‘On Saturday, early in the morning, the beauty of the place graced our cabin,
and proud of her fair freight the gallant little boat glided up the bayou.’
Twenty-two words to say the ladies came aboard and the boat
shoved out up the creek, is a clean waste of ten good words,
and is also destructive of compactness of statement.
The trouble with the Southern reporter is–Women. They unsettle him;
they throw him off his balance. He is plain, and sensible,
and satisfactory, until a woman heaves in sight. Then he goes
all to pieces; his mind totters, he becomes flowery and idiotic.
From reading the above extract, you would imagine that this student
of Sir Walter Scott is an apprentice, and knows next to nothing
about handling a pen. On the contrary, he furnishes plenty of proofs,
in his long letter, that he knows well enough how to handle it when
the women are not around to give him the artificial-flower complaint.
For instance–
‘At 4 o’clock ominous clouds began to gather in the south-east, and presently
from the Gulf there came a blow which increased in severity every moment.
It was not safe to leave the landing then, and there was a delay.
The oaks shook off long tresses of their mossy beards to the tugging
of the wind, and the bayou in its ambition put on miniature waves
in mocking of much larger bodies of water. A lull permitted a start,
and homewards we steamed, an inky sky overhead and a heavy wind blowing.
As darkness crept on, there were few on board who did not wish
themselves nearer home.’
There is nothing the matter with that. It is good description,
compactly put. Yet there was great temptation, there, to drop
into lurid writing.
But let us return to the mule. Since I left him, I have rummaged
around and found a full report of the race. In it I find confirmation
of the theory which I broached just now–namely, that the trouble
with the Southern reporter is Women: Women, supplemented by Walter
Scott and his knights and beauty and chivalry, and so on.
This is an excellent report, as long as the women stay out of it.
But when they intrude, we have this frantic result–
‘It will be probably a long time before the ladies’
stand presents such a sea of foam-like loveliness as it
did yesterday. The New Orleans women are always charming,
but never so much so as at this time of the year, when.
in their dainty spring costumes they bring with them a breath
of balmy freshness and an odor of sanctity unspeakable.
The stand was so crowded with them that, walking at their feet
and seeing no possibility of approach, many a man appreciated
as he never did before the Peri’s feeling at the Gates of Paradise,
and wondered what was the priceless boon that would admit him
to their sacred presence. Sparkling on their white-robed
breasts or shoulders were the colors of their favorite knights,
and were it not for the fact that the doughty heroes appeared
on unromantic mules, it would have been easy to imagine one of
King Arthur’s gala-days.’
There were thirteen mules in the first heat; all sorts of mules,
they were; all sorts of complexions, gaits, dispositions, aspects.
Some were handsome creatures, some were not; some were sleek,
some hadn’t had their fur brushed lately; some were innocently
gay and frisky; some were full of malice and all unrighteousness;
guessing from looks, some of them thought the matter on hand was war,
some thought it was a lark, the rest took it for a religious occasion.
And each mule acted according to his convictions. The result was an
absence of harmony well compensated by a conspicuous presence of variety–
variety of a picturesque and entertaining sort.
All the riders were young gentlemen in fashionable society.
If the reader has been wondering why it is that the ladies of New Orleans
attend so humble an orgy as a mule-race, the thing is explained now.
It is a fashion-freak; all connected with it are people of fashion.
It is great fun, and cordially liked. The mule-race is one of the marked