by Jason Jones.
Originally published in The Argosy (Strahan & Co.) vol.1 #2 (Jan 1866).
About a year ago the ladies of London established a Dressmaking Company; and, as ladies are not expected to know much of the maxims of political economy, it is not to be wondered at that this truly worshipful company was not based on the principle of buying in the cheapest and selling in the dearest market. It is, in fact, a company after Mr. Ruskin's own heart (by the way, his name is on the committee, and we hope he is consulted in the cutting-out department, and that we may soon have the mode à la Ruskin). One is bound to acknowledge that the lovely subjects of Queen Victoria who patronize the Company, whatever price they pay for their garments, may say in one sense with plain masculine meaning, without the halo of feminine creative genius with which they usually invest the phrase, that they cost "absolutely nothing." The Company, whose employées number fifty, undertook to furnish the nicest of dresses and sweetest of bonnets without murdering a few milliners and dressmakers in their manufacture, just in the crush of "the season," of course. The girls were to have airy rooms, and moderate hours, and their evenings for study and recreation. These fine promises have been amply fulfilled. Perhaps in another year they may go in for the competitive examinations now proceeding briskly at the various "centres" under the grave auspices of the University of Cambridge, and to which an alarming number of young ladies have betaken themselves. In the meantime they have been entertaining their friends at a concert organized by their music-master, and assisted by a few privileged male musicians. Very pretty the bevy of singers looked in their costume of black and white (court mourning for the King of the Belgians). The singing testified at once to the excellent condition of their lungs and the good use of their leisure, and proved that the products of their taste and industry cost "absolutely nothing" in the shape of human suffering.
If the story told of Mr. Gordon be true, it is a very touching one. The child of a slave mother, he was self-taught and self-bought. Then he bought his sisters and sent them to Europe to be educated. Then preserved his father and his white wife and children in the estate which was going out of their hands, and in which he might have supplanted them. If this be true, a more magnanimous man was never murdered.
Well, it is an ugly word, and the story may not be true. What is truth about the whole story? We must wait, and time and the Commission will show. "If only more time had been allowed," wrote Mr. Gordon, in his pathetic last letter to his wife—an Englishwoman. Ay, "if more time had been allowed," perhaps Governor Eyre might have discovered that his widespread insurrection was only a paltry riot. "If more time had been allowed," that midnight meeting of men made fanatic with fear—cruellest of passions—might never have proclaimed "martial law,"—the suspension of all law. "If more time had been allowed" for judgment to play and mercy to plead, unarmed men by thousands might not have been slain, nor weak women by hundreds flogged. Time was taken in one case, it seems, to flog a man before killing him, perhaps he was only killed for want of time to finish the flogging. It seems pretty clear that the British public, divided into hostile camps on the whole business—the first impulse of the British public—and not a bad impulse either—being to take sides and fight about any business, must allow more time before it gets at the real rights and wrongs of this blackest of businesses.
Cousin Jonathan has had his yearly message; to my mind "A noble and a manly one." It says simply to the States—"Govern yourselves. Nothing is changed, for the 'Constitooshun' is unchangeable. The slave is free, that is a fact which you must make the best of, and govern in accordance with." Slavery was no provision of the divine "Constitooshun."
I think we ought to pay that little bill for the depredations of the Alabama. Two or three millions would do it. Our good cousin says—"Well, after all it doesn't matter; I will not press the claim." But we can't afford to be shabby about it. Let us shake hands across the water. Make a New Year's gift to Jonathan, and settle the account of privateering for ever.
So the Emperor of Austria has "knocked under," and the Hungarian Diet has met for the first time for sixteen years. They have conquered by the force of passive resistance. It is the grandest thing since our Long Parliament, and though the men who compose the Diet are not Puritans (they have gathered in a blaze of barbaric pearl and gold) they are patriots, and, moreover, they are elected like English M.P.'s, with just as much bribery, and as many rows, which clearly entitles them to English sympathies. The Emperor has charmed "ever so wisely." The generous Hungarians are satisfied. Less generous, but more prudent thoughts will arise, however, and the song of the maiden with the dark-brown eyes keeps ringing—
What he says it is not true.
Beware!
Even the silver-sailed Argosy, ploughing the blue waters of the Sea of Marvels, cannot, being manned by mortal sailors, escape the record of the common doom. For is not the very element on which we trust she may long lightly float—Media-Terranean—circled by the kingdoms of the earth? and oftentimes as she nears the shore, our mystic vessel must catch the sound of the funeral chant, and see the smoke of the sacrificial fire.
In other words, death has been busy during the last month; and two have been taken whose names are familiar to all. One has long been the delight of the lovers of imagination, and might even, we hoped, have joined us in our pleasant task. Elizabeth Gaskell has been called suddenly from our midst. Away from husband and children; from the lively interests of a life she so obviously enjoyed; from the sphere where she so graciously fulfilled the duties of mistress and mother, and in the very prime of her mature years: that pen, which created for us so many charming pictures, and whose tracery, however dark or painful the subject, was ever chaste, delicate, and noble, lies at rest for ever.
And the "Young Prince Leopold," whose days of married happiness on English shores have been so suddenly recalled by writers then unborn, he, too, is gone. But a world has passed away since Princess Charlotte went to her first ball, and "came out, looking beautiful," in a dress of white and silver, and feathers for the first time on her fair young head. The face of Europe has been thrice changed since she suffered that "little nervous fever," from being worried by father, mother, Lord Chancellor, uncles, aunts, and last—but not least—her grandmother. Our young Princess wedded, on the 2nd of May, 1816, the steady, economical young man, who was laughed at for lodging on a second floor, in High-street, Marylebone. We don't know what High-street, Marylebone, may have been like in those days. Now, it is the most unpleasant locality imaginable, particularly on Saturday night, when a sort of open fair is held, notably of fish-stalls and crockery-stands. Good Leopold must indeed have been a saving young man! That he was a wise old one, patient, prudent, and kindly, is known to all the European world; and Jason need only jot it down in short-hand, with a reference to the universal press. He greatly hopes that under no circumstances, will quaint, picturesque little Belgium, with its intricate old cities, its sleepy canals, its sandy pine-covered champaign, and its wealth of historical associations, be snapped up by the dragon that lives across the Border. Jason opines that it would not be easy to swallow the belfry of Bruges; it would stick even in a dragon's throat.