- end_line
- 9866
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:14.842Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 9794
- text
- He was not above fifteen years of age; but in the twilight pensiveness
of his full morning eyes, there seemed to sleep experiences so sad and
various, that his days must have seemed to him years. It was not an eye
like Harry’s tho’ Harry’s was large and womanly. It shone with a soft
and spiritual radiance, like a moist star in a tropic sky; and spoke of
humility, deep-seated thoughtfulness, yet a careless endurance of all
the ills of life.
The head was if any thing small; and heaped with thick clusters of
tendril curls, half overhanging the brows and delicate ears, it somehow
reminded you of a classic vase, piled up with Falernian foliage.
From the knee downward, the naked leg was beautiful to behold as any
lady’s arm; so soft and rounded, with infantile ease and grace. His
whole figure was free, fine, and indolent; he was such a boy as might
have ripened into life in a Neapolitan vineyard; such a boy as gipsies
steal in infancy; such a boy as Murillo often painted, when he went
among the poor and outcast, for subjects wherewith to captivate the
eyes of rank and wealth; such a boy, as only Andalusian beggars are,
full of poetry, gushing from every rent.
Carlo was his name; a poor and friendless son of earth, who had no
sire; and on life’s ocean was swept along, as spoon-drift in a gale.
Some months previous, he had landed in Prince’s Dock, with his
hand-organ, from a Messina vessel; and had walked the streets of
Liverpool, playing the sunny airs of southern climes, among the
northern fog and drizzle. And now, having laid by enough to pay his
passage over the Atlantic, he had again embarked, to seek his fortunes
in America.
From the first, Harry took to the boy.
“Carlo,” said Harry, “how did you succeed in England?”
He was reclining upon an old sail spread on the long-boat; and throwing
back his soiled but tasseled cap, and caressing one leg like a child,
he looked up, and said in his broken English—that seemed like mixing
the potent wine of Oporto with some delicious syrup:—said he, “Ah! I
succeed very well!—for I have tunes for the young and the old, the gay
and the sad. I have marches for military young men, and love-airs for
the ladies, and solemn sounds for the aged. I never draw a crowd, but I
know from their faces what airs will best please them; I never stop
before a house, but I judge from its portico for what tune they will
soonest toss me some silver. And I ever play sad airs to the merry, and
merry airs to the sad; and most always the rich best fancy the sad, and
the poor the merry.”
“But do you not sometimes meet with cross and crabbed old men,” said
Harry, “who would much rather have your room than your music?”
“Yes, sometimes,” said Carlo, playing with his foot, “sometimes I do.”
“And then, knowing the value of quiet to unquiet men, I suppose you
never leave them under a shilling?”
“No,” continued the boy, “I love my organ as I do myself, for it is my
only friend, poor organ! it sings to me when I am sad, and cheers me;
and I never play before a house, on purpose to be paid for leaving off,
not I; would I, poor organ?”— looking down the hatchway where it was.
“No, that I never have done, and never will do, though I starve; for
when people drive me away, I do not think my organ is to blame, but
they themselves are to blame; for such people’s musical pipes are
cracked, and grown rusted, that no more music can be breathed into
their souls.”
“No, Carlo; no music like yours, perhaps,” said Harry, with a laugh.
“Ah! there’s the mistake. Though my organ is as full of melody, as a
hive is of bees; yet no organ can make music in unmusical breasts; no
more than my native winds can, when they breathe upon a harp without
chords.”
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