March 1841
Louis Fitzgerald Tasistro (1808–1868) came to the United States from Ireland as a young man. Although he played on the New York stage, he was not particularly successful, so he turned to the Southern stage where he did little better. His specialty was tragic Shakespearean roles. He lectured in the Northeast and, as evidenced in the following passage, in Montgomery. He served as a journalist for a Boston newspaper and he also published a novel, and, as a travel writer, the two-volume Random Shots. Before the Civil War, he worked as a translator for the U.S. State Department, as well as teaching languages in Washington. Later, he returned to the New York theater. By 1872, Tasistro was so ill and destitute that his friend Walt Whitman made a public appeal for his relief.
Random Shots has long digressions on a variety of subjects, but Tasistro does write interesting descriptive passages. His seriousness, however, is questionable. He certainly exhibits the Blarney of an Irishman.
Louis Fitzgerald Tasistro, Random Shots and Southern Breezes, 2 vols. (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1842), II: 81–83, 89, 90–91, 96–98, and 100–101.
On my arrival at Montgomery, I found that quiet and sober-minded town in an unusual state of excitement, owing to the late freshets which had inundated the State of Alabama, destroying the crops on a great number of plantations, sweeping off all the live-stock that was upon them, and carrying away bridges of the greatest strength and the largest dimensions. It was the most disastrous occurrence of the kind that had taken place within the memory of the oldest inhabitants. Every new account was fraught with information of the most appalling character, and the public mind was thus kept in a perpetual whirl of anxiety and suspense. Dead cattle, trees torn up by the roots, and fragments of house-hold furniture, were seen floating on every stream for hundreds of miles around: in short, the demon of devastation had desolated the country far and wide, and a general earthquake could scarcely have changed the face of Nature more completely. To me, this state of things was particularly distressing; for, as the roads had been partially destroyed by the flood, so as to put an end to all travelling for several days, I had no alternative but to remain where I was: a circumstance which annoyed me excessively, as I had promised Mr. Abbott, the talented manager of the Charleston Theatre, to be in that city on a certain day.
I remember a very singular, though somewhat irreverent remark, made once in my presence by a wag, who, on being asked his opinion respecting a certain village, situated in one of the most retired and unobtrusive spots in the country, quaintly replied, that, little as he should like to live in such a place, he would be still more averse to dying there, for fear that he might be forgotten at the resurrection. Now, in my opinion, Montgomery is just such another place: still, I had no great reason, after all, to regret the circumstances which detained me there for a few days. An utter foe to indolence, and never more happy than when I am engaged either in acquiring or imparting information, I at once announced my intention of giving lectures, which was received with demonstrations of friendly feeling by nearly every intelligent person in the town. The public press seconded my efforts in the most liberal and obliging manner; while a clergyman of the Anabaptist persuasion tendered me the free use of his church, which, for excellence of sound, I found superior to any building I had ever before lectured in. It is not unworthy of remark, that in this place, so remote from the bustle and turmoil of the artificial world, I found an audience much more attentive and well-behaved than usually falls to the lot of a public speaker, even in those cities where refinement and politeness are supposed to have their headquarters.[1]
One advantage which I derived from this untoward delay was, that it enabled me to take a dip into the circulating library of the town, and to familiarize myself, more than I had for some time been able to do, with what had been going on in the world of letters. After scrutinizing a dozen volumes or more of heterogeneous matter, without feeling very decidedly elevated by the operation, I took possession of Cooper’s new novel of “Mercedes,” with which I retired to the solitude of my chamber, pretty much in the spirit of the miser when he pays a periodical visit to his long-hoarded gold. The reiterated volleys of abuse which were about this time being poured upon this great and original writer, made me the more anxious to read this last production of his pen with all the attention due to a work coming from so distinguished a source. “Mercedes” has been condemned by the Whig press throughout the country in terms of absolute ferocity: by the other party it has been praised as at least equal to any of Mr. Cooper’s previous productions.
[Five pages of Tasistro’s analysis of James Fenimore Cooper’s Mercedes of Castile is omitted.]
CHAPTER XX.
After a week’s vegetation in the peaceful town of Montgomery, and just as I was beginning to forget all that lay beyond its quiet precincts, I was suddenly roused into action, one morning, by the unexpected intelligence that an extra coach would be started expressly for my accommodation, and that of sundry letter bags that had been waiting, like myself, with exemplary patience, for a chance to proceed on their journey. It is true that the “regular line” had been running for the last three days, or since the abatement of the flood; but so great was the number of passengers who had been detained, like myself, by the breaking up of the roads, and whose names had been registered in advance of mine, that at every departure I had been left behind. The immense quantity of luggage with which I was encumbered had very nearly proved an insurmountable obstacle to my ever proceeding farther; and it was only by paying double fare through Alabama and Georgia that I was permitted to get on at all.
. . . My tète-à-tète with the mail-bags was not quite as un-interesting as the sapient reader may imagine, although, to say the truth, I wish they had been sewed a little tighter, as it is not, to my notion, the pleasantest thing in the world to be alone in a mail-coach, with letter-bags before one, ripped open in various places, as was the case in this instance. But oh! what scope for reflection the sight of those bags afforded me! what a theme for the imagination to luxuriate upon! what a world of human interests lay hid in those silent messengers of fate! I actually felt myself growing too big for the coach, as, through the mist of fancy, I contemplated the multitude of agonized minds and panting hearts which the contents of those mysterious bags would tranquillize, or relieve, or lacerate! from the tender epistle, breathing forth, in accents of exquisite pathos, the first acknowledgments of love—the mournful sheet, with its black border, going forth on its errand of wo—the politician’s address, pregnant with schemes for self-aggrandizement—the mandate of the man in power, fraught with the ruin or consummation of human hopes—the inexorable creditor’s appeal, and the attorney’s bill of costs—down to the rejected article, which will plunge some starving author into the very depths of despair: all, all of these, and myriads of others, rose before my bewildered fancy like ghosts conjured from the dark recesses of the earth by the wizard’s wand. The greater portion, however, of the contents of these bags consisted of newspapers, showing the widespread popularity of that species of literature, and the insatiable thirst for information everywhere felt and manifested, from the heart of the gay city to the most solitary cottage in the wilderness. On this subject I may be permitted to make a few remarks.
. . . All ordinary modes of expression would fail to describe the state of the roads after we left Montgomery. In many places, indeed, there was no road at all; every trace of it had been obliterated, and our driver had occasion to call all his skill in navigation into play in order to guide the coach with any tolerable degree of safety. I could hardly have believed it possible for such wide-spread devastation to have been effected in so short a time. In whatever direction the eye was turned, it was sure to encounter traces of the havoc that had been made; and where the ground was hilly, and, consequently, more affected by the action of the water, the sweeping torrent had worn cavities so deep, that, as the carriage passed over the narrow and dangerous paths formed in the sides of the ridges, one could not help shuddering at the danger of being upset in such places—a fate, too, which seemed scarcely avoidable. This was but child’s play, however, compared with the nervous excitement occasioned by crossing large pools of water every ten minutes, and frequently when the height of the flood had rendered the ordinary method of fording impracticable. To be waked up in the middle of a dark, starless night, and desired to walk over a slippery log of wood carelessly thrown across a boiling stream, as the passengers of the “regular line” were frequently called upon to do, might be considered excellent sport by some persons, but, for my own part, I must candidly confess that I never could perceive the least imaginable degree of pleasure in it. Accordingly, whenever the signal was given for that horrible experiment to be made, I always adhered immoveably to the inside of my “extra;” and when I heard a splash in the water, and the loud cachinnation which followed it—infallible indications that some “moving accident—by flood,” not “field”—had befallen the adventurous pedestrians—I congratulated myself upon my pertinacity in preferring the remote chance of a broken neck to the more immediate prospect of a sound ducking. I had many alarms, but no positive catastrophe.
Well, after all, I like stagecoaches and stagecoach travelling, provided the first be moderately respectable, and the latter only moderately continued: one hears of life and sees character. The inside of a stagecoach is the high place of selfishness or of real inbred politeness; the stagecoach breakfast or dinner is a marvellous revealer of secrets, touching temper and disposition; and if you change your passengers often, and find out the subjects on which they are best informed, you may, in a short journey, pick up the history of half a state, or, at least, make yourself acquainted with its opinions. The most instructive and entertaining companions are not always those the most genteel: such so denominated par excellence are extremely apt to be sulky; or, having led as conventional a life as yourself, have as little free, fresh, racy character—you talk over the gay world, but you learn nothing of the country through which you are travelling. I love plain, homely, and, withal, respectable passengers; such as presume you to be interested in, and not altogether unacquainted with, the subjects most familiar to themselves . . .
. . . After a ride of seven hours through one of the wildest countries that the hand of civilization ever had to deal with in making a road, we stopped at a most unpromising-looking edifice, in the midst of the wilderness, where we found, nevertheless, an abundant supply of those choice delicacies, so peculiar to the backwoods, ylceped [called] ham and eggs, graphically spread out on a table of considerable length, evincing a degree of foresightedness on the part of mine host that was laudable in the extreme. Learning that the two coaches would make a halt of at least an hour, I paid my respects in a hasty manner to the aforesaid viands, advised the coachman of my intention to go on ahead on foot, and started accordingly, too happy of an opportunity to escape, even for so short a time, from the confinement I had hitherto been obliged to undergo. How much is lost of nature’s grandeur and loveliness to him who catches but a passing view of either as he hurries along in a stagecoach—leaving railroad cars, from which absolutely nothing is seen, out of the question. The beauties of Nature are to be appreciated only by him who courts companionship with her—who pauses to watch her varying lights and shades—to gaze on the wild flower that gems her verdant robe—to listen to her voice, making melody among the leaves—and linking some charm of association or of sentiment with the different objects around him. It was on this occasion that I met one of those wild adventures, which, though attended with much inconvenience and no small danger at the time of their occurrence, afford such delightful materials for retrospection.
The road at this point was unusually free from mud, considering the abundance of swamps in this part of the country; and, except in the immediate vicinity of pools (of which there was no scarcity), the ground was dry, and afforded a pleasant walk . . .
[Tasistro continues on for many pages with a fastastical description of a colorful songbird which he saw and pursued until he was thoroughly lost, after which he spent the night in the woods and eventually miraculously stumbled upon the village where his stagecoach had stopped for the night. Thus reunited with his luggage and his companions, he sets out again and finally reaches Columbus, Georgia.]
[1] According to [source], Tasistro did, in fact, lecture on Shakespeare while in Montgomery.