The Orpheus C. Kerr Papers, Series 2

  LETTER LVII.

  SUGGESTING MENTAL RELAXATION FOR A TIME, AND INTRODUCING A FAMILIAR SKETCH OF THE WAR-STRICKEN DRAMA IN THE RURAL DISTRICTS.

  WASHINGTON, D. C., July 23d, 1862.

  Yesterday morning, my boy, I refreshed myself by a lounge across LongBridge to the fields about Arlington Heights, where blooming Naturestill has verdant spots untrampled by the iron heel of strategic war.

  How pleasant is it, my boy, to escape occasionally from the society ofCongressmen and brigadiers, and take a lazy sprawl in the fragrantfields. It is the philosopher's way of enjoying Summer's

  DOLCE FAR NIENTE.

  I.

  Still as a fly in amber, hangs the world In a transparent sphere of golden hours, With not enough of life in all the air To stir the shadows or to move the flowers; And in the halo broods the angel Sleep, Wooed from the bosom of the midnight deep By her sweet sister Silence, wed to Noon.

  II.

  Held in a soft suspense of summer light, The generous fields with all their bloom of wealth Bask in a dream of Plenty for the years, And breathe the languor of untroubled Health. Without a ripple stands the yellow wheat, Like the Broad Seal of God upon the sheet Where Labor's signature appeareth soon.

  III.

  As printed staves of thankful Nature's hymn, The fence of rails a soothing grace devotes, With clinging vines for bass and treble cleffs And wrens and robins here and there for notes; Spread out in bars, at equal distance met, As though the whole bright summer scene were set To the unuttered melody of Rest!

  IV.

  Along the hill in light voluptuous wrapt The daisy droops amid the staring grass, And on the plain the rose and lily wait For Flora's whispers, that no longer pass; While in the shade the violet of blue Finds in the stillness reigning nature through, That which her gentle modesty loves best.

  V.

  The mill-wheel motionless o'ershades the pool, In whose frail crystal cups its circle dips; The stream, slow curling, wanders in the sun And drains his kisses with its silver lips; The birch canoe upon its shadow lies, The pike's last bubble on the water dies, The water lily sleeps upon her glass.

  VI.

  Here let me linger, in that waking sleep Whose dreams are all untinged with haunting dread Of Morning's finger on the eyelids pressed, To rouse the soul and leave the vision dead. And while deep sunk in this soft ecstasy I count the pulse of Heaven dreamily, Let all life's bitterness behind me pass!

  VII.

  How still each leaf of my oak canopy, That holds a forest syllable at heart, Yet cannot stir enough in all its veins To give the murmured woodland sentence start! So still--so still all nature far and near, As though the world had checked its breath to hear An angel's message from the distant skies!

  VIII.

  This one last glance at earth--one, only one-- To see, as through a vail, the gentle face Bent o'er me softly, with the timid love That half distrusts the sleep which gives it grace. The thought that bids mine eyelids half unclose Fades to a dream, and out from Summer goes, In the brown Autumn of her drooping eyes.

  Thus irregular in rhythm and vagrant in measure, my boy, are thehalf-sleeping thoughts of a summer noon in Virginia; and it was fullyan hour before I could summon enough strength of mind to peruse aletter recently consigned to me by a rustic chap in my native village.

  This chap describes to me what he calls the "Downfall of the Dramy,"and says he:

  The Dramy is a article for which I have great taste, and which I preferto prayer-meeting as a regular thing. Since the time I wore breechesintended to facilitate frequent spankings, I have looked upontheatrical artiks with a speeshees of excitement not to be egspressed.I was once paying teller to a barber artik who shaved a greattheatrical artik, and although the theatrical artik never could pay forhis shaving until he drew his celery, he always frowned so splendidlywhen he turned down his collar, and said: "What ho! there Figaro," thatmy infant mind yearned to ask him for a few tickets to the show.

  This great respek for the dramy has grown with my hair, and since thishigh old war has desolated the dramy, my buzzom has been nothing elsebut a wilderness of pangs. The other evening, my fren--which iscourting a six story house with a woman in the title deed--called at myshattoe, and proposed that we should wander amid the ruins of thedramy. "It's rejooced to a skellington," says he, quite mournful, "andits _E pluribus Onion_ is gone down into the hocean wave." As my friendused this strong egspression, he tried to wink at me, but didn't getfarther than a hik-cup. Arm in-arm, like two Siamese-twins in rejoocedcircumstances, we walked in speechless silence to what was formerly theentrance half of a theatre in the pallermy days of the dramy. It waslike the entrance to the great desert of Sary, and as we groped our waythrough the grass to the ticket office, I observed six wild geese and araccoon in a jungle that was a umberella stand in the pallermy days.The treasurer was entirely covered with cobwebs, which had beenaccumulating since the day he last saw speshee, and when he at lasttore himself out, the sight of the quarter which I handed in sent himinto immediate convulsions.

  "Excuse me," says he, "if I weep over this preshus coin; but the forceof old associations is too much for this affectionate heart."

  He then sent a fly-blown little boy for a tumbler of brandy, and wasweeping into it copious when we emerged from his presence. Uponentering the shattered temple of the dramy, we found a vetrun of 1812,which the manager had hired to keep company with the man what lit thegas, that artik having declared that if he was kept in solitude anylonger he should shoot himself from sheer melancholy. It was thevetrun's business to keep moving from seat to seat until theperformance was over, so that the artful cuss of a manager could say"every seat was okipied" in the next morning's newspaper. When themanager, who was representing the orkestra with a comb wrapt in paper,saw me and my fren, he paused in the middle of his overture, and saidwe should have a private box, but that the families of his principalartiks were keepin' house in the private boxes, and was rayther crowdedfor room. Seeing me put my hand in my pocket, he said, tearful:

  "Tellum me, I conjure ye, are there any such things as quarters in theround world? It is now six months since I last mingled with the world,and I really forget how many make a dollar."

  Touched to the quick by his plaintiff tone, I drew forth a quarter, andheld it before his anguished vision. Never shall I forget how his eyeswas sot on that ravishing coin.

  "Can it indeed be real?" says he, "or is it but a quarter of the mind?"

  I was afeard he might come the "let me clutch thee" dodge if I inflamedhis imagination any longer; so I put it back into my pocket, andaxidently revealed the handle of my revolver.

  When my fren had cut the damp grass away from one of the orchestraseats with his jack-knife, we sat down and put up an umbrella to keepoff the dew. Being a little nervous, I asked the manager if there wasany snakes about; and he said he see a couple in the parroquet lastnight, but didn't think they had got down to the orkestra yet. Thevetrun, which was the audience, stoppd chasing a bull-frog in thevestibule when the manager struck up "Days of Abstinence" on his comb,and immediately took his seat on chair No. 1, with which he alwayscommenced. The curting was then unpinned, and disclosed a scene in alumber-yard, with a heavy mortgage on it. The Count de Mahoginy isdiscovered in the ak of leaving his young wife, who is seated on a pileof shavings, for the purpose of obtaining immediate relief from theUnion Defence Committee. The vetrun received him with great applause,and moved from seat to seat as though he was in a hurry to reach thegallery. When the artik spoke, there was so much empty stomik in histones, that my fren said he seemed like a bean from another world. Myfren is a spiritualist. The artik then went off at the left entrance,and immediately returned in the character
of his own uncle, which hadcome home from California with two millions of dollars, and wished togive it to his affectionate nephew and niece. He found his niece in thelumber-yard, and having heard her sad story, divulged his intention toher and she immediately danced a Spanish _par_ (which is French), andsung four songs in honor of the sixty-ninth regiment. Then the uncledanced a hornpipe, which he learned on the hocean; and so they keptagoin till about nine o'clock, when the countess said she heard herhusband coming. The uncle was so taken aback by this, that heimmediately made himself into a tableau representing the last charge ofthe Fire Zouaves at Bull Run: and as the comb struck up "I'm a loan,all a loan," the curtain was pinned up again. Just as the performanceended, the manager explained that he could only aford to keep twoartiks--a male and female, and _they_ only stayed because he had amortgage on their wardrobes for over-drawed celery. "I'll light you tothe door," says he, taking up one of the foot-lights, which was aturnip with a candle in it; "and I hope you'll come again when weprojooce our new play. It's called 'The gas man's last charge,' andintrojoces a real gas-meter and the sheriff."

  My fren and I made no reply, but walked sadly from the ruins with tearsin our eyes.

  The regular Drama, my boy, cannot hope to succeed, while the war whichnow monopolizes all attention is believed by some critics to be aregular farce.

  Yours, tragically, ORPHEUS C. KERR.