except sweep. I did not see them sweep. But I know they could learn.
What they have already learned proves that. And if they ever
should learn, and should go on the war-path down Tchoupitoulas
or some of those other streets around there, those thoroughfares
would bear a greatly improved aspect in a very few minutes.
But the girls themselves wouldn’t; so nothing would be really gained,
after all.
The drill was in the Washington Artillery building.
In this building we saw many interesting relics of the war.
Also a fine oil-painting representing Stonewall Jackson’s
last interview with General Lee. Both men are on horseback.
Jackson has just ridden up, and is accosting Lee.
The picture is very valuable, on account of the portraits,
which are authentic. But, like many another historical picture,
it means nothing without its label. And one label will fit it
as well as another–
First Interview between Lee and Jackson.
Last Interview between Lee and Jackson.
Jackson Introducing Himself to Lee.
Jackson Accepting Lee’s Invitation to Dinner.
Jackson Declining Lee’s Invitation to Dinner–with Thanks.
Jackson Apologizing for a Heavy Defeat.
Jackson Reporting a Great Victory.
Jackson Asking Lee for a Match.
It tells ONE story, and a sufficient one; for it says quite
plainly and satisfactorily, ‘Here are Lee and Jackson together.’
The artist would have made it tell that this is Lee and Jackson’s last
interview if he could have done it. But he couldn’t, for there wasn’t
any way to do it. A good legible label is usually worth, for information,
a ton of significant attitude and expression in a historical picture.
In Rome, people with fine sympathetic natures stand up and weep in front
of the celebrated ‘Beatrice Cenci the Day before her Execution.’
It shows what a label can do. If they did not know the picture,
they would inspect it unmoved, and say, ‘Young girl with hay fever;
young girl with her head in a bag.’
I found the half-forgotten Southern intonations and
elisions as pleasing to my ear as they had formerly been.
A Southerner talks music. At least it is music to me,
but then I was born in the South. The educated Southerner
has no use for an r, except at the beginning of a word.
He says ‘honah,’ and ‘dinnah,’ and ‘Gove’nuh,’ and ‘befo’ the waw,’
and so on. The words may lack charm to the eye, in print,
but they have it to the ear. When did the r disappear
from Southern speech, and how did it come to disappear?
The custom of dropping it was not borrowed from the North,
nor inherited from England. Many Southerners–most Southerners–
put a y into occasional words that begin with the k sound.
For instance, they say Mr. K’yahtah (Carter) and speak
of playing k’yahds or of riding in the k’yahs. And they
have the pleasant custom–long ago fallen into decay in
the North–of frequently employing the respectful ‘Sir.’
Instead of the curt Yes, and the abrupt No, they say ‘Yes, Suh’,
‘No, Suh.’
But there are some infelicities. Such as ‘like’ for ‘as,’
and the addition of an ‘at’ where it isn’t needed.
I heard an educated gentleman say, ‘Like the flag-officer did.’
His cook or his butler would have said, ‘Like the flag-officer done.’
You hear gentlemen say, ‘Where have you been at?’ And here is
the aggravated form–heard a ragged street Arab say it to a comrade:
‘I was a-ask’n’ Tom whah you was a-sett’n’ at.’ The very elect
carelessly say ‘will’ when they mean ‘shall’; and many of them say,
‘I didn’t go to do it,’ meaning ‘I didn’t mean to do it.’
The Northern word ‘guess’–imported from England, where it
used to be common, and now regarded by satirical Englishmen
as a Yankee original–is but little used among Southerners.
They say ‘reckon.’ They haven’t any ‘doesn’t’ in their language;
they say ‘don’t’ instead. The unpolished often use ‘went’ for ‘gone.’
It is nearly as bad as the Northern ‘hadn’t ought.’ This reminds me
that a remark of a very peculiar nature was made here in my neighborhood
(in the North) a few days ago: ‘He hadn’t ought to have went.’
How is that? Isn’t that a good deal of a triumph?