Fern Fanny
Caper-Sauce: A Volume of Chit-Chat about Men, Women, and Things.
Of course the first thing that we saw at Montreal, as also at Quebec, was "New York Ledger Out," all over the Canadian walls; and nobody can compute the thousands they said were sold there, so that I may get a boxed ear for saying what I have about Montreal, and as there is a possibility of it, I might as well be cuffed for half a dozen things as one, and so I'll go on and free my mind. And to begin with, I confess that I never could understand that curious piece of female mechanism, an English woman, who is shocked almost into fits at the way American women move, act, and have their independent being generally; who can get along with nothing but yea and nay, thee and thou, and the most formal, walk-on-a-crack strait-lacedness of demeanor and speech, and iced at that; who is ready to hold up hands of holy horror at the idea of an American parent or guardian allowing a young girl to be left alone with her lover one second before marriage; and yet these pattern icicles will strip (I know it is a shocking word, but it is the only one that will express my meaning), upon going to a ball, or the theatre, with a freedom that would make any decent American woman crimson with shame. I have seen this again and again, and yet the prudes lecture American women upon the proprieties. Truly, great is English propriety! I saw the same English latitude in dress at the theatre in Montreal, where were assembled, with other ladies, many of the wives, daughters, and sweethearts of the English officers. Of course, in a New York theatre the awful voice of fashion would vote a ball-room dress "vulgar;" and even at the opera, where fashion goes to yawn, and whisper, and ogle, ladies, as a general thing, wear their bonnets and opera cloaks, but the fair Montrealites, having but few places of public amusement, made the most of this, and of their personal charms also, and the result was stunning, even to the eye of that model of impropriety, an American woman. Mesdames, let us have no more lectures from English lips on "American female improprieties," till you pick this big beam out of your own eyes. As to the English officers, they were magnificent specimens of manhood; tall, broad-chested, straight-limbed, healthy, muscular, lovable looking men, not at all dependent for their attractiveness either upon epaulette or uniform, with fine bass voices, and a jolly laugh that was a regular heart-warmer to hear.
Of course we saw the magnificent cathedral in Montreal. I did not think it necessary, as did a fellow-traveller, one Sir Statistic, who forever had some unhappy wretch by the button, asking about "feet" and "inches," with pencil, paper, and "guide-book" – how I hate a guide-book! I did not think it necessary to inquire how many square feet there were in this immense building; I knew that there was one pair of feet in it that were not square, and that had to support the body to which they belonged till they ached for want of a seat, as heretic feet should, I suppose, from a Montreal point of view, though the locked empty pews were very tantalizing. The sermon was in French, and if the eye of my old teacher should fall on this, I beg to say to her ladyship, that notwithstanding "she never could tell how that girl was ever going to learn French," and notwithstanding "that girl" has never rubbed up said French since she left school, yet she was able to understand the sermon, as also the French signs and labels so abundant in Montreal, as also some French remarks about herself, all the while looking as stupid as she very well knows "that girl" can. But to return to the cathedral. I hold up both hands for the largest liberty of conscience for everybody, and though I could not understand why one set of priests took such tender care of the hind lappets of another set of priests, spreading them reverently over the backs of their chairs for them, whenever they sat down, or why candles were burned in broad daylight, or why some kept sitting, and others kept kneeling, and bowing, and crossing themselves, or why some glided perpetually in and out from behind the altar, or why some swung incense, or why some were dressed in red and white, and some in black, and some in black and white, yet I was glad that this was a country where everybody could worship the way it best pleased him, and I have seen quite too much to condemn in other sects and faiths, to wish to interfere with this. The "confession boxes," some for English sins, some for French sins, some for Spanish sins, labelled each with the name of the human "father" into whose ears they were to be poured, gave me a long fit of thinking. My sins are many, but it is not there I would unburden my soul. Still, let all these religious problems work themselves out. For the priests, I must say, in all candor, that I have never seen a body of men – and I scanned them closely whenever and wherever I met them – with more purity, serenity, and perfect good-humored content expressed in their faces. Their life being active and out of doors, may in part explain this; but alas for the nuns! immured in those tomb-like walls; their cheerfullest employment listening to the moans of the sick and the groans of the dying, in the hospital wards under their roofs. I saw them come into chapel two and two, with downcast eyes, and pallid faces, shrouded by the black hood of renunciation, and kneeling on the floor chant their prayers. Oh, the unnaturalness of such seclusion for a woman! If they could but leave outside the walls, upon entering, their human feelings, and really be the cold statues they look; but God help them, they do not; they are but women still, and some of them young, and one look into their faces told the story. Nothing could exceed the neatness of the nunnery we visited, or the apartments and bedding in them for the sick and disabled. One man whom we saw there had been strapped into his chair like an infant for twenty-five years, and there he sat, with a rosary between his helpless fingers, scarcely living, and yet, perhaps, with many a year of patient waiting for release before him. The outer door of the convent was opened for us by a young novice, whose sweet face, framed in pure white muslin bands, was beautiful to see. Poor child, sighed I, and in another moment I thought of the gay, bedizened misery in Broadway, and I said to myself, as I lingered to take another look at her, perhaps 'tis better so, and left her with a lighter heart.
I should not do justice to Montreal were I to omit to mention the drive of the place, "round the mountain." A New York gentleman whom we met in Montreal took us round, and I was glad I saw the city at parting to such good advantage; distance brightened it up wonderfully, and the St. Lawrence sparkled as gayly and as innocently in the sunlight, as if its waters did not play the mischief with every traveller who tasted them. There are many fine country-seats round the mountain. We saw, too, a "haunted house" in this ride, and verily, the occupant was a ghost of taste, and had selected for himself most comfortable quarters, commanding as lovely a view as you or I or any other ghost would ever wish to see. I proposed leaving my card for him, with a view to better acquaintance, but the rest of the party were in flesh-and-blood humor, and evidently preferred returning to the manifold creature comforts to be had of our host of the Donegana House. We left next morning for Quebec, of which more anon. My kingdom for a horse-blanket on that misty morning over the ferry! Instead we had two priests, buttoned up to their heels in long black robes, which I wanted most furiously to borrow, for I was shaking with cold, and New York cold and Montreal and Quebec cold, let me tell you, are two quite different things. When you get such a cough fastened on your lungs there as I did, you may believe it.
I liked Quebec much better than Montreal. Of its splendid site it is unnecessary to speak, everybody having either seen it or read of it, and yet how tame seem all descriptions, when, standing upon the ramparts, one tries to take in at a glance the splendid panorama before him. Every inch of ground is historical, and imagination runs riot as you look at the spot where the gallant Burr bore off from the enemy the dead body of the brave Montgomery, or gaze at the monuments erected to Wolfe and Montcalm. The sentinels, pacing up and down with their measured tread, aid in keeping up the illusion; and as the wind whistles past, you start involuntarily, as if expecting a shower of bullets past your ears. And speaking of bullets, the little urchins who lie perdu on the battle-field, watching for unwary travellers, have an inexhaustible stock of them, which they assure you, with precociously grave faces, funny to see, were "actually found there," with their wan, dirty little paws; also they exhibit some shining little pebbles, baptized by them "diamonds," all of which we of course pocketed, and paid for, as if there were no humbug in the little speculators; bigger boys than they have told worse fibs in the same line of business – poor little Barnums!
The most unimaginative person could easily fancy himself in a foreign country in Quebec. The motley population – the long, black-robed priests, serving as a foil to the scarlet coats of the officers, and the white uniform worn by the band; the loose-trousered, rolling sailors; the Frenchy, peasant-looking country people, driving into market with their produce in the most ancient of lumbering-looking vehicles, with bright red raspberries, in shining little birch-bark baskets. The healthy-looking female Quebec-ites, with their fanciful dark straw hats, with a fall of black lace about their rosy faces, wonderfully enhancing the brightness of bright eyes, and making even dull ones, if any such there are, look coquettish under this pretty head-dress, so much more comfortable than our little minikin bonnets, and worn alike by mothers and daughters. Their dresses almost even with their ankles, and little or no crinoline, but such healthy, rosy faces, such luxuriant locks, and the universal little band of black velvet round the throat, of which the French women are so fond. I am sure I did not see an ugly woman in Quebec, nor one that, to my eye, was not sensibly and prettily habited, and such little fat loves of children, chattering French with their nurses. The people were as picturesque as the place, and nobody scrutinized you as they do in New York, fixing a stony stare upon you (I speak of the New York women), till they have found out everything you have on, how it is made and trimmed, and then comment upon the same to their next elbow neighbor. Every healthy and contented-looking female soul of them seemed to have business of their own, and to mind it. Now and then, to be sure, an officer or a private would take a look in passing, and sometimes we heard them say "Anglice," and that is where they did not hit it, at least with the ladies of the party, spite of light hair and eyes. A gentleman at the hotel where we stayed, said, "Those ladies are English," looking at myself and daughter. English! when we talked and laughed, ate and drank, got up and sat down, without ever once looking into a book of etiquette to see if it was "proper!"
A drive, which I shall long remember, we took to a little French village just out of Quebec. I had always thought – shade of Napoleon, forgive me – that the peasant French were an unthrifty, unneat people. My delight was unbounded at their rows of neat little white-washed cottages, standing sociably and cosily together, with long strips of farms extending back; not an unsightly object about them; clean, white-muslin window-curtains, with pretty pots of bright, flowering plants at the casements; rosy little children, with their bright red stockings – how I like to see a little child in red stockings – and clean, white aprons, and shiny hair, sitting on the door-step with the family Towser, or running after the carriage, with bunches of flowers for "the English ladies," as they persisted in calling us, keeping up with our horses with a pertinacity which would have drawn out the pennies were we less favorably inclined; and gay little bouquets they gave us, too – roses just in bloom (for their summers are late and fleeting), and pretty pinks and geranium leaves. In the fields, women and girls were raking hay, with broad straw hats, which they pushed back from their brown faces, as they leaned on their rakes to look as we passed, quite unconscious how pretty they looked, helping their stout, healthy-looking brothers, who, with strong, white teeth, and curly hair, laughed merrily as they tossed the hay about. And yet this, like all pictures, had its shadow, for I saw, though they did not, the pale procession of half-paid sewing girls coming up Nassau and Chatham streets, in New York, at that very moment, home to some stifled attic, or perhaps some more noisome place, of which those Canadians, in their pure country seclusion, could not even dream. How I wished they were all in those sweet hayfields, breathing that pure, untainted air!
Oh, it was a delicious picture; I could have looked at it forever; and at every turn in the road some lovely view enchanted us – some new blending of sea and sky, wood and valley, and each perfect of its kind; and so we came at last to the famous Falls of "Montmorenci," where we were to have twenty-five cents' worth of a miniature Niagara, with root-beer and sponge-cake "to suit," for an additional fee; and truly they might have been more extortionate as far as the Falls were concerned, were it not such a damper to sentiment to pay for one's ecstasy by the shilling. Beautiful were the Falls, tumbling, dashing, and foaming down into their rocky bed beneath, where were patches of velvet moss, of as vivid a green as your foot ever sank in while wandering in the cool, fragrant woods. Of course we were pointed to the remains of the "suspension bridge," which, about four years ago, broke so treacherously over the Falls, precipitating a whole family to instant death in the boiling torrent below. A great, hungry monster it looked to us after that, as we went shuddering up the steep steps to sunlight and safety, after viewing it from below. "Not one of them was ever heard of, I suppose?" said I to our boy guide. "Not one, ma'am," replied my juvenile oracle, with a solemn sniffle that would have done credit to a camp-meeting.
Oh, these early breakfasts in "banquet halls deserted" of huge hotels, waited upon by yawning servants scarce awake; no appetite for the food you know you will be dying for five or six hours afterwards; meanwhile, conscious only of an intense and unmitigated disgust for big trunks, little trunks, bonnet-boxes, keys, carpet-bags, and reticules. The morning foggy and chill; the hotel parlor, so pleasant the evening before, as you sat upon its comfortable sofa with a party of friends looking now quite as miserable as you feel, with its gay bouquets of yesterday drooping and faded. Blue-looking men emerging from the bar-room, twisting their travelling-shawls, in folds more warm than graceful, over their chests and shoulders; ladies shivering as the chill morning air strikes their but half-protected, shrinking figures. "All ready" at last, and away we start for Portland. Yet, stay; what's this? Heaven bless that ebony waiter, who, running after me, slid into my hand a cold chicken, with a little package of salt inclosed, and with an indescribable twist of his good-natured, shiny phiz, whispers, "Ladies gets so hungry on railroads, ma'am!" Now that's what I call a compliment, and a substantial one, too; he should have seen me a few hours after with one of the drumsticks, bless his soul. May he meet some appreciative Dinah, and may they never want for a chicken!
Rain, rain, rain all day, in the most pitiless manner. Some solace themselves with newspapers, some with novels, and some with sleep; the latter sure to be broken in upon by the conductor's nudge, and "your ticket, sir!" Directly in front of me sat two young men, strangers to each other, who presently finding one of those convenient pretexts for speaking which travel always affords, commenced conversation. Imagine how long those two fellows kept it up without stopping to wink, or even to look at the "way-stations"! Sixty-five miles!– I repeat it —sixty-five miles! Wouldn't the fact have been published from Dan to Beersheba, had the conversationists happened to have been a couple of women? And by the help of the limitless New York Ledger, I'll send it thus far. Mostly, these young men appeared to pity the Canadian nuns, whom they seemed to have philanthropic desires to benefit, without the opportunity. Then the vexed question of North and South was discussed, that grindstone upon which every youngster must needs whet his jack-knife. But time would fail to tell all the nonsense I was forced, in the next seat, to hear, far transcending that of women, which, the saints know, is ofttimes bad enough.
Well, we lived through that day's drizzle and rain, and reached Portland in a most limp condition, just at night. Curious to be again in a birthplace which I left when I was but six weeks old! "If the sun will only shine out to-morrow," said I, as I cuddled under the blankets with horrible forebodings. The fates were propitious. A warm, lovely morning; every tree and shrub newly polished, and as fresh as if just made. Within range of my window was a beautiful garden, gay as a rainbow with all sorts of brilliant flowers. Two Quakers came along in solemn drab. I smiled and held my breath. "Thank God," said I, as I saw them lean delightedly over the fence to look at the gay flowers, "nature is, and ever will be, stronger than creeds." A hasty breakfast, and forth I started on my exploring tour. "I shall know the house where I was born, if I pass it," said I; "some magnetic influence will surely arrest my steps. Stay, that is Dr. Payson's church." "How do you know?" asked my companions. "I feel it; ask and see." And so it was. He who, by his sweet, consistent, loving, holy life, came between me and the grim creed which my very soul spurned, and which was driving me to disbelieve all of which his Christ-like life was the beautiful exponent. He who laid holy hands of blessing on my baby-forehead, and knew God's creatures too well to try to drive them, through fear of endless torment, to heaven. I felt like crossing myself, as I passed the church where his feet had so often entered, to tell, in that most musical of voices, of God's infinite love to everything He had made – of God's infinite pity – but why attempt to convey an idea of what must have been heard to be understood and felt? Hundreds whom man's denunciatory self-righteousness had driven to cursing, bitterness, and despair, are now stars in his crown.
Well, I passed on through the lovely streets of my native city, with their green hedges and climbing plants, and bright flowers, and stately trees, and most substantial, palatial stone houses, with shining window-panes and massive entrances. Not there, not there, said I; it must have been in some small wooden house, with an inch or two of ground, and perhaps a few flowers that needed little care, for those were humble days to her who, taking the baby-boy (poet that was to be) in her arms, went daily to nurse him in the jail where his father was confined. She who, if there is a heaven of bliss, is in it to-day, as one of those earth-martyrs whose mask of heavenly serenity a short-sighted world never pierces. No, I feel no throb at my heart when looking at these grand houses. Sure I am, it was not there that the baby was baptized, whose little grave-clothes were well nigh bespoken. It was not there that the little face purpled with what they said was the death-agony. Would to God it had pleased Him to make it so. It was not there that the little life began, from which that baby might well struggle to escape. And so, wearily my feet passed up and down one lovely street after another, admiring all, yet not drawn magnetically to any. Somewhere– let it suffice – in that lovely, leafy city, with its grand old drooping elms, and glimpses of the broad, blue sea, I first opened eyes that will close far enough away from its Sabbath stillness and quiet.
