Home as Found - James Fenimore Cooper (moboreader TXT) 📗

all classes. Even women and clergymen are infected, and we exist under the active control of the most corrupting of all influences--'the love of money.' I should despair of the country altogether, did I not feel certain that the disease is too violent to last, and entertain a hope that the season of calm reflection and of repentance, that is to follow, will be in proportion to its causes."

After taking this view of the town, the party returned to Hudson Square, where the baronet dined, it being his intention to go to Washington on the following day. The leave-taking in the evening was kind and friendly; Mr. Effingham, who had a sincere regard for his late fellow-traveller, cordially inviting him to visit him in the mountains in June.

As Sir George took his leave, the bells began to ring for a fire. In New-York one gets so accustomed to these alarms, that near an hour had passed before any of the Effingham family began to reflect on the long continuance of the cries. A servant was then sent out to ascertain the reason, and his report made the matter more serious than usual.

We believe that, in the frequency of these calamities, the question lies between Constantinople and New-York. It is a common occurrence for twenty or thirty buildings to be burnt down, in the latter place, and for the residents of the same ward to remain in ignorance of the circumstance, until enlightened on the fact by the daily prints; the constant repetition of the alarms hardening the ear and the feelings against the appeal. A fire of greater extent than common, had occurred only a night or two previously to this; and a rumour now prevailed, that the severity of the weather, and the condition of the hoses and engines, rendered the present danger double. On hearing this intelligence, the Messrs. Effinghams wrapped themselves up in their over-coats, and went together into the streets.

"This seems something more than usual, Ned," said John Effingham, glancing his eye upward at the lurid vault, athwart which gleams of fiery light began to shine; "the danger is not distant, and it seems serious."

Following the direction of the current, they soon found the scene of the conflagration, which was in the very heart of those masses of warehouses, or stores, that John Effingham had commented on, so lately. A short street of high buildings was already completely in flames, and the danger of approaching the enemy, added to the frozen condition of the apparatus, the exhaustion of the firemen from their previous efforts, and the intense coldness of the night, conspired to make the aspect of things in the highest degree alarming.

The firemen of New-York have that superiority over those of other places, that the veteran soldier obtains over the recruit. But the best troops can be appalled, and, on this memorable occasion, these celebrated firemen, from a variety of causes, became for a time, little more than passive spectators of the terrible scene.

There was an hour or two when all attempts at checking the conflagration seemed really hopeless, and even the boldest and the most persevering scarcely knew which way to turn, to be useful. A failure of water, the numerous points that required resistance, the conflagration extending in all directions from a common centre, by means of numberless irregular and narrow streets, and the impossibility of withstanding the intense heat, in the choked passages, soon added despair to the other horrors of the scene.

They who stood the fiery masses, were freezing on one side with the Greenland cold of the night, while their bodies were almost blistered with the fierce flames on the other. There was something frightful in this contest of the elements, nature appearing to condense the heat within its narrowest possible limits, as if purposely to increase its fierceness. The effects were awful; for entire buildings would seem to dissolve at their touch, as the forked flames enveloped them in sheets of fire.

Every one being afoot, within sound of the alarm, though all the more vulgar cries had ceased, as men would deem it mockery to cry murder in a battle, Sir George Templemore met his friends, on the margin of this sea of fire. It was now drawing towards morning, and the conflagration was at its height, having already laid waste a nucleus of blocks , and it was extending by many lines, in every possible direction.

"Here is a fearful admonition for those who set their hearts on riches," observed Sir George Templemore, recalling the conversation of the previous day. "What, indeed, are the designs of man, as compared with the will of Providence!"

"I foresee that this is le commencement de la fin ," returned John Effingham. "The destruction is already so great, as to threaten to bring down with it the usual safe-guards against such losses, and one pin knocked out of so frail and delicate a fabric, the whole will become loose, and fall to pieces."

"Will nothing be done to arrest the flames?"

"As men recover from the panic, their plans will improve and their energies will revive. The wider streets are already reducing the fire within more certain limits, and they speak of a favourable change of wind. It is thought five hundred buildings have already been consumed, in scarcely half a dozen hours."

That Exchange, which had so lately resembled a bustling temple of Mammon, was already a dark and sheeted ruin, its marble walls being cracked, defaced, tottering, or fallen. It lay on the confines of the ruin, and our party was enabled to take their position near it, to observe the scene. All in their immediate vicinity was assuming the stillness of desolation, while the flushes of fierce light in the distance marked the progress of the conflagration. Those who knew the localities, now began to speak of the natural or accidental barriers, such as the water, the slips, and the broader streets, as the only probable means of arresting the destruction. The crackling of the flames grew distant fast, and the cries of the firemen were now scarcely audible.

At this period in the frightful scene, a party of seamen arrived, bearing powder, in readiness to blow up various buildings, in the streets that possessed of themselves, no sufficient barriers to the advance of the flame. Led by their officers, these gallant fellows, carrying in their arms the means of destruction, moved up steadily to the verge of the torrents of fire, and planted their kegs; laying their trains with the hardy indifference that practice can alone create, and with an intelligence that did infinite credit to their coolness. This deliberate courage was rewarded with complete success, and house crumbled to pieces after house under the dull explosions, happily without an accident.

From this time the flames became less ungovernable, though the day dawned and advanced, and another night succeeded, before they could be said to be got fairly under. Weeks, and even months passed, however, ere the smouldering ruins ceased to send up smoke, the fierce element continuing to burn, like a slumbering volcano, as it might be in the bowels of the earth.

The day that succeeded this disaster, was memorable for the rebuke it gave the rapacious longing for wealth. Men who had set their hearts on gold, and who prided themselves on their possession, and on that only, were made to feel its insanity; and they who had walked abroad as gods, so lately, began to experience how utterly insignificant are the merely rich, when stripped of their possessions. Eight hundred buildings containing fabrics of every kind, and the raw material in various forms, had been destroyed, as it were in the twinkling of an eye.

A faint voice was heard from the pulpit, and there was a moment when those who remembered a better state of things, began to fancy that principles would once more assert their ascendency, and that the community would, in a measure, be purified. But this expectation ended in disappointment, the infatuation being too wide-spread and corrupting, to be stopped by even this check, and the rebuke was reserved for a form that seems to depend on a law of nature, that of causing a vice to bring with it its own infallible punishment.

Chapter VIII.

"First, tell me, have you ever been at Pisa."

SHAKSPEARE.

The conflagration alluded to, rather than described, in the proceeding chapter, threw a gloom over the gaieties of New-York, if that ever could be properly called gay, which was little more than a strife in prodigality and parade, and leaves us little more to say of the events of the winter. Eve regretted very little the interruption to scenes in which she had found no pleasure, however much she lamented the cause; and she and Grace passed the remainder of the season quietly, cultivating the friendship of such women as Mrs. Hawker and Mrs. Bloomfield, and devoting hours to the improvement of their minds and tastes, without ever again venturing however, within the hallowed precincts of such rooms as those of Mrs. Legend.

One consequence of a state of rapacious infatuation, like that which we have just related, is the intensity of selfishness which smothers all recollection of the past, and all just anticipations of the future, by condensing life, with its motives and enjoyments, into the present moment. Captain Truck, therefore, was soon forgotten, and the literati, as that worthy seaman had termed the associates of Mrs. Legend, remained just as vapid, as conceited, as ignorant, as imitative, as dependent, and as provincial as ever.

As the season advanced, our heroine began to look with longings towards the country. The town life of an American offers little to one accustomed to a town life in older and more permanently regulated communities; and Eve was already heartily weary of crowded and noisy balls, (for a few were still given;) belles , the struggles of an uninstructed taste, and a representation in which extravagance was so seldom relieved by the elegance and convenience of a condition of society, in which more attention is paid to the fitness of things.

The American spring is the least pleasant of its four seasons, its character being truly that of "winter lingering in the lap of May." Mr. Effingham, who the reader will probably suspect, by this time, to be a descendant of a family of the same name, that we have had occasion to introduce into another work, had sent orders to have his country residence prepared for the reception of our party; and it was with a feeling of delight that Eve stepped on board a steam-boat to escape from a town that, while it contains so much that is worthy of any capital, contains so much more that is unfit for any place, in order to breathe the pure air, and to enjoy the tranquil pleasare of the country. Sir George Templemore had returned from his southern journey, and made one of the party, by express arrangement.

"Now, Eve," said Grace Van Cortlandt, as the boat glided along the wharves, "if it were any person but you, I should feel confident of having something to show that would extort admiration."

"You are safe enough, in that respect, for a more imposing object in its way, than this very vessel, eye of mine, never beheld. It is positively the only thing that deserves the name of magnificent I have yet seen, since our return,--unless, indeed, it may be magnificent projects."

"I am glad, dear coz, there is this one magnificent object, then, to satisfy a taste so fastidious."

As Grace's little foot moved, and her voice betrayed vexation, the whole