severely hurt, except Mr. Gray. Letters received afterward confirmed
this news, and said that Mr. Gray was improving and would get well.
Later letters spoke less hopefully of his case; and finally came one
announcing his death. A good man, a most companionable and manly man,
and worthy of a kindlier fate.
Chapter 38
The House Beautiful
WE took passage in a Cincinnati boat for New Orleans; or on a Cincinnati boat–
either is correct; the former is the eastern form of putting it,
the latter the western.
Mr. Dickens declined to agree that the Mississippi steamboats
were ‘magnificent,’ or that they were ‘floating palaces,’–
terms which had always been applied to them; terms which did not
over-express the admiration with which the people viewed them.
Mr. Dickens’s position was unassailable, possibly; the people’s
position was certainly unassailable. If Mr. Dickens was
comparing these boats with the crown jewels; or with the Taj,
or with the Matterhorn; or with some other priceless or wonderful
thing which he had seen, they were not magnificent–he was right.
The people compared them with what they had seen; and, thus measured,
thus judged, the boats were magnificent–the term was the correct one,
it was not at all too strong. The people were as right as was
Mr. Dickens. The steamboats were finer than anything on shore.
Compared with superior dwelling-houses and first-class hotels in
the Valley, they were indubitably magnificent, they were ‘palaces.’
To a few people living in New Orleans and St. Louis, they were
not magnificent, perhaps; not palaces; but to the great majority
of those populations, and to the entire populations spread over
both banks between Baton Rouge and St. Louis, they were palaces;
they tallied with the citizen’s dream of what magnificence was,
and satisfied it.
Every town and village along that vast stretch of double
river-frontage had a best dwelling, finest dwelling, mansion,–
the home of its wealthiest and most conspicuous citizen.
It is easy to describe it: large grassy yard, with paling
fence painted white–in fair repair; brick walk from gate
to door; big, square, two-story ‘frame’ house, painted white
and porticoed like a Grecian temple–with this difference,
that the imposing fluted columns and Corinthian capitals
were a pathetic sham, being made of white pine, and painted;
iron knocker; brass door knob–discolored, for lack
of polishing. Within, an uncarpeted hall, of planed boards;
opening out of it, a parlor, fifteen feet by fifteen–
in some instances five or ten feet larger; ingrain carpet;
mahogany center-table; lamp on it, with green-paper shade–
standing on a gridiron, so to speak, made of high-colored yarns,
by the young ladies of the house, and called a lamp-mat;
several books, piled and disposed, with cast-iron exactness,
according to an inherited and unchangeable plan; among them,
Tupper, much penciled; also, ‘Friendship’s Offering,’
and ‘Affection’s Wreath,’ with their sappy inanities illustrated
in die-away mezzotints; also, Ossian; ‘Alonzo and Melissa:’
maybe ‘Ivanhoe:’ also ‘Album,’ full of original ‘poetry’
of the Thou-hast-wounded-the-spirit-that-loved-thee breed;
two or three goody-goody works–‘Shepherd of Salisbury Plain,’
etc.; current number of the chaste and innocuous Godey’s
‘Lady’s Book,’ with painted fashion-plate of wax-figure
women with mouths all alike–lips and eyelids the same size–
each five-foot woman with a two-inch wedge sticking from
under her dress and letting-on to be half of her foot.
Polished air-tight stove (new and deadly invention), with
pipe passing through a board which closes up the discarded
good old fireplace. On each end of the wooden mantel,
over the fireplace, a large basket of peaches and other fruits,
natural size, all done in plaster, rudely, or in wax,
and painted to resemble the originals–which they don’t. Over
middle of mantel, engraving–Washington Crossing the Delaware;
on the wall by the door, copy of it done in thunder-and-lightning
crewels by one of the young ladies–work of art which would
have made Washington hesitate about crossing, if he could
have foreseen what advantage was going to be taken of it.
Piano–kettle in disguise–with music, bound and unbound,
piled on it, and on a stand near by: Battle of Prague;
Bird Waltz; Arkansas Traveler; Rosin the Bow; Marseilles Hymn;
On a Lone Barren Isle (St. Helena); The Last Link is Broken;
She wore a Wreath of Roses the Night when last we met;