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- never-ending daily news, the same sort of thing forever, how pleasant to
be spirited back by a tale, by some veteran’s living voice and eloquent
gestures, to a period that is no news at all, a time prior to those more
pronounced changes which have come over so few portions of that ancient
and manifold world across the Atlantic, a world to which we are bound by
unsunderable ties of genealogy.
Highly, Major, didst thou relish that title whereby, as regards so many
of us Americans, a rare son of New England with happiest simplicity
designated that Elder England, from which his progenitor came--_Our Old
Name_. But if thy filial appreciation of the historic Past has something
of Nathaniel Hawthorne in it, the medium, Dean, through which thou
recallest it, viewing it as through an irradiated vapour, this is not
without a touch of _our incomparable friend_, the Marquis. He, as well
thou knowest, never is so happy, never so blissfully serene, as when
wandering in a haze along that enchanted beach.
Among all thy over-sea reminiscences not the least entertaining to us
juniors is thy liberal version of that famous _Afternoon in Naples_. In
the wee hours, more especially if inspired by the beaming presence of M.
de Grandvin, how affluent hast thou been on that theme; how vivid in
description; and, for the rest, how frolic, pathetic, indignant,
philosophic; and throughout how catholic and humane. But shall such a
recital be confined to the small group of the convivially elect,
brothers of the _Burgundy_? Savours that not a little of the exclusive?
Have a care, Dean. With even more than is implied in that term, one not
lightly to be applied in a democracy, thou hast, unbeknown to thee,
perhaps, been reproached.
When General Grant, a bigot for his friends--and thou wert one of his
military family in the field--when he, as President, nominated thee
consul at that very Naples thou so entertainest us with, what whisper,
doubtless started by some rival applicant, what ridiculous whisper, was
it buzzed in the lobbies, that in spite even of Grant’s nomination,
stranded thee unconfirmed by the Senate? But ‘Pshaw!’ thou exclaimest,
amused at the enthusiasm of sophomores, when, ending thy Neapolitan
romance we contendingly fire away with:--
‘Bravissimo!’
‘Encore!’
‘Write it out, Major!’
‘Put it in verse!’
‘Good, it will immortalise thee!’
‘And consider, Dean, the glory redounding to the Club!’
To all which thy expression ‘Pshaw!’ and the politely proffered
snuff-box by way of an added parry, and little more do we get from thee,
O Dean of the Burgundians!
Well, Major, what thou in thy impatience of pen-drudgery and
indifference to any reputation except that old-fashioned one of being a
man of honour; what thou, for these reasons, perchance, never couldst be
persuaded to undertake, I, even I, unsolicited have had the temerity to
essay.
And in so doing I have adopted thy earlier rendering of _That Afternoon
in Naples_ ere yet thou begannest to exclaim, ‘I don’t know what the
dogs is the reason, but I can’t remember anything’; that version seeming
to me akin to what engravers call the first proofs, less free from the
blur that ensues after repeated impressions from the plate. Moreover,
not unmindful of the enthusiastic injunction, ‘Put it in verse,’ I have
after a fashion done accordingly. As to the interspersed ballads and
ditties--at the which, peradventure, thou mayest stare even as Rip van
Winkle, after his resurrection, did at his son--I do assure thee, Dean,
they are essentially but thoughts and conceits of thine own, the product
of seeds which planted and spontaneously developing in me, eventually
effloresced into rhyme.
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