The Southern field and fireside. (Augusta, Ga.) 1859-1864, January 21, 1860, Image 1

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Southern Field and Fireside. VOL. 1. [For the Southern Field and Fireside.] 4 THE HOUR WHEN WE SHALL MEET AGAIN. 7 BY MARY E. BRYAN. / “ When shall It he I see thy red lip now N Tremble with the low spoken question, and thine eyes fij? Search mine, until I feel the hot tears flow , To the repressing lids. I answered then with sighs, Bnt lam stronger now—the hour Is past, A And the blue billows of a tropic main ® Break between thee and me. Look up!—at last 7 I’ll answer thee. Aye, we t/iall meet again. Y Not in an hour which any tongue of Time— / Brazen or silver—may ring on the air, A Not when the voice of streams in joyful chime y Summons young April—shaking from her hair Clusters of scented hyacinths, moist and blue As thine own dewy eyes; nor when the shade 6 Os whispering elms, of summer ripened hue, o' Bathes my hot brow In some sequestered glade; 7 Nor when the autnmn clusters of the vine y Jiang purple In the sun, and the faint breath / Os brooksidc asters, and the moaning pine "N Alike—and sadly—prophesy of death; ffi Nor when I droop my weary head, as now, Upon my hand, beside the winter hearth— Shall thy quick step, thy kiss upon my brow A Make me forget that ever grief had birth. * No, never more shall sunlight’s golden sheen, Nor the pale stars—a wlerd and watchful train— Nor yet the moonlight,—chilly and serene, T Look on the hour when we shall meet again. Yet we ehall meet. Listen! One winter day, jr Standing where late the gentians were a-bloom. You said when life’s red current ebbed away, T That we should, like the flowers, sink to a tomb Os dust and nothingness upon the breast e Os earth, whence we had drawn our sustenance, J And that the sleep would be eternal rest; Y And then you met my anxious, upward glance / And smiled, and said that the mysterious scheme, A Which in the world's dim ages priests had spun, W Os life beyond, was but a dotard's dream. v. And I believed you, for you were the Sun To my unbudding soul; but that is past. I have talked with my soul in the still hours, o' And, with bared brow, prayed In the temples vast 7 Which Nature rears, and when the dreaded power Y Os Death had stamped pale foreheads, I have knelt / To catch the meaning in the dying eyes; And so have solved the mystery; I have felt W Your teachings false; the spirit never dies. y There is a world beyond, and we shall meet— L ' The thoaght foils like a dead flower on my heart— * Meet only once —at the dread Judgment Seat, ? Clasp hands, look in each other's eyes and—part, Sj And part forever I Oh! by all the years T My soul has kept thy memory enshrined, ■x By all my burning prayers, and by my tears, JJu And by the love to long despair resigned, r I charge thee let that single glance be kind— 'y Fnll of unuttered love as dying breath I Breathed out in kisses—when the arms entwin'd Shall soon be severed by the grasp of death. 9 The gulf that then shall part us, is more deep </. And dark than death. Oh! let that last look be Jr One of immortal love, that I may keep C, Its sacred memory through eternity. ••• r [For the Southern Field and Fireside.] \ FROM A TOURIST’S QUIVER; ? OR, V Scenes and Incident* of a Tour ( From New Orleans to New Yorlr. W BY OXR OF TUB PARTY. V ARROW THE FIRST. J' New Orleans, Hotel St. Louis, { 7 November, 1859. J V My Dear Mr. Gardner: ' The question, so interesting to an invalid seek \ ing health, is at length, in my ease, decided. f The consultation of my physicians held yester y, day in the little sitting-room adjoining my sleep ing apartment resulted in this inexorable decis % ion, viz: “ that a northern climate and bracing o' air are necessary to my recovery.” This flat of 7 a tribunal more grave and potent to a sick man V than that of the Supreme Bench of gowned judges, was communicated to me by Dr. S , \ after his medical council had retired. V “ But, my dear doctor, the North is too cold,” I ventured to remonstrate. “I shall perish 1" “ You will not live here through our damp * and mizzling winter, my dear fellow,” said the o' medical gentleman with a smile. “A frosty, J dry air will put new life into you!” W “Where shall I go? to Canada?” I inquired ' with a shudder: “for I have a great horror of X cold weather 1 I would rather seek shade than 8? blazing grates; meet the fiery sun in battle than Jack Frost!” “Not so far as that!" Minnesota will do! St. & Paul’s!’ Wo send invalids there now I The air f is as dry as dry champagne! The snow, there, 1 has so little moisture, it is like sparkling sand V and does not adhere at all to the boot in walk ' ing through it! The winds seldom blow, and \ when they do are not laden with damp! Chills, w fevers, rheumatism, are unknown there !” j JANUS GARDNER, I i Proprietor. f AUGUSTA, GA., SATURDAY, JANUARY 21, 1860. “ And, seriously, you would advise me to take a boat and ascend this river to its other extrem ity, doctor?” “Yes.” “It is too much 1” I said; “ I know doctors are merciless autocrats to uspoor-devil-invalids; but this is going a little too far, my dear doctor, in more senses than one! To leave this luxuri ous St. Louis palace, and the perfect menage which surrounds me, where my lifted little finger is obeyed as if it were the elevated sceptro of a king, to leave all my comforts here to put up with a cold, half-warmed room, in a poor fifth rate hotel or tavern poorly kept, where the gigan tic, rough landlord waits upon you with his hat on, and about as gently as he would upon his horse; with hard beds, hard fare, and, with all, and over all, the mercury reading all day from 10“ to 40“ below 0. I freeze and shrink at the bare conception of such a state of things! Is not New York coid enough in all conscience, dear doctor! Don’t be merciless, because you have me in your power! Say New York and I obey your imperial eukase." The Doctor laughed and said: “ New York, then! You will do very well there! But St. Paul’s is not the village you im agine it to be 1 It is a city of size and pretensions. Why, my dear fellow, it is the sedilea of two Bishops, one of the Roman, the other of the Epis copal, and these prelates are not bad judges of the land!” “ I will, with your permission, go to New York, Doctor.” “ I concede so much to you, my dear fellow!” he answered patronizingly. “ Thank you 1” I answered, quite relieved. What mere children we sufferers are in the hands of medical men! How they treat the best ot us like naughty little boys, and how we behave, too, like children. How fully we sur render our wills to theirs—sacrifice our dearest habits to their command! How fully we divest our minds of all personal responsibility, and put our lives with perfect confidence in their hands I A man whom last week we never saw, becomes to-day, (as ouY physician,) the arbiter of our fate; the centre around which revolve all our hopes. “ The sooner you leave, the better,” he said, taking his hat and gloves, and shortly afterwards he left me, saying he would call again and leave me some written directions of regimen for my journey. Left to myself, I nervously paced my floor, for I am not ill enough to be in bed much, my dis ease being an affection of the heart, (not senti mental, but material,) and tried hard to bring my resolution into full consent with the Doctors’ council! The idea of taking a journey to the Borean North in November, to a man of my tropical tastes and southern constitution, to say nothing at all of my bodily infirmities, was full of annoyance and discomfort. But who ever dared act contrariwise to a consultation of grave M D.’s ? Before their wondrous power Empe rors succumb, and Beauty, Intellect, Strength and Ambition bend in silent admiration. What was I—a young man—a simple citizen of pri vate fortune, who had never written more than a poem to a lady’s shell-curved eye-lid, and had no ambition beyond the recovery of my health! What! Was I to oppose the opinion of my phy sician ? Life, too, is dear to me! With my failing health, the perception of the beautiful and true and glorious in nature is increased as if the spiritual illumined the eye of the flesh, the more the latter failed. The flowers, the singing birds, the waving trees, the whispers of the winds at night, the bright stars, the holy moon light, tho motion of the waves, the beauty of children and the smiles of manhood, the faces of ’men and the sight of the crowds on the streets, the news of the day and the news of the world, through the papers—all these things become dearer and more real and more attractive to me as the might of my strength of body decays; and I say each day, with more energy and wist fulness for life. “It-is a beautiful world! a good and happy world I I feel that I love it more and more! I cannot leave it! No, no! I must get well and enjoy it many a year! for has not God given it to his children for their pleas ure and use! It is my world as well as that healthy and hearty young man’s—who goes by humming the Marseillaise; as well as that love ly child’s, whose eyes dance with the light of joy and love; as well as that beautiftil woman’s whose triumphs are all in the tournament-field of this dear world! It is my world as well as that of the mockingbird who sings so exquisitely in the cage on the window of the French barber opposite; as well as that of the parrot who seems to gossip, and fully enjoy all it can give his narrow capacities! Here is my dog. too— Chaos —so called from his unmitigated black ness—it is his world, and he is content and happy in it! So is it also mine ! I will live! I will obey these terrible medical tyrants and go to New York! When a man once surrenders his independence to these kings whose sceptres are lancets, he must obey their pandects or take the responsibility of his own dying.” Thus I soliloquized; and so having made up my mind I rang for my body servant, a vener able and faithful African slave who had closed my father’s eyes and held me on liis knee when I was a healthy and mischievous urchin (where is that blood of health and life now ?). The old black gentleman, for a gentleman he was, (in all things a sable copy of my courtly father, even to his bow’, and a peculiar gesture of the left hand) came in and said with an air of patronizing affection, ’which had grown upon him since I had been an invalid under his nurs ing care. “Master Harry, you ring for old Cesar? I specks you walk too much 1 Dar fever in you eye! Bes’lay down, young master! Old doc tor see yougoin’ bout dis ’xcited way, he ” “I’ve done with doctors, Cesar!” I said firmly. “ I’m going to the north !” “To de norf!” repeated my old servant, with a wider expansion of the eyes than I ever be held. “ You die dar, sure! Cold wedder catch and kill you, master! Dey say de frosteses up dar burn de face jiss like fire-breath! It so cold it set de folks a-fire 1” “ I can’t help it, Cesar! Igo to the north and start on the Eclipse on Monday. The doctors say so!” “Ah, dat alters kasesl Doctors knows for sartain, coz dat is der business, l’se berry sorry, tho’." “ Three of ’em said so, Cesar,” I said desper ately, and w’ith a sort of savage dissatisfaction. “ Den dere’s no savin’ notin’ at all! Mite as well as go agen de Bible as agen doctors!” he said didactically. “Get everything ready, Cesar. You are to go too.” “ Master mout jiss as easy leave he shadder ahind as dis old man,” he answered, shaking his grey poll and looking very decided. “ 1 don’t like de norf, dar too many poor and proud free brack folk dar; but I al’oy^looks down ’poa dem chaff? Dey’s out ob place, my ’pinion! Colored people need masters ober ’em to take care ob ’em, jiss m*<cl] as childer do. All dem free colored folks up norf dar, is poororpbings— nobody owns ’em —nobody kear for ’em, dey has to look out for deirsefs, an’ konsehens is dey don’t get no lookin’ out for at all! Dem proud ragged free niggers, if dey know whar der place is, and whar de black man is properly ’spected and looked after, dey’d stay sous and ’have deir selves; but its good ting for us, master, dat dey go, coz we gets rid o’ all de bad ones!” “Tlut'll do, Cesar!” I said interrupting him. “ I wish you to get ready for our departure on Monday. “Yes, master!” At this moment a servant came in with a card, which was closely followed up by the round and honest visage of my fleshly friend and re mote relative, Major Bedott. “Bless met” he exclaimed as soon as he could get his speaking breath; “ What, Harry, my boy! I met your Doctor at the door, as he was getting into his cab, and be tells me he has sent you to New York for your health 1 Are you really going to go, my dear poor fellow?” and he shook mo by both hands and looked in my face sympathizingly. “Yes. I must obey! Change of air, —bra- cing climate, and all that!” I answered. “I go on Monday.” “/go too!” he suddenly thundered out with a great oath. “ You t” “Yes! I have been thinking of it along time! I’ll go with you. We will be compag nons du voyage! My nephew Tim goes also! He wants to attend the medical lectures there! It’s now all decided! If you go, you shall have me for company.” Os course I was gratified at this intelligence. The Major would be the best of company for me! I felt better reconciled now to my northern exile. But what could take my bachelor friend north at this season, who never went in summer, I could not conjecture. He was innocent of all disease. He was the picture of health. His bald head shone with good condition. His ru bicund face glistened with good living. His grayish (pepper and salt) beard grew vigorous and imposingly. What could take him north ? Perhaps I shall find out before we leave! Till then, au revoir. ARROW.—No. 11. New Orleans, La., St. Louis Hotel, | November, 1859. f It is no light affair to prepare for a northern journey in the wintry months, my dear Mr. Edi tor. One needs so many out-of-the-way things for comfort. But at length by the aid of my right-hand man, Cesar, we were all packed and ready by Monday afternoon. The excitement of preparation, with something fresh to think of and engage in, had already benefitted me and in creased the flow of my spirits, and my appetite. “Bress my soul, Master Harry, you g’in to look mity deal better ready," said Cesar as he stopped in his occupation of packing my valise. “ Yes, Cesar: I have no doubt I shall be benefitted by my trip,” I answered complacent ly, if not resignedly. Is it the change of air and new medical treat ment that so often improves the invalid ordered away from home ? Or does not the disturbing of the stagnant life of the sick room develope the elements of health ? The nessessity of stirring, of giving orders, of getting ready, of acting, of thinking of something else besides the poor worn body, all these contribute to recovered strength. I have seen ladies who could not walk from their bed to an arm-chair without aid, placed in cars, and impro\e hourly, and after a four-days journey that would fatigue a well-person, ascend without aid three flights of New York hotel stairs and the next day walk three squares on Broadway 1 Doctors are who send their patients a-travel ing. It is exertion , new sights, sounds and scenes, that do the cure. I half suspect my M. D. is playing this pleasant and innocent medical ruse upon me. Be it so. I will be cheerfully aider and abetter in the conspiracy to get me off. It makes no difference with me whether I am ; cured by the means or by the end; whether I am restored by travel en-route or by the “bracing air’’ in New York after I get there. Igo a willing victim! May restored health reward my obedience to my doctor’s commands! It was deciicd that I was to meet Major Be dott and his nephew, the incipient medical stu dent, on the b- at at 5 P.M. At four o’clock Cesar had a cabriolet at the door of the superb hotel at which I had !wn for two months a guest. I can not leave this noble and luxurious home without a word commending it to the refined and elegant traveler who can appreciate the ameni ties and luxuries of life, aud who, whithout be ing a prince, can live with all the splendor of one. The edifice of “the St. Louis” itself is more superb than many a Parisian palace, while it re sembles a portion of “the Versailles" in style of. architecture. Its interior is grand, spacious, and magnificent. An air of imperial taste per vades its numerous suites of apartments. Its internal system (domestique) is faultless. Front the quiet, self-poised and gentlemanly “ ruaitre (sh pnlaW* t 6 the lowest serviteifr there fs no • flaw—all is parfait menace. . This hotel i» the favorite resort of the most distinguished French families, who leave their sugar estates to so journ a few weeks in the city; and is frequented by the equally aristocratic cotton planter from the opulent state of Mississippi. It is a charming home, for a single gentleman, especially if he is more or less invalided. The reunions in the saloon and drawing-rooms in the evening invite him from his solitary chamber, and he can either enjoy the refinements of the best southern socie ty, or listen to the piano and to the superb sing ing thereto, which no gold paid for boxes at the opera could purchase. It will not be surprising that I left with a sigh all these blessings of life behind me to trust my self to the tender mercies of a steamer (high pressure,) and the changes and chances of a New j York winter. The New Orleans cabriolet into which Cesar assisted me, is a French carriage drawn by one horse and usually with an Irish lad as a cabrio leteer. It has two seats, with a huge X'oupee roofing over the sitter upon the hinder seat. Some of them are very elegant and costly; aud would make a tasteful and stylish equipage, were they not so wholly monopolized as cabs. In one of these I was driven rapidly along Char tres street, the main artery of the city. It is lined with brilliant shops, more American than French. But I recollect when, thirty years ago, this whole street was French in speech and as pect; when the lamps were suspended by chains from house across to house; when gens d'armes in uniform, with swords at their belts, were the police; when the “Host” was borne along to the dying by four priests in white sur plices, a gorgeous canopy concealing the “ holy Presence" from the vulgar gaze, soldiers going before and a train of boys and acolytes behind! Tout cela est change a present. The Host goes privately on its mission; gas illumines the streets, burning upon lofty iron columns; the clumsy French shop windows have given way to showy plate glass; and the French shop-keej>ers themselves have retired to other parts of the city before the Anglican wave of progress. Thirty years ago, ladles walked Chartres street, with graceful black lace veils pendant from their tall combs, or coquettishly drawn over their heads so as to shade the brow and eyes 1 Dark eyes and piercing they were, too, and which needed to be tempered ere a man could fully meet their burning gaze. Balconies, then, were of an evening filled with happy fami lies, people spoke French and walked leisurely, and took off their hats to padres in broad brims. All this is changed, also 1 New Orleans is be coming every year more American; or, rather, an American city has been gradually growing up side by side (and every where dove-tailing with its streets) with the old French one, until the new or Anglo-city has become the largest and most powerful and wealthy. Canal street, a broad old field, or long common, lined with stores, churches and houses, separates the French and American towns, A sickly row of sycamore trees is planted along the middle of this old field or street, and beneath these con sumptive trees is collected the refuse of the vi cinity in the shape of offal, trash, cripples, old ragged loafers, beggarly boys and fruit huck sters. It seems to be the neutral ground be tween French New Orleans and American New Orleans, for which neither holds itself responsi ble, to judge from its condition. It recalls the < Two Dollars Per Annum, I | Always In Adfsacei 1 flat in the Mississippi opposite Natchez, which the annual receding of the river had converted into an elevated and permanent body of land which was covered soon with shanties. Here a murder was committed. Prentiss was employed by the defendant. In his argument he took the ground that the flat was not in the jurisdiction of the State As Mississippi nor of Louisiana op posite ! Thift it was a locality beyond law and outside of all jurisdiction. It was not a part of the state in the beginning, and jurisdiction had never been claimed over it. “It was no-ma*'s land!" Prentiss gained his cause, as be de served to do! Tlis client went on his way re joicing. This flat is the nucleus of the famous “ Natchez-tfoder-the-Hill.” As ray cabriolet turned into Canal street, I caught a glimpse of “ the St. Charles” I What a caravansAtf How closely that vast architec tural pile is associated with {he progress of this city 1 Who that has visited New Orleans has not been in it? A few years ago it lost its lofty dome by fire, but its restoration is still talked of. It was the helmet of the city! It is shorn of its chwfest glory without it. From its summit the city could be seen outspread in all its length along the river and breadth to the lake; while the majestic Mississippi could be traced for leagues north and westward, winding in gigantic curves amid the rich alluvion sugar plains, till lost to the view in the level distance of the ocean-like horizon. The lake shone in the sun like a sheet of silver, with here and there a vessel breaking the brilliant expanse. The city itself nos seen half-belted by a girdlo of ships, of schooners, of smaller vessels—a wonderful chevetx defrise, a league in extent, bristling along the whole front of the metropolis, and gay with me flags of all nations. Over this fringe of span lowered a clqud of bistre-color ed smoke, §*|(h«h l W»nn the smock-stacks of a hundred steamboats. At the foot of Canal street my cabriolet stopped, as we had reached the pier where our steamer lay. Her vast size and beauty distin guished the Eclipse above all her fellows. From her tall iron chiranies, greater in size than the “ oldest oak of Epping Forest,” and in height ri valling the lofty pine, rolled skyward huge scrolls of brown smoke, almost as thick as black wool to look at Its voluminous clouds, rolling over in the setting sunlight, cast a deep shadow across the wide pier and upon the decks of a score of other vessels. Ever and anon her deep bell would toll out its warning to hasten pas sengers ; then its ponderous wheels would move restlessly in their circular prison houses, like confined Leviathans impatient to start, and from the hoarse escape'pipes would come a deep sullen roar like the voice of Behemoth. And were not harnessed to that steamer iron mon sters with iron limbs and with strength more terrible than a score of Behemotlii? mightier than Leviathan ? more terrible in its angry pow er ? more destructive in energy ? And to this iron beast—nay, these seven iron-headed blind brutes, ranged in a row beneath the deck, I was about to entrust my body and its life I Seven tigers harnessed to a quiet gentleman’s buggy, were quite as iunocent, so long as both—boilers and tigers—behaved themselves. Well, one gets nervous thinking of nervous things. I went on board, and having seen my state room, which Cesar had pre-engaged for me, well aft and pleasantly near that forbidden land to bach elors, the “ ladies’ cabin”, I ascended to the up per deck to take a view of the busy and inter esting spectacle of the “Levee,” a scene unpar alleled in the world, inasmuch as it gives, at a coup d'ceil, the whole field of a city’s commer cial life a league in extent, with a thousand keels of all names and flags embraced in the single view. Au revoir. Match between the Race Horse and the GREYUOtrNt). —An extraordinary match has re cently been made in England between the Duke of Beaufort and the Earl of Wincbolsea, the ob ject of which is the test and comparative speed of the raco horse and the greyhound. The match is to be for $5,000 a side, half forfeit, and the Duke backs five couples of houuds against three horses, to be selected by the Earl, who are to carry 119 pounds each. The race is to take place over the full distance of the Beacon Course, which is four miles, 1 furlong and 173 yards in length, and is to come off during the Houghton Meeting, in the Fall of next year. The hounds are to run a trail on the opposite side of the course to that on which the horses do their work, so as not to interfere with each other. Trials of this sort have been made before in Eng land, and have nearly always resulted in favor of the hounds. “Stonehenge,” in his work on the dog, mentions an instance in which there were as many as sixty horses, contending over the above named Beacon Course, against a pack of hounds, but says that, notwitstanding their extremeßt efforts, a dog named Blue Cap won in eight minutes and a few seconds; and only twelve of the horses were with the dog at the finish. Life is not all smiles and roses; and without deeply rooted convictions of faith and hope, it is impossible for any human being to live a truly happy life. NO. 35.