CÀ ET LÀ.

BY THE FLÂNEUR.

It is the beginning, the premier pas qui coute, in all compositions. Once started, there is no difficulty in proceeding; but how to begin! Shall we borrow of the prolific James?

'Upon a lovely morning in November, that season of the year when the woods have doffed their summer green to robe themselves in sombre russet, two horsemen were seen riding down a glade of one of those noble old forests which are still to be met with in some parts of England. The elder of the two, a fine, soldier-like figure, sat his horse,' etc., etc. And there we will leave him, and look out for our own beginning. Strange that a chapter on this subject is nowhere to be found in any book on rhetoric or criticism. For our part we are determined not to begin at all for the present, but to propound a number of queries suggested to us by the name of the exuberant novelist above mentioned.

First, then: Why are tears always called 'pearly drops?' Would not that definition apply better to drops of milk? Lands have been said to flow with milk, but never did the wildest romancer assert that the lachrymal duct in the human subject was a milky-way.

Then, why does the chevelure of dark-haired persons always resemble the 'raven's wing?' Why not his tail-feathers, occasionally, for the sake of variety? Or a crow's wing, a black-bird's wing? Or why not say, 'Dark as the wool on negro's poll?'—or as the mane of a bay horse?—or 'as black as my hat?' Is it absolutely necessary that it should always be a raven's wing?

When you say, 'cherry lips,' do you particularize sufficiently? Some cherries are yellow, some black. Should you not say 'red cherry lips? If any 'young orphan' happens to be engaged in novel-writing when cherries are in season, let him place two in juxta-position, and remark what a mouth such a pair of labia would make! Why are these cherry lips always slightly parted? Does not this give that stupid expression which the French call 'bouche béante?

Why are all necks, not bull-necks, 'swan-like?' Why does swan-like in necks mean beautiful and well-proportioned, and crane-like abominably extended, when the neck of a crane is no longer than that of a swan? Why are handsome noses always 'chiselled?' Why are fingers always 'taper?' And finally, for we must stop somewhere, why are beauties 'lovelier far in tears?' Did swollen eyes, bound with red, and nose pinkish in tinge at its extremity, ever improve the appearance of any mortal since the flood?

As it is not fair to destroy without creating something to supply the place of the destroyed, we take the liberty of showing our own ideal in stories:

'Upon a crimson sofa, in a darkened room, sits a lovely lady. Bright are her eyes as gas-lights in a shop-window; dark her hair as Day and Martin's best; and her red lips contrast with her white skin as do the red stripes with the white in Stewart's peppermint candy. Salt tears trickle from her eyes as fall the drops from an umbrella in a gentle November drizzle; and James's last novel lies unnoticed upon her lap. Why sits the lovely lady on the crimson sofa? And why does she rest her pensive and pomatum'd brow upon her embroidered handkerchief?'

That we flatter ourselves is an exordium, over which a discerning public may hang entranced.

'This young lady was hight Liner, Catherine Julia Liner. She wept for love of Shuffleshank, her inconstant beau.

'For one whole season Shuffleshank, whose soul, if he had any, was in his toes, hovered about Miss Liner, and attended her every where. He waltzed with her night after night, (and Shuffleshank twirled divinely,) and in the pauses of the dance he wiped the perspiration from his face, and with his touching and tender eyes,

until her parents and herself were quite certain of an offer. He certainly owed her one. She deserved some compensation for listening to his interminable stories, which were as monotonous as long. So celebrated a narrator was he, that his friends, when endeavoring to give each other an idea of some distance traversed, would say, 'It was one of Shuffleshank's stories,' or two stories. Sometimes unfortunate men could tell of a six-story walk, and these were looked upon as persons of great strength and vast powers of endurance. But the heartless, ungrateful Shuffleshank allowed the mercury to descend in the thermometer of his affections for Miss Liner, and gradually his attentions grew colder and colder, until they sunk below zero and became neglect. But the faithless one did not long survive his treachery. He broke his wind in attempting to finish his tenth story that day, and expired soon after suddenly. He was discovered lying on his back, his toes turned out, and his head resting on a volume of Cotillons à quatre mains. His executors found among his papers the first sheet of a pamphlet on his favorite science, waltzing, dated only a few days before his decease.

You will pardon us, friend Knickerbocker, for giving your readers one or two original rules of so great a professor:

'Rule I. The cavalier should endeavor to waltz with women of a suitable size. The relative test is, that the noses of the couple be on a level.

'Rule II. He should put his right arm as far round the lady's waist as possible, and draw her toward him with the other hand, so that the noses before mentioned shall be not more than half an inch apart.

'Rule III. In case the lady should be inclined to jump, he must hold her down to the floor by pressing firmly upon her tournure.'

Society has indeed suffered a sad loss by his untimely death. But before we go any farther with our story, we will give a crow-quill croquis of the career of Miss Catherine Liner, down to the period of Shuffleshank's catastrophe.

'Miss Liner was of a good family: her pa, a retired merchant, with some tincture of the humanities, and she herself well educated; that is, she knew enough Italian to say pesch'e; enough German for 'es ist warm;' and enough French for 'Oh, vee.' Music she loved to distraction. True, she sometimes nodded at a concert, but then it was only to beat the time, and when awakened by a crash, she would shake her head in languid ecstasy, and sigh out a sentimental 'ah!' Or, if the nature of the air required it, she could shout in a voice sonorous as a cricket's: 'Divine!' 'magnifique!' 'grandioso!' or the hardest word she might remember out of any language. The gentlemen in waiting caught the cue; and men who had not ear enough to keep time when dancing, were unintelligibly scientific in allegros and andantes, and made frequent and familiar allusions to Hummel, Meyerbeer, Beethoven, and Weber. We ourselves must plead guilty of claiming an acquaintance where we never had an introduction. How true is that saying of Fuller: 'The best of God's children have a smack of hypocrisy!'

Miss Catherine's papa Silas was rich, and Miss Catherine was fashionable. She came out and offered a book-muslin view of herself to two hundred and fifty warm people. Bouquets, ay, double-bouquets, were sent her by insane beaux, by means of which young gentlemen who only knew two ladies in the room were converted into flower-stands for an hour or two, trying to look easy and at home, by gently rubbing the camelias against their noses from time to time. And when Miss Catherine had given a ball herself, then did she become perfect in manner; then handled she her fan with consummate dexterity, and adopted an expression of intense fashionable agony when a badly-dressed woman passed by, or a clumsy Unshuffleshankian waltzer ran against her. Then sighed she in German to a gentleman from Connecticut, lisped in French to a dandy from Philadelphia, and whispered in Tuscan to her Italian master, if he happened to be within hail. Then waltzed she with young men, warm or cold, dry or moist; she would have taken a turn with a steaming tea-kettle, if tea-kettles wore white vests and valsed. Then danced she like a Bacchante, and only left the ball-room just before the lights; while melancholy Silas, pining for his pillow, clasped his hands and sometimes muttered, 'Ultima July;' and sometimes, as if desparing of rest below, 'in cœlo quies.' To have seen Miss Catherine Julia, you would have sworn that she was a descendant of Lord Lanesboro', si passionné pour la danse, who, after the death of Prince George of Denmark, waited upon Queen Anne, and advised her to take a quarter, by way of consolation.

Let us pause a while to take breath.