_ CHAPTER I. WHICH TREATS OF THINGS NOT PARTICULARLY INTERESTING, AND MIGHT HAVE BEEN OMITTED WITHOUT PREJUDICE TO THIS HISTORY
CAPE COD, you must know, gentle reader, is my bleak native home, and the birth-place of all the most celebrated critics. The latter fact is not generally known, and for the reason that the gentry composing that fraternity acknowledge her only with an excess of reluctance. Her poets and historians never mention her in their famous works; her blushing maidens never sing to her, and her novelists lay the scenes of their romances in other lands. One solitary poet was caught and punished for singing a song to her sands; but of her codfish no historian has written, though divers malicious writers have declared them the medium upon which one of our aristocracies is founded. But I love her none the less for this.
It was a charming evening in early June. I am not disposed to state the year, since it is come fashionable to count only days. With my head supported in my left hand, and my elbow resting on my knee, I sat down upon the beach to listen to the music of the tide. Curious thoughts crowded upon my mind, and my fancy soared away into another world. The sea was bright, the breeze came soft and balmy over the land, and whispered and laughed. My bosom heaved with melting emotions; and had I been skilled in the art of love, the mood I was in qualified me for making it. The sun in the west was sinking slowly, the horizon was hung with a rich canopy of crimson clouds, and misty shadows played over the broad sea-plain, to the east. Then the arcades overhead filled with curtains of amber and gold; and the sight moved me to meditation. My soul seemed drinking in the beauties nature was strewing at the feet of her humblest, and, perhaps, most unthankful creatures. Then the scene began to change; and such was its gently-stealing pace that I became moved by emotions my tongue had no power to describe. The more I thought the more I wondered. And I sat wondering until Dame Night drew her dusky curtains, and the balconies of heaven filled with fleecy clouds, and ten thousand stars, like liquid pearls, began to pour their soft light over the land and sea. Then the "milky way" came out, as if to take the moon's watch, and danced along the serene sky, like a coquette in her gayest attire.
How I longed for a blushing maiden to tune her harp, or chant her song, just then! Though I am the son of a fisherman, I confess I thought I heard one tripping lightly behind me, her face all warm with smiles. It was but a fancy, and I sighed while asking myself what had induced it. Not a brook murmured; no willows distilled their night dews; birds did not make the air melodious with their songs; and there were no magnolia trees to shake from their locks those showers of liquid pearls which so bedew the books of our lady novelists. True, the sea became as a mirror, reflecting argosies of magic sails, and the star-lights tripped, and danced, and waltzed over the gently undulating swells. A moment more and I heard the tide rips sing, and the ground swell murmur, as it had done in my childhood, when I had listened and wondered what it meant. The sea gull, too, was nestling upon the bald sands, where he had sought rest for the night, and there echoed along through the air so sweetly, the music of a fisherman's song; and the mimic surf danced and gamboled along the beach, spreading it with a chain of phosphorous light, over which the lanterns mounted on two stately towers close by threw a great glare of light: and this completed the picture.
While contemplating the beauties before me, I was suddenly seized with a longing for fame. It was true I had little merit of my own, but as it had become fashionable at this day for men without merit to become famous, the chance for me, I thought, was favorable indeed. I contemplated my journey in quest of fame, and resolved never to falter. "Fame," I mused, "what quality of metal art thou made of, that millions bow down and worship thee?" And all nature, through her beauties, seemed returning an answer, and I arose from my reverie, and wended my way toward the cabin of my aged parents. A bright light streamed from one of the windows, serving as my beacon. I had not gone far before Fame, I thought, replied for herself, and said: "Know, son of a fisherman, that I am a capricious goddess; at least, I am so called by the critics. And they, being adepts in deep knowledge, render verdicts the world must not dispute. I have the world for my court: my shrine is everywhere, and millions worship at it. Genius, learning, and valor, are my handmaids. I have great and good men for my vassals; and upon them it affords me comfort to bestow my gifts. I seek out the wise and the virtuous, and place garlands of immortality upon their heads; I toy with my victims, and then hurl them into merited obscurity. Little men most beset me, most hang about my garments, and sigh most for my smiles. The rich man would have me build monuments to his memory; the ambitious poor man repines when I forget him. Novel-writing damsels, their eyes bedimmed with bodkin shaped tears, and their fingers steeled with envious pens it seems their love to dip in gall, cast longing looks at me. Peter Parley, and other poets, have laid their offerings low at my feet. I have crowned kings and emperors; and I have cast a favor to a fool. With queens and princes have I coquetted, and laughed when they were laid in common dust. I have dragged the humble from his obscurity, and sent him forth to overthrow kingdoms and guard the destinies of peoples. Millions have gone in search of me; few have found me. Great men are content with small favors; small men would, being the more ambitious of the two, take me all to themselves. Millions have aspired to my hand; few have been found worthy of it. Editors, critics, chambermaids and priests, (without whom we would have no great wars,) annoy me much. I am generous enough to forgive them, to charge their evil designs to want of discretion, to think the world would scarce miss them, and certainly could get along well enough without them.
"In my halcyon days there appeared before me one ’neas, who was great of piety, which he laid at my feet, soliciting only a smile. After him came Hector, whom I condoled for his misfortunes. Upon the head of Achilles, who sought the smallest favor, I placed a garland. Eurylas, a man of large friendship; and Alexander, who was known among the nations for his liberality; and C‘sar, who had some valor; and Trajan, whose probity no one doubted; and Topirus, a man of great fidelity; and Cato, of whom it was said that he had some wisdom-these came, and in humility bowed before me and accepted my offering. For the delight and instruction of future generations, I have had their names written on the pages of history, which is the world's gift. And this was an age of the past.
"Then the age of modern poetry and oratory came in with one Shakspeare, and a friend of his of the name of Bacon. And it went out with Sheridan, and one Pitt, and a queer man of the name of Byron, whose name I have written in letters of gold, and have placed where envious bishops cannot take it down, though they build ladders of lawn. I will watch over it, and it shall be bright when kings and bishops are forgotten.
"Then there came the age of Washington; which was a new age, in a new world, with new glories and new men, whose names I have enshrined for the study of the young, the old, the great, and the good. On Jefferson's brow I laid a laurel that shall be green in all coming time; and the memories of Webster, Clay, and Calhoun shall long wear my mantle, for they won it worthily.
"Latterly, I have been much annoyed by one Benton, who, being a man of much light and shade, climbs my ladder only to break it down, and is for ever mounting dragons he cannot ride. If I shake him from my skirts to-day, he will to-morrow meet me upon the highway, and charge me with ingratitude. Dancing-girls and politicians beset me on all sides, reminding me that, without them, the world would go to ruin. Political parsons and milliners daily make war upon me. And singing women, and critics who herald their virtues for pennies, threaten to plunder me of my glories. And, though I am not a vain dame, many of these think me as cheaply bought as their own praise.
"I would not have you mourn over the age of poetry and oratory, for that also is of the past. You must not forget that it is become fashionable for men to give themselves to the getting of gold, which they pursue with an avidity I fear will end in the devil getting all their souls. You, son of a fisherman, shall be the object of my solicitude. Go out upon the world; be just to all, nor withhold your generosity from those who are worthy of it. Be sure, too, that you make the objects of your pursuit in all cases square with justice. Let your purposes be unvarying, nor be presumptuous to your equals. Beware lest you fall into the company of boisterous talking and strong drinking men, such as aspire to the control of the nation at this day; and, though they may not have been many months in the country, kindly condescend to teach us how to live. Also let those who most busy themselves with making presidents for us keep other company than yours, for their trade is a snare many a good man has been caught in to his sorrow."
And Fame, I thought, continued discoursing to me in this manner until I reached the cabin of my father, when she bid me good night and departed. I entered the cabin and found my father, who was bent with age, sitting by the great fire-place, mending his nets. My mother was at her wheel, spinning flax. She was a tidy little body, of the old school. Her notions of the world in general were somewhat narrow and antiquated; while the steeple-crown cap she wore on her head so jauntily, and her apron of snow-white muslin, that hung so neatly over a black silk dress, and was secured about the neck with a small, crimped collar, gave her an air of cheerfulness the sweet- ness of her oval face did much to enhance. My father, whose face and hands were browned with the suns of some sixty summers, had a touch of the patriarch about him. He often declared the world outside of Cape Cod so wicked as not to be worth living in. He was short of figure, had flowing white hair, a deeply-wrinkled brow, and corrugated lips, and blue eyes, over-arched with long, brown eyelashes. My mother ran to me, and my father grasped me firmly by the hand, for he was not a little concerned about my stay on the beach. Indeed, I may as well confess, that he regarded me as a wayward youth, over whom it was just as well to exercise a guardian hand. In his younger days he had been what was called extremely good looking, a quality he frequently told me I had inherited, and from which he feared I might suffer grievous harm, unless I exercised great caution when divers damsels he had a jealous eye upon approached me. My mother was less jealous of my exploits among the sex, which she rather encouraged.
Another cause of anxiety with my father was the fact that I had written a "Life and Times" of Captain Seth Brewster; which work, though the hero was a fisherman, reached a sale of forty thousand copies, put money in my pocket, and made me the pet of all the petticoats round about. It was not unnatural, then, that my father, with his peculiar turn of mind, should set me down as being partially insane. I had also manufactured several very highly-colored verses in praise of Cape Cod; and these my publisher, who was by no means a tricky man, said had made a great stir in the literary world. And his assertion I found confirmed by the critics, who, with one accord, and without being paid, declared these verses proof that the author possessed "a rare inventive genius." The meaning of this was all Hebrew to me. My mother suggested that it might be a figure of speech copied from Chaldean mythology.
Another cause of alarm for my morals, in the eyes of my father, was the fact of my having made two political speeches. And these, according to divers New York politicians, had secured Cape Cod to General Pierce. And, as a reward for this great service, and to the end of illustrating in some substantial manner (so it is written at this day) their appreciation of a politician so distinguished, I was waited upon by a delegation of the before-named politicians, (two of whom came slightly intoxicated,) who had come, as they said, to tender to me an invitation to visit New York. A public reception by the Mayor and Council; a grand banquet at Tammany Hall; the honor of being made one of its Sachems; free apartments and two charming serenades at the New York Hotel; and divers suppers at very respectable houses, were temptingly suggested as an inducement for me to come out and take a prominent position. Indeed, such were the representations of this distinguished delegation, that I began to think the people of New York singularly rich and liberal, seeing that they trusted their surplus money in the hands of persons who were so loose of morals that they could find no other method of spending it than suppering and serenading men of my obscure stamp.
But if my father was alarmed lest my morals should suffer by these temptations, my mother would have answered to heaven for my virtue, though a dozen damsels were setting snares for me. And this will be shown in the next chapter. _