国外文学英文系列 Four Years in Rebel Capitals.docx

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1、国外文学英文系列 Four Years in Rebel CapitalsTitle: Four Years in Rebel Capitals An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to DeathAuthor: T. C. DeLeon IN PLACE OF PREFACE.Fortunate, indeed, is the reader who takes up a volume without preface; of which the persons are left to enact their

2、 own drama and the author does not come before the curtain, like the chorus of Greek tragedy, to speak for them.But, in printing the pages that follow, it may seem needful to ask that they be taken for what they are; simple sketches of the inner life of Rebeldombehind its Chinese wall of wood and st

3、eelduring those unexampled four years of its existence.Written almost immediately after the war, from notes and recollections gathered during its most trying scenes, these papers are now revised, condensed and formulated for the first time. In years past, some of their crude predecessors have appear

4、edas random articlesin the columns of the Mobile Sunday Times, Appletons Journal, the Louisville Courier-Journal, the Philadelphia Times and other publications.Even in their present condensation and revision, they claim only to be simple memoranda of the result of great events; and of their reaction

5、 upon the mental and moral tone of the southern people, rather than a record of those events themselves.This volume aspires neither to the height of history, nor to the depths of political analysis; for it may still be too early for either, or for both, of these. Equally has it resisted temptation t

6、o touch on many topicsnot strictly belonging inside the Southern Capitalsstill vexed by political agitation, or personal interest. These, if unsettled by dire arbitrament of the sword, must be left to Time and his best coadjutor, sober second-thought.Campaigns and battles have already surfeited most

7、 readers; and their detailsusually so incorrectly stated by the inexperthave little to do with a relation of things within the Confederacy, as they then appeared to the masses of her people. Such, therefore, are simply touched upon in outline, where necessary to show their reaction upon the popular

8、pulse, or to correct some flagrant error regarding that.To the vast majority of those without her boundariesto very many, indeed, within themrealities of the South, during the war, were a sealed book. False impressions, on many important points, were disseminated; and these, because unnoted, have gr

9、own to proportions of accepted truth. A few of them, it may not yet be too late to correct.While the pages that follow fail not to record some weaknesses in our people, or some flagrant errors of their leaders, they yet endeavor to chronicle faithfully heroic constancy of men, and selfless devotion

10、of women, whose peers the student of History may challenge that vaunting Muse to show.To prejudiced provincialism, on the one side, they may appear too lukewarm; by stupid fanaticism on the other, they may be called treasonable. Butwritten without prejudice, and equally without fear, or favorthey ha

11、ve aimed only at impartial truth, and at nearest possible correctness of narration.Indubitably the war proved that there were great men, on both the sides to it; and, to-day, the little men on eitherMay profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it!The sole object kept in view was

12、 to paint honestly the inner life of the South; the general tone of her people, under strain and privation unparalleled; the gradual changes of society and character in the struggling nationin a clear, unshaded outline of things as they were.Should this volume at all succeed in giving this; should i

13、t uproot one false impression, to plant a single true one in its place, then has it fully equaled the aspiration ofTHE AUTHOR.Mobile, Ala., June 25, 1890. CHAPTER I.THE FOREHEAD OF THE STORM.The cloud no bigger than a mans hand had risen.It became visible to all in Washington over the southern horiz

14、on. All around to East and West was but the dull, dingy line of the storm that was soon to burst in wild fury over that section, leaving only seared desolation in its wake. Already the timid and wary began to take in sail and think of a port; while the most reckless looked from the horizon to each o

15、thers faces, with restless and uneasy glances.In the days of 1860, as everybody knows, the society of Washington city was composed of two distinct circles, tangent at no one point. The larger, outer circle whirled around with crash and fury several months in each year; then, spinning out its centrif

16、ugal force, flew into minute fragments and scattered to extreme ends of the land. The smaller onethe inner circlerevolved sedately in its accustomed grooves, moving no whit faster for the buzz of the monster that surrounded and half hid it for so long; and when that spun itself to pieces moved on as

17、 undisturbed as Werthers Charlotte.The outer circle drew with it all the outside population, all the dwellers in tents, from the busiest lobbyman to the laziest looker-on. All the hotel peoplethose caravans that yearly poured unceasing into the not too comfortable caravanserai down townstretched eag

18、er hands toward this circle; for, to them, it meant Washington. Having clutched an insecure grasp upon its rim, away they went with a fizz and a spin, dizzy and delighteddevil take the hindmost! Therein did the thousand lobbyists, who yearly came to roll logs, pull wires and juggle through bills, fi

19、nd their congenial prey.Who shall rise up and write the secret history of that wonderful committee and of the ways and means it used to prey impartially upon government and client? Who shall record the deeds without a name, hatched out of eggs from the midnight terrapin; the strange secrets drawn ou

20、t by the post-prandial corkscrew? Who shall justly calculate the influence the lobby and its workings had in hastening that inevitable, the war between the states?Into this outer circle whirled that smaller element which came to the Capital to spend moneynot to make it. Diamonds flash, point lace fl

21、ounces flaunt! Who will stop that mighty whirligig to inspect whether the champagne is real, or the turtle is prime?Allons! le jeu est fait!Camp-followers and hangers-on of Congress, many of its members from the West, claim agents from Kansas, husbandless married women from California and subterrane

22、an politicians from everywhere herein found elements as congenial as profitable. All stirred into the great olla podrida and helped to Make the hell broth boil and bubble.The inner circle was the real society of Washington. Half submerged for half of each year by accumulating streams of strangers, i

23、t ever rose the samefresh and unstained by deposit from the baser flood. Therein, beyond doubt, one found the most cultured coteries, the courtliest polish and the simplest elegance that the drawing-rooms of this continent could boast. The bench and the bar of the highest court lent their loftiest i

24、ntellects and keenest wits. Careful selections were there from Congress of those who held senates on their lips and kept together the machinery of an expanding nation; and those rising men, soon to replace, or to struggle with them, across the narrow Potomac near by. To this society, too, the foreig

25、n legations furnished a strong element. Bred in courts, familiar with the theories of all the world, these men must prove valuable and agreeable addition to any society into which they are thrown.It is rather the fashion just now to inveigh against foreigners in society, to lay at their door many of

26、 the peccadilloes that have crept into our city life; but the diplomats are, with rare exceptions, men of birth, education and of proved ability in their own homes. Their ethics may be less strict than those which obtain about Plymouth Rock, but experience with them will prove that, however loose th

27、eir own code, they carefully conform to the custom of others; that if they have any scars across their morals, they have also the tact and good taste to keep them decorously draped from sight.In the inner circle of Washington were those officers of the army and navy, selected for ability or serviceo

28、r possibly by grace of cousinshipto hold posts near the government; and, with full allowance for favoritism, some of these were men of culture, travel and attainmentmost of them were gentlemen. And the nucleus, as well as the amalgam of all these elements, was the resident families of old Washington

29、ians. These had lived there so long as to be able to winnow the chaff and throw the refuse off.There has ever been much talk about the corruption of Washington, easy hints about Sodom, with a general sweep at the depravity of its social system. But it is plain these facile fault-finders knew no more

30、 of its inner circleand for its resident society only is any city responsiblethan they did of the court of the Grand Turk. Such critics had come to Washington, had made their dicker, danced at the hotel hops, and been jostled on the Avenue. If they essayed an entrance into the charmed circle, they f

31、ailed.Year after year, even the Titans of the lobby assailed the gates of that heaven refused them; and year after year they fell back, baffled and grommelling, into the pit of that outer circle whence they came. Yet every year, especially in the autumn and spring, behind that Chinese wall was a rou

32、nd of entertainments less costly than the crushes of the critic circle, but stamped with quiet elegance aped in vain by the non-elect. And when the whirl whirled out at last, with the departing Congress; when the howling crowd had danced its mad carmagnole and its vulgar echoes had died into distanc

33、e, then Washington society was itself again. Then the sociality of intercoursethat peculiar charm which made it so uniquebecame once more free and unrestrained.Passing from the reek of a hotel ball, or the stewing soiree of a Cabinet secretary into the quiet salon of a West End home, the very atmosp

34、here was different, and comparison came of itself with that old Quartier Saint Germain, which kept undefiled from the pitch that smirched its Paris, through all the hideous dramas of the bonnet rouge.The influence of political place in this country has long spawned a social degradation. Where the gi

35、ft is in the hands of a fixed power, its seeking is lowering enough; but when it is besought from the enlightened voter himself, the scurvy politician becomes a reality painfully frequent. Soliciting the ballot over a glass of green corn juice in the back room of a country grocery, or flattering the

36、 cara sposa of the farmhouse, with squalling brat upon his knee, is scarcely calculated to make the best of men more of an ornament to society. Constant contact with sharpers and constant effort to be sharper than they is equally as apt to blunt his sense of delicacy as it is to unfit one for higher

37、 responsibilities of official station. So it was not unnatural that that society of Washington, based wholly on politics, was not found wholly clean. But under the seething surfacefirst visible to the casual glancewas a substratum as pure as it was solid and unyielding.Habitues of twenty years remar

38、ked that, with all the giddy whirl of previous winters in the outer circle, none had approached in mad rapidity that of 1860-61. The rush of aimless visiting, matines and dinners, balls and suppers, followed each other without cessation; dress and diamonds, equipage and cards, all cost more than eve

39、r before. This might be the last of it, said an uneasy sense of the coming storm; and in the precedent sultriness, the thousands who had come to make money vied with the tens who came to spend it in mad distribution of the proceeds. Madame, who had made an immense investment of somebodys capital in

40、diamonds and lace, must let the world see them. Mademoiselle must make a certain exhibit of shapely shoulders and of telling stride in the German; and time was shortening fast. And Knower, of the Third House, had put all the proceeds of engineering that last bill through, into gorgeous plate. It wou

41、ld never do to waste it, for Knower meant business; and this might be the end of the thing.So the stream rushed on, catching the weak and timid ones upon its brink and plunging them into the whirling vortex. And still the rusty old wheels revolved, as creakily as ever, at the Capital. Blobb, of Oreg

42、on, made machine speeches to the sleepy House, but neither he, nor they, noted the darkening atmosphere without. Senator Jenks took his half-hourly nip with laudable punctuality, thereafter rising eloquent to call Mr. Presidents attention to that little bill; and all the while that huge engine, the

43、lobby, steadily pumped away in the political basement, sending streams of hot corruption into every artery of the government.Suddenly a sullen reverberation echoes over the Potomac from the South. The long-threatened deed is done at last. South Carolina has seceded, and the first link is rudely stri

44、cken from the chain.There is a little start; that is all. The Third House stays for a second its gold spoon; and, perhaps, a trifle of the turtle spills before reaching its mouth. Madame rearranges her parure and smoothes her ruffled lace; while Mademoiselle pouts a little, then studies her card for

45、 the next waltzer. Senator Jenks takes his nip just a trifle more regularly; and Blobb, of Oregon, draws a longer breath before his next period. As for the lobby-pump, its piston grows red-hot and its valves fly wide open, with the work it does; while thicker and more foul are the streams it sends a

46、broad.For awhile there is some little talk around Willards about the secesh; and the old soldiers wear grave faces as they pass to and fro between the War Department and General Scotts headquarters. But to the outer circle, it is only a nine-day wonder; while the dancing and dining army men soon mak

47、e light of the matter.But the stone the surface closes smoothly over at the center makes large ripples at the edges. Faces that were long before now begin to lengthen; and thoughtful men wag solemn heads as they pass, or pause to take each other by the buttonhole. More frequent knots discuss the sta

48、tus in hotel lobbies and even in the passages of the departments; careful non-partisans keep their lips tightly closed, and hot talk, pro or con, begins to grow more popular.One day I find, per card, that the Patagonian Ambassador dines me at seven. As it is not a state dinner I go, to find it even more stupid. At dessert the reserve wears off and all soon get deep in the Star of the West episode.Looks mighty bad now, sir. Something must be done, sir, and soon, too, says Diggs, a hard-working M.C. from the North-west. But, as yet, I dont seewhat, exactly!Will your government use f