The American Gentleman's Guide to Politeness and Fashion Part 18

"Your embarra.s.sment, my dear girl!" I exclaimed, "you astonish me! Do explain yourself"----

"Hush," returned my companion, looking furtively over her shoulder, "that young Englishman seems to be engrossing the attention of the rest of the party, and, perhaps, I shall have time to tell you"----

"Do, my dear, if anything has annoyed you--surely so old a friend may claim your confidence."

"I have heard of the 'son of a gun,'" replied she, evidently making a strong effort to recall the natural sprightliness that seemed so singularly to have deserted her of late; "I don't see why I am not the _daughter of a gun_, at this moment, and so ent.i.tled to be very brave!

But about this Mr. E----, Colonel," she almost whispered, bending her head so as to screen her face from my observation. "You know Mrs. M---- called for me the other morning to go and walk with her alone, because, as she said, she wanted to talk a little about old times, when we were in the convent school at C---- together. Well, as we came to a little "shop," as she styled it--a hardware store, _we_ should say--she begged me to go in with her a moment, while she gave some directions about a hall-stove, saying, with an apology: "We wives of government officers here, do all these things, as a matter of course." While she walked back in the place, I very naturally remained near the door, amusing myself by observing what was pa.s.sing in the street. Presently, a fine horse arrested my eye, as he came prancing along. His rider seemed to have some ado to control him, as I thought, at first, but I suddenly became aware that he was endeavoring to stop him, in mid career, and that, when he succeeded--he--I--there was no mistaking it--his glance almost petrified me, in short, and I had only just power to turn quickly in search of Mrs. M----."

The slight form of the speaker quivered visibly, and she paused abruptly.

"Why, my poor child," said I, soothingly, "never mind it! How can you allow such a thing to distress you in this way?"

"If anything of the kind had ever happened to me before, I should have thought it my fault, in some way; but when I got back to our hotel, and reviewed the whole matter, and--but there come the rest of the party"--she added, hurriedly. "Do you wonder now at my manner at the dinner? I knew his face the moment the man entered the dining room; and when Mr. M---- introduced him, and requested him to conduct me, the burning glow that flashed over his swarthy brow convinced me that he, too, recognized me. I would sooner have encountered a basilisk than your elegant, parliamentary Frenchman!"

"Doctor, what may I eat?" inquired a dyspeptic American, who had just received a prescription from Abernethy--the eccentric and celebrated English physician.

"_Eat?_" thundered the disciple of Galen, "the poker and tongs, if you will _chew them well_!"

What a commingling of nations and characters there was in the little party of which I made one, on a serene evening, lang-syne, at Constantinople! We floated gently over the placid bosom of the sunset-tinted Golden Horn, rowed by four stout Mussulmans, and bound for that point of the sh.o.r.e of the Marmora nearest the suburb of Ezoub where horses awaited us for a brisk canter of some miles back to the city. There were, Lord ----, an English n.o.bleman; a Hungarian refugee; a Yankee sea-captain; a dark-eyed youth from one of the Greek Islands; and myself--men severed by birth and education from communion of thought and feeling, yet united, for the moment, by a similarity of purpose; a.s.sociated by the subtle influence of circ.u.mstance, into a serene commingling of one common nature, and capacitated for the interchange of impressions and ideas, at least in an imperfect degree, through the medium of a strange jargon, compounded originally of materials as varied as the native languages of the several individuals composing the group in our old Turkish _Caique_, which may have been, for aught we knew, the identical one that followed Byron in his Leander-swim!

The conversation naturally partook in character of the scene before us:--Near, towered the time-stained walls of the Seraglio--so long the cradling-place of successive Sultans, and then furnis.h.i.+ng the embryo of the voluptuous pleasures of their antic.i.p.ated paradise. Beyond, rose the ruin-crowned heights, the domes and minarets of old Stamboul, rich in historic suggestions, glowing now in the warmly-lingering smile of the departing day-G.o.d,

"Not, as in Northern climes, obscurely bright, But one unclouded blaze of living light!"

Before us, in our way over the crystal waters, loomed up the gloomy, verdure-draped turrets of the "Irde Koule" of this oft-rebelling and oft-conquered seat of Oriental splendor and imperial power. As with the "Tower" of London, the mere sight of this now silent and deserted castle, conjured up recollections replete with deeds of wild romance, and darker scenes of blood and crime. Around us flowed the waters whose limpid depths had so oft received the sack-shrouded form of helpless beauty, when midnight blackness rivalled the horror of the foul murder it veiled forever from mortal ken. Argosies and fleets had been borne upon these waves, whose names or whose conflicts were of world-wide renown--from the mythical adventurers of the Golden-Fleece to the triumphant squadrons of the Osmanlis, all seemed to float before the eye of fancy!

From the broken sentences that, for some time, seemed most expressive of the contemplative mood engendered both by our surroundings and by the placidity of the hour, there gradually arose a somewhat connected discussion of the present condition of the Ottoman Porte.

It is not my purpose to inflict upon you a detailed report of our discourse; but only to relate, for your amus.e.m.e.nt, a fragment of it, which somehow has, strangely enough, floated upwards from the darkened waters of the past, with sufficient distinctness to be s.n.a.t.c.hed from the oblivion to which its utter insignificance might properly consign it.

"There is not," said the British n.o.ble--a man curious in literature, and a somewhat speculative observer of life--"there is not a single purely literary production in the Turkish language, written by a living author; not a poem, nor romance, nor essay. The Koran would almost seem to const.i.tute their all of earthly lore and heavenly aspiration. What an anomaly in the biography of modern peoples!"

This last sentence was addressed especially to the sea-captain and me, the _idiomatical_ English in which the pa.s.sing fancy of the speaker found expression being wholly unintelligible to all except ourselves.

"Their total want of a national literature," said the American, "does not so materially affect my comfort, I must confess, as the utter absence of decent civilization in their renowned capital. For instance, they have not an apology for a night-police in their confoundedly dark streets, except the infernal dogs that infest them. The other night, returning to my quarters, with my 'Ibrahim' pilot in front with a lantern, I was persuaded, as one of these 'faithful guardians' fastened his glistening ivories in my boot-top, that, like one of your 'lone stars' at New York, Colonel Lunettes, he had 'mistaken his man,' and supposed me to be the returned spirit of some one of the countless throng of infidel dogs, upon whom his public education had instructed him to make war to--_the teeth_!"

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the Greek, in tones as musical as his dress and att.i.tude were picturesque, from the pile of boat cloaks upon which he reposed in the bow of the boat, and opening his dark eyes till one saw far down into the dreamy depths of his half-slumbering soul through his quick-lit orbs. He had caught enough of the _sense_ of the captain's nonsense, to imagine the joke to the full. "Ha, ha, ha!" laughed he, again, and the shadowy walls of the blood-stained "Chateau of Seven Towers," by which we were gliding, gave back the clear, clarion-like tone; "but, while this brave _fils de la mer_[6] thus sports with the terrors of my country's enslaver [here a frown, deep, dark, threatening, and a quick clenching of the jewelled handle of the yataghan he wore in his belt], the gates of fair Stamboul will close, and nor foe, nor Frank, nor friend, be given to the dogs."

[6] Son of the sea.

"By thunder!" shouted the American, shaking himself up, as if at sea, with a suspicious sail in sight, "he is more than half right. Would you have thought it so late?"

"Even a Yankee, like Captain ----, a fair representative of the 'universal nation,' learns to dream and linger here," responded the Englishman, good-humoredly.

Upon this, I made use of the little knowledge I possessed of the Turkish, to interrogate our _Caidjis_ respecting the time further required to reach our landing-place.

"Allah is great, and Mohammed is his Prophet!" was all I could fully apprehend of his slowly-delivered reply.

It was now the captain's turn to laugh, and as his sonorous peal rippled over the Marmora, he quietly insinuated his fore-finger and thumb into the disengaged palm of the devout Mussulman I had so touchingly adjured.

The only response of the devotee of the Prophet was a gutteral repet.i.tion of "Pekee! good! pekee! pekee!" But by an influence as effective as it was mysterious, our swan-like movement was exchanged for a most hope-encouraging velocity.

"Bravo!" exclaimed my lord.

"Bravissima!" intonated the Hun.

"Go it, boys!" shouted the "old salt."

"By the soul of Mithridates and the deeds of Thermopolae!" chimed in the scion of the "isles of Greece," catching the instinctively-intelligible contagion of the sportive moment.

"And what said Uncle Hal?" you wonder, perhaps. Oh, I was listening to the low, melancholy, semi-howl in which the imperturbable Moslems were slowly chanting "_Guzal! pek guzal!_"[7] as they turned their dull eyes lingeringly towards their fast-receding mosques and minarets.

[7] My beautiful! my most beautiful!

But, meeting the questioning glances of my companions, as their mirth began to subside, I contributed my humble quota to the general stock of fun by saying, with extreme gravity of voice and manner:

"When will wonders cease in the Golden Horn! At first, even its unquestionable antiquity did not redeem this vessel from my contempt--now I consider it an '_irresistible duck_!'--and I wish, moreover, to publish my conviction that, though barbarous in matters of literature and art, the Turks impressively teach their boastful superiors a _religious respect for cleanliness_."

I remember to have been singularly impressed, when I read it, with an anecdote somewhat as follows:

As too frequently happens on such occasions, a discussion in relation to some insignificant matter, into which a large party of men, who had dined together, and were lingering late over their wine, had fallen, gradually increased in vehemence and obstinacy of opinion, until frenzied excitement ruled the hour.

"From words they almost came to blows, When luckily"

the attention of one of the most furious of the disputants was suddenly arrested by the appearance of one of the gentlemen present. There was no angry flush on his brow, no "laughing devil" in his eye, and he sat quietly regarding the scene before him, serene and self-possessed as when he entered the apartment hours before. His astonished companion inquired the cause of such placidity, in the midst of anger and turbulence.

The gentleman pointed, with a smile, to a half-empty water-bottle beside him, and replied: "While the rest of the company have been industriously occupied in endeavoring to drown the distinctive attribute of man--reason--I have preserved its supremacy by simply confining myself to a non-intoxicating beverage."

I trust you will not think the following somewhat quaint verses, from the pen of an old and now almost forgotten poet, a _mal-a-propos_ conclusion to this letter:

THE YOUTH AND THE PHILOSOPHER

A Grecian youth, of talents rare, Whom Plato's philosophic care Had formed for Virtue's n.o.bler view, By precept and example too, Would often boast his matchless skill To curb the steed, and guide the wheel; And as he pa.s.sed the gazing throng With graceful ease, and smack'd the thong, The idiot wonder they expressed, Was praise and transport to his breast.

At length, quite vain, he needs would show His master what his art could do; And bade his slaves the chariot lead To Academus' sacred shade.

The trembling grove confessed its fright, The wood-nymphs started at the sight; The Muses drop the learned lyre, And to their inmost shades retire.

Howe'er, the youth, with forward air, Bows to the Sage, and mounts the car; The lash resounds, the coursers spring, The chariot marks the rolling ring; And gathering crowds, with eager eyes, And shouts, pursue him as he flies.

Triumphant to the goal returned, With n.o.bler thirst his bosom burned; And now along the indented plain The self-same track he marks again; Pursues with care the nice design, Nor ever deviates from the line.

Amazement seized the circling crowd; The youths with emulation glowed; E'en bearded sages hailed the boy, And all but Plato gazed with joy.