“One who has had such schooling, should know better how to turn it to a good account;” said Ludlow, sternly, when the excited smuggler ceased to speak.
“In other lands, men derive their learning from books; in Italy, children acquire knowledge by the study of visible things;” was the undisturbed answer.
“Some from this country are fond of believing that our own bay, these summer skies, and the climate in general, should have a strict resemblance to those of a region which lies precisely in our own latitude;” observed Alida, so hastily, as to betray a desire to preserve the peace between her guests.
“That your Manhattan and Raritan waters are broad and pleasant, none can deny, and that lovely beings dwell on their banks, lady,” returned Seadrift, gallantly lifting his cap, “my own senses have witnessed. But ’t were wiser to select some other point of your excellence, for comparison, than a competition with the glorious waters, the fantastic and mountain isles, and the sunny hill-sides of modern Napoli! ’Tis certain the latitude is even in your favor, and that a beneficent sun does not fail of its office in one region more than in the other. But the forests of America are still too pregnant of vapors and exhalations, not to impair the purity of the native air. If I have seen much of the Mediterranean, neither am I a stranger to these coasts. While there are so many points of resemblance in their climates, there are also many and marked causes of difference.”
“Teach us, then, what forms these distinctions, that, in speaking of our bay and skies, we may not be led into error.”
“You do me honor, lady; I am of no great schooling, and of humble powers of speech. Still, the little that observation may have taught me, shall not be churlishly withheld. Your Italian atmosphere, taking the humidity of the seas, is sometimes hazy. Still water in large bodies, other than in the two seas, is little known in those distant countries. Few objects in nature are drier than an Italian river, during those months when the sun has most influence. The effect is visible in the air, which is in general elastic, dry, and obedient to the general laws of the climate. There floats less exhalation, in the form of fine and nearly invisible vapor, than in these wooded regions. At least, so he of whom I spoke, as one who guided my youth, was wont to say.”
“You hesitate to tell us of our skies, our evening light, and of our bay?”
“It shall be said, and said sincerely–Of the bays, each seems to have been appropriated to that for which nature most intended it.–The one is poetic, indolent, and full of graceful but glorious beauty; more pregnant of enjoyment than of usefulness. The other will, one day, be the mart of the world!”
“You still shrink from pronouncing on their beauty;” said Alida, disappointed, in spite of an affected indifference to the subject.
“It is ever the common fault of old communities to overvalue themselves, and to undervalue new actors in the great drama of nations, as men long successful disregard the efforts of new aspirants for favor;” said Seadrift, while he looked with amazement at the pettish eye of the frowning beauty. “In this instance, however, Europe has not so greatly erred. They who see much resemblance between the bay of Naples and this of Manhattan, have fertile brains; since it rests altogether on the circumstance that there is much water in both, and a passage between an island and the main-land, in one, to resemble a passage between two islands in the other. This is an estuary, that a gulf; and while the former has the green and turbid water of a shelving shore and of tributary rivers, the latter has the blue and limpid element of a deep sea. In these distinctions, I take no account of ragged and rocky mountains, with the indescribable play of golden and rosy light upon their broken surfaces, nor of a coast that teems with the recollections of three thousand years!”
“I fear to question more. But surely our skies may be mentioned, even by the side of those you vaunt?”
“Of the skies, truly, you have more reason to be confident. I remember that standing on the Capo di Monte, which overlooks the little, picturesque, and crowded beach of the Marina Grande, and Sorrento, a spot that teems with all that is poetic in the fisherman’s life, he of whom I have spoken, once pointed to the transparent vault above, and said, ‘There is the moon of America!’ The colors of the rocket were not more vivid than the stars that night, for a Tramontana had swept every impurity from the air, far upon the neighboring sea. But nights like that are rare, indeed, in any clime! The inhabitants of low latitudes enjoy them occasionally; those of higher, never.”
“And then our flattering belief, that these western sunsets rival those of Italy, is delusion?”
“Not so, lady. They rival, without resembling. The color of the étui, on which so fair a hand is resting, is not softer than the hues one sees in the heavens of Italy. But if your evening sky wants the pearly light, the rosy clouds, and the soft tints which, at that hour, melt into each other, across the entire vault of Napoli, it far excels in the vividness of the glow, in the depth of the transitions, and in the richness of colors. Those are only more delicate, while these are more gorgeous! When there shall be less exhalation from your forests, the same causes may produce the same effects. Until then, America must be content to pride herself on an exhibition of nature’s beauty, in a new, though scarcely in a less pleasing, form.”
“Then they who come among us from Europe, are but half right, when they deride the pretensions of our bay and heavens?”
“Which is much nearer the truth than they are wont to be, on the subject of this continent. Speak of the many rivers, the double outlet, the numberless basins, and the unequalled facilities of your Manhattan harbor; for in time, they will come to render all the beauties of the unrivalled bay of Naples vain: but tempt not the stranger to push the comparison beyond. Be grateful for your skies, lady, for few live under fairer or more beneficent–But I tire you with these opinions, when here are colors that have more charms for a young and lively imagination, than even the tints of nature!”
La belle Barbérie smiled on the dealer in contraband, with an interest that sickened Ludlow; and she was about to reply, in better humor, when the voice of her uncle announced his near approach.
CHAPTER VI.
“There shall be, in England, seven half-penny loaves sold for a penny. The three-hooped pot shall have ten hoops; and I will make it felony, to drink small bee.”
–Jack Cade. Had Alderman Van Beverout been a party in the preceding dialogue, he could not have uttered words more apposite, than the exclamation with which he first saluted the ears of those in the pavilion.
“Gales and climates!” exclaimed the merchant, entering with an open letter in his hand. “Here are advices received, by way of Curaçoa, and the coast of Africa, that the good ship Musk-Rat met with foul winds off the Azores, which lengthened her passage home to seventeen weeks–this is too much precious time wasted between markets, Captain Cornelius Ludlow, and ’twill do discredit to the good character of the ship, which has hitherto always maintained a sound reputation, never needing more than the regular seven months to make the voyage home and out again. If our vessels fall into this lazy train, we shall never get a skin to Bristol, till it is past use. What have we here, niece? Merchandise! and of a suspicious fabric!–who has the invoice of these goods, and in what vessel were they shipped?”
“These are questions that may be better answered by their owner;” returned la Belle, pointing gravely, and not without tremor in her voice, towards the dealer in contraband, who, at the approach of the Alderman, had shrunk back as far as possible from view.
Myndert cast an uneasy glance at the unmoved countenance of the commander of the royal cruiser, after having bestowed a brief but understanding look at the contents of the bale. “Captain Ludlow, the chaser is chased!” he said. “After sailing about the Atlantic, for a week or more, like a Jew broker’s clerk running up and down the Boom Key at Rotterdam, to get off a consignment of damaged tea, we are fairly caught ourselves! To what fall in prices, or change in the sentiments of the Board of Trade, am I indebted for the honor of this visit, Master a– a–a–gay dealer in green ladies and bright tissues?”
The confident and gallant manner of the free-trader had vanished. In its place, there appeared a hesitating and embarrassed air, that the individual was not wont to exhibit, blended with some apparent indecision, on the subject of his reply.