The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863

As the symbol of a joyous faith, the Ivy seems to have been especially repugnant to the Hebrews, whose stern monotheism admitted few attributes to the Deity save those of tremendous power, vengeance, and gloom. So we find (Maccabees, book ii., c. 6., v. 7) that it was regarded by them as most horrible that, 'in the day of the king's birth, every month, they were brought, by bitter constraint, to eat of the sacrifices; and, when the feast of Bacchus was kept, the Jews were compelled to go in procession to Bacchus, carrying Ivy.' A dislike to this emblem of heathen joy seems, however, to have clung to them through all changes of faith—a fact apparently well known to Ptolemy Philopater, king of Egypt, who ordered that all the Jewish renegades who had abjured their religion should be branded with an Ivy-leaf.

When the reader who may be interested in the architecture of the middle ages meets in its tracery, as he often must, the Ivy-leaf, let him recall that here is a symbol which was not used unthinkingly by the Free Masons, who seldom lost an opportunity to bring forward their orientally derived Nature-lore. In fact, the whole mass and body of mediæval architectural emblems presents nothing less than a protest of Nature and life, independence and intelligence, knowledge and joyousness, against the gloomy prison of form and tyranny which held Truth in chains. The stone Ivy-leaf carved on the capitals of old cathedrals was as reviving a symbol to the heart of the Initiated as was the living Ivy on the walls without, green and beautiful among mid-winter's snow. It has been well conjectured by a German writer (Stieglitz, Archæologie der Baukunst der Griechen und Römer, Weimar, 1801, I Theil, § 268), that the relation of the Ivy to Bacchus was probably the cause why it was so frequently introduced by the Greeks among the architectural ornaments of their temples; a very natural conjecture, when we remember that it was a firm conviction in the early faith, even of India, that where the Ivy was found, the god had literally been. The same bold spirit of tradition which brought into the very bosom of the church so much genial, latent heresy and heathen daring, kept the Ivy alive—for Nature and Truth will live, and man will have his guardian angels, who will hope for him and for the dawn, though buried in the deepest night and lost among horrible dreams and ghastly incubi. A French writer on mediæval art5 has declared that an excellent work might be written on the foliage of Christian architecture, but regrets that the relations of the leaves as employed—or, in fact, the law guiding their employment—should be unintelligible. Let them be studied according to their symbolical and antique meaning, and they will seem clear as legible letters; and to those who can read them, the gloomy Gothic piles will ray forth a strange and beautiful light—the sympathetic light of congenial minds long passed away, yet who did not vanish ere they had breathed out to those who were to come after them, in leaf or other character, their hatred of the tyrant, and their unfailing conviction of the Great Truth. God bless them all! I have studied for hours their solemn symbols—each a cry for freedom and a prayer for light; and when I thought of the gloom and cruelty and devilishness of the foul age which pressed around them, I wondered that they, knowing what they did, could have lived—ay, lived and sung and given a soul to art. And, understanding them in spirit and in truth, every Ivy-leaf carved by them seemed the whole Prometheus bound and unbound—yes, all poems of truth, all myths, all religion.

And as it is the leaf of life, so is it by that very fact the leaf of death; for death is only the water of life. And in this sense we find a rare beauty in the poem by Mrs. Hemans, though she saw its truth, not through the dim glass of tradition, but by direct communion with Nature.

O THE IVYOCCASIONED BY RECEIVING A LEAF GATHERED IN THE CASTLE OF RHEINFELSOh! how could fancy crown with thee,In ancient days, the god of wine,And bid thee at the banquet be,Companion of the vine?Thy home, wild plant, is where each soundOf revelry hath long been o'er;Where song's full notes once peal'd around,But now are heard no more.The Roman, on his battle plains,Where kings before his eagles bent,Entwined thee, with exulting strains,Around the victor's tent;Yet there, though fresh in glossy green,Triumphantly thy boughs might wave—Better thou lov'st the silent sceneAround the victor's grave.Where sleep the sons of ages flown,The bards and heroes of the past,Where through the halls of glory gone,Murmurs the wintry blast;Where years are hastening to effaceEach record of the grand and fair—Thou, in thy solitary grace,Wreath of the tomb! art there.Oh! many a temple, once sublimeBeneath a blue Italian sky,Hath nought of beauty left by time,Save thy wild tapestry.And, reared 'midst crags and clouds, 'tis thineTo wave where banners waved of yore,O'er towers that crest the noble Rhine,Along his rocky shore.High from the fields of air look downThose eyries of a vanished race,Homes of the mighty, whose renownHath passed and left no trace.But thou art there—thy foliage bright,Unchanged, the mountain storm can brave—Thou that wilt climb the loftiest height,And deck the humblest grave.The breathing forms of Parian stone,That rise round grandeur's marble halls;The vivid hues by painting thrownRich o'er the glowing walls;Th' acanthus on Corinthian fanes,In sculptured beauty waving fair—These perished all—and what remains?—Thou, thou alone art there.'Tis still the same—where'er we tread,The wrecks of human power we see,The marvel of all ages fled,Left to decay and thee.And still let man his fabrics rear,August in beauty, grace, and strength,—Days pass, thou 'Ivy never sere,'6And all is thine at length.

There was a strange old belief that Ivy leaves worn as a garland prevented intoxication, that wine was less exciting when drunk from a cup of its wood, and that these cups had finally the singular property of separating water from wine by filtration, when the two were mingled—or, as it is expressed by Mizaldus Monlucianus in his delightfully absurd 'Centuries,'7 'a cup of Ivy, called cissybius, is especially fitted for two reasons, for feasts: firstly, because Ivy is said to banish drunkenness; and secondly, because by it the frauds of tavern keepers, who mix wine with water, are detected.' It is worth remarking, in connection with this, that, according to Loudon(Arboretum et Fruticetum Brittanicum, c. 59), the wood of the Ivy is, when newly cut, really useful as a filter, though it is highly improbable that anything like a complete analysis of mingled water and wine can be effected by it.

It may interest the literary critic, should he be ignorant of the fact, to know that the golden-berried Ivy—worn by Apollo ere he adopted the Daphnean laurel—is the plant consecrated to his calling. Witness Pope:

'Immortal Vida, on whose honored browThe poet's bays and critic's Ivy grow.'

Perhaps it is given to the critics to remind them that they should be kindly sheltering and warmly protecting to poor poets and others, who may be greatly cheered by a little kindness. For there is an old legend that the Druids decorated dwelling places with Ivy and holly during the winter, 'that the sylvan spirits might repair to them, and remain unnipped with frost and cold winds, until a milder season had renewed the foliage of their darling abodes. (Dr. Chandler, Travels in Greece.) Think of this when ye ink your pens for the onslaught!

It is worth noting that in two or three 'Dream Books' the Ivy is set down as indicating 'long-continued health, and new friendships'—an explanation quite in keeping with its ancient symbolism, and still more with its most literal and apparent meaning of attachment. This latter sense has given poet and artist many a fine figure and image. 'Nothing,' says St. Pierre in his Studies of Nature, 'can separate the Ivy from the tree which it has once embraced: it clothes it with its own leaves in that inclement season when its dark boughs are covered with hoar frost. The faithful companion of its destiny, it falls when the tree is cut down: death itself does not relax its grasp; and it continues to adorn with its verdure the dry trunk that once supported it.'

And of the golden-berried Ivy, Spenser sings:

'Emongst the rest, the clamb'ring Ivy grew,Knitting his wanton arms with grasping hold,Lest that the poplar happely should rewHer brother's strokes, whose boughs she doth enfoldWith her lythe twigs, till they the top survewAnd paint with pallid green her buds of gold.'

Madame De Genlis tells us of a true-hearted friend, who clung to a fallen minister of state, through good and ill fortune, and followed him into exile, that he adopted for a 'device' a fallen oak tree thickly wound with Ivy, and with the motto: 'His fall cannot free me from him.' An 'emblem' of the later middle age expresses undying conjugal love in a like manner, by a fallen tree wound around with Ivy, beneath which, is the inscription in Spanish: 'Se no la vida porque la muerte.' (Radowitz, Gesammelte Schriften.) A not uncommon seal gives us the Ivy with the motto; 'I die where I attach myself;' while yet another of the ivied fallen trees declares that 'Even ruin cannot separate us.'

Ivy is the badge of the clan Gordon, and of all who bear that name. In conclusion, lest my readers should object that the subject, though eminently suggestive, has been treated entirely without a jest, I will cite a quaint repartee, shockingly destructive of the sentiment just cited:

'Woman,' said a lovelorn youth, 'is like Ivy—the more you are ruined, the closer she clings to you.'

'And the closer she clings to you, the sooner you are ruined,' replied an old cynic of a bachelor.

Poor man! He had never realized the truth of the French saying, that to enjoy life, there is nothing like being ruined a little.

THE MISHAPS OF MISS HOBBS

'New beauties push her from the stage;She trembles at the approach of age;And starts, to view the altered faceThat wrinkles at her in her glass.'Trumbull's Progress of Dulness.CHAPTER I

Ann Harriet Hobbs was getting cured of her youth. 'She was going backward,' as the French say of people when Time is running forward, and they themselves are being forwarded a little too rapidly by his Express. All the ladies said so of her; all the gentlemen said so; and, worse than all, even the mirror made similar reflections a little—the only difference being that the ladies and gentlemen said so behind her back, but the mirror expressed it before her face. One by one her sisters and companions ripened and were plucked by the admiring crowd, but Ann Harriet remained untouched. No one even pinched her to see if she were good. And finally, as the throng were rapidly passing on, it became her settled conviction that she must shake herself into some one's hands, or she would be left to wither forsaken on the ancestral tree.

Ann Harriet, like some patent medicines, was not bad to take. True, children did not cry for her as they did for the famous cough lozenges of old; but the fact was, that in Peonytown most of the people were homœopathists, and preferred small doses; therefore Ann Harriet, who was popularly reported to weigh three hundred and one pounds—vires acquirit eundo—was altogether too large a dose for any gentleman of the homœopathic persuasion. Possibly, if Ann Harriet could have been divided into twin sisters of about one hundred and fifty pounds each, her matrimonial chances would have greatly increased; for however it may have been in years past, this putting two volumes into one is not at all popular at the present duo-decimal time.

Business, too, was dull in Peonytown, and the men could not afford to marry a wife who would require twenty-five yards for a dress, when they could get one that ten yards would cover up.

Miss Hobbs's twenty-sixth birthday was approaching. She could see it in the dim distance, and she knew too well that the twenty-seventh was ready to follow it up; and that Time stepped heavier than he used to—the clumsy fellow; for, 'handsome' as she was, she could see the marks of his feet on her face.

Ann Harriet had an uncle residing in Boston, whom she had never seen, but had often heard him favorably spoken of by her mother, whose only brother he was. Ann therefore determined that she would write to her Uncle Farnsworth, and ask him if it would be agreeable should she visit him for a few weeks.

Her letter met with a cordial response from the old gentleman, who expressed himself 'highly gratified at the prospect' of seeing his sister's daughter; named the day for her to come, and said that Gregory, his son, would meet her at the railroad station in Boston, when the train arrived.

Ann Harriet had never been in Boston, and the thoughts of a journey thither animated her 'to a degree.' Her wardrobe was renovated; a bran-new bonnet was purchased; and as all Peonytown was informed that it was to be deprived of her presence for several weeks, the 'meeting-house' was of course filled on the following Sunday to hear Parson Bulger preach about it; for he was one of the new-fashioned ministers, who considered the Bible as a wornout book, and generally preached from a newspaper text, or the last exciting piece of news. Alas! they were disappointed; for the sermon was on Barnum's Baby Show.

The appointed day came, and Ann Harriet paid Seth Bullard, the butcher's boy, a quarter of a dollar to 'carry' her and her luggage over to the Yellowfield depot, where she was to take the cars for Boston. She bore in her hand a rhubarb pie, nicely tied up in a copy of the Peonytown Clarion, which was intended as a gift for her Aunt Farnsworth. It was a pie she made with her own hands, and would have taken a prize for size at any cattle show.

After asking engineer, brakeman, and conductor which they thought the safest car, and getting a different answer from each, she finally ensconced herself in the third car from the engine. Opening the window, her attention was attracted by a neat tin sign, on which was painted, 'Look out for Pickpockets!'

'Now, that is kind,' said she, 'to give people notice. I forgot all about pickpockets. I would really like to see some, and will certainly look out for them.''

She accordingly thrust her head and neck out of the car window, and looked sharply at the bystanders. While engaged in this detective service, the signal was given, and the cars started, when Miss Hobbs, thinking it was needless to keep up a longer lookout, reëntered, and was surprised to find a nice-looking young man by her side. He wore a heavy yellow watchguard, yellow kid gloves, and a moustache to match, patent-leather boots, a poll-parrot scarf, and a brilliant breast-pin. Ann Harriet was delighted to have such a companion; and her wish that he would enter into conversation was soon gratified.

'Travelling far?' asked the 'city-looking chap.'

'Yes, sir; I am going to my uncle's, in Boston,' replied Ann Harriet.

'Taking a vacation, I suppose?' continued he of the yellow kids.

['How delightful!' thought Miss Hobbs; 'he takes me for a boarding-school girl.']

'For a few weeks,' replied she, with a bland smile; and dropping her black lace veil to improve her really fine complexion, knowing, as well as Shakspeare, that

'Beauty, blemished once, is ever lost,In spite of physic, painting, pains, and cost.'

'Is not this Miss Hobbs, of Peonytown?' suddenly asked the proprietor of the patent leathers, after a few minutes' conversation.

'Why! yes; how did you know?' was Ann Harriet's reply.

'Oh, I had a friend as went to the academy in Peonytown, and he always kept me posted up on the pretty girls; and he talked about you so often, I knew it must be Miss Hobbs,' was the flattering answer.

'How strange!' thought Ann Harriet. 'Well, it proves that I am not wholly overlooked by the young men of my native village.' She did not remember that she carried a little satchel, on which the stranger had read, 'Ann Harriet Hobbs, Peonytown.'

At this time a boy entered the car with a supply of ice water for thirsty passengers. In handing a glassful to Miss Hobbs, he spilled a part on the floor.

'What a waste!' remarked he.

Ann Harriet blushed deep crimson—fat folks are always sensitive—and, with a grave, fat, solemn air, she said:

'I think you are quite rude, sir.'

'I'd like to know how?' inquired he, with a look of surprise.

'By making remarks on my waist, sir. No gentleman would be guilty of such an offence,' replied the indignant lady.

Fortunately, the train at this juncture stopped at a way station, and the yellow moustache, poll-parrot scarf, and kid gloves got out, first bowing very politely to their late companion. Ann Harriet was a little sorry to have their inmate go, but consoled herself with the thought that he was altogether too familiar.

About fifteen miles farther on, an orange boy made his appearance; and Ann, thinking an orange would moisten her throat, felt for her portemonnaie, and found it not; for, while she was so intently looking out for pickpockets at Yellowfield, her agreeable companion had appropriated her cash, by looking in her pocket.

'There! that dandy villain has robbed me of my wallet, with fifteen dollars in it, and the receipt for Sally Lunn cake I was going to give Aunt Farnsworth!' exclaimed she, placidly. Stout folks bear disasters calmly. Luckily, she had two or three dollars in her satchel, which she had received from the ticket master when she purchased her ticket, so she was not entirely bankrupt. Some of the passengers attempted to sympathize with her, but they found it a thankless task, and soon desisted.

Ann Harriet, her griefs digested, drew herself into as compact a compass as possible, and in a few minutes was fast asleep.

The cars rolled, in due time, into the noisy station at Boston, and our traveller, after much exertion and trepidation, safely reached the platform, with her rhubarb pie unharmed. She looked anxiously around for her cousin Gregory, whom she had never seen, save in his carte de visite, and by that she found him in a few minutes. Gregory was a handsome man, quite young, and dressed in a neat suit of light clothes, donned that afternoon for the first time. He had never seen his cousin, and was therefore not a little surprised when the corpulent beauty introduced herself as Miss Ann Harriet Hobbs, of Peonytown. Gregory had come down to the station with a light buggy, in which he intended to convey his fair relative home, but at the first glance saw that it would be disastrous both to the buggy and Ann Harriet to attempt any such feat. He therefore escorted her to a hack, and left her a moment. While he was gone, Ann Harriet, who had forgotten all her troubles in the contemplation of riding home with her handsome cousin, laid the rhubarb pie on the opposite seat of the carriage, reserving the place by her side for Gregory. But this gentleman, not feeling sure that he would find room by the side of his massive cousin, when he entered the carriage, sat hastily down opposite her. Crash went the Peonytown Clarion, and 'sqush' went the juicy rhubarb, completely saturating Gregory's new garments. Ann Harriet gave a loud shriek, exclaiming: 'Oh! you have spoilt that nice pie that I made for Aunt Priscilla, from Mrs. Wilkins's receipt.'

'Hang Mrs. Wilkins's receipt!' exclaimed Gregory, who was imperturbable. 'I think I shall have to get some one to reseat my pantaloons.'

There was nothing to be done but to drive home as quickly as possible. The hackman was paid for the damage to his vehicle, and Gregory hastened up stairs to resume the old suit which only a few hours before he had thrown aside disdainfully.

Ann Harriet found her uncle's family all that she expected. They found her a little more than they expected. Everything was done to make her comfortable. Aunt Farnsworth condoled with her niece on the loss of her money, and the receipt for Sally Lunn cake. They brought a fan to cool her, and placed a footstool for her feet. Her cousin Miranda exhibited a photograph album containing all the family likenesses, besides a number they had purchased to fill up the book, such as the Prince of Wales, McClellan, Stonewall Jackson, Beauregard, and Butler. All this comforted her greatly, and Ann Harriet was much interested, but was obliged to inquire which were fighting for the North, and which for the South—'she had heard something about it, but was not thoroughly informed,'—for, to tell the truth, the only medium for news in Peonytown was the Clarion, and the only portion of even that which Ann Harriet attended to was the deaths, marriages, and dry goods.

The remainder of the day passed quietly, and the hour for retiring approached. Before Ann Harriet's arrival, it had been arranged that she should share Miranda's bed; but it was now very evident that Ann would get very much more than her share, and it was therefore decided to give her a bed to herself. A lamp was brought, and Aunt Farnsworth escorted her to her room, and bade her good night. Ann Harriet had the usual share of curiosity which all females—even plump ones—possess; and wishing to know how a Boston street appeared in the evening, she hoisted the curtain with a vigorous jerk, and looked forth: it was not a very beautiful scene; long rows of brick houses stretched away on either side, relieved at intervals by the street lamps and loafers, which, as they appeared at a distance, reminded her of a torchlight procession she had witnessed once in Peonytown, when the Hickory Club turned out with twenty torches and a colored lantern. Having satisfied her eyes with the view, she attempted to draw down the curtain, and found that it would not move. She had pulled it up so vigorously that the cord had slipped from the wheel, and rendered the curtain immovable. By stepping on a chair she could, indeed, reach and adjust it; but the only chairs in the room were cane-seated, and seemed altogether too fragile for such a weighty lady as Ann Harriet. To add to her perplexity, the dwelling directly opposite was a boarding house, full of young men; and she noticed that one or two of them had already discovered her, and that the news was probably being communicated to all their fellow boarders, for in a very few minutes every window had two or more spectators at it, armed with opera or eye glasses, while one saucy fellow had a telescope three feet long. What to do she did not know: there was but one window in the room, and no recess into which her portly beauty could retreat. Once more she tried the curtain, giving it a forcible twitch, and this time it came down—but the whole fixture came with it, and, after striking her on the head, slid out of the window into the street, much to the amusement of the spectators opposite.

Here was a dilemma—and what would her aunt say? She had to give up all hope of excluding the gaze of her impudent neighbors. Poor damsel! She would have asked assistance of some of the family, but they had all been asleep some time, and she disliked to disturb them. Finally, she decided to extinguish her light and undress in bed—a difficult undertaking, which was, however, accomplished, with the loss of sundry strings and buttons; and Ann Harriet laid her wearied head on the pillow, and thought her troubles for that day were over. But Sleep forsakes the wretched, and her eyes would not 'stay shut.' While coaxing them to 'stay down,' she was startled by a flash of light on the wall and an explosion, then another, and then a third, accompanied by a shower of gravelly substance in her face and eyes. Miss Hobbs, as we have seen, was

'A woman naturally born to fears,'

and this sudden and inexplicable exhibition of fireworks in her chamber almost burst the strings of her night cap, by causing her curly black hair to stand on end.

The mischievous young men opposite had procured a sarbacane—vulgarly known as a 'bean-blower,'—and were shooting torpedoes into Ann Harriet's chamber. Not daring to rise to shut the window, she was wholly at their mercy; but fortunately their stock of ammunition was limited to half a dozen pellets, and in a few minutes the bombardment ceased.

About midnight Ann Harriet fell into a deep slumber, and when she awoke the broad sunshine was illuminating her chamber, while the rattling of teams along the paved streets reminded her that she was in the great metropolis of New England. She missed the green foliage and healthy perfume and bird songs of her pleasant country home: all she could see was a combination of bricks, slate, and stone; and not a green thing was visible in the street, save a few Irish servants, who were washing off the doorsteps and sidewalks. In the middle of the cobble stones lay the curtain which had fallen during the scene of the previous evening, muddy and torn, its sticks broken by the heavy wagons which had passed over it. A glance at the hostile boarding-house assured her that all was quiet there; so, after arranging her dress with studied nicety, and disposing her hair in the most enchanting style—and Ann Harriet was really neat and winsome—she descended to the breakfast room. Her cousin Gregory was the only person present—he sat by the window, reading. After the customary greeting, Ann Harriet inquired what interested him.