Memoirs by Charles Godfrey Leland Part 29

"I am not, though I fear I need one much more than you do."

"The search for a good hair-restorer," she replied in Italian, "is as vain as the search for happiness."

"True," I answered in the same tongue, "and unless you have the happiness in you, or a beautiful head of hair like yours already growing on you, you will find neither."

"What we _forget_," added the younger in Spanish, "is the best part of our happiness."

"_Senorita_, _parece que no ha olvidado su Espanol_--The young lady appears not to have forgotten her Spanish--I replied. (Mine is not very good.)

"There is no use asking whether _you_ talk French," said the elder.

"_Konnen Sie auch Deutsch sprechen_?"

"_Ja wohl_! Even worse than German itself," I answered.

Just then there came up to us a gypsy girl whom I knew, with a basket of flowers, and asked me in Gypsy to buy some; but I said, "_Parraco pen_, _ja vri_, _mandy kams kek ruzhia kedivvus_"--Thank you, sister, no flowers to-day--and she darted away.

"Did you understand _that_?" I inquired.

"No; what was it?"

"_Gitano_--gypsy."

"But how in Heaven's name," cried the girl, "could she _know_ that _you_ spoke Gitano?"

"Because I am," I replied slowly and grimly, "the chief of all the gypsies in England, the _boro Romany rye_ and President of the Gypsy Society. Subscription one pound per annum, which ent.i.tles you to receive the journal for one year, and includes postage. Behold in me the gypsy king, whom all know and fear! I shall be happy to put your names down as subscribers."

At this appalling announcement, which sounded like an extract from a penny dreadful, my two romantic friends looked absolutely bewildered.

They seemed as if they had read in novels how mysterious gypsy chiefs cast aside their cloaks, revealing themselves to astonished maidens, and as I had actually spoken Gitano to a gypsy in their hearing, it must be so. They had come for wool with all their languages, poor little souls!

and gone back shorn. The elder said something about their having just come to Brighton for six hours' frolic, and so they departed. They had had their spree.

I have often wondered what under the sun they could have been. Attaches of an opera company--ladies'-maids who had made the grand tour--who knows? A mad world, my masters!

I can recall of that first year, as of many since at Brighton, long breezy walks on the brow of the chalk cliffs, looking out at the blue sea white capped, or at the downs rolling inland to Newport, sometimes alone, at times in company. On all this chalk the gra.s.s does not grow to more than an inch or so in length, and as the shortest, tenderest food is best for sheep, it is on this that they thrive--I believe by millions--yielding the famous South Downs mutton. In or on this gra.s.s are incredible numbers of minute snails, which the sheep are said to devour; in fact, I do not see how they could eat the gra.s.s without taking them in, and these contribute to give the mutton its delicate flavour. Snails are curious beings. Being epicene, they conduct their wooings on the mutual give and take principle, which would save human beings a great deal of spasmodic flirtation, and abolish the whole _femme incomprise_ business, besides a great many bad novels, if we could adopt it. When winter comes, half-a- dozen of them retire into a hole in a bank, connect themselves firmly into a loving band like a bunch of grapes by the tenderest ties, and stay there till spring. Finally, in folk-lore the snail is an uncanny or demoniac being, because it has horns. Its sh.e.l.l is an amulet, and the presentation of one by a lady to a gentleman is a very decided declaration of love, especially in Germany. _Sed mittamus haec_.

At this time, and for some time to come, I was engaged in collecting and correcting a book of poems of a more serious character than the "Breitmann Ballads." This was "The Music Lesson of Confucius and other Poems." Of which book I can say truly that it had a _succes d'estime_, though it had a very small sale. There were in it ten or twelve ballads only which were adapted to singing, and _all_ of these were set to music by Carlo Pinsutti, Virginia Gabriel, or others. There was in it a poem ent.i.tled "On Mount Meru." In this the Creator is supposed to show the world when it was first made to Satan. The adversary finds that all is fit and well, save "the being called Man," who seems to him to be the worst and most incongruous. To which the Demiurgus replies that Man will in the end conquer all things, even the devil himself. And at the last the demon lies dying at the feet of G.o.d, and confesses that "Man, thy creature hath vanquished me for ever--_Vicisti Galilaee_!" Some years after I read a work by a French writer in which this same idea of G.o.d and the devil is curiously carried out and ill.u.s.trated by the history of architecture. And as in the case of the letter from Lord Lytton Bulwer, warm praise from other persons of high rank in the literary world and reviews, I had many proofs that these poems had made a favourable impression. The only exception which I can recall was a very sarcastic review in the _Athenaeum_, in which the writer declared his belief that the poems or Legends of Perfumes in the book were originally written as advertis.e.m.e.nts of some barber or tradesman, and being by him rejected as worthless, had been thrown back on my hands! Other works by me it treated kindly--so it goes in this world--like a recipe for a cement which I have just copied into my great work on "Mending and Repairing"--in which vinegar is combined with sugar.

While at Brighton we met Louis Blanc, whom we had previously seen several times at the Trubners', in London. In Brighton he heard the news of the overthrow of the Empire and departed for Paris. At Christmas we went to London to visit the Trubners, and thence to the Langham Hotel, where we remained till July. I recall very little of what I witnessed or did beyond seeing the Queen prorogue Parliament and translating Scheffel's _Gaudeamus_, a little volume of German humorous poems. Scheffel, as I have before written, was an old _Mitkneipant_, or evening-beer companion of mine in Heidelberg.

In July we made up a travelling party with Mrs. S. Laing and her daughters Cecilia and Floy, and departed for a visit to the Rhine--that is to say, these ladies preceded us, and we joined them at the Hotel des Quatre Saisons in Homburg. It was a very brilliant season, for the German Emperor, fresh with the glory of his great victory, was being _feted_ everywhere, and Homburg the brilliant was not behind the German world in this respect. I saw the great man frequently, near and far, and was much impressed with his appearance. _Punch_ had not long before represented him as Hans Breitmann in a cartoon, deploring that he had not squeezed more milliards out of the French, and I indeed found in the original very closely my ideal of Hans, who always occurs to me as a German gentleman, who drinks, fights, and plunders, not as a mere rowdy, raised above his natural sphere, but as a rough cavalier. And that the great-bearded giant Emperor Wilhelm did drink heavily, fight hard, and mulct France mightily, is matter of history. This was the last year of the gaming-tables at Homburg. Apropos of these, the roulette-table was placed in the Homburg Museum, where it may be seen amid many Roman relics. Two or three years ago, while I was in the room, there came in a small party of English or Yankee looking or gazing tourists, to whom the attendant pointed out the roulette-table. "And did the old Romans really play at roulette, and was _that_ one of their tables?" said the leader of the visitors. This ready simple faith indicates the Englishman. The ordinary American is always possessed with the conviction that everything antique is a forgery. Once when I was examining the old Viking armour in the Museum of Copenhagen, a Yankee, in whose face a general vulgar distrust of all earthly things was strongly marked, came up to me and asked, "Do you believe that all these curiosities air _genooine_?" "I certainly do," I replied. With an intensely self-satisfied air he rejoined, "I guess you can't fool _me_ with no such humbug."

There was a great deal of cholera that year in Germany, and I had a very severe attack of it either in an incipient form or something thereunto allied: suffice it to say that for twelve hours I almost thought I should die of pure pain. I took in vain laudanum, cayenne pepper, brandy, camphor, and kino--nothing would remain. At last, at midnight, when I was beginning to despair, or just as I felt like being wrecked, I succeeded in keeping a little weak laudanum and water on my stomach, and then the point was cleared. After that I took the other remedies, and was soon well. But it was a crisis of such fearful suffering that it all remains vividly impressed on my memory. I do not know whether any sensible book has ever been written on the moral influence of pain, but it is certain that a wonderful one might be. So far as I can understand it, I think that in the vast majority of cases it is an evil, or one of Nature's innumerable mistakes or divagations, not as yet outgrown or corrected; and it is the great error of Buddhistic-Christianity that it _accepts_ pain not merely as inevitable, but glorifies and increases it, instead of making every conceivable exertion to _diminish_ it. Herein clearly lies the difference between Science and Religion. Science strives in every way to alleviate pain and suffering; erroneous "Religion" is based on it. During the Middle Ages, the Church did all in its power to hinder, if not destroy, the healing art. It made anatomy of the human body a crime, and carried its precautions so far that, quite till the Reformation, the art of healing (as Paracelsus declares) was chiefly in the hands of witches and public executioners. _Torturers_, chiefly clergymen such as Grillandus, were in great honour, while the healing leech was disreputable. It was not, as people say, "the age"

which caused all this--it was the result of religion based on crucifixion and martyrdoms and pain--in fact, on that element of _torture_ which we are elsewhere taught, most inconsistently, is the special province of the devil in h.e.l.l. The _cant_ of this still survives in Longfellow's "Suffer and be strong," and in the pious praise of endurance of pain. What the world wants is the hope held out to it, or enforced on it as a religion or conviction, that pain and suffering are to be diminished, and that our chief duty should consist in diminis.h.i.+ng them, instead of always praising or wors.h.i.+pping them as a cross!

We left our friends and went for a short time to Switzerland, where we visited Lucerne, Interlaken, Basle, and Berne. Thence we returned to London and the Langham Hotel. This was at that time under the management of Mr. John Sanderson, an American, whom I had known of old. He was a brother of Professor Sanderson, of Philadelphia, who wrote a remarkably clever work ent.i.tled _The American in Paris_. John Sanderson himself had contributed many articles to Appletons' _Cyclopaedia_, belonged to the New York Century Club, and, like all the members of his family, had culture in music and literary taste. While he managed the Langham it was crowded during all the year, as indeed any decent hotel almost anywhere may be by simple proper liberal management. This is a subject which I have studied _au fond_, having read _Das Hotel wesen der Gegenwart_, a very remarkable work, and pa.s.sed more than twenty years of my life in hotels in all countries.

I can remember that during the first year of my residence in England I tried to persuade a chemist to import from South America the _coca_ leaf, of which not an ounce was then consumed in Europe. Weston the walker brought it into fas.h.i.+on "later on." I had heard extraordinary and authentic accounts of its enabling Indian messengers to run all day from a friend who had employed them. Apropos of this, "I do recall a wondrous pleasant tale." My cousin, G.o.dfrey Davenport, a son of the Uncle Seth mentioned in my earlier life, owned what was regarded as the model plantation of Louisiana. My brother Henry visited him one winter, and while there was kindly treated by a very genial, hospitable neighbouring planter, whom I afterwards met at my father's house in Philadelphia. He was a good-looking, finely-formed man, lithe and active as a panther--the _replica_ of Albert Pike's "fine Arkansas gentleman." And here I would fain disquisit on Pike, but type and time are pressing. Well, this gentleman had one day a difference of opinion with another planter, who was, like himself, a great runner, and drawing his bowie knife, pursued him on the run, _twenty-two miles_, ere he "got" his victim. The distance was subsequently measured and verified by the admiring neighbours, who put up posts in commemoration of such an unparalleled pedestrian feat.

When I returned to Brighton, after getting into lodgings, I began to employ or amuse myself in novel fas.h.i.+on. Old Gentilla Cooper, the gypsy, had an old brother named Matthias, a full-blood Romany, of whom all his people spoke as being very eccentric and wild, but who had all his life a fancy for picking up the old "Egyptian" tongue. I engaged him to come to me two or three times a week, at half-a-crown a visit, to give me lessons in it. As he had never lived in houses, and, like Regnar Lodbrog, had never slept under a fixed roof, unless when he had taken a nap in a tavern or stable, and finally, as his whole life had been utterly that of a gypsy in the roads, at fairs, or "by wood and wold as outlaws wont to do," I found him abundantly original and interesting. And as on account of his eccentricity and amusing gifts he had always been welcome in every camp or tent, and was watchful withal and crafty, there was not a phase, hole, or corner of gypsy life or a member of the fraternity with which or whom he was not familiar. I soon learned his jargon, with every kind of gypsy device, dodge, or peculiar custom, and, with the aid of several works, succeeded in drawing from the recesses of his memory an astonis.h.i.+ng number of forgotten words. Thus, to begin with, I read to him aloud the Turkish Gypsy Dictionary of Paspati. When he remembered or recognised a word, or it recalled another, I wrote it down. Then I went through the vocabularies of Liebrich, Pott, Simson, &c., and finally through Brice's Hindustani Dictionary and the great part of a much larger work, and one in Persian. The reader may find most of the results of Matty's teaching in my work ent.i.tled "The English Gypsies and their Language." Very often I went with my professor to visit the gypsies camped about Brighton, far or near, and certainly never failed to amuse myself and pick up many quaint observations. In due time I pa.s.sed to that singular state when I could never walk a mile or two in the country anywhere without meeting or making acquaintance with some wanderer on the highways, by use of my newly-acquired knowledge. Thus, I needed only say, "Seen any of the Coopers or Bosvilles lately on the drum?" (road), or "Do you know Sam Smith?" &c., to be recognised as one of the grand army in some fas.h.i.+on. Then it was widely rumoured that the Coopers had got a _rye_, or master, who spoke Romany, and was withal not ungenerous, so that in due time there was hardly a wanderer of gypsy kind in Southern England who had not heard of me. And though there are thousands of people who are more thoroughly versed in Society than I am, I do not think there are many so much at home in such extremely _varied_ phases of it as I have been. I have sat in a gypsy camp, like one of them, hearing all their little secrets and talking familiarly in Romany, and an hour after dined with distinguished people; and this life had many other variations, and they came daily for many years. My gypsy experiences have not been so great as those of Francis H. Groome (once a pupil and _protege_ of Benfey), or the Grand Duke Josef of Hungary, or of Dr.

Wlislocki, but next after these great masters, and as an all-round gypsy rye in many lands, I believe that I am not far behind any _aficionado_ who has as yet manifested himself.

To become intimate, as I did in time, during years in Brighton, off and on, with all the gypsies who roamed the south of England, to be beloved of the old fortune-tellers and the children and mothers as I was, and to be much in tents, involves a great deal of strangely picturesque rural life, night-scenes by firelight, in forests and by river-banks, and marvellously odd reminiscences of other days. There was a gypsy child who knew me so well that the very first words she could speak were "_O 'omany 'i_" (O Romany rye), to the great delight of her parents.

After a little while I found that the _Romany_ element was spread strangely and mysteriously round about among the rural population in many ways. I went one day with Francis H. Groome to Cobham Fair. As I was about to enter a tavern, there stood near by three men whose faces and general appearance had nothing of the gypsy, but as I pa.s.sed one said to the other so that I could hear--

"_Dikk adovo rye_, _se o Romany rye_, _yuv_, _tacho_!" (Look at that gentleman; he is a gypsy gentleman, sure!)

I naturally turned my head hearing this, when he burst out laughing, and said--

"I told you I'd make him look round."

Once I was startled at hearing a well-dressed, I may say a gentlemanly- looking man, seated in a gig with a fine horse stopping by the road, say, as I pa.s.sed with my wife--

"_Dikk adovo gorgio adoi_!" (Look at that Gentile, of no-gypsy!)

Not being accustomed to hear myself called a _gorgio_, I glanced up at him angrily, when he, perceiving that I understood him and was of the mysterious brotherhood, smiled, and touched his hat to me. One touch of nature makes the whole world grin.

But the drollest proposal ever made to me in serious earnest came from that indomitable incarnate old _gypssissimus Tsingarorum_, Matthew Cooper, who proposed that I should buy a donkey. He knew where to get one for a pound, but 2 pounds 10s. would buy a "stunner." He would borrow a small cart and a tent, and brown my face and hands so that I would be dark enough, and then on the _drum_--"over the hills." As for all the expenses of the journey, I need not spend anything, for he could provide a neat nut-brown maid, who would not only do all our cooking, but earn money enough by fortune-telling to support us all. I would be expected, however, to greatly aid by my superior knowledge of ladies and gentlemen; and so all would go merrily on, with unlimited bread and cheese, bacon and ale, and tobacco--into the blue away!

I regret to say that Matthew expected to inherit the donkey.

About this time, as all my friends went hunting once or twice a week, I determined to do the same. Now, as I had never been a good rider, and had anything but an English seat in the saddle, I went to a riding-school and underwent a thorough course both on the pig-skin and bare-backed. My teacher, Mr. Goodchild, said eventually of me that I was the only person whom he had ever known who had at my time of life learned to ride well.

But to do this I gave my whole mind and soul to it; and Goodchild's standard, and still more that of his riding-master, who had been a captain in a cavalry regiment, was very high. I used to feel quite as if I were a boy again, and one under pretty severe discipline at that, when the Captain was drilling me. For his life he could not treat his pupils otherwise than as recruits. "Sit up straighter, sir! Do you call _that_ sitting up? _That's_ not the way to hold your arms! Knees in! Why, sir, when I was learning to ride I was made to put s.h.i.+llings between my knees and the side, and if I dropped one _I forfeited it_!"

Then in due time came the meets, and the fox and hare hunting, during which I found my way, I believe, into every village or nook for twenty miles round. By this time I had forgotten all my troubles, mental or physical, and after riding six or seven hours in a soft fog, would come home the picture of health.

I remember that one very cold morning I was riding alone to the meet on a monstrous high black horse which Goodchild had bought specially for me, when I met two gypsy women, full blood, selling wares, among them woollen mittens--just what I wanted, for my hands were almost frozen in Paris kids. The women did not know me, but I knew them by description, and great was the amazement of one when I addressed her by name and in Romany.

"_Pen a mandy_, _Priscilla Cooper_, _sa buti me sosti del tute for adovo pustini vashtini_?" (Tell me, Priscilla Cooper, how much should I give you for those woollen gloves?)

"Eighteen pence, master." The common price was ninepence.

"I will _not_ give you eighteen pence," I replied.

"Then how much _will_ you give, master?" asked Priscilla.

"_Four s.h.i.+llings_ will I give, and not a penny less--_miri pen_--you may take it or leave it."

I went off with the gloves, while the women roared out blessings in Romany. There was something in the whole style of the gift, or the _manner_ of giving it, which was specially gratifying to gypsies, and the account thereof soon spread far and wide over the roads as a beautiful deed.

The fraternity of the roads is a strange thing. Once when I lived at Walton there was an old gypsy woman named Lizzie Buckland who often camped near us. A good and winsome young lady named Lillie Doering had taken a liking to the old lady, and sent her a nice Christmas present of clothing, tea, &c., which was sent to me to give to the Egyptian mother.

But when I went to seek her, she had flown over the hills and far away.

It made no difference. I walked on till I met a perfect stranger to me, a woman, but "evidently a traveller." "Where is old Liz?" I asked.

"Somewhere about four miles beyond Moulsey." "I've got a present for her; are you going that way?" "Not exactly, but I'll take it to her; a few miles don't signify." I learned that it had gone from hand to hand and been safely delivered. It seems a strange way to deliver valuables, to walk forth and give them to the first tramp whom you meet; but I knew my people.

I may here say that during this and the previous winter I had practised wood-carving. In which, as in studying Gypsy, I had certain ultimate aims, which were fully developed in later years. I have several times observed in this record that when I get an idea I cherish it, think it over, and work it up. Out of this wood-carving and _repousse_ and the designing which it involved I in time developed ideas which led to what I may fairly call a great result.

We remained at Brighton until February, when we went to London and stayed at the Langham Hotel. Then began the London life of visits, dinners, and for me, as usual, of literary work. In those days I began to meet and know Professor E. H. Palmer, Walter Besant, Walter H. Pollock, and many other men of the time of whom I shall anon have more to say. I arranged with Mr. Trubner as to the publication of "The English Gypsies." I think it was at this time that I dined one evening at Sir Charles Dilke's, where a droll incident took place. There was present a small Frenchman, to whom I had not been introduced, and whose name therefore I did not know. After dinner in the smoking-room I turned over with this gentleman a very curious collection of the works of Blake, which were new to him.

Finding that he evidently knew something about art, I explained to him that Blake was a very strange visionary--that he believed that the spirits of the dead appeared to him, and that he took their portraits.