STAGE SCENES. The wind screamed RAIN, rain, rain. It oozed through the panes. around us as if every mountain in Switzerland was working a pair of Borean bellows, and every glacier were dissolving into storm. The Eilwagon kept careening more and more; the luggage frequently being displaced. Through the chilly disorder of wind, mist, and rain, I could occasionally obtain a glimpse of the watery road beneath the ghastly glare of the outside lamps; it was the only thing that appeared to remain firm. A general reveillé now took place simultaneously with a tremendous jolt, which sent all inside a-bounding half off their seats. 'AM RHEIN!' ejaculated the Germanics all three at once; thus completing the first dozen words which they had conjointly uttered since we bade adieu to the waters and daughters of Zurich. It was, indeed, the first dim view (or rather faint sound) of the 'beauteous and abounding river,' the rushing Rhine, taken from near STEIN. As soon as the patriots had done making 'big eyes' at the national stream of glory, the window suddenly closed, and the company again fell to smoking without a word, in order to repel the invasion of respirable air which the 'view' had so unduly adhibited. 'Delicious air that!' observed the Englishman, looking wistful and disappointed at the abrupt exclusion of the north-easter, to which this compliment was dedicated. Um!' grunted the old Austrian monster, who seemed blessed with un grand talent pour le silence. 'Will you take a glass of wine with us?' asked the Prussian, offering a thick bottle of thin fluid to his neighbor, the Frenchman. 'Sans refus; kind PROVIDENCE has made me wake with an excellent thirst.' Et moi aussi,' added the Pole, as he filled his pipe afresh and commenced singing in petto. 'J'ai du bon tabac.' Here the Frenchman lit a villainous cigar with a tinder fusil; and now all the company leaned back to indulge undisturbedly in the sacred rite of the pipe. I thought that our conveyance, to an out-sider, must have resembled a travelling lime-kiln in active play. I thought of the Turk, who, hearing Casinova, the Venetian Gil Blas, complain of a cold in the head, muttered that the Christian dog was not worthy of such happiness (bonheur.) A cold is sometimes a blessing, as it was in my case now. Moreover, grace to my Yale education, I had early contracted a callousness to the operation of any possible compression of bad tobacco-smoke in any given space, which happily rendered me proof against the worst efforts of my present comrades. At all events, the extreme of dry heat was more grateful than the extreme of chill-moisture which reigned without. I thought of Montesquieu, who said, 'You may change the laws or betray the liberty of a people if you please, but venture not to meddle with their pleasures.' I thought of the singular relation between the German language and the practice of the pipe. The German is recommended a change of air; does he travel for it? No; he stays at home and changes his pipe. The driver smokes; the passengers smoke; the horses smoke; smoke! smoke! smoke! every body smokes, and every thing. The postillion divides his melodious powers between his two wind-instruments· his horn and pipe. From the instrument of suction he inhales enough inspiration to surcharge the instrument of sound, and to burst a fuming blast upon the startled air. His whole performance is a wind-and-smoke duet, composing an Eolian blow-pipe, or rather horn-pipe for his horses to dance by. To We are in Cloudland now. Smoking, the Turks say, is a spiritual, not a sensual pleasure. When you fill your pipe you feel pleasure. what sense do you attribute this, if not to your soul? and is there no emotion in viewing the ashes which remain? But the chief delight consists in the air-scape of smoke. It ought never to spring from your pipe, but always from the corners of your mouth, at soft and measured intervals. Why do not blind men smoke? 'Tis because the windows of the soul, their eyes, are closed. The most imaginative nations, therefore, smoke pipes. Pipe-clouds are to them exactly what mists are to mariners, or other illusions to other men; nor do I believe it ever necessary to rob poor mortals of any illusion that yields them happiness. I thought of this, and I looked at the Englishman. Poor John Bull, however amphibious in an opposite element, was evidently no salamander. I thought his twinkling eyes were tinted a trifle more ruby even than his florid face as he drew forth a broad-bladed knife with a dry cough, and betook himself to hacking a terrene of fat goose-liver; or allayed the increasing irritation of his thorax by washing down various viands with many a lusty pull at some strange fluid, the nature of which I do not know. 'Gentlemen,' said he, at last, clearing his throat violently, his voice striding through the universal fog and silence toward the Pole. 'Hem! I must confess my sensations are not unlike those of the poor goose as he underwent his martyrdom in the cause of this paté, over a slow fire. Perhaps, Sir, you will oblige me by sharing it, and at the same time raising the window.' Neither the atrocious attempt at facetiousness nor the accompanying clause of invitation had the slightest influence on the Pole, who still sat with his chin in the air like a vidette. Indeed, the generosity was too plainly suggested by selfishness to have the desired effect. And much less were the others of the company (who had been offered no refusal of paté) disposed to act in his service. The old Austrian monster put on a grimace compared with which the look of Lucifer must have resembled benevolence and Moloch a Samaritan saint. The Frenchman, with gay malevolence, whispered a quotation from Brillat Savarin, 'Dis moi ce que tu manges et je te dirai ce que tu es ;' and the heavy Prussian growled out 'Potstausend!' with a magnificent emphasis that shook the stage. The statement of the case is this: With the martial consequence of most of his travelling countrymen, John Bull had been entertaining himself aloud between the interstices of his repeater and paté by recapitulating the great battles of the last two centuries. Of course his victories and general ship were English. Marlborough was made to go over his wonderful campaigns once more; William was seen again prancing into the midst of his banded foes; and the cocked hat of Wellington diffused an aureole by no means too agreeable to the attentive Gaul. The Bull seemed to have all the grand engagements at his finger-ends; you would have imagined that he had taken a prominent part in each, as he rattled them off in a kind of triumphant voluntary. He had contrived to give dire offence to each and every one of us before he talked half an hour. As the important conflicts in which the German star lost ascendency were disposed of like so many percussion-caps, the forbearing old monster and the Pole contented themselves with filling their pipes at each fresh engagement, as if disdaining to waste breath in words. At length he made bold to withdraw Napoleon from his estate of conqueror, from Jena, Austerlitz, and Wagram, and to pit him in the much-contended game with Wellington. 'Pooh! talk of Waterloo! I tell you that we ourselves won all that battle. I tell you the Prussians did absolutely nothing. Blucher came up in time only to save his credit and to carry off a lion's share of the laurels. I tell you Boney was beaten already, dead beat. History shows that. Remember I have been myself all over the field, enough to establish the proofs, I should think; HEAVEN knows. Nap could beat any thing on earth but British bayonets, I grant. His old guard was invincible, and all that; but I tell you that a hedge of Sheffield ware, backed by a heavy English regiment, was the one thing he could never pass. Don't I tell you the Prussians were six to one at Montmirail and Jena? Our English were the only horses that did n't snuff defeat as Ney charged on them.' The expression of the Bull during this ebullition of patriotism and eloquence, was pale custard, so sweet, so soft, so insipid. A blood ennobled by a tributary stream of Markbrunner, mantled in the Prussian's cheeks. The Frenchman also wore a stormy brow. 'Now here,' resumed the narrator, as after much fumbling in abysmal pockets, he produced, among other articles of bigotry and virtue,' (Mrs. Partington for bijouterie and virtu) a handful of stray bullets and rusty relics, which no doubt he had either purloined or purchased upon some field of fame. 'You see these trophies; they were given me by my mother's cousin, Captain the honorable George, who gathered them at the foot of Mont Saint Jean, where he stood full three hours in the thick of the fight. I tell you he was bullet-proof. I tell you' 'Sacre nom de dieu!' shouted the furious Frank, dashing the collection to his feet, ça ne me regarde pas.' Well, well, your pardon, Sir; perhaps I was inconsiderate,' responded the imperturbable Bull, picking up his curiosities, and consoling himself with his repeater. These things are trifles after all, like the ribbons and orders which you gentlemen of the continent wear; of no use to any one, although they please their possessors. Now it seems to me this furore for baubles argues a corfuption of morals. I tell you it originates in venality of governments and the vanity of men. Governments sell decorations, and courtiers, forsooth, will accept them as titles to distinction. I tell you that the less a man stands honorably in his own conscience, the more he aims to appear distingué in the eyes of his fellow-men. I tell you this as one man speaking to another, and without offence. In France they pretend to reward merit with orders, so that every body buys one who pleases. In fact, all the French are imitative animals, and so the men all set to work decorating themselves, just like their emperor Napoleon, who set an example by stepping forth at his coronation and putting the crown on with his own hands. Now an Englishman, you will notice, wears no such crachats'. 'Ma foi c'est bien distingué,' interrupted the Français, a singular smile lighting up his countenance which a moment ago had been dark as Jura. I could not help remarking the sudden alteration in his whole demeanor; nor could I conjecture at the time that the change was occasioned by a secret inspiration of malice. It was pretty plain, in the mean while, that the Saxon potations were doing their work on the Bull's head in the dense dry atmosphere. 'I would entreat you, meinheer, not to cock your pistol in my face,' observed the monster, fixing his grave eyes full upon our hero, who was now busy overhauling a small private arsenal from among the contents of his sac de nuit. 'Ow!' ejaculated the latter, with a side-start from his appalling interlocutor. Quite unintentional, believe me, Sir. Beside, gentlemen, I am the last person to have recourse to desperate means, although I am familiar enough with them, too, on occasion. I make it a rule always to travel armed. I tell you a gentleman always should; one commands more respect when he journeys well armed, and it is ever as well to go prepared.' To be forewarned is better than to be forearmed,' interposed the Pole, significantly. 'Will you do me honor to accept a cigar?' asked the Parisian, lighting a peculiarly bad one on his own account. 'I never smoke,' answered the Bull, munching something out of a brown paper. 'I do,' remarked the Prussian, quietly, as a volume, like a rushing avalanche, issued from the gorge amid his beard. 'Whew!' sighed the Bull, nearly slitting his breast open with his broad cheese-dirk-knife, during a dodge to avoid suffocation. 6 Fine travelling this,' monologised the tranquil Pole, corking the wicker-bottle, which had now suffered the last stage of depletion. 'Potstausend! yaw!' moaned the spiritual Prussian, without relaxing his hold on the prodigious pipe. through his short pipe. grunted the monster, eloquently, 'The air is delicious; it reminds me of the Puerta del Sol,' declared the Frenchman, looking at Bull with a face full of triumphant mischief. 'N'est ce pas monsieur l'Anglais?' 'Certainly,' sputtered our hero, with a doubtful eye, helping himself to a somewhat thinner slice. 'Oh! certainly, what Puerta ?' 'Ah! the messieurs Anglais like information. a good sign. The Puerta is an ancient place in Madrid where the elité of the citizens resort, enveloped in mantles, to bask in the light of the sun and the luxury of a cigarille. But here, you perceive, we have the supervening pleasure of locomotion; in the best society and tobacco (bowing to the company and their pipes) one finds himself again in the golden age.' A gratulatory bow and a replenished bottle were passed all round on the heels of this delightful sentiment. 'Well, de gustibus non,' muttered the Bull, in under-tone, preparing to dispose of the unfinished fragments of his supper out the window, which he took great precaution to leave open. But a great pudgy hand was poked forth on the part of the monster, and the casement instantly fell as low as the countenance of John Bull himself. Fortunately for him, at this juncture we entered RHEINFELDE. Feather River, Cal. THE eastern sky is blushing red, The distant hill-top glowing; The brook is murmuring in its bed, 'Tis time the pick-axe and the spade And iron 'TOM' were ringing; And with ourselves, the mountain's stream, The mountain air is cool and fresh; Unclouded skies bend o'er us; We ask no magic MIDAS' wand, The pick-axe, spade, and brawny hand We toil for hard and yellow gold, No bogus bank-notes taking; The bank, we trust, though growing old, Will better pay by breaking. There is no manlier life than ours, A life amid the mountains, Where from the hill-sides, rich in gold, A mighty army of the hills, Around the camp-fires burning; J. SWETT. |