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Programming Social Applications Building Viral
Experiences with OpenSocial OAuth OpenID and
Distributed Web Frameworks 1st Edition Jonathan
Leblanc Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Jonathan LeBlanc
ISBN(s): 9781449394912, 1449394914
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 13.01 MB
Year: 2011
Language: english
Programming Social Applications
Programming Social Applications

Jonathan LeBlanc

Beijing • Cambridge • Farnham • Köln • Sebastopol • Tokyo

Programming Social Applications
by Jonathan LeBlanc

Copyright © 2011 Yahoo!, Inc. All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America.

Published by O’Reilly Media, Inc., 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472.

O’Reilly books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. Online editions
are also available for most titles (http://my.safaribooksonline.com). For more information, contact our
corporate/institutional sales department: (800) 998-9938 or [email protected].

Editor: Mary Treseler Indexer: Lucie Haskins

Production Editor: Holly Bauer Cover Designer: Karen Montgomery
Copyeditor: Rachel Monaghan Interior Designer: David Futato
Proofreader: Jennifer Knight Illustrator: Robert Romano

Printing History:
August 2011: First Edition.

Nutshell Handbook, the Nutshell Handbook logo, and the O’Reilly logo are registered trademarks of
O’Reilly Media, Inc. Programming Social Applications, the image of a Diana monkey and related trade
dress are trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc.
Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as
trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and O’Reilly Media, Inc., was aware of a
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While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and authors assume
no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information con-
tained herein.

ISBN: 978-1-449-39491-2

[LSI]

1313423418
To my amazing wife, Heather, and our little
miracle, Scarlett
 Table of Contents

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii

1. Social Application Container Core Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

What Is a Social Application Container? 2
The User Profile 3
User Friends and Connections 4
The User Activity Stream 4
Implementing Proprietary Versus Open Standards 5
Proprietary Implementation 5
Open Source Implementation 6
Why This Book Covers Open Standards 7
The Embedded Application: Building in a Black Box 7
Embedded Application Security 9
Cross-Site Scripting 10
Same-Origin Policy and Older Browsers 10
Drive-by Downloads 11
Securing Applications 11
The External Application: Integrating Social Data
Outside the Container 11
Application Views 12
The Home View (Small View) 13
The Profile View (Small View) 14
The Canvas View (Large View) 15
The Default View (Any View) 16
Application Permission Concepts 17
Client-Side Versus Server-Side Applications 19
Using Template Systems for the Markup Layer 19
Using a Blended Server and Client Environment 19
Deferring the Loading of Noncritical Content 20
When Good Applications Go Bad 21
The Portable Flash Application 21
The Underdeveloped View 22

vii
 The Copycat View Application 23
The Oversharing Application 24
The Unmonetized Application 24
The Feed Application 25
Application Model Case Studies 26
Case Study: Friendship-Based Social Gaming 26
Case Study: Product Sales Applications 30
Case Study: Location-Based Applications 32
Quick-Start Tips 36
Understand Your Audience 36
Build Social Integration Points Early 37
Build with Monetization in Mind 37
Create Comprehensive Views That Play Off One Another 37

2. Mapping User Relationships with the Social Graph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

The Online Social Graph 39
Applying the Real-Life Social Graph Online 41
Clustering Users Automatically 41
Privacy and Security 42
Establishing Trust 42
Sharing Private User Data: Opt-in Versus Opt-out 43
The Opt-in Sharing Model 43
The Opt-out Sharing Model 44
Understanding Relationship Models 44
The Follower Model 45
The Connection Model 46
The Group Model 47
Relationships Versus Entities 50
Building Social Relevance: Exploring the Facebook Social Graph 51
Building Upon Real Identity 51
Understanding the Viral Channels 52
Building User Groups 53
Avoiding Irrelevant Social Graphs 53
Defining Entity Likes and Dislikes Through the OpenLike Protocol 54
Integrating the OpenLike Widget 54
How the Shared Likes Appear 55
Conclusion 56

3. Constructing the Foundation of a Social Application Platform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

What You’ll Learn 57
Apache Shindig 57
Setting Up Shindig 58
Installing Shindig on Mac OS X (Leopard) 59

viii | Table of Contents

 Installing Shindig on Windows 62
Testing Your Shindig Installation 65
Partuza 66
Requirements 66
Installing Partuza on Mac OS X (Leopard) 67
Installing Partuza on Windows 69
Testing the Partuza Installation 75
The OpenSocial Gadget XML Specification 75
Configuring Your Application with ModulePrefs 76
Require/Optional 76
Preload 77
Icon 77
Locale 78
Link 79
Defining User Preferences 81
Enum Data Types 82
Application Content 82
Defining Content Views 83
Inline Versus Proxy Content 89
Putting It All Together 91

4. Defining Features with OpenSocial JavaScript References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

What You’ll Learn 95
Including the OpenSocial Feature JavaScript Libraries 96
Dynamically Setting the Height of a Gadget View 96
Inserting Flash Movies in Your Gadget 98
Displaying Messages to Your Users 100
Creating a Message 100
Positioning the Message Windows 103
Styling the Message and Window 105
Saving State with User Preferences 108
Setting Your Gadget Title Programmatically 110
Integrating a Tabbed Gadget User Interface 111
The Basic Gadget 112
Creating a Tab from Markup 112
Creating a Tab from JavaScript 113
Getting and Setting Information About the TabSet 114
Extending Shindig with Your Own JavaScript Libraries 117
Putting It All Together 121
Building the Gadget XML File 121
Displaying the Gadget Using Shindig 125

Table of Contents | ix
 5. Porting Applications, Profiles, and Friendships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
What You’ll Learn 127
Evaluating OpenSocial Container Support 127
Core Components of the OpenSocial Specification 129
Core API Server Specification 130
Core Gadget Container Specification 130
Social API Server Specification 131
Social Gadget Container Specification 132
OpenSocial Container Specification 132
Cross-Container Development and Porting 132
Use a Blended Client-Server Environment 133
Decouple Social Features from Mainstream Application Code 133
Avoid Using Container-Specific Tags 133
Porting Applications from Facebook to OpenSocial 134
Employ iframes for Non-Social-Application Constructs 134
Abstract Facebook Function Logic 135
Separate Visual Markup from Programming Logic 135
Use REST Endpoints, Not FQL 135
Employ a Server-Side Heavy Code Implementation 135
Personalizing Applications with Profile Data 136
The Person Object 136
Person Data Extraction Methods 136
Fields Available Within the Person Object 141
Extending the Person Object 162
Capturing the User Profile 168
Using Friendships to Increase Your Audience 170
Making a Request to Capture User Friendships 171
Putting It All Together 171
The Gadget Specification 172
The Content Markup 172
The JavaScript 174
Running the Gadget 175

6. OpenSocial Activities, Sharing, and Data Requests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

What You’ll Learn 177
Promoting Your Applications with OpenSocial Activities 178
Personalizing an Application Experience by Consuming Activity Updates 179
Driving Application Growth by Producing Activity Updates 180
Direct Sharing Versus Passive Sharing 183
Direct Sharing 184
Passive Sharing 185
Balanced Sharing 186
Making AJAX and External Data Requests 187

x | Table of Contents
 Making Standard Data Requests 188
Pushing Content with Data Requests 190
Using Signed Requests to Secure a Data Connection 191
Putting It All Together 199

7. Advanced OpenSocial and OpenSocial Next . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

What You’ll Learn 203
Data Pipelining 203
Data Request Types 206
Making Data Available to Proxied Data Requests 211
Working with Pipelined Data on the Client 212
Handling Errors Produced by the Data Pipe 215
Dynamic Parameters 216
OpenSocial Templating 218
A Different Approach to Markup and Data 219
Rendering Templates 222
Expressions 225
Special Variables 226
Conditionals 229
Looping Content 231
Marrying Data Pipelining and Templating 236
Other Special Tags 238
Template Libraries 240
JavaScript API 244
A Few More Tags: The OpenSocial Markup Language 249
Displaying a Person’s Name: os:Name 250
Creating a Person Selector: os:PeopleSelector 250
Display a Person’s Badge: os:Badge 251
Loading External HTML: os:Get 251
Localization Support with Message Bundles 251
The OpenSocial REST API Libraries 254
Which Libraries Are Available 254
OpenSocial Next: Areas of Exploration 254
Enterprise Containers 255
Mobile Transitions 255
Distributed Web Frameworks 256
OpenSocial and Distributed Web Frameworks 256
Activity Streams 256
PubSubHubbub 257
Salmon Protocol 258
Open Graph Protocol 258
Putting It All Together 259

Table of Contents | xi
 8. Social Application Security Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
What You’ll Learn 265
Hosting Third-Party Code Through iframes 266
A Secure Approach: The Caja Project 266
Why Use Caja? 267
Attack Vectors: How Caja Protects 267
Redirecting Users Without Their Consent 267
Mining a User’s Browser History 268
Arbitrary Code Execution with document.createElement 269
Logging the User’s Keystrokes 269
Setting Up Caja 271
Cajoling Scripts from the Command Line 273
Cajoling HTML and JavaScript 273
Modifying the Cajoler Rendering Format 278
Running Caja from a Web Application 279
Running Caja with an OpenSocial Gadget 281
Adding Caja to a Gadget 282
A Practical Example 282
Using JSLint to Spot JavaScript Issues Early 284
Playing in the Caja Playground 285
Tips for Working in a Caja Environment 286
Implement Code Modularity: Don’t Cajole an Entire Project 286
Use Precajoled JavaScript Libraries 286
Don’t Rely on Firebug or the Cajoled JavaScript Source Code 288
Don’t Embed Events in Markup 288
Centralize JavaScript: Request Data and Markup Only 289
A Lighter Alternative to Caja: ADsafe 290
ADsafe Versus Caja: Which One Should You Use? 291
How to Implement ADsafe 292
Setting Up the ADSafe Object 292
The DOM Object 294
DOM Selection with the Query Method 295
Working with Bunch Objects 299
Attaching Events 306
Defining Libraries 307
Putting It All Together 309
The Data Source 309
The Head: Script Includes and Styles 310
The Body: Markup Layer 311
The Body: JavaScript Layer 312
The Final Result 313
Conclusion 314

xii | Table of Contents

 9. Securing Social Graph Access with OAuth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
Beyond Basic Auth 315
Basic Auth Implementation: How It Works 316
The Reasons Against Using Basic Authentication 317
The OAuth 1.0a Standard 318
OAuth 1.0a Workflow 319
The End-User Experience 327
Two-Legged Versus Three-Legged OAuth 329
Three-Legged OAuth Implementation Example 332
Tools and Tips for Debugging Signature Issues 348
OAuth 2 352
OAuth 2 Workflow 352
Implementation Example: Facebook 361
Implementation Example: Requesting More User Information
in the Facebook OAuth Process 372
Implementation Example: End-User Experience 375
Tips for Debugging Request Issues 376
Conclusion 380

10. The Future of Social: Defining Social Entities Through Distributed Web Frameworks . .
381
What You’ll Learn 381
The Open Graph Protocol: Defining Web Pages As Social Entities 382
The Rise and Fall of Metadata 382
How the Open Graph Protocol Works 383
Implementing the Open Graph Protocol 384
A Real-World Example: The Facebook Open Graph 390
Practical Implementation: Capturing Open Graph Data from a Web
Source 392
The Shortcomings of the Open Graph Protocol 400
Activity Streams: Standardizing Social Activities 401
Why Do We Need to Define a Standard for Activities? 401
Implementing Activity Streams 402
Object Types 406
Verbs 407
WebFinger: Expanding the Social Graph Through Email Addresses 410
Finger to WebFinger: The Origin of WebFinger 410
Implementing WebFinger 411
The Shortcomings of the WebFinger Protocol 413
OExchange: Building a Social Sharing Graph 414
How Does OExchange Work? 414
The Uses of OExchange 415
Implementing OExchange 416

Table of Contents | xiii

 PubSubHubbub: Content Syndication 422
How Does PubSubHubbub Work? 422
The Benefits: From Publishers to Subscribers 425
Hosted Hubs and Implementation Services 426
Workflow Libraries 427
Building a Publisher in PHP 428
Building a Publisher in Python 430
Building a Subscriber in PHP 432
Building a Subscriber in Python 435
The Salmon Protocol: Unification of Conversation Entities 438
The Salmon Protocol Workflow 438
Building on the Foundation of PubSubHubbub 441
Abuse and Spam Protection 441
Implementation Overview 442
Conclusion 443

11. Extending Your Social Graph with OpenID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445

The OpenID Standard 445
Decentralization Is Key 446
Improvement over Traditional Login 446
Accessing the Existing Membership Database and Social Graph 446
Do I Already Have an OpenID? How Do I Sign Up for One? 447
The OpenID Authentication Flow 447
Step 1: Request Login with OpenID Identifier 448
Step 2: Perform Discovery to Establish the Endpoint URL 449
Step 3: Request User Authentication 449
Step 4: Provide Passed or Failed State 452
OpenID Providers 453
Bypassing Domain Discovery Errors in OpenID 453
OpenID Extensions 455
Simple Registration Extension 456
Attribute Exchange Extension 457
Provider Authentication Policy Extension 463
Extensions Currently Under Development 467
Implementation Example: OpenID 469
Implementing OpenID Using PHP 469
Implementing OpenID Using Python 482
Common Errors and Debugging Techniques 494
Callback URL Mismatch 494
Undiscoverable OpenID Identifier 494
Conclusion 496

xiv | Table of Contents

 12. Delivering User-Centric Experiences with Hybrid Auth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497
The OpenID OAuth Hybrid Extension 497
Current Implementers 498
When Should I Use OpenID Versus Hybrid Auth? 498
Questions to Ask Yourself Before Choosing 498
Pros and Cons: Standard OpenID 499
Pros and Cons: Hybrid Auth 500
The OpenID OAuth Hybrid Auth Flow 501
Step 1–2: Perform Discovery (OpenID Steps 1–2) 502
Step 3: Request User Authentication Permissions 502
Step 4: Provide OpenID Approved/Failed State and Hybrid Extension
Parameters 504
Step 5: Exchange the Preapproved Request Token for an Access Token 505
Step 6: Make Signed Requests for Privileged User Data 506
Implementation Example: OpenID, OAuth, and Yahoo! 507
Application Setup: Getting Your OAuth Keys for the Hybrid Auth Proc-
ess 507
Implementing Hybrid Auth Using PHP 508
Implementing Hybrid Auth Using Python 520
Conclusion 532

Appendix: Web Development Core Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 533

Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 551

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 555

Table of Contents | xv
 Preface

I first began developing social applications when Facebook opened up its developer
platform in 2007, giving people like me a taste of the extensive social data that an
application can use to improve growth and target personalization settings. At the time,
I was building social fantasy sports applications for CBSSports.com, pulling user infor-
mation to enrich that fantasy sports data into a highly personalized state.
It wasn’t until 2008, when I joined the partner integrations team in the Yahoo! Devel-
oper Network, that I got my first peek at an open source approach to social application
development through OpenSocial. What attracted me to OpenSocial was not the fact
that you could build an application once and deploy to numerous OpenSocial con-
tainers (which proved to be a faulty notion), but rather that through an open source
approach I could build social applications on a container and understand how these
platforms worked from a core level. I developed a deep drive to explore how the rela-
tionships that people form on the Web can enrich and personalize their online lives.
This was the starting point of my career advocating open source social technologies.
OpenSocial was the gateway specification for me, leading me to explore the Shindig
OpenSocial container, OpenID and OAuth (for authentication and authorization,
respectively), the third-party code security technologies Caja and ADSafe, and newer
distributed web framework specifications like Activity Streams, PubSubHubbub, and
the Open Graph protocol. I quickly came to realize that there was a wide range of open
source technologies to enable the construction of rich social frameworks. These tech-
nologies and specifications built rich layers of functionality in a simple way using very
open methodologies.
These social technologies and specifications are what this book is about. Each chapter
uncovers a new layer in the construction of highly viral social applications and plat-
forms. We start by exploring the concepts behind social applications and containers,
and then dive into the technologies used to build them. With the application basics
down, we look at technologies to secure third-party code on a container, and follow
with a discussion of how to secure user information and develop a standard login
architecture for platforms. After exposing all of those complex layers, we take an in-
depth look at distributed web frameworks that showcase standardization techniques
for syndicating activities, discovering rich web and user data from sites and email

xvii
addresses. And finally, we explore some wonderful upcoming standards in the social
application world.
The content of this book comes from years of direct partner integration work empha-
sizing the power and features behind open source technologies while collaborating with
other developers and companies to create rich social integrations with Yahoo!. This
book is a labor of love, as I have both taught and learned from seeing firsthand how
social integration technologies are applied to real-world applications and interactions.

Audience
Since this book touches on many different areas of social web application development,
container specifications, architecture, and standards, the audience that it will appeal
to includes a wide breadth of fields and proficiencies, including (but not limited to):
• Social web application developers who are building applications for Facebook,
iGoogle, Orkut, YAP, or any other social networking site that hosts third-party
applications
• Application platform architects and server-side engineers who are building prod-
ucts to host a socialized experience
• Frontend engineers who wish to leverage the customization and direct targeting
afforded by the massive social graph derived from these technologies
• Hackers and part-time developers who are building small-scale personal projects
off of the social web
• Followers of open source technology who want to understand how these technol-
ogies are being used to promote social sharing and standards
• Web developers and company teams who wish to develop membership systems
and authentication security
• Security gurus and engineers who want to learn about security within online social
experiences

Contents of This Book

This book covers many technologies and tools for working with the social web, from
container and application development to building highly engaging social graphs.
Each chapter builds on the fundamentals you’ve learned in the preceding chapters’
social explorations. Here are the overarching topics covered throughout the book, bro-
ken down by chapter:

xviii | Preface
Other documents randomly have
different content
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Down South
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Down South

Author: Lady Duffus Hardy

Release date: December 18, 2016 [eBook #53758]

Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images available at The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DOWN SOUTH

***
 DOWN SOUTH.

DOWN SOUTH
BY

LADY DUFFUS HARDY

AUTHOR OF
“THROUGH CITIES AND PRAIRIE LANDS”

London: CHAPMAN AND HALL

Limited
1883

LONDON
R. Clay, Sons, and Taylor.,
BREAD STREET HILL.
 CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
Two cities.—Our home upon the waters.—
Southward bound.—“Only a brass star.”—At
Ford’s Hotel Pages 1-13
CHAPTER II.
To-day and the yesterdays.—Richmond—Its
monuments—Its surroundings.—The sculptor’s Pages 14-
studio.—Andromache. 28
CHAPTER III.
Fire and ruins.—Through sylvan scenes.—The
Cave of Lwray.—A jewelled city underground. Pages 29-
—The white savages of Wise County 44
CHAPTER IV.
Through the great swamp.—Charleston.—A
memory of the Old World.—Blacks and whites.
—Peculiarities of the coloured folk.—A ghost Pages 45-
of dead days.—Quaint scenes 62
CHAPTER V.
St. Michael’s chimes.—Architectural attraction.
—Magnolia Cemetery.—A philosophical
mendicant.—The market.—Aboard the boat— Pages 63-
Fort Sumpter 83
CHAPTER VI.
The great Salt Marsh.—A break down.—We
reach Savannah.—Fancy sketches.—The forest
city.—A gossip with the natives.—Cross Pages 84-
questions and crooked answers 90
 CHAPTER VII.
To-day and yesterday.—General experience of
travel in the South.—The associated Southern Pages 100-
railways 109
CHAPTER VIII.
En route for Jacksonville.—A few words about Pages 110-
Florida—Its climate.—Its folk—Its productions 121
CHAPTER IX.
Pine forests.—Arcadian scenes.—Strange Pages 122-
companionship.—We reach Jacksonville 131
CHAPTER X.
Jacksonville.—Our hotel.—Greenleaf’s museum.
—Floridian curiosities. East winds and tropical Pages 132-
breezes.—Strawberry packing 143
CHAPTER XI.
Fernandina.—Romance or history?—Dungeness.
—To Tocor.—On board the boat.—Oddities.— Pages 144-
A lovely water drive 158
CHAPTER XII.
St. Augustine.—A land of the long ago.—A chat
with a Spanish antiquity.—Quaint streets.—City
gate.—Fort Marion.—The old Slave Market.—
The monuments.—The Plaza.—Cathedral and Pages 159-
Convent 179
CHAPTER XIII.
A chat by the way.—A steam bicycle.—Rough Pages 180-
times.—At Ocala 188
CHAPTER XIV.
The “Okeehumkee.”—The Silver Springs.—The Pages 189-
weird wonders of the Ocklawaha 203
CHAPTER XV.
Picturesque scenery on St. John’s River.
—“Sickening for the fever ma’am?”—The
inland lakes.—A pair of elderly turtle doves.— Pages 204-
Sport on the Indian river 221
CHAPTER XVI.
Retrospective.—A critical conductor.—
Montgomery.—Train wreckers at work.—Weird
scenes in the moonlight.—Silent watchers. Pages 222-
—“Wild Cat” train to New Orleans 237
CHAPTER XVII.
New Orleans, “The Paris of the South.”—French
quarters.—Tropical street scene.—To Carrolton.
—The Levées.—Classical architecture.—A
coloured funeral.—The dismal swamp.—Lake Pages 238-
Ponchartrain.—A gambling population 252
CHAPTER XVIII.
Atlanta.—A wilderness of bricks and mortar.—
Lovely surroundings.—Scarlet woods.— Pages 253-
Memorial day.—Scenes in the cemetery 262
CHAPTER XIX.
Columbia.—Wright’s Hotel—Variegated scenes.
—Past and present—A Sabbath city.—The
Penitentiary.—Sunday service.—A few last Pages 263-
words 276

DOWN SOUTH
 CHAPTER I.
Two cities.—Our home upon the waters.—Southward bound.—“Only a brass star.”—At
Ford’s hotel.

A dull haze hangs over the city; St. Paul has put on his cap of clouds, and
the great dome looms dimly on our sight; the mystery of twilight has taken
possession of the city, and shrouds the streets in the open day. The fine old
trees in the parks and in the squares are losing their green foliage, and stand
half naked, shivering in the damp autumn air, while their yellow shrunken
leaves are swept rustling along the ground, moaning their melancholy
protest against the wandering wind, and even thus early in the season—for
it is only late September—visions of November fogs are looming in the
near future. But we turn our backs upon the dreary prospect, and send our
thoughts onward towards the City of Rome whither we are fast journeying—
not that ancient city which sits upon its seven hills, like a discrowned
queen, still ruling the world of Art, swaying the minds of men, and, like a
gigantic loadstone, drawing the heart of the world towards herself, grander
in her age of ruin than her youthful pride; the glory of her dead days circles
her with a halo of poetry and romance which renders her immortal. Her
ruined palaces and temples lift their hoary heads and crumbling columns
heavenward—impressive, awe-inspiring, and time-defying, showing only
the footprints of the ages as they have passed solemnly onwards. The stir
and bustle of every-day commonplace life, the cavalcade of nineteenth-
century frivolities and fashions, have failed to drive the spirit of antiquity
from the place; it still sits brooding in the air, permeating the souls and
stirring the hearts of men with a passionate enthusiasm for the days that are
gone. There is no coming and going of armies, no heathenish maraudings,
no slave-trading, war-waging population nowadays; no centurion guards, no
glittering cohorts flashing their arms and tossing their white plumes in the
face of the sun; yet they seem to have left their ghostly impression on the
air, and in the still evening hours we feel their presence revealed to us
through (what we call) our imagination, and the past marches solemnly
hand-in-hand with the present before our spirit’s eyes; and while we think
we are merely day-dreaming—indulging in pleasant reveries—the subtle
essence of ourselves is mingling with an immortal past. But it is not
towards this ancient city we are fast hastening; our City of Rome is the
creation of to-day, it has nothing to say to the yesterdays; its kingdom
belongs to the to-morrows, which are crowded into the years to come. It is
not throned like its ancient namesake on seven hills, but rides upon the
myriad waves of a limitless ocean, and looks as though it could rule them
too—this floating city, which is to carry us three thousand miles across the
fascinating, fickle, and inconstant sea. Like a strong young giant our noble
vessel lifts its great black bulwarks into the sunlight, and we climb its steep
sides in the full confidence that much of the nauseating horrors of a sea
voyage will be spared to us. The Atlantic steamers, as everyone knows, are
all luxuriously appointed, but this is the most luxurious; our state room has
two windows draped with green rep, a cosy sofa, and—luxury of luxuries—
a reading lamp; one berth is four feet wide, with a spring mattress, downy
pillows, and plenty of them; the upper berth is the usual size.
It takes us some hours to explore the vessel from end to end, as we are
kindly permitted to do; occasionally we lose ourselves, and are picked up
by a stray hand and set in the right way. We stroll through the grand saloon,
where some frantic musician is already evoking solemn sounds from the
grand organ, while the passengers are clamouring for seats at special tables,
and the bewildered stewards are distracted in their endeavour to oblige
everybody. It is a case of bull-baiting—British bull-baiting; the poor bull is
on the horns of a dilemma; he manages to extricate himself somehow, and
things settle down to general satisfaction. Descending to the engine-room,
we seem to have a glimpse of the infernal regions—such a rattle and clatter
of machinery, whizzing and whirling amid the blaze of a hundred fires,
some lashed to white heat, others blazing with a steady roar, their red
flames leaping over their fiery bed, lighting up the swarthy faces of the
firemen, who look like dusky gnomes flitting among eternal fires. By the
time we reach the upper deck the tender has departed, the anchor is up, and
—are we moving? We seem to be still stationary, but the shores of England
are receding from us, the long, curving lines of the shore growing dim and
more dim, the forest of shipping with its tall masts and fluttering sails fades
slowly from our sight, and as the twilight closes in we are almost out of
sight of land; it vanishes away till it looks like a bank of low-lying clouds
fringing the horizon; now and then a white sail flashes out of the darkness
and is gone.
 The night is simply superb, and the heavens are ablaze with stars, like a
jewelled canopy stretching over us as far as the eye can reach. Such
brilliancy above! Such a soft, hazy atmosphere around us! We seem to be
floating away into dreamland, as our giant vessel glides like a phantom ship
through the drowsy night; but for the phosphorescent waves which run
rippling at the side, or swirl in white feathery foam round the bow, we
should not know that we are moving—yet we are going at the rapid rate of
sixteen knots an hour, so steadily her iron keel treads through the world of
waters. Some of our fellow-passengers group themselves on the deck, or
stroll up and down singing old home songs or catches, and glees. Lulled by
these pleasant sounds and occasional echoes of the sailors’ voices, we sleep
soundly through our first night at sea.
To some this voyage is a new experience, and to them everything is a
pleasure and delight; their senses are on the qui vive, and they extract a keen
enjoyment from the slightest matter; whether they are watching the shifting
colours of the sea and skies, strolling idly up and down, or leaning over the
bulwarks, straining their eyes over the vast expanse, eagerly expecting a
school of whales to go spouting past, they are equally happy and content,
seeing mountains where never a molehill exists; the atmospheric changes
interest them, the whistling of the wind through the shrouds makes a new
music to their ears, and the life on board ship with all its variations has the
charm of novelty. But the novelty soon wears off and they gradually awake
to the fact that a sea-voyage is a most monotonous affair. This the habitués,
to whom the voyage is as an oft-told tale, realise from the first moment;
they know precisely how the next ten days are likely to pass, and at once set
their minds to enliven the monotony, every one contributing something to
the amusement of the whole. We are especially fortunate on the present
occasion, there being several of Colonel Mapleson’s company on board,
who are most amiable in their endeavours to amuse their fellow-passengers.
There is also an unusual amount of amateur musical and dramatic talent on
board, and they combine together and organise a concert or some kind of
dramatic entertainment every evening.
About eight o’clock everybody turns out in pretty, simple toilettes, and
the stream sets towards the music-room. Great Britain is sparsely
represented, and I don’t think with the best specimens; the scanty few seem
manufactured for foreign travel only, and are not of the finest workmanship,
either of art or nature.
 On the evening of the first entertainment a gorgeous apparition appeared
in the shape of the master of the ceremonies, the only evident reason for his
filling that position being his possession of a swallow-tail coat. He was a
fair, slim young man, with his hair parted down the middle. He was in full
evening dress, with a huge artificial flower—a sunflower—in his
buttonhole, and white gloves too long for his fingers. He was a British-
Australian, we learned. When he opened his mouth he dropped, not pearls,
but h’s; he dropped them in one place and picked them up in another, and in
his attempt to announce the different operatic airs he mangled the soft
Italian language till it fell upon the ear a mass of mutilated sounds. He had
to run the gauntlet of a good deal of masculine chaff, which he bore with a
stolid equanimity born of self-contentment; however, he unconsciously
contributed to the general amusement, and gave rise to some humorous
illustrations which served to beguile the time.
The weather continues delightful, a balmy atmosphere brooding over a
smooth, grey sea. In quiet uninteresting calm the days pass by, but at night
nature rallies her forces and gives us some glorious sunsets, filling the pale
skies with cloud islands of golden light, while white and crimson feathery
plumes, like spectral palms, float hither and thither across the sea-green sky.
But nobody cares for a second-hand sunset, it must be seen to be
appreciated—no word-painting or most brilliant colouring on canvas can
convey an idea of it.
About mid-ocean we fall into foul weather, and a violent game of pitch
and toss ensues; a clatter of broken china, contused limbs, and half a score
of black eyes are the result. There is a tough-fibred, strong-brained
missionary on board, whose very face in its stern rigidity is suggestive of
torments here and hereafter. He takes advantage of the occasion and lifts up
his eyes and voice in violent denunciation of all miserable sinners, exhorts
everybody to repent upon the spot as the day of doom is at hand—the Lord
has come in storm and tempest to break up the good ship and bury her
living freight at the bottom of the sea! He aggravates the fear, and tortures
the nerves, of the weaker vessels, till several ladies are carried to their
berths in violent hysterics. Some few husbands, fathers, and lovers,
expressed a strong desire to have that missionary “heaved overboard.” We
pitied the poor heathens who would presently benefit by his ministrations.
We pass out of the storm into genial American weather—blue skies, soft,
ambient air, and brilliant sunshine. A foretaste of the lovely Indian summer
greets us long before we reach the shore. Our vessel, owing to its gigantic
size, is a long time swinging round and entering its dock. We are in sight of
New York at three in the afternoon, but it is late in the evening before we
are able to effect a landing.
Everybody knows what a New York winter is like. We plunge at once
into the hurly-burly, and for the next few months we “do as the world doth
—say as it sayeth,” and being bound to the wheel whirl with it till the hard
king, frost, melts and disappears under the genial breath of a somewhat
humid spring; then we turn our faces southward.
It is impossible for the best disposed person to extract much pleasure
from a dismal drive across the plains of Pennsylvania, while the heavens are
weeping copiously, drenching the sick earth with their tears, and dropping a
grey cloud mantle over it. A heavy mist is hiding everything, and moves
like a shrouded funeral procession among the tall trees, as though it had
wrapped the dead winter in its grave-clothes, and was carrying it away for
burial in some invisible world we know not of. A damp chillness clings and
crawls everywhere; it finds its way to our very bones; we shiver, and draw
our wraps closer round us. The whole world seems veiled in mourning for
the sins of our forefathers; even the buoyant spirits of the famous Mark
Tapley must have gone down under these dreary surroundings.
There is nothing to be seen, nothing to be heard, but the pattering rain
upon the windows, and the snort or occasional scream of our engine, like
the shriek of a bird of prey, as it sweeps on its iron road. We look round us;
everything and everybody seems in a state of depression, wrapped in a
general gloom. The whimpering cries of the children sink into a dismal
rhythmical wail, as though they wrangled by arithmetic, and wept according
to rule.
There was a small family of these human fledglings aboard, and the
parent bird was sorely tried in her endeavour to keep within bounds the
belligerent spirits of her flock; in vain she called their attention to
imaginary “gee-gees” and the invisible wonders outside—they stared out
into the blankness, discovered the deception, and howled louder than ever.
The cock-horse limped on its way to Banbury Cross, and even the lady with
rings on her fingers and bells on her toes made music in vain. At last a
mysterious voice issued from a muffled man in a corner, offering “ten
dollars to anybody who would smother that baby.”
 We all sympathised with the spirit of the offer, but perhaps the fear of
after-consequences prevented anybody from accepting it. The mother dived
into a boneless, baggy umbrella, which apparently served as luncheon
basket, wardrobe, and, I verily believe might have been turned into a cradle;
thence she abstracted crackers, apples, and candies—and cotton
handerchiefs which she vigorously applied to their little damp noses.
This interesting family got off at Baltimore and left us for diversion to
our own resources, to feed upon our own reserve fund of spirits, which
afforded but poor entertainment.
As we reached Washington there was a rift in the clouds overhead, and a
brilliant ray of sunlight darted through, lighting up the city, and gilding the
great dome of the Capitol with heavenly alchemy; it might have been that
some immortal eye had opened suddenly, winked upon this wicked world,
and shut again, for in a moment it was as dark and cheerless as before.
Here we change cars, and as we pass through the little waiting-room
there is a general rush, a clustering at one spot, and a babel of voices clash
one with another; we catch a few wandering words—“Here’s where he fell,
right here,” “Carried out that way,” “The wretch, I hope he’ll be hung,” &c.
We look down and see a small brass star let into the ground, which marks
the spot where poor Garfield fell; women prod it with their parasols, men
assault it with their walking-sticks. We have no time to shed the “tributary
tear”; the bell rings “All aboard, all aboard,” and in another moment we are
on our way to Richmond. The weather clears, a few glancing gleams of
golden sunlight stream through the broken clouds, then the sun closes its
watery eye and goes to sleep, with a fair promise of a bright to-morrow.
We roll on through the fresh greenery of Maryland till the evening
shadows fall and the death of the day’s life goes out in gloom and
heaviness. We spend the hours in anticipatory speculations till we reach
Richmond about ten o’clock; we drive at a rapid pace through the rough
stony streets till we pull up at Ford’s hotel, where we intend taking up our
quarters. A night arrival at a strange hotel is always more or less depressing
—on this occasion it is especially so; we pass from the dim obscurity of the
streets without to a still greater obscurity within. Preceded by a wisp of a
lad we ascend the stairs and pass through a dimly-lighted corridor; not the
ghost of a sound follows us, the echo of our footsteps is muffled in the thick
carpet, and swallowed up in the brooding silence.
 Our attendant unlocks and throws open a door, flourishes a tiny lamp
above his head, then, with an extra flourish, sets it on the table, inquiring
with a hoarse voice, as though he had just made a meal of sawdust, “do we
want anything more”; as we had had nothing we could not very well require
any more of it. By the light of our blinking lamp we inspect our apartment,
which is at least amply supplied with beds; there are three of them, each of
Brobdignagian proportions—rivals to the great bed of Ware—they fill the
room to overflowing and seem struggling to get out of the window. We are
soon lost in a wilderness of feathers and wandering through the land of
Nod. It seems to me that the worst room in the house is always reserved for
the punishment of late arrivals, which is bad diplomacy on the part of hotel
proprietors, as it frequently drives their guests away in search of better
quarters. It might have been so with us; but the next morning our smiling
host appears and ushers us into a delightful suite of rooms on the ground
floor, opposite the gardens of the Capitol, where the playful squirrels are so
numerous and so tame that they will come jumping across the road to your
windows to be fed, take nuts from your hand, and sit demurely by your side
and crack them.
 CHAPTER II.
To-day and the yesterdays.—Richmond.—Its monuments.—Its surroundings.—The
sculptor’s studio.—Andromache.

It is at Richmond we get our first view of the South and the Southern
people. Although we are only twelve hours from the booming, hustling city
of New York, yet we feel we have entered a strange land. The difference is
not so much in mere externals, as that the whole character of life is
changed, and from all sides it is borne upon us that we are in the land of a
“lost cause;” it impregnates the very air we breathe, and is written on the
grave earnest faces of the people; it reveals itself everywhere and in
everything.
A few hours in Richmond, and somehow we feel as though the war was
of yesterday. The victor may forget, but the vanquished, who have tasted the
bitterness worse than death, remember; it is ever “yesterday” with the
mother who mourns her dead. The passion for Virginia glows in every
Virginian breast, and a myriad hearts beating as one mourn with proud
regret for her noblest sons. Not Virginia alone; the generous North and
faithful South unite in yielding due reverence to the indomitable Jackson
and to Lee—the stainless gentleman and pure patriot. Here, in Richmond,
those names are household words, and every day we hear fresh anecdotes of
their lives and deaths. But the South does not waste its time in lamenting
over their graves; there is no greater mistake than to imagine that it is
frittering away its energies in vain regrets. The past is past, the dead are
buried; and on the ruins of the old life the South is building up a new—in
fact, it is recreating itself. New railways opening, great factories arising on
every side, bear witness to the energy with which the South is throwing
itself into the work of restoration. The reviving South of to-day bears
promise of fairer fruitage, a far nobler future than could ever have been
reaped from their beloved and buried past. Now that the curse of slavery,
the inherited evil—not their crime, but their misfortune—has been torn out
of the fair land, at the root of whose seeming prosperity it lay coiled like a
canker worm—now that the blot is effaced, washed away in the life blood
of the best and bravest of the North and South—their undaunted spirits are
united in one grand effort to lift up their beautiful land till it shall stand in
the foremost rank among many nations.
No one visiting the South to-day can recognise a single feature of its
ancient self, so complete is the change that has swept over the whole land,
so silent the revolution that has worked in the minds of men and the
arrangement of things. It is like a creature that has been dead, buried, and
resurrected to a higher and nobler state of existence; in fact, looking back
upon its life among the yesterdays it can scarcely recognise itself; the very
atmosphere seems changed from a sultry enervating air to an invigorating
breeze, affecting the spirits as well as the bodies of the people.
Never was ruin so proudly met, defeat so grandly borne; there is no
useless looking back, no lingering regrets over the irrevocable past—their
eyes and their energies are bent on the onward march. But we must hasten
to take our first view of the city of Richmond.
It is situated something like its namesake, our own English Richmond,
only instead of being laved by our broad familiar Thames, it is girdled by
the grand historic river “James,” which winds in graceful coils in and out
and round and round like a silver serpent gliding through a paradise of
green. The city stands on a series of low-lying softly undulating hills; the
Capitol, a building of pure classical architecture, stands in the centre of the
city silhouetted against the bright blue sky, and is a landmark for miles
round. Standing on this Capitol Hill, the highest point, we have a
magnificent view spread panoramically before and around us, while on
every side the landscape blends all the softness and brilliant colouring of
the lowlands with the strength and majesty of the highland scenery,
variegated by picturesque near views of land and water, here a white sail
flutters in the soft breeze, and groups of grand old forest trees lift their leafy
crowns high into the cloudland, and are sometimes lost among the fleecy
cloudlets grey and white that are sailing by, leaving the azure blue far above
them; from this point of vantage, we look down, to where the city fades
away in ragged fringes of poor squalid-looking dwellings, apparently
inhabited by our brethren of African descent. The principal residential
streets are certainly fine and wide, with handsome detached houses in
varied styles of architecture, which redeem from any monotony the quiet,
dignified, and emphatically “gentlemanly neighbourhood.” Looking to the
left we see the shabby one-horse cars crawling along the crazy up-and-
down streets, running hither and thither, stretching away till they are hidden
in a wilderness of green or lost in the pale blue mist of the distant horizon,
and the public buildings, cathedral, and many-spired churches are
prominent features therein. The river stretching away to the right widens
and hides among the foothills, then reappears again and again till it
dwindles into a narrow thread, seeming to sew the land and skies together.
Looking round on this imposing scene, so rich in memories of bygone days,
our thoughts naturally connect the present with the past, and wander
through the long line of dead years to a time more than two centuries ago,
when the great ships ploughed the breast of this river, and brought the first
freight of civilisation to what was then a wilderness.
Away to the left, about two miles along the banks of the river, we descry
the spot where Powhatan wielded his sceptre and ruled his dusky tribe as
kings rule not in these days; we can almost fancy we see Pocahontas launch
her frail skiff upon the bosom of the placid water.
All trace of the tribe and of their dwelling is swept away; only the grand
old trees marked by the finger of passing ages still stand, with gnarled and
knotted trunks, quivering leaves, and withering branches, as though they
were struggling in their death agony, and must soon lie low, with the rest of
earth’s perishable things. Only a stretch of fancy, and we see Captain Smith
surrounded by swarms of threatening faces, passing under their green
vigorous branches, as he believes, to a barbarous death.
Before descending the hill, we make a tour of inspection around the
splendid groups of statuary which adorn the gardens. First in public favour
and in general interest stands the Washington monument; a gigantic and
finely executed equestrian figure of George Washington, mounted on an
imposing granite column, rising from a star-shaped base; beneath and
around him, standing on separate pillars, are the full sized figures of Patrick
Henry, Thomas Jefferson, and sundry other heroes and statesmen of past
days; but of later and fresher interest, is the bronze statue said to be a life-
like portrait of Stonewall Jackson. This fine production is believed to be the
last and best work of the celebrated English sculptor Foley; it bears the
following inscription:—
“Presented by English gentlemen as a tribute of admiration for the
soldier and patriot, Thomas J. Jackson, and gratefully accepted by Virginia
in the name of the Southern people. Done A.D. 1875, in the year of the
Commonwealth.” “Look! There is Jackson, standing like a stone wall.”
 Yes; there he stands to-day, in dark and strong relief against the burning
blue of his own Virginian skies! Stands, every inch a chief, as he will stand
for ever shrined in the hearts of the Southern people—a monument of all
that is staunch and true in human kind; not more immovable now upon his
marble pedestal, than at that hour when the ranks of his men in grey stood
like granite under the Federal fire. In the Capitol library hangs the
Confederate flag, dusty and battle-worn, proudly pointed out to strangers,
and regarded with reverence by those who followed it, and saw it flutter
through the smoke of battle. Round the library walk are ranged the portraits
of the great Southern leaders. Here is the noble and thoughtful face, “the
good grey head that all men knew,” of General Lee, and there the dark stern
brow of Stonewall Jackson; and here is Jefferson Davis, and many other
statesmen and patriots of the fallen Confederacy.
An ardent Virginian accompanied us on our tour through his beloved
city; with lingering eyes, he gazed tenderly upon the figure of the general
who had led them through so many fires.
“Ah!” said he, shaking his head regretfully, “there’ll never be another
Stonewall, he was popular even with the union men; they all admired our
dashing commander.” He added with kindling eyes, “I remember one day,
when our troops were camped on the south bank of the Rappahannock
about a mile from the shore, the Federal troops occupied the opposite side;
both encampments extended for several miles, a line of pickets was
stretched along both banks, and though within easy rifle shot of each other,
firing was by tacit agreement for a while suspended. Although talking
across the river was strictly prohibited, the orders were not heeded, and
lively wordy skirmishing was carried on. One day, loud cheering was heard
on the left of the Confederate line, and as brigade after brigade took it up,
the sound rolled down the southern side of the river.
“‘What’s all that cheering about, boys?’ asked the Federal pickets.
“‘It’s old Stonewall riding along the line,’ was the reply, shouted across
the water; and the pickets on both sides of the river took up the cry, and foes
and friends together were waving their hats and shouting—
“‘Hurrah! hurrah! for old Stonewall!’”
Having duly admired all we ought to admire, we descend the hill and
commence our explorations of the town. We thread the pretty shady streets,
pass the Monumental Church, erected above the ruins of the Richmond
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