Home as Found - James Fenimore Cooper (ebook reader wifi txt) 📗

on the

plan of some edifice of Europe, though I forget the name of the

particular temple; it is not, however, the Parthenon, nor the temple

of Minerva."

 

"I hope, at least," said Mr. Effingham, leading the way up a little

lawn, "it will not turn out to be the Temple of the Winds."

 

Chapter XI.

 

"Nay, I'll come; if I lose a scruple of this sport, let me be oiled

to death with melancholy."--SHAKSPEARE.

 

The progress of society in America, has been distinguished by several

peculiarities that do not so properly belong to the more regular and

methodical advances of civilization in other parts of the world. On

the one hand, the arts of life, like Minerva, who was struck out of

the intellectual being of her father at a blow, have started full-

grown into existence, as the legitimate inheritance of the colonists,

while, on the other, every thing tends towards settling down into a

medium, as regards quality, a consequence of the community-character

of the institutions. Every thing she had seen that day, had struck

Eve as partaking of this mixed nature, in which, while nothing was

vulgar, little even approached to that high standard, that her

European education had taught her to esteem perfect. In the Wigwam,

however, as her father's cousin had seen fit to name the family

dwelling, there was more of keeping, and a closer attention to the

many little things she had been accustomed to consider essential to

comfort and elegance, and she was better satisfied with her future

home, than with most she had seen since her return to America.

 

As we have described the interior of this house, in another work,

little remains to be said on the subject, at present; for, while John

Effingham had completely altered its external appearance, its

internal was not much changed. It is true, the cloud-coloured

covering had disappeared, as had that stoop also, the columns of

which were so nobly upheld by their super-structure; the former

having given place to a less obtrusive roof, that was regularly

embattled, and the latter having been swallowed up by a small

entrance tower, that the new architect had contrived to attach to the

building with quite as much advantage to it, in the way of comfort,

as in the way of appearance. In truth, the Wigwam had none of the

more familiar features of a modern American dwelling of its class.

There was not a column about it, whether Grecian, Roman, or Egyptian;

no Venetian blinds; no verandah or piazza; no outside paint, nor gay

blending of colours. On the contrary, it was a plain old structure,

built with great solidity, and of excellent materials, and in that

style of respectable dignity and propriety, that was perhaps a little

more peculiar to our fathers than it is peculiar to their successors,

our worthy selves. In addition to the entrance tower, or porch, on

its northern front, John Effingham had also placed a prettily devised

conceit on the southern, by means of which the abrupt transition from

an inner room to the open air was adroitly avoided. He had, moreover,

removed the "firstly" of the edifice, and supplied its place with a

more suitable addition that contained some of the offices, while it

did not disfigure the building, a rare circumstance in an

architectural after-thought.

 

Internally, the Wigwam had gradually been undergoing improvements,

ever since that period, which, in the way of the arts, if not in the

way of chronology, might be termed the dark ages of Otsego. The great

hall had long before lost its characteristic decoration of the

severed arm of Wolf, a Gothic paper that was better adapted to the

really respectable architecture of the room being its substitute; and

even the urn that was thought to contain the ashes of Queen Dido,

like the pitcher that goes often to the well, had been broken in a

war of extermination that had been carried on against the cobwebs by

a particularly notable housekeeper. Old Homer, too, had gone the way

of all baked clay. Shakspeare, himself, had dissolved into dust,

"leaving not a wreck behind;" and of Washington and Franklin, even,

indigenous as they were, there remained no vestiges. Instead of these

venerable memorials of the past, John Effingham, who retained a

pleasing recollection of their beauties as they had presented

themselves to his boyish eyes, had bought a few substitutes in a New-

York shop, and _a_ Shakspeare, and _a_ Milton, and _a_ Caesar, and _a_

Dryden, and _a_ Locke, as the writers of heroic so beautifully

express it, were now seated in tranquil dignity on the old medallions

that had held their illustrious predecessors. Although time had, as

yet, done little for this new collection in the way of colour, dust

and neglect were already throwing around them the tint of antiquity.

 

"The lady," to use the language of Mr. Bragg, who did the cooking of

the Wigwam, having every thing in readiness, our party took their

seats at the breakfast table, which was spread in the great hall, as

soon as each had paid a little attention to the _toilette_. As the

service was neither very scientific, nor sufficiently peculiar,

either in the way of elegance or of its opposite quality, to be

worthy of notice, we shall pass it over in silence.

 

"One will not quite so much miss European architecture in this

house," said Eve, as she took her seat at table, glancing an eye at

the spacious and lofty room, in which they were assembled; "here is

at least size and its comforts, if not elegance."

 

"Had you lost all recollection of this building, my child?" inquired

her father, kindly; "I was in hopes you would feel some of the

happiness of returning home, when you again found yourself beneath

its roof!"

 

"I should greatly dislike to have all the antics I have been playing

in my own dressing-room exposed," returned Eve, rewarding the

parental solicitude of her father by a look of love, "though Grace,

between her laughing and her tears, has threatened me with such a

disgrace. Ann Sidley has also been weeping, and, as even Annette,

always courteous and considerate, has shed a few tears in the way of

sympathy, you ought not to imagine that I have been altogether so

stoical as not to betray some feeling, dear father. But the paroxysm

is past, and I am beginning to philosophize. I hope, cousin Jack, you

have not forgotten that the drawing-room is a lady's empire!"

 

"I have respected your rights, Miss Effingham, though, with a wish to

prevent any violence to your tastes, I have caused sundry

antediluvian paintings and engravings to be consigned to the--"

 

"Garret?" inquired Eve, so quickly as to interrupt the speaker.

 

"Fire," coolly returned her cousin. "The garret is now much too good

for them; that part of the house being converted into sleeping-rooms

for the maids. Mademoiselle Annette would go into hysterics, were she

to see the works of art, that satisfied the past generation of

masters in this country, in too close familiarity with her Louvre-

ized eyes."

 

"_Point du tout, monsieur_," said Mademoiselle Viefville, innocently;

"_Annette a du gout dans son metier sans doute_, but she is too well

bred to expect _impossibilites._ No doubt she would have conducted

herself with decorum."

 

Every body laughed, for much light-heartedness prevailed at that

board, and the conversation continued.

 

"I shall be satisfied if Annette escape convulsions," Eve added, "a

refined taste being her weakness; and, to be frank, what I recollect

of the works you mention, is not of the most flattering nature."

 

"And yet," observed Sir George, "nothing has surprised me more than

the respectable state of the arts of engraving and painting in this

country. It was unlooked for, and the pleasure has probably been in

proportion to the surprise."

 

"In that you are very right, Sir George Templemore," John Effingham

answered; "but the improvement is of very recent date. He who

remembers an American town half a century ago, will see a very

different thing in an American town of to-day; and this is equally

true of the arts you mention, with the essential difference that the

latter are taking a right direction under a proper instruction, while

the former are taking a wrong direction, under the influence of

money, that has no instruction. Had I left much of the old furniture,

or any of the old pictures in the Wigwam, we should have had the

bland features of Miss Effingham in frowns, instead of bewitching

smiles, at this very moment."

 

"And yet I have seen fine old furniture in this country, cousin

Jack."

 

"Very true; though not in this part of it. The means of conveyance

were wanting half a century since, and few people risk finery of any

sort on corduroys. This very house had some respectable old things,

that were brought here by dint of money, and they still remain; but

the eighteenth century in general, may be set down as a very dark

antiquity in all this region."

 

When the repast was over, Mr. Effingham led his guests and daughter

through the principal apartments, sometimes commending, and sometimes

laughing, at the conceits of his kinsman. The library was a good

sized room; good sized at least for a country in which domestic

architecture, as well as public architecture, is still in the

chrysalis state. Its walls were hung with an exceedingly pretty

gothic paper, in green, but over each window was a chasm in the upper

border; and as this border supplied the arches, the unity of the

entire design was broken in no less than four places, that being the

precise number of the windows. The defect soon attracted the eye of

Eve, and she was not slow in demanding an explanation.

 

"The deficiency is owing to an American accident," returned her

cousin; "one of those calamities of which you are fated to experience

many, as the mistress of an American household. No more of the border

was to be bought in the country, and this is a land of shops and not

of _fabricants_. At Paris, Mademoiselle, one would send to the paper-

maker for a supply; but, alas! he that has not enough of a thing with

us, is as badly off as if he had none. We are consumers, and not

producers of works of art. It is a long way to send to France for ten

or fifteen feet of paper hangings, and yet this must be done, or my

beautiful gothic arches will remain forever without their key-

stones!"

 

"One sees the inconvenience of this," observed Sir George--"we feel

it, even in England, in all that relates to imported things."

 

"And we, in nearly all things, but food."

 

"And does not this show that America can never become a manufacturing

country?" asked the baronet, with the interest an intelligent

Englishman ever feels in that all-absorbing question. "If you cannot

manufacture an article as simple as that of paper-hangings, would it

not be well to turn your attention, altogether, to agriculture?"

 

As the feeling of this interrogatory was much more apparent than its

logic, smiles passed from one to the other, though John Effingham,

who really had a regard for Sir George, was content to make an

evasive reply, a singular proof of amity, in a man of his caustic

temperament.

 

The survey of the house, on the whole, proved satisfactory to its

future mistress, who complained, however, that it was furnished too

much like a town residence.

 

"For," she added, "you will remember, cousin Jack, that our visits

here will be something like a _villeggiatura_."

 

"Yes, yes, my fair lady; it will not be long before your Parisian and

Roman tastes will be ready to pronounce the whole country a

_villeggiatura!_"

 

"This is the penalty, Eve, one pays for being a Hajji," observed

Grace, who had been closely watching the expression of the others'

countenances; for, agreeably to her view of things, the Wigwam wanted

nothing to render it a perfect abode. "The things that _we_ enjoy,

_you_ despise."

 

"That is an argument, my dear coz, that would apply equally well, as

a reason for preferring brown sugar to white."

 

"In coffee, certainly, Miss Eve," put in the attentive Aristabulus,

who having acquired this taste, in virtue of an economical mother,

really fancied it a pure one. "Every body, in these regions, prefers

the brown in coffee."

 

"_Oh, mon pere et ma mere, comme je vous en veux,_" said Eve, without

attending to the nice distinctions of Mr. Bragg, which savoured a

little too much of the neophyte in cookery, to find favour in the

present company, "_comme je vous en veux_ for having neglected so

many beautiful sites, to place this building in the very spot it

occupies."

 

"In that respect, my child, we may rather be grateful at finding so

comfortable a house, at all. Compared with the civilization that then

surrounded it, this dwelling was a palace at the time of its

erection; bearing some such relation to the humbler structures around

it, as the _chateau_ bears to the cottage. Remember that brick had

never before been