My Unknown Chum Part 8

Do not laugh, beloved reader, at the tenderness of my affection for that old place. There is a great deal of romance of a quiet and genial kind about Theatre Alley. As I first remember it, commerce had not encroached upon its precincts; no tall warehouses shut out the light from its narrow footway, and its planks were unenc.u.mbered by any intrusive bales or boxes. Old Dearborns scale factory was the only thing to remind one of traffic in that neighbourhood, which struck a balance with fate by becoming more scaley than before, when Dearborn and his factory pa.s.sed away. The stage door of the theatre was in the alley, and the walk from thence, through Devons.h.i.+re Street, to the Exchange Coffee House, which was the great hotel of Boston at that time, was once well known to many whose names are now part of the history of the drama. How often was I repaid for walking through the alley by the satisfaction of meeting George Frederick Cooke, the elder Kean, Finn, Macready, Booth, Cooper, Incledon, old Mathews, or the tall, dignified Conwayor some of that goodly company that made Old Drury cla.s.sical to the play-goers of forty years ago.

The two posts which used to adorn and obstruct the entrance to the alley from Franklin Street, when they were first placed there, were an occasion of indignation to a portion of the public, and of anxiety and vexation to Mr. Powell, the old manager. That estimable gentleman had often been a witness to the terror of the children and of those of the weaker s.e.x (I hope that I shall be forgiven by the "Rev. Antoinette Brown" for using such an adjective) who sometimes met a stray horse or cow in the alley; so he placed two wooden posts just beyond the theatre, to shut out the dreaded bovine intruders. But the devout Hibernians who used to wors.h.i.+p at the church in Franklin Street could not brook the placing of any such obstacles in their way to the performance of their religious duties; and they used to cut the posts down as often as Mr.

Powell set them up, until he took refuge in the resources of science, and covered and bound them with the iron bands which imprisoned them up to a very recent period.

Old Mr. Stoughton, the Spanish consul, used to occupy the first house in Franklin Street above the alley, behind which his garden ran back for some distance. How little that worthy gentleman thought that his tulip beds and rose bushes would one day give place to a dry goods shop! Seor Stoughton was one of the urbanest men that ever touched a hat. If he met you in the morning, the memory of his bland and gracious salutation never departed from you during the day, and seemed to render your sleep sweeter at night. He always treated you as if you were a prince in disguise, and he were the only person in the secret of your incognito.

He enjoyed the intimate friends.h.i.+p of that great and good man, Dr.

Cheverus, the first Bishop of Boston, who was afterwards transferred to the archiepiscopal see of Bordeaux, and decorated with the dignity of a Prince of the Church. He, too, often walked through the old alley. The children always welcomed his approach. They respected Don Stoughton; Bishop Cheverus they loved. His very look was a benediction, and the mere glance of his eye was a _Sursum corda_. That calm, wise, benignant face always had a smile for the little ones who loved the neighbourhood of that humble Cathedral, and the pockets of that benevolent prelate never knew a dearth of sugar plums. Years after that happy time, a worthy Protestant minister of this vicinitywho was blessed with few or none of those prejudices against "Romanism" which are nowadays considered a necessary part of a ministers educationvisited Cardinal Cheverus in his palace at Bordeaux, and found him keenly alive to every thing that concerned his old a.s.sociations and friends in Boston. He declared, with tears in his eyes, and with that air of sincerity that marked every word he spoke, that he would gladly lay down the burden of the honour and power that then weighed upon him, to return to the care of his little New England flock. Now, Cardinal Cheverus was a man of taste and of kind feelings, and I will warrant you that when he thought of Boston, Theatre Alley was included among his a.s.sociations, and enjoyed a share in his affectionate regrets.

Mrs. Grace Dunlaps little shop was an inst.i.tution which many considered to be coexistent with the alley itself. It was just one of those places that seem in perfect harmony with Theatre Alley as it was twenty-five years ago. It was one of those shops that always seem to shun the madding crowds ign.o.ble strife, and seek a refuge in some cool sequestered way. The snuff and tobacco which Mrs. Dunlap used to dispense were of the best quality, and she numbered many distinguished persons among her customers. The author of the History of Ferdinand and Isabella was often seen there replenis.h.i.+ng his box, and exchanging kind courtesies with the fair-spoken dealer in that fragrant article which is productive of so many bad voices and so much real politeness in European society. Mrs. Dunlap herself was a study for an artist. Her pleasant face, her fair complexion, her quiet manner, her white cap, with its gay ribbons, rivalling her eyes in brightness, were all in perfect keeping with the scrupulous neatness and air of repose that always reigned in her shop. Her parlour was as comfortable a place as you would wish to see on a summer or a winter day. It had a cheerful English look that I always loved. The plants in the windows, the bird cage, the white curtains, the plain furniture, that looked as if you might use it without spoiling it, the s.h.i.+ning andirons, and the blazing wood fire, are all treasured in my memory of Theatre Alley as it used to be. Mrs.

Dunlaps customers and friends (and who could help being her friend?) were always welcome in her parlour, and there were few who did not enjoy her simple hospitality more than that pretentious kind which sought to lure them with the pomp and vanity of mirrors and gilding. Her punch was a work of art. But I will refrain from pursuing this subject further. It is no pleasure to me to harrow up the feelings of my readers by dwelling upon the joys of their _prteritos annos_.

When Mrs. Dunlap moved out of the alley, its glory began to decline.

From that day its _prestige_ seemed to have gone. Even before that time an attempt had been made to rob it of its honoured name. Signs were put up at each end of it bearing the inscription, "Odeon Avenue"; but the attempt was vain, whether it proceeded from motives of G.o.dliness or of respectability; n.o.body ever called it any thing but Theatre Alley. At about that time nearly all the buildings left in it were devoted to the philanthropic object of the quenching of human thirst. We read that St.

Paul took courage when he saw _three_ taverns. Who can estimate the height of daring to which the Apostle of the Gentiles might have risen had it been vouchsafed to him to walk through Theatre Alley. One of the most frequented resorts there rejoiced in the name of "The Rainbow"an auspicious t.i.tle, certainly, and one which would attract those who were averse to the cold water principle. Some of the places were below the level of the alley, and verified, in a striking manner, the truth of Virgils words, _Facilis descensus taverni_. Among certain low persons, not appreciative of its poetic a.s.sociations, the alley at that time was nicknamed "Rum Row"; and he was considered a hero who could make all the ports in the pa.s.sage through, and carry his topsails when he reached Franklin Street. Various efforts were made at that period to bring the alley into disrepute. Among others, a sign was put up announcing that it was _dangerous pa.s.sing_ through there; I fear that Father Mathew would have thought a declaration that it was dangerous _stopping_, to have been nearer the truth. But the daily deputations from the Old Colony and Worcester Railways could not be kept back by any signs, and the alley echoed to their mult.i.tudinous tramp every morning. Mr. Choate, too, was faithful to the alley through good and evil report, and while there was a plank left, it was daily pressed by his India rubbers. To such a lover of nature as he, what shall take the place of a morning walk through Theatre Alley!

But _venit summa dies et ineluctabile tempus_, and the old alley has been swept away. During the past century how many thousands have pa.s.sed through it! how many anxious minds, engrossed with schemes of commercial enterprises, how many hearts weary with defeat, how many kind, and generous, and great, and good men, who have pa.s.sed away from earthly existence, like the alley through which they walked! But while I mourn over the loss, I would not restore it if I could. When so many of its old a.s.sociations had been blotted out; when low dram-drinking dens had taken the place of the ancient, quiet dispensatories of good cheer; when grim and gloomy warehouses, with their unsocial, distrustful iron shutters, had made the warm sunlight a stranger to it,it was time for it to go. It was better that it should cease to exist, than continue in its humiliation, a reproach to the neighbourhood, and a libel upon its ancient and honourable fame.

THE OLD CATHEDRAL

In many people who have been abroad, the mere mention of the old city of Rouen is enough to kindle an enthusiasm. If you would know why this is,why those who are familiar with the cathedrals of Cologne, Milan, Florence, and the basilicas of Rome, have yet so deep a feeling about the old capital of Normandy,the true answer is, that Rouen, with its Gothic glories and the thrilling history of the middle ages written on its every stone, was the first ancient city that they saw, and made the deepest impression on their minds. They had left the stiff and unsympathetic respectability of Boston, the tiresome cleanliness of Philadelphia, or the ineffable filth of New York behind them; or perchance they had been emanc.i.p.ated from some dreary western town, whose wide, straight, unpaved streets seemed to have no beginning and to end nowhere; whose atmosphere was pervaded with an odour of fresh paint and new s.h.i.+ngles, and whose inhabitants would regard fifty years as a highly respectable antiquity,and had come steaming across the unquiet Atlantic to Havre, eager to see an old city. A short railway ride carried them to one in which they could not turn a corner without seeing something to remind them of what they had seen in pictures or read in books about the middle ages. The richly-carved window frames, the grotesque faces, the fanciful devices, the profusion of ornament, the shrines and statues of the saints at the corners of the streets, and all the other picturesque peculiarities of that queer old city, filled them with wonder and delight. Those fantastic gables that seemed to be leaning over to look at them, inspired them with a respect which all the architectural wonders and artistic trophies of the continent are powerless to disturb.

It was not my fortune thus to make acquaintance with Rouen. I had several times tasted the pleasure of a continental sojourn. The streets of several of the great European capitals were as familiar to me as those of my native city. Yet Rouen captivated me with a charm peculiarly its own. I shall not easily forget the delicious summer day in which I left Paris for a short visit to Rouen. That four hours ride over the Western Railway of France was full of solid enjoyment for every sense.

The high cultivation of that fertile and unfenced countrythe farmers at work in the sunny broad-stretched fieldsthe hay-makers piling up their fragrant loadsthe chteau-like farm houses, looking as stately as if they had strayed out of the city, and, getting lost, had thought it beneath their dignity to inquire the way backand those old compactly built towns, in each of which the houses seem to have nestled together around a moss-grown church tower, like children at the knees of a fond mother,made up a scene which harmonized admirably with my feelings and with the day, "so calm, so cool, so bright, the bridal of the earth and sky." My fellow-pa.s.sengers shared in the general joy which the blithesomeness of nature inspired. We all chatted merrily together, and a German, who looked about as lively as Scotts Commentaries bound in dark sheep-skin, tried to make a joke. So irresistible was the contagion of cheerfulness, that an Englishman, who sat opposite me, so far forgot his native dignity, as to volunteer the remark that it was a "nice day."

At last we began to consult our watches and time tables, and, after a shrill whistle and a ride through a long tunnel, I found myself, with a punctuality by which you might set your Frodsham, in the station at Rouen. I obeyed the instructions of the conductor to _Messieurs les voyageurs pour Rouen_ to _descendez_, and was, in a very few minutes, walking leisurely through narrow and winding streets, which I used to think existed only in the imaginations of novelists and scene-painters.

I say walking, but the fact is, I did not know what means of locomotion I employed in my progress through the town. My eyes and mind were too busy to take cognizance of any inferior matters. My astonishment and delight at all that met my sight was not so great as my astonishment and delight to find myself astonished and delighted. I had seen so many old cities that I had no thought of getting enthusiastic about Rouen, until I found myself suddenly in a state of mental exaltation. I had visited Rouen as many people visit churches and galleries of art in Italybecause I had an opportunity, and feared that in after years I might be asked if I had ever been there. But, if a dislike to acknowledge my ignorance led me to Rouen, it was a very different sentiment that took possession of me as soon as I caught the spirit of the place. The genius of the past seemed to inhabit every street and alley of that strange city. I half expected, whenever I heard the hoofs of horses, to find myself encompa.s.sed by mailed knights; and if Joan of Arc, with her sweet maidenly face beaming with the inspiration of religious patriotism, had galloped by, it would not have surprised me so much as it did to realize that Ia Yankee, clad in a gray travelling suit, with an umbrella in my hand, and drafts to a limited amount on Baring Brothers in my pocketwas moving about in the midst of such scenes, and was not arrested and hustled out of the way as a profane intruder.

Wandering through the mouldy streets without any definite idea whither they led, and so charmed by all I saw, that I did not care, I suddenly turned a corner and suddenly found myself in a market-place well filled with figures, which would have graced a similar scene in any opera-house, and facing that stupendous cathedral which is one of the glories of France. I do not know how to talk learnedly about architecture; so I can spare you, dear reader, any criticism on the details of that great church. I have no doubt that it is full of faults, but my unskilful eyes rested only on its beauties. I would not have had it one stroke of the chisel less ornate, nor one shade less dingy. I could not, indeed, help thinking what it must have been centuries ago, when it was in all the glory of its fresh beauty; but still I rejoiced that it was reserved for me to behold it in the perfected loveliness and richer glory of its decay. Never until then did I fully appreciate the truth of Mr. Ruskins declaration, that the greatest glory of a building is not in its sculptures or in its gold, but in its age,nor did I ever before perfectly comprehend his eloquent words touching that mysterious sympathy which we feel in "walls that have long been washed by the pa.s.sing waves of humanity."

After lingering for a while before the sacred edifice, I entered, and stood within its northern aisle. Arches above arches, supported by a forest of ma.s.sive columns, seemed to be climbing up as if they aspired to reach the throne of Him whose wors.h.i.+p was daily celebrated there. The sun was obscured by a pa.s.sing cloud as I entered, and that made the ancient arches seem doubly solemn. The stillness that reigned there was rendered more profound by the occasional twitter of a swallow from some "jutty frieze," or "coigne of vantage," high up above my head. I walked half way up the aisle, and stopped on hearing voices at a distance. As I stood listening, the sun uncovered his radiant face, and poured his golden glory through the great western windows of the church, bathing the whole interior with a prismatic brilliancy which made me wonder at my presumption in being there. At the same moment a clear tenor voice rang out from the choir as if the sunbeams had called it into being, giving a wonderful expression to the words of the Psalmist, _Dominus illuminatio mea et salus mea; quem timebo_. Then came a full burst of music as the choir took up the old Gregorian Chantthe universal language of prayer and praise. As the mute groves of the Academy recho still the wisdom of the sages, so did that ancient church people my mind with forms and scenes of an age long pa.s.sed away. "I was all ear," and those solemn strains seemed to be endowed with the acc.u.mulated melody of the _Misereres_ and _Glorias_ of a thousand years.

I have an especial affection for an old church, and I pity with all my heart the man whom the silent eloquence of that vast cathedral does not move. The very birds that build their nests in its mouldering towers have more soul than he. Its every stone is a sermon on the transitoriness of human enterprise and the vanity of worldly hopes.

Beneath its pavement lie buried hopes and ambitions which have left no memorial but in the unread pages of forgotten historians. Richard, the lion-hearted, who made two continents ring with the fame of his valour, and yearned for new conquests, was obliged at last to content himself with the dusty dignity and obscurity of a vault beneath those lofty arches which stand unmoved amid the contentions of rival dynasties and the insane violence of republican anarchy.

But it was not merely to write of the glories of Rouen and its churches, that I took up my neglected pen. The old cathedral of which I have now a few kind words to say, does not, like that of Rouen, date back sixteen centuries to its foundation; neither is it one of those marvels of architecture in which the conscious stone seems to have grown naturally into forms of enduring beauty. No great synods or councils have been held within its walls; nor have its humble aisles resounded daily with the divine office chanted by a chapter of learned and pious canons.

Indeed it bears little in its external appearance that would raise a suspicion of its being a cathedral at all. Yet its plain interior, its simple altars, and its unpretentious episcopal throne, bear witness to the abiding-place of that power which is radiated from the shrine of the Prince of the Apostlesas unmistakably as if it were encrusted with mosaics, and the genius of generations of great masters had been taxed in its adornment.

The Cathedral of Boston is the last relic of Franklin Street as I delight to remember it. One by one, the theatre, the residence of the Catholic bishops, and the old mansions that bore such a Berkeley Square-y look of respectability have pa.s.sed away; and the old church alone remains. Tall warehouses look down upon it, as if it were an intruder there, and the triumphal car of traffic makes its old walls tremble and disturbs the devotion of its wors.h.i.+ppers. An irreverent punster ventured a few months since to suggest that, out of regard to its new a.s.sociations, it ought to be rededicated under the invocation of St. Casimir, and to be enlarged by the addition of a chapel built in honor of St. Pantaleone.

Quid non mortalia pectora cogis, Joci sacra fames!

But it is well that it should follow the buildings with which it held companions.h.i.+p through so many quiet years. The charm of the old street has been destroyed, and the sooner the last monument of its former state is removed the better it will be. The land on which it stands formerly belonged to the Boston Theatre corporation. It was transferred to its present proprietors.h.i.+p in the last week of the last century, and the first Catholic church in New England was erected upon it. That church (enlarged considerably by the late Bishop Fenwick) is the one which still stands, and towards which I feel a veneration similar in kind to that inspired by the cathedrals of the old world. Even now I remember with pleasure how I used to enjoy an occasional visit to that strange place in my boyhood. "Logic made easy" and "Geometry for Infant Schools"

were things unknown in my young days. I was weaned from the Primer and Spelling-book with the Arabian Nights Entertainments, and the works of Defoe, Goldsmith, Addison, and Shakespeare. Therefore the romantic instinct was not entirely crushed out of my youthful heart, and it would be difficult, dear reader, for you to conceive how much I found to feed it on, within those plain brick walls.

The lamp which used to burn constantly before the altar, until an anxiety for "improvement" removed it out of sight behind the pulpit, filled me with an indescribable awe. I was ignorant of its meaning, and for years was unaware that my childish reverence for its mild flicker was a blind homage to one of the profoundest mysteries of the Catholic faith. I remember to this day the satisfaction I took in the lighting of those tall candles, and what a halo of mysterious dignity surrounded even the surpliced boys grouped around that altar. That strange ceremonial surpa.s.sed my comprehension. The Latin, as I heard it sung there, was p.r.o.nounced so differently from what I had been taught at school, that it was all Greek to me. Yet, when I saw the devotion of that congregation, and the pious zeal of the devoted clergymen who built that church, I could not call their wors.h.i.+p "mummery," nor join in the irreverent laughter of my comrades at those ancient rites. There was something about them that seemed to fill up my ideal of wors.h.i.+pa soothing and consoling influence which I found nowhere else.

I never entertained the vulgar notion of a Catholic priest. Of course my education led me to regard the dogmas of the Roman Church with any thing but a friendly eye; but my ideas of the clergy of that Church were not influenced by popular prejudice. I was always willing to believe that Vincent de Paul, and Charles Borromeo, and Fnelon were what they were, _in consequence_ of their religion, rather than _in spite_ of it, as some people, who make pretensions to liberality, would fain persuade us.

When I recall the self-denying lives of the two founders of the Catholic Church in Boston,Matignon and Cheverus,I wonder that the influence of their virtues has not extended even to the present day, to soften prejudice and do away with _irreligious_ animosity. They were regarded with distrust, if not with hatred, when they first came among us to take charge of that humble flock; but their devotedness, joined with great acquirements and rare personal worth, overcame even the force of the great Protestant tradition of enmity towards their office. Protestant admiration kept pace with Catholic love and veneration in their regard, and when they built the church which is now so near the term of its existence, there were few wealthy Protestants in Boston who did not esteem it a privilege to aid them with liberal contributions. The first subscription paper for its erection was headed by the ill.u.s.trious and venerable name of John Adams, the successor of Was.h.i.+ngton in the presidency of the United States.

The memory of the first Bishop of Boston, Dr. Cheverus, is (for most Bostonians of my age) the most precious a.s.sociation connected with the Cathedral. He was endeared to the people of this city by ten years of unselfish exertion in the duties of a missionary priest, before he was elevated to the dignity of the episcopate. His unwillingness to receive the proffered mitre was as characteristic of his modest and humble spirit, as the meekness with which he bore his faculties when the burden of that responsibility was forced upon him. His "episcopal palace," as he used facetiously to term his small and scantily-furnished dwelling, which was contiguous to the rear of the church, was the resort of all cla.s.ses of the community. His simplicity of manner and ingenuous affability won all hearts. The needy and opulent, the learned and illiterate, the prosperous merchant and the Indians in the unknown wilds of Maine, found in him a father and a friend. Children used to run after him as he walked down Franklin Place, delighted to receive a smile and a kind word from one whose personal presence was like a benediction.

His face was the index of a pure heart and a great mind. It was impossible to look at him without recalling that fine stanza of the old poet.

"A sweete attractive kind of grace, A full a.s.surance given by lookes, Continuall comfort in a face, The lineaments of Gospel bookes; I trow that countenance cannot lie Whose thoughts are legible in the eye."

One of the ancient Hebrew prophets, in describing the glories of the millennial period, tells us that upon the bells of the horses shall be the words, _Holiness unto the Lord_a prophecy which always reminded me of Cheverus; for that divine inscription seemed to have been written all over his benign countenance as with the luminous pen of the rapt evangelist in Patmos.

But Bishop Cheverus was not merely a good manhe was a great man. He did not court the society of the learned, for his line of duty lay among the poor; but, even in that humble sphere, his talents shone out brightly, and won the respect even of those who had the least sympathy with the Church to which his every energy was devoted. Boston valued him highly; but few of her citizens thought, as they saw him bound on some errand of mercy through her streets, that France envied them the possession of such a prelate, that the peerage of the old monarchy was thought to need his virtuous presence, and that the scarlet dignity of a Prince of the Church was in reserve for that meek and self-sacrificing servant of the poor. Had he been gifted with prophetic vision, his humility would have had much to suffer, and his life would have been made unhappy, by the thought of coming power and honour. He had given the best part of his life to Boston, and here he wished to die. He had buried his friend and fellow-labourer, Dr. Matignon, in the Church of St. Augustine at South Boston, and when he placed the mural tablet over the tomb of that venerable priest, he left a s.p.a.ce for his own name, and expressed the hope that, as they had lived together harmoniously for so many years, they might not in death be separated. It was a strange sight to see more than two hundred Protestants remonstrating against the translation of a Catholic bishop from their city, and speaking of him in such terms as these: "We hold him to be a blessing and a treasure in our social community, which we cannot part with, and which, without injustice to any man, we may affirm, if withdrawn from us, can never be replaced."

And when he distributed all that he possessed among his clergy, his personal friends and the poor, and left Boston as poor as he had entered it, with the single trunk that contained his clothes when he arrived, twenty-seven years before,public admiration outran the power of language. Doctrinal differences were forgotten. Three hundred carriages and other vehicles escorted him several miles on the road to New York, where he was to embark.

Of his life as Bishop of Montauban, Archbishop of Bordeaux, a Peer of France, and a Cardinal, there is not s.p.a.ce for me to speak. Suffice it to say, that amid all the dignities to which he was successively promoted, he lived as simply and unostentatiously as when he dwelt in Franklin Street; and that in time of pestilence and public distress he showed the same unbounded charity which caused his departure from Boston to be considered a public calamity. To the last day of his life he maintained his interest in his American home, and would gladly have relinquished all his dignities to return and minister at the altar of the church he here erected. Throughout France he was honoured and beloved, even as he had been in the metropolis of New England, and a nation sorrowed at his death. Full as his life was of good works, it was not in his eloquence, nor his learning, nor in the pious and charitable enterprises which he originated, that the glory of Cardinal Cheverus consisted; it was in the simplicity of his character and the daily beauty of his life:

"His thoughts were as a pyramid up-piled, On whose far top an angel stood and smiled, Yet in his heart he was a little child."

The gentle and benevolent spirit of that ill.u.s.trious prelate has never departed from the church he built. When Channing died, and was buried from the church which his eloquence had made famous, the successor of Cheverus caused the bell of the neighbouring Cathedral to be tolled, that it might not seem as if the Catholics had forgotten the friendly relations which had existed between the great Unitarian preacher and their first bishop. And when the good Bishop Fenwick was borne from the old Cathedral, with all the pomp of pontifical obsequies, his courtesy and regard for Dr. Channings memory was not forgotten, and the bell which was so lately removed from the tower, where it had swung for half a century, joined with that of the Cathedral in giving expression to the general sorrow, and proved that no dogmatic differences had disturbed the kindly spirit which Channing inculcated and had exemplified in his blameless life.

Of the later history of the Cathedral of the Holy Cross I may not speak.

My youthful respect for it has in no degree diminished, and I shall always consider it a substantial refutation of the old apothegm, "Familiarity breeds contempt." There are, I doubt not, those who regard that old edifice with deeper feelings than mine. Who can estimate the affection and veneration in which it is held by those who may there have found an asylum from hara.s.sing doubts, who have received from that font the joy of a renovated heart, and from that altar the divine gift which is at the same time a consolation for past sorrows and a renewal of strength to tread the rough path of life!

I am told that it will not probably be long before the glittering cross which the pure-hearted Cheverus placed upon the old church will be removed, and the demolition of his only monument in Boston will be effected. Permit me to conclude these reminiscences with the expression of the hope that the new Cathedral of Boston will be an edifice worthy of this wealthy city, and that it may contain some fitting memorial of the remarkable man who exercised his beneficent apostolate among us during more than a quarter of a century. The virtues which merited the grat.i.tude of the poor and the highest honours which pontiffs and kings can bestow, ought not to go uncommemorated in the city which witnessed their development, and never hesitated to give expression to its love and veneration for their possessor. But whatever the new Cathedral may be,however glorious the skill of the architect, the sculptor, and the painter may render it,there are those in whose affections it will never be able to replace the little unpretending church which Cheverus built, and which the remembrance of his saintly life has embalmed in all their hearts.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SUFFERING

I am old, And my infirmities have chained me here To suffer and to vex my weary soul With the vain hope of cure. * * *

Yet my captivity is not so joyless As you would think, my masters. Here I sit And look upon this eager, anxious world, Not with the eyes of sour misanthropy, Nor envious of its pleasures,but content, Yea, blessedly content, mid all my pains, That I no more may mingle with its brawlings.

Human suffering is an old and favourite theme. From the time when the woes of Job a.s.sumed an epic grandeur of form, and the adventures and pains of Philoctetes inspired the tragic muse of Sophocles, down to the publication of the last number of the _London Lancet_, there would seem to have been no subject so attractive as the sufferings of poor humanity. Literature is filled with their recital, and, if books were gifted with a vocal power, every library would resound with wailings.

Ask your neighbour Jenkins, who overtakes you on your way to your office, how he is, and it is ten chances to one that he will entertain you with an account of his influenza or his rheumatism. It is a subject, too, which age cannot wither nor custom stale. It knows none of the changes which will at times dwarf or keep out of sight all other themes.

The weather, which forms the raw material of so much conversation, is nothing compared to it. There is nothing which men find so much pleasure in talking about as their own ailments. The late Mr. Webster, of Marshfield, was once stopping for a single day in a western city, where he had never been before, and where there was a natural curiosity among many of the inhabitants to see the Defender of the Const.i.tution. He therefore set apart two hours before the time of his departure for the reception of such persons as might seek the honour of a shake of his hand. The reception took place in one of the parlours of a hotel, the crowd filing in at one door, being introduced by the mayor, and making their exit by another. In the course of the proceedings, a little man, with a l.u.s.trous beaver in one hand and a gold-headed cane in the other, and whose personal apparel appeared to have been got up (as old Pelby would have said) without the slightest regard to expense, and on a scale of unparalleled splendour, walked forward, and was presented by the mayor as "Mr. Smith, one of our most eminent steamboat builders and leading citizens." Mr. Websters large, thoughtful, serene eyes seemed to be completely filled by the result of the combined efforts of the linen-draper, the tailor, and the jeweller, that confronted him, and his deep voice made answer"Mr. Smith, I am happy to see you. I hope you are well, sir." "Thank you, thir," said the leading citizen, "I am not very well. I wath tho unfortunate ath to take cold yethterday by thitting in a draught. Very unpleathant, Mr. Webthter, to have a cold! But Mrs.

Smith thays that the thinks that if I put my feet in thome warm water to-night, and take thome-thing warm to drink on going to bed, that I may get over it. I thertainly hope tho, for it really givth me the headache, and I cant thmell at all." Mr. Webster expressed a warm interest in Mr.

Smiths case, and a hope that Mrs. Smiths simple medical treatment would result beneficially, and then turned with undisturbed gravity to the next citizen, who, with some six hundred others, was anxiously waiting his turn. We are all like Mr. Smith. We laugh, it is true, at his affectations, but we are as likely to force our petty ailments upon a mind burdened with the welfare of a nation; and we never tire of hearing ourselves talk about our varying symptoms. Politeness may hold us back from importuning our friends with the diagnosis of our case, but our self-centred hearts are all alike, and a cold in the head will awaken more feelings in its victim than the recital of all the horrors of the hospital of Scutari. Nothing can equal the heroic fort.i.tude with which we bear the sufferings of our fellows, or the saintliness of our pious resignation and acquiescence in the wisdom of the divine decrees when our friends are bending under their afflictive stroke.

I wish to say a few words about suffering. Do not be afraid, beloved reader, that I am going to carry you into rooms from which the light is excluded, and which are strangers to any sound above a whisper, or the casual movement of some of the phials on the mantel-piece. I am going to speak of suffering in its strict sense of pain,bodily pain,and sickness is not necessarily accompanied with pain. I cannot regard your sick man as a real sufferer. His fever rages, and he tosses from side to side as if he were suffering punishment with Dives; but from the incoherent phrases which escape from his parched lips, you learn that his other self is rapt in the blissfulness that enfolds Lazarus. He prattles childishly of other lands and sceneshe thinks himself surrounded by friends whose faces once were grateful to his sight, but who long since fell before the power with which he is strugglingor he fancies himself metamorphosed into a favourite character in some pleasant book which he has lately read. After a time he wakes forth from his delirium, but he cannot even then be called a sufferer. On the contrary, his situation, even while he is so entirely dependent upon those around him, is really the most independent one in the world. His lightest wish is cared for as if his life were the price of its non-accomplishment. All his friends and kinsmen, and neighbours whom he hardly knows by sight, vie with each other in trying to keep pace with his returning appet.i.te. He is the absolute monarch of all he surveys.

There is no one to dispute his reign. The crown of convalescence is the only one which does not make the head that wears it uneasy. He has nothing to do but to satisfy his longings for niceties, to listen to kind words from dear friends, to sleep when he feels like it, and to get better. I am afraid that we are all so selfish and so enslaved by our appet.i.tes, that the period of convalescence is the pleasantest part of life to most of us.

Therefore I shut out common sickness, fevers, and the like, from any share in my observations on suffering. If you ask me what I should be willing to consider real bodily pain,since I am unwilling to allow that ordinary sick men partic.i.p.ate in it,I should say that you can find it in a good, old-fas.h.i.+oned attack of rheumatism or gout. I think it was Horace Walpole who said that these two complaints were very much alike, the difference between them being this: that rheumatism was like putting your hand or foot into a vice, and s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g it up as tight as you possibly can, and gout was the same thing, only you give the screw one more turn. It is no flattery to speak of the victim to either of these disorders as a sufferer. The rheumatic gout is a complaint which possesses all the advantages and peculiarities which its compound t.i.tle denotes. It unites in itself all the potentiality of gout and all the ubiquity of rheumatism. Its characteristics have been impressed upon me in a manner that sets at defiance that weakness of memory which generally accompanies old age. Sharp experience, increasing in sharpness as my years pile up, makes that complaint a specialty among my acquirements. These stinging, burning, cutting pains deserve the superlative case, if any thing does. Language (that habitual bankrupt) is reduced to a most abject state when called upon to describe rheumatic gout. The disease does not seem to feel satisfied with poisoning your blood by its aciduousness, it makes your flesh tingle and burn, and, like the late Duke of Wellington, does not rest until it has conquered the bony part. The very bone seems to be crumbling wherever the demon of gout pinches. There are moments in the life of every gouty man when it seems as if nothing would be so refres.h.i.+ng as to indulge for a while in the use of that energetic diction, savouring more of strength than of righteousness, which is common among cavalry troops and gentlemen of the seafaring profession, but which, in society, is considered to be a little in advance of the prejudices of the age. No higher encomium could be pa.s.sed upon a gouty man than to say that, with all his torments, he never swore, and was seldom petulant. But there are very few whose merits deserve this canonization.

But gout, with all its pains, has yet its redeeming characteristics.

That great law of compensation which reduces the inequalities of our lot, and makes Brown, Jones, and Robinson come out about even in the long run, is not inoperative here. The gout is painful, but its respectability is unquestionable. It is the disease of a gentleman. It is a certificate of good birth more satisfactory than any which the Heralds College or the Genealogical a.s.sociation can furnish. It is but right, too, that the man who can date back his family history to Plymouth or Jamestown in this country, and to Runnymede on the other side of the Atlantic, should pay something for such a privilege. A man may never have indulged in "the sweet poison of the Tuscan grape"

himself, but can he reasonably complain of an incontrovertible testimony to the fact that his ancestors lived well! _Chacun son got_: for myself, I should much prefer my honoured family name, with all its a.s.sociations with the brave knight who made it famous, accompanied by the only possession which I have received by hereditary right, to the most unequivocal state of health burdened with such a name as Jinkins.

Mentally and spiritually, the gout is far from being a useless inst.i.tution. It ripens a mans judgment, and prunes away the radical tendencies of his nature. It will convert the wildest of revolutionists into the stiffest of conservatives. It teaches a man to look at things as they really are, and not as enthusiasm would have them represented.