance, "You like—see him—dead man—put in ground?" And, pointing downward and alternately bending and extending one knee, he made a semblance of delving.

The doctor nodded.

"Good! Me tell you."

"I want to go, Washington," said the lieutenant.

"And I too," said the lieutenant's guest, myself.

George Washington was one of the Nez Percé prisoners surrendered by Joseph to General Miles after the battle of Bear-Paw Mountain. The dead man was one of the wounded in that action who died from his wounds, aggravated, no doubt, by fatigue and exposure while the prisoners were marching to the east in the winter of 1877 under orders from the War Department. George spoke a few words of English, and was quite an intelligent Indian. He was very clean—for an Indian—and was comfortably clad.

"How soon?" asked the doctor.

"He—call me—when he ready: me call you."

"Good! Then I shall go to dinner."

"We had better eat our dinner," said the lieutenant: "it is growing late.—Come and have some dinner, Washington."

Washington seemed not quite sure that he understood correctly. He had a modest distrust of his English. In the matter of an invitation to dinner doubt is admissible. "You—want me—" here George Washington tapped himself on the savage breast—"eat—with you?" And here, gracefully reversing his hand, with the index extended, he touched the lieutenant on the civilized bosom.

"Yes: come in."

We three entered the tent. As it was an ordinary "A" tent, with a sheet-iron stove in it, it was pretty full with the addition of two good-sized white men and an Indian of no contemptible proportions. The lieutenant and I sat on the blankets, camp-fashion: Washington sat on my heavy riding-boots, with the stove perforce between his legs.

"Good wahrrm!" ejaculated George Washington, hugging the stove.

"Hustleburger!" shouted the lieutenant.

"Yes, sir."

"George Washington will take dinner with us. Set the table for three."

"All right, sir, lieutenant!"

"Good man—docther," Washington remarked, nodding several times to emphasize his observation: "ver'—good man—docther."

We eagerly assented, pleased to see that the Indian appreciated the doctor's kindness to his people.

Rabelais's quarter of an hour began to hang heavily on us. Washington was equal to the occasion: taking a survey of the tent, he nodded approvingly and remarked, "Good tepee."

"Not bad this weather."

"Good eyes!" said Washington in a burst of enthusiasm.

These two simple words in their Homeric immensity of expression meant all this: "The fire made on the ground in our Indian lodges fills them with continual smoke, and consequently we Indians suffer very much from sore eyes. Now, your little stove, while it warms the tent much better than a fire, does not smoke, and your eyes are not injured."

Our habitual table, a small box, was not constructed on the extension plan. It would not accommodate three. So Hustleburger handed directly to each guest a tin cup of macaroni soup. Washington disposed of the liquid in a very short time, but the elusive nature of the macaroni rather troubled him. We showed him how to overcome its slippery tendency. Smacking his lips, he said, with a broad smile, "Good! What you call him?"

"Macaroni."

"Maclony? Good! Maclony—maclony." he continued, repeating the word to fix it in his memory.

Our only vegetable was some canned asparagus. Washington was delighted with it after he had been initiated into the mystery of its consumption. He did not stop at the white. "What you call—him?"

"Asparagus."

"Spalagus—spalagus? Goo-oo-d!"

"Did you never eat asparagus before, Washington?"

"Never eat him—nev' see him. Spalagus—spalagus! Goo-oo-d!"

Hustleburger now brought in the dessert, which consisted of canned currant-jelly, served in the can. Each guest helped himself from the original package, using a "hard tack" for a dessert-plate, more antiquo. Washington was bidden to help himself. Before doing so, however, he wished to test the substance placed before him, and, taking a little on the end of his spoon, he carried it to his lips. Then an expression of intense enjoyment overspread his dusky face; his black eyes sparkled like diamonds; his full lips were wreathed in a smile. "Ah! goo-oo-oo-d!" he cried, with a mouthful of o's. "What you call him?"

"Jelly."

"Yelly? Ah! yelly goo-oo-ood! Me—like—yelly—much." And he helped himself plentifully.

A smell of burning woollen became unpleasantly noticeable. Washington still had the stove between his legs: it was red-hot. He never moved, but ate "yelly."

"Washington, you're burning!" cried the lieutenant.

Washington smiled. "Much wah-r-rum!" he remarked in the coolest manner possible.

"Throw open the front, then."

A long, shrill cry now rang through the silence and the darkness. Washington jumped up suddenly, ran out of the tent, and uttered a cry in response so similar that it might pass for an echo of the first. Then, returning, he said, "He call. He—ready—put—dead man—down. Come! Me—come back—eat—yelly."

Fortunately, the Indian camp was not far off. The night was pitch-dark. Led by Washington, we got through the thick underbrush without much trouble. The grave was dug near the water's edge, where the Missouri and the Yellowstone, meeting, form an angle. A large fire of dry cottonwood at the head of the grave fitfully lit up the dismal scene. A bundle of blankets and buffalo-robes lay by the open grave. Some Indians of both sexes with bowed and blanketed heads stood near it. Washington was evidently awaited. As soon as he appeared a little hand-bell was rung, and a number of dark, shrouded figures with covered faces crept forth like shadows from the lodges throughout the camp and crowded around the grave, a mute and gloomy throng.

The bell was rung again, and the dark crowd became motionless as statues. Then Washington in a mournful monotone repeated what I supposed to be prayers for the dead. At the end of each prayer the little bell was rung and responses came out of the depths of the surrounding darkness. Then the squaws chanted a wild funeral song in tones of surpassing plaintiveness. At its close the bell tinkled once more, and the figures that surrounded the grave vanished as darkly as they came. Washington, one or two warriors and ourselves alone remained.

"You like—see—him—dead man?" asked Washington.

The question was addressed to me.

I never want to look on a dead face if I can avoid it; so with thanks I declined. Washington seemed a little disappointed, as if he considered we showed a somewhat uncourteous want of interest in the deceased. Noticing this, the lieutenant said he would like to see the dead man's face, and, preceded by Washington, we moved toward the bundle of blankets and buffalo-robes that lay by the side of the grave. Washington threw back the buffalo-robes, and a bright gleam of the cottonwood fire disclosed the upturned face of the dead Nez Percé and lightened up the long, thick locks of glossy blue-black hair. It was the face of a man about thirty—bold, clear-cut features and long, aquiline nose: a good face and a strong face it seemed in death.

When we had looked upon the rigid features a few moments, Washington covered the face of his dead brother. The body, coffined in blankets and skins, was placed in the grave, and the men began to throw the earth upon it.

"That's—all," said Washington. "Come!"

And he moved away toward our tent.

He seemed to think some apology necessary for the simplicity of the ceremonial. "If," said he, "Chapman [the interpreter]—he tell—we sleep here to-morrow—we put dead man—in ground—when sun he ver' litt'; an' Yoseph he come—an' you come—an' I come—all come—white man an' Injun."

"He was a fine-looking young man," I remarked, alluding to the dead Indian.

Washington was pleased by the compliment to his departed brother. He stopped short, and, turning toward me, said, "Yes, he fine young man—good man—good young man."

"I thought he was rather an oldish man," remarked the lieutenant.

"No, no," replied Washington, touching his head—"all black hairs—no white hairs. Good young man."

And Washington led the way back toward the lieutenant's tent, saying, "Let us go—eat up—yelly."

J. T.

REFORM IN VERSE

A want of the day is some good fugitive poetry: bad is superabundant. The demand is for short and telling effusions in plain, direct and intelligible English, speaking to feelings possessed by everybody, and placing incidents, scenes and creatures, familiar or exceptional, in a poetic light, bright and warm rather than fierce or dazzling. The millions are waiting to be stirred and charmed, and will be very thankful to the singer who shall do it for them. Studied obscurity of thought and language, verbal finicalities and conceits, and mere ingenuities of any kind, rhythmic, mental or sentimental, will not meet the occasion: that sort of thing is overdone already. It is the "swollen imposthume" of refinement, an excrescence on culture, a penalty of which we have suffered enough. The Heliconian streams which are not deep, but only dark, must run dry if they cannot run clear. Sparkling and pellucid rills, wherein we can all see our own-selves and trace our own dreams, irradiated with light like the flickering of gems, and set off with rich foil, are those to attract the popular eye. Genuine humor, pathos, elevation and delicacy of fancy seek no disguise, but aim at the utmost simplicity of expression. Inversions, like affectation in every shape, are foreign to them. True songsters, like the birds, warble to be heard, understood and loved, and not to astonish or puzzle.