Web
and Book design image, Copyright, Kellscraft Studio 1999-2006 (Return to Web Text-ures) |
(HOME) |
CHAPTER XXI.
THE EFFECT. HAD Hugh Miller, in his polished essay upon Dr. Chalmers, been writing of the great fire in Boston, and its effect upon the world, he could not have employed language more apt: “Has the reader ever heard a piece of heavy ordnance fired amid the mountains of our country? First, there is the ear-stunning report of the piece itself, the prime mover of those airy undulations that travel outwards, circle beyond circle, toward the far horizon; then some hoary precipice, that rises tall and solemn in the immediate neighborhood, takes up the sound, and it comes rolling back from its rough front in thunder, like a giant-wave flung far seaward from the rock against which it has broken; then some more-distant hill becomes vocal; and then another, and another, and anon another; and then there is a slight pause, as if all were over. The undulations are travelling unbroken along from flat moor, or across some expansive lake, or over some deep valley, filled, happily, by some long withdrawing arm of the sea. And then the more remote mountains lift up their voices in mysterious mutterings, — now lower, now louder, now more abrupt, anon more prolonged; each, as it recedes, taking up the tale in closer succession to the one that had previously spoken, till at length their distinct utterings are lost in one low, continuous sound, that at last dies out amid the shattered peaks of the desert wilderness; and unbroken stillness settles over the scene, as at first.” Through a
scarce voluntary
exercise of that faculty of analogy and comparison so natural to the
human
mind, that it converts all the existences of the physical into forms
and
expressions of the world moral and intellectual, we have oftener than
once
thought of the phenomenon and its attendant results, as strikingly
representative of effects produced by “the great fire in Boston.” It is
an
event which has, we find, rendered vocal the echoes of the world; and
they are
still returning upon us, after measured intervals, according to the
distances. Our first
wild cry
of anguish comes back to us from all parts of the world, more and more
subdued
with each sonant wavelet, until to-day we hear it only in the whispers
of
peace, and the hushed prayers of the distant millions asking that
Boston may
not suffer. Our
losses, like
our cries, go out from us to others in wave-like circles or atmospheric
undulations; and the effect moves on and on, growing weaker and
fainter, but
nevertheless moving still onward forever. The loss
was enormous;
but we met it not alone. The network of human civilization is so
interwoven,
that the breaking of a single thread weakens the whole web. Not alone
in moral
influences, art, culture, and intellectual guidance, does the world
suffer with
Boston; but the destruction of her warehouses makes lighter the
freights of
railways, the cargoes of fleets, the profits of agriculture, and the
gains by
foreign trade. Through non-resident stockholders, distant creditors,
the
insurance-companies of other cities, and the greater or the lesser
demand for
goods, the contagion has spread, until men thousands of miles away are
poor
to-day because there was a fire in Boston. It has
something
more or less to do with national finances; it influences the
millionnaires of
Wall Street; it glides into every manufactory, and nerves or unnerves
the arm
of labor, according as the fire increased or decreased the demand for
certain
fabrics. It visits the homes of millions; and something is missed from
the
luxuries or comforts of life which would have been there but for the
Boston
fire. A stick of wood, a basket of coal, a part of a meal, or the last
piece of
bread, are gone; and, though the loser may not know the reason why he
is
deprived of such things, eternity will tell him of the Boston fire. Working-women
and
working-men out of employment crowd into other pursuits or other
cities,
displacing many, exchanging with some, and setting in motion a train of
circumstances which gives wives to the young men of the West, orators
to
rostrums built of primitive forest-trees, ministers of the gospel to
the
heathen, work for many, poverty for some, and wealth for a few.
Everywhere that
the habitations of men can be found will there be seen and felt some
effect of
that terrible overturning and destruction. In Boston
itself
there is much less ruin and sorrow than the reader would suppose. The
losses
came upon the wealthiest men of the city, many of whom could loose as
much
more, and still live in opulence. Some fell under the crushing blow,
but, with
a courage and hope which inspires and astonishes the beholder by its
sublimity,
are attempting, with only debts for capital, to live, to accumulate,
and to
pay. The sad faces which one would naturally expect to find on the
streets of
Boston are not there. Christmas and New-Year’s have less of luxuriant
gifts;
but the same sweet, cheerful countenances are there, and the world is
in many
cases the brighter for it. Ah, our
much-loved
Boston! we are all proud of thee to-day. Thou hast a glory now which
crowns
only the courageous, the virtuous, and the faithful. We have seen in
thy
ash-heaps and shattered façades more beauty than wealth can purchase.
We have
seen wrecks of buildings, but no wrecks of men. We have seen ruined
storehouses, but no ruined intellects. We have witnessed the overthrow
of thy
temples; but no broken characters were there. Yea, there
are huge
and ghastly battlements, majestic in ruin, staring at us in Boston; and
one
would almost think himself walking the porches of the Temple of Isis in
Pompeii, the mud-walled streets of Jerusalem, or the dismal baths of
Caracalla,
did he not see about him the living senators instead of lazzaroni, the
prophets
instead of the Arabs, and the Antonys and Cæsars instead of the
beggarly Roman
rabble. Unstable, indeed, are thy marts of trade; but the pillars of
Hercules
were sooner shaken than the courage and integrity of the hearts which
frequented thy commercial halls. Man must
be stone,
if the generous sacrifices, the cheerful new beginnings, the strict
honesty,
the boundless charity, and the abiding faith in God, did not awaken
pulse-quickening emotions. London built a monument in memory of her
great fire,
and often has she been ridiculed for it; but so much of heroic daring,
so much
of patient suffering, so much of love, and so much of patriotism, as
one finds
among the ruins of Boston, as he searches for a record, is as deserving
of
granite towers and memorial monuments as are the feats of Wellington at
Waterloo, or Warren at Bunker Hill. He is, in truth, as much a hero who
is ready to dare and to die as he to whom God has given that
opportunity. Heroes
there are about whom the world knows nothing; and the business-men and
the
working-men of Boston were of that number until the fire revealed them,
as it brings
forth the precious metals from the unattractive ore. It would
take years
to see as it should be seen, or to tell as it should be told, the story
of the
fire, with its interesting ramifications; and the writer must be
content with
such facts as have requited his careful search. Oh that we
had the
space and time to tell of the thousand instances where creditors
cheerfully
receipted their bills, or made large discounts to losers, without
hesitation;
where clerks offered to work for their old employers for insignificant
wages,
in order to help those ruined men into business again; and where rich
and poor
offered money and assistance to the unfortunate without compensation or
security! But those tales must be left to volumes much larger than
this. We may
have written
hastily, may have erred in judgment, and have, perhaps, neglected much
that
should have been written; yet we close this volume with a sense of
satisfaction, because we have already been rewarded with more faith in
humanity, more respect for our nation, more regard for
sister-communities, and,
lastly, more love for brave, generous, kind-hearted Boston. |