Stanley's African Convert [pp. 445-451]

STANLEIY'S AFRICAN CONVERT.
"Let me take you into my winter-rooms-in that
season when we have the liveliest sense of the be neficence, serenity, and comfort, of home. And
here let me paint my scene by freely using negatives
and contrasts. Those suburban monstrosities of
which I have spoken keep out the wind and the
rain, and here ends pretty much every real service
they render. They have no felicities. The floors
are covered usually with glaring carpets; the chilling
white walls of the rooms are ornamented with dreary,
black engravings, or with hideous chromos. The
fireplace is banished, and the sole warmth is from
the sickening stove or the more sickening furnace.
There are often books to read, for Americans have
intellectual capacity even with low artistic percep tions. Newspapers and magazines, at least, abound;
and there is inevitably a piano. But the scene is
chilling and dreary. There is no feeling of repose
or ease; nothing to charm the senses into restfulness. This is too often the picture of our suburban,
and sometimes of our urban, interiors.
"I have a dream of another scene. The snow
whirls and scurries without; the trees sway and
groan in the wind; the sky and land are darkening
as the shadows of night come apace-so let us enter.
Ah, here is compensation! There is blaze, there is
warmth, there is light, there is an overflowing of
strange beauty. The walls, you quickly see, are not
of chilling plaster that peels and chips off; nor of
paint that is always hard and artistically unmanageable; nor of paper that stains so readily, and which
ever obtrudes its senseless patterns. They are wainscoted to the cornice with wood crossed by a dadorail, and ornamented with a few incised carvings.
The wood is shellacked or stained of a reddish tint,
which catches and reflects the light from candles or
fire-blaze with rich effect. A vast chimney, which is
a fine piece of architectural projection, has an open
fireplace, in which logs are blazing. The mantel is
heavy, and holds spreading candelabra, and a vase
or two. Even a little bric-a-brac enters my countryhouse-but very little, be certain. Upon the walls
hang several pictures of superb color-rich still-life
subjects that glow in deep tones, and catch radiant
lights from the blaze on the hearth. Still-life sub jects are chosen because this room with its dark
walls might be sombre were there not marked foci
of color. But it is not sombre. The floor, as I see
it, is warm with a central carpet of rich dyes. There
are large tables, massive and commodious chairs,
many books-books are, indeed, abundant; they lie
on the tables, and fill low shelves that skirt two sides
of the room. Warm-colored stuffs hang over the
windows to exclude intruding draughts of air, and
doors open into an adjoining room similarly furnished, save that a hospitable sideboard looks festive
with china and glass.
"Mark what it is that I see in my vision-a room
of space, color, light, and tone; where there is neither emptiness nor profusion, neither glitter nor
dreariness; where there are breadth and substance,
charm for the eye, restfulness for the soul, animation
for the spirit.
"And, after all, what is any picture unless human life comes in to grace it? I see in my dream
fair girls on summer days sitting in the framework of my vine-trellised windows; I watch in my
winter vision young women in soft, graceful drapery
moving resplendent in the glow of the fire-light; I
hear merry voices, and see bright faces, and catch
the gleam of tender eyes; and over all broods the
spirit of harmony and peace. This is my ideal. Art
is there, but it is a handmaid, not a tyrannical fashion. There are correctness without severity, simplicity without baldness, decoration without fussiness,
beauty without frivolity, and every place is for occupancy, and everything for use. We eat under similar pleasant conditions; our chambers have warm
hangings, cheerful blaze on their hearths, good pictures on their walls. My handsome boys and fair
girls give felicity to this house, and they borrow from
it their profoundest peace. Let each man put into
his dream the house that he loves-I have given you
with off-hand touches the ideal of mine."
STA4NLE Y'S AFRICAN CON VERT.
N April, 1875, just three years ago, Mr. Stanley
wrote from the capital of Mtesa, King of Uganda, that he "believed that he had very sensibly
shaken the faith of the black monarch in Mohammedanism." It is not invidious now to say that at
that time people were wont to take Mr. Stanley's
statements with many grains of allowance. With
this Mtesa we had become tolerably well acquainted
through Speke, who, a dozen years before, had spent
six months with him; and it is safe to say that there
could not be found in all Africa, or out of it, a more
frivolous and ferocious savage than this young King
of Uganda; and, moreover, there seemed no reason
to suppose that he had any faith in Mohammedanism to be shaken. When Speke was with him, his
only religion was fetichism, accompanied by the
most bloody rites; among which was the boiling of
children alive, in order to obtain auguries of the
success or failure of any enterprise which he had in
contemplation.
No one was more incredulous as to the verity of
Stanley's statement than the only other white man
who had any personal means of judging as to the matter. Only nine months before the date of Stanley's
letter, Colonel Long, an American officer high in the
service of the Khedive of Egypt, had spent two
months with Mtdsa; and what he saw fully corroborated the worst of Speke's accounts of a dozen
years before. When, some months later, Long was
writing an account of his visit to Uganda, he read a
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