The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 03, No. 16, February, 1859. Various

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СКАЧАТЬ anxiously await further developments. According to present appearances, the final adjustment lies mainly in the hands of women themselves. Men can hardly be expected to concede either rights or privileges more rapidly than they are claimed, or to be truer to women than women are to each other. True, the worst effect of a condition of inferiority is the weakness it leaves behind it; even when we say, "Hands off!" the sufferer does not rise. In such a case, there is but one counsel worth giving. More depends on determination than even on ability. Will, not talent, governs the world. From what pathway of eminence were women more traditionally excluded than from the art of sculpture, in spite of Non me Praxiteles fecit, sed Anna Damer?—yet Harriet Hosmer, in eight years, has trod its full ascent. Who believed that a poetess could ever be more than an Annot Lyle of the harp, to soothe with sweet melodies the leisure of her lord, until in Elizabeth Barrett's hands the thing became a trumpet? Where are gone the sneers with which army surgeons and parliamentary orators opposed Mr. Sidney Herbert's first proposition to send Florence Nightingale to the Crimea? In how many towns has the current of popular prejuduce against female orators been reversed by one winning speech from Lucy Stone! Where no logic can prevail, success silences. First give woman, if you dare, the alphabet, then summon her to her career; and though men, ignorant and prejudiced, may oppose its beginnings, there is no danger but they will at last fling around her conquering footsteps more lavish praises than ever greeted the opera's idol,—more perfumed flowers than ever wooed, with intoxicating fragrance, the fairest butterfly of the ball-room.

      THE MORNING STREET

        I walk alone the Morning Street,

        Filled with the silence strange and sweet:

        All seems as lone, as still, as dead,

        As if unnumbered years had fled,

        Letting the noisy Babel be

        Without a breath, a memory.

        The light wind walks with me, alone,

        Where the hot day like flame was blown;

        Where the wheels roared and dust was beat,

        The dew is in the Morning Street.

        Where are the restless throngs that pour

        Along this mighty corridor

        While the noon flames? the hurrying crowd

        Whose footsteps make the city loud?

        The myriad faces? hearts that beat

        No more in the deserted street?—

        Those footsteps, in their dream-land maze,

        Cross thresholds of forgotten days;

        Those faces brighten from the years

        In morning suns long set in tears;

        Those hearts—far in the Past they beat—

        Are singing in their Morning Street.

        A city 'gainst the world's gray Prime,

        Lost in some desert, far from Time,

        Where noiseless Ages, gliding through,

        Have only sifted sands and dew,

        Were not more lone to one who first

        Upon its giant silence burst,

        Than this strange quiet, where the tide

        Of life, upheaved on either side,

        Hangs trembling, ready soon to beat

        With human waves the Morning Street.

        Ay, soon the glowing morning flood

        Pours through this charmèd solitude;

        All silent now, this Memnon-stone

        Will murmur to the rising sun;

        The busy life this vein shall beat,—

        The rush of wheels, the swarm of feet;

        The Arachne-threads of Purpose stream

        Unseen within the morning gleam;

        The Life will move, the Death be plain;

        The bridal throng, the funeral train,

        Together in the crowd will meet,

        And pass along the Morning Street.

* * * * *

      IN A CELLAR

      I

      It was the day of Madame de St. Cyr's dinner, an event I never missed; for, the mistress of a mansion in the Faubourg St. Germain, there still lingered about her the exquisite grace and good-breeding peculiar to the old régime, that insensibly communicates itself to the guests till they move in an atmosphere of ease that constitutes the charm of home. One was always sure of meeting desirable and well-assorted people here, and a contre-temps was impossible. Moreover, the house was not at the command of all; and Madame de St. Cyr, with the daring strength which, when found in a woman at all, should, to be endurable, be combined with a sweet but firm restraint, rode rough-shod over the parvenus of the Empire, and was resolute enough to insulate herself even among the old noblesse, who, as all the world knows, insulate themselves from the rest of France. There were rare qualities in this woman, and were I to have selected one who with an even hand should carry a snuffy candle through a magazine of powder, my choice would have devolved upon her; and she would have done it.

      I often looked, and not unsuccessfully, to discern what heritage her daughter had in these little affairs. Indeed, to one like myself Delphine presented the worthier study. She wanted the airy charm of manner, the suavity and tenderness of her mother,—a deficiency easily to be pardoned in one of such delicate and extraordinary beauty. And perhaps her face was the truest index of her mind; not that it ever transparently displayed a genuine emotion,—Delphine was too well-bred for that,—but the outline of her features had a keen, regular precision, as if cut in a gem. Her exquisite color seldom varied, her eyes were like blue steel, she was statue-like and stony. But had one paused there, pronouncing her hard and impassive, he had committed an error. She had no great capability for passion, but she was not to be deceived; one metallic flash of her eye would cut like a sword through the whole mesh of entanglements with which you had surrounded her; and frequently, when alone with her, you perceived cool recesses in her nature, sparkling and pleasant, which jealously guarded themselves from a nearer approach. She was infinitely spirituelle; compared to her, Madame herself was heavy.

      At the first I had seen that Delphine must be the wife of a diplomate. What diplomate? For a time asking myself the question seriously, I decided in the negative, which did not, however, prevent Delphine from fulfilling her destiny, since there were others. She was, after all, like a draught of rich old wine, all fire and sweetness. These things were not generally seen in her; I was more favored than many; and I looked at her with pitiless perspicacious eyes. Nevertheless, I had not the least advantage; it was, in fact, between us, diamond cut diamond, —which, oddly enough, brings me back to my story.

      Some years previously, I had been sent on a special mission to the government at Paris, and having finally executed it, I resigned the post, and resolved to make my residence there, since it is the only place on earth where one can live. Every morning I half expect to see the country, beyond the city, white with an encampment of the nations, who, having peacefully flocked there over night, wait till the Rue St. Honoré shall run out and greet them. It surprises me, sometimes, that those pretending to civilization are content to remain at a distance. What experience have they of life,—not to mention gayety and pleasure, but of the great purpose of life,—society? Man evidently is gregarious; Fourier's fables are founded on fact; we are nothing without our opposites, our fellows, our lights and shadows, colors, relations, combinations, our point d'appui, and our angle of sight. СКАЧАТЬ