"'Gompany fited mit daple lecks
Till de coonshtable made em shtop';
yet we may quote further from that high source:—
"'Hans Breitmann gife a barty,
Where ish that barty now?
* * * * * *
All goned afay mit der lager pier,
Afay in der Ewigkeit!'"
The Journal gives pleasant glimpses of the Santo Domingo days.
"M. Marne, a Frenchman ninety-seven years old, paid us a visit. Had been secretary of Joseph Buonaparte in Madrid—praised him much. Talked very copiously and not ill. Enjoys full mental and physical activity. Lives at a small village in sight of our windows, but on the other side of the river. Talked much of the Roi Cristophe."
The mention of this old gentleman recalls her visit to a Dominican padre, himself in extreme age, who told her that he had known a negress who lived to the age of one hundred and forty-three; he had confessed and buried her. "She had her teeth and her hair still."
"Not to market to-day, but breakfast early—then all hands to the cathedral to see the high mass performed—to-day in honor of the independence of the island....
"Baez' face, cunning, pretty strong, enjoué, as if he must be, or seem, a bon enfant.... The noise at the elevation of the Host a perfect Babel. Music, 'Ernani,' 'Fra Diavolo,' with some similar things. A single trumpet shrieked at some high moments. The bells rang like a thousand tin pans. Orchestra and chorus not together and both out of tune. The ceremony otherwise perhaps as well as usual. A priest made a brief address in Spanish, praising the day and complimenting the President...."
"Studied Baur, Aristophanes, and 'Etudes sur la Bible.' Music lesson to Maud. O'Sullivan to dine.... Baez sent word that he would visit us between 5 and 6 P.M. We accordingly put things in the best order possible under the circumstances. Ung puo de tualetta for the ladies seemed proper. At dinner received Baez' card with a great dish of fine sapotes. Baez arrived. He speaks French quite tolerably, is affable, and has an intelligent face; in fact looks like a person of marked talent. We talked of things in the United States. He has made fourteen voyages to Europe.... I sang 'Una Barchetta' for him. He came with one servant, who stayed outside—no ceremony and no escort...."
After the beauty of the place—indeed possibly before it—she valued the opportunity that came to her of preaching. On the voyage to Santo Domingo she had learned of a shepherdless flock of colored Protestants, their minister dead, their "elder" disabled by lameness. Here was an opportunity not to be lost. She engaged to hold Sunday evening services in their church, a small wooden building with a mud floor and a mahogany pulpit. The "Reminiscences" describe these services; the tattered hymn-books whose leaves were turned mechanically while the congregation (few of whom could read) sang with a will the hymns they knew by heart; the humble, devout people with their attentive faces.
When Holy Week came, the congregation begged her to hold special services. They wished their young people to understand that these sacred days meant as much to them as to the surrounding Catholics. Accordingly she and her companion "dressed the little church with flowers. It looked charmingly. Flowers all along the railing [here follows in the Journal a pen-and-ink sketch], flowers in the pulpit over my head. Church was crowded. Many people outside and at the windows."
She always remembered with pleasure one feature of her Easter sermon, her attempt to describe Dante's vision of a great cross in the heavens, formed of star clusters, each cluster bearing the name of Christ. "The thought," she says, "that the mighty poet of the fourteenth century should have something to impart to these illiterate negroes was very dear to me."
One of the party has an undying impression of this Easter service: the shabby little chapel crowded with dark faces, and the preacher, standing touched by a ray of sunlight, speaking to that congregation of simple black people. In her notes she speaks of these services.
"A pastoral charge bringing me near to the hearts and sympathies of the people. I have preached five times in the little church, including Good Friday and Easter Monday. This service, which has not been without its difficulties, is so much better to me in remembrance than anything else I have done here that I must make a little break and pause before I speak of other things.
"In this pause I remember my prayer at Puerto Plata, that I and mine might come to this new region with a reverent and teachable spirit. That prayer was an earnest one to me. I hope it has, as all prayers should, accomplished its own fulfilment. I have been here among dear people. I find all the human varieties in this society, not digested and harmonized by noble culture, but existing and asking for the centralizing and discriminating agencies which in civilization sort out the different tastes, characters, and capacities, and assign to each its task, giving devotion its wings and crime its treadmill. This little population in a great country, a country in which Nature allows no one to starve, has lived and so shown its right to live and maintain itself. It has accomplished its political division from a state antipathetic to it, having its dark face turned fixedly towards barbarism [Hayti].
"I stood in a little church in the city and island of Santo Domingo, to preach the glad tidings of the gospel of Peace. It was a humble little temple, with a mud floor, and plastered walls, and a roof which scarcely kept out the rain, but it was a place full of comfort to me and to others. The seats and spaces were all filled, for it had no aisles. The small windows and doors were cushioned, so to speak, with human countenances, wearing an expression of curiosity or attention. The way to the church was lined on both sides with the simple people, who held their service at night because the poverty of their attire made them ashamed to hold it by day. And this crowd came together, Sunday after Sunday, because a woman from a distant country stood in that little church to tell them what a woman can tell about the kingdom of heaven."
Loth as she had been to go to Santo Domingo, she was far more loth to leave it; but the time appointed for her peace crusade in London was at hand, and she could tarry no longer. On April 5 she writes:—
"Ah! my time is nearly out. Dear Santo Domingo, how I do love you, with your childish life, and your ancestral streets—a grandam and a babe! To-day I read my last in Baur and Greek for some time, probably, as must pack to-morrow. As at present advised, God grant that we may come here again."
"April 6. Here to-day and gone to-morrow, literally. Mostly packed—have left out my books for a last sweet morsel.... Did not get that sweet morsel. Was busy all day—farewell calls from friends, little talks, and the fear of sitting down and forgetting my preparations in my books. In the evening the Gautiers came and I played for them to dance. So, one last little gayety in common."