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0491c55e017458d7a3c8662271a1d05e
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1846
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Stories published in 1846.
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LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP.
By Miss Catharine M. Sedgwick
[p. 13]
I was on a visit, not long since, to a friend of mine who, still in the unimpaired maturity of life, is surrounded by grown and growing children. Her summer residence is in the neighborhood of a thickly populated village, and being a ‘most gracious ladye,’ she is sometimes rather over visited by her social neighbors. We had one of those occurrences, which in June give such an out-door freshness and fragrance and always an in-door sweet security – a rainy day. Days of rural dissipation, of rides, drives, walks, and pic-nics had preceded it, and an immense batch of sewing bad accumulated in my friend’s work-basket. She called us all about her and gave to each one an appropriate task. I took a pile of stockings, whose ‘windowed raggedness’ was to me a storied record of our scrambles through the rocky beds of brooks and up the tangled mountain sides. On Clara devolved the task of ‘hook and eyeing,’ as she called it, and little Lilly was to replace the missing strings.
“You are good for nothing at the needle, Anne,” said her mother.
“Least in mamma’s kingdom of heaven,” interposed Anne Reyburn, with an arch smile.
The mother returned a smile, as she said, “You don’t deserve for that the pleasure I had allotted to you; but it does not signify; people seldom get their deserts in this world; so, Miss Anne, you may read to us while we work. There is Boswell’s Johnson on the table – a delightful book for social reading. Open it where you may you cannot fail to fall on something agreeable.”
We were soon arranged for our morning’s business, and a lovelier household group than the mother and her girls I have seldom seen. That compendious and trite description of matrons, ‘fair, fat, and forty,’ might be applied to my friend, but in her case the fortunate physical circumstances were symbols of moral wealth and beauty. That ‘fair and fat’ indicated health produced by a wise simplicity of living, by the most beneficent disposition and the sweetest serenity of temper; and the ‘forty’ was forty years of sunshine with only just so much of clouds as is necessary to keep frail human virtue alive and vigorous. Mrs. Reyburn sat, generously filling her commodious sewing-chair, with her huge work-basket on the table before her; Anne gracefully lounged on the sofa with her book; and the younger girls, their faces ‘bright with thoughtless smiles,’ sat on their low chairs with their pretty work-boxes and sewing implements beside them. The door opened into the garden, fresh and flowery in its young June beauty; the rain pattered musically on the doorstep, and the sweet briar, honeysuckle and mignonette sent in to us their exquisite odors. When the sky brightened for a moment the robins swelled their throats; but the clouds dropping down the distant mountain’s side insured the continuance of the morning’s rain, and we began our business with that placid contentment which comes of having no thought, project, temptation or desire beyond the present moment.
Anne Reyburn was just nineteen. Hardly anyone saw her for the first time without exclaiming ‘how like her mother!’ and to a slight observation there was little difference but that of age – in the daughter, the fervid and startling charm of the morning – in the mother, the more subdued beauty of the advancing day; but on a study, Anne revealed feelings of greater depth than her mother’s and a more impulsive gush, liable too to find their way in more uncertain and more devious channels – a character better fitted to modify circumstances than to be modified by them.
My friend influenced the formation of her children’s characters rather by the atmosphere of affection and kindness with which she surrounded herself, than by any direct bearing of authority upon them. This is an admirable and sufficient agent with gentle and pliable materials. Anne has one of those strong characters that must do for itself the hardest work of education: the training of feeling, the subduing of passion, the maiming of reason, must for itself fight the battle of life.
I am tempted to draw Anne's character, which is curious enough in these days of task-work- education and regular training, (dwarfing she calls it,) but her portrait in all its unframed luxuriance would fill more than the space we have now assigned to other matter, so we leave her to be guessed at by a few glimpses of her heart through her words.
She began to read to us, but she read rather dreamily. Her poetic eyes often wandered to the mist floating over the mountains, and finally coming upon Dr. Johnson's saying, that he believed
[p. 14]
marriages would be full as happy as they are if matches were made by the lord chancellor, she threw down the volume, saying “What a detestable old goose he is! What did he know about happy marriages!”
“Doctor Johnson, an old goose!” said one of the little younger girls; “Well, Anne, I wonder what discovery you will make next!:
“I dare say, Clara, you would like a husband of the chancellor's choosing, and would take him with a 'thank you, sir!' and ‘if you like him, sir, I am sure I shall.’ Now heaven save me even from our dear chancellor, M____s, choosing a husband for me!”
“And yet, Anne," said her mother, “I am not sure that you would not in the end be happier with a husband of any wise man's selection than with one of your own choosing.”
“I don't care about the 'end,' mamma; I wish to be happy in the beginning.”
A light laugh, which Anne felt to be against her, ran round the circle. She waited till it was past, and then said, very earnestly, “You may all laugh, but is there one of you, from Miss____ down to Lilly, that would not think it a disgrace to marry any man but him of your own heart's election?”
“Certainly not, Anne,” replied her mother, “but you, my dear child, I presume would have that election decided by love alone.”
“Assuredly, for that alone influences the heart. Reason and judgment, which weigh heavily in the lord chancellor's balance, are not of a feather's weight in the heart's scale.”
“But utterly worthless as reason and judgment are in themselves, Anne,” said Mrs. Reybum, with a grave smile, “may they not be allowed to sanction or influence, or even to decide an insufficient love?”
“No, no—oh no, mamma! An insufficient love is no love at all; is good for nothing. The man that I marry I must love with a love that doubts nothing, fears nothing, hopes all things and believes all things. The whole world's favor would not advance him one jot in my affection, nor its disfavor throw one shadow over him.”
“The 'whole world!' That is talking in very general terms; but suppose a case. If you had a lover whom you liked extremely but did not love, according to your extravagant notions of love"____
“Extravagant, mamma!”
“Do not interrupt me, Anne. Suppose that your father and I approved him; would choose him from all the world for you; that your brothers were his warm friends; that the children loved him”____
“You need not suppose anything more, mamma. It would not all have the slightest influence on me—it could not. Love comes and goes whither it will. If reasons were as thick as blackberries they could not create love; and marriage is disgraceful without love—that
'Most sacred fire, that burneth mightily
In living breasts.’”
“I grant you, Anne but remember that same poetic oracle whom you have quoted, also says—
'Wonder it is to see in diverse minds,
How diversely love doth his pageants play
And shows his power in variable kinds.'
“Now I believe that an affection far short of—or rather far different from what you would call love, may make the basis of the happiest marriage. Do not you?" said my friend, appealing to me, and trusting that as her cotemporary I had arrived at her more sober point of view.
I confess my sympathies were with the daughter; but I compromised between the opposing parties so far as to say, that I deemed love without reason perilous, reason without love inadmissible; and the only sure basis, love sanctioned by reason.
Mrs. Reyburn admitted that in theory I was right, but she contended that there were many modifications and aspects of love; that characters were so various, and that life was so different in reality from what youth pictured it; that she had seen so many different loves that 'hoped all things and believed all things ' wrecked in the first year of marriage; that, for her part, she would rather her girls would trust to a more rational and calmer sentiment than that which made the inspiration of poetry and the basis of romance.
“I will tell you a true story girls,” she said; “a 'love-story,' I call it. Perhaps it will rectify some of your opinions. My heroine was a friend of Miss ____ 's as well as of mine. She knew as well as I, the parties and circumstances, and will vouch for their truth, though indeed there is nothing in them so incredible as to require a voucher.
“A Mr. Ewing, the friend of our parents, died immediately after some reverses in his business, and left his wife with a large young family and an impaired fortune. Mrs. Ewing took a small house, and let her two best rooms to a single gentleman who boarded with her and paid her liberally—Mr. John Sheafe. He was a singular man this Mr. John Sheafe, but his singularities were graceful and pleasing. He was about thirty when he first took possession of his rooms. Dear Mrs. Ewing! she used to say he gave her no more trouble than a kitten, and yet he had his particularities. Though his rooms were furnished with every convenience and elegance, he did not scruple to let in all the little Ewings—a perfect menagerie of wild young things they were—and they might wrap themselves in the bed-clothes, pull
[p.15]
down the curtains, pile up the chairs, rattle down the shovel and tongs, any thing but touch his pictures and books, and the little sinners, like their unhappy progenitors, were very apt to seize on the forbidden things, and then they were driven forth from their paradise and the doors shut upon them. Sheafe would try his best to look like a thunder storm, but the sun always shone through the clouds, and the little wretches were weather-wise enough to know that no storm could gather there, and though Sheafe had told them they never should enter his room again, and Mrs. Ewing with her sternest face, (poor Mrs. Ewing! it was as difficult for her as for her lodger to counterfeit wrath,) assured them Mr. Sheafe was very angry ‘indeed,’ before twenty fours passed away they had one by one stolen in, and were as lawless and uproarious and as welcome as ever. Sheafe had one peculiarity that puzzled Mrs. Ewing to the day of her death. Though of a spirit so social, that in every relation in life he felt and made felt what has been happily called fellow-being-ism, he had an aversion to being included in social arrangements. He prized above every thing else his individual independence, and when Mrs. Ewing would say ‘Mr. Sheafe, our friends so and so, are going to have a pic-nic on Slaten Island,’ or ‘are going to Long Island,’ or wherever the party of pleasure might be, ‘and I have promised you will join us’— or ‘we are going to have such a pleasant little party this evening, all your friends—do come home,’ he invariably replied ‘no—don't count on me—it is not probable I can be there’—or ‘be here,’ and finally perhaps at the very moment they began to recover from their disappointment of his not being with them, he appeared among them, the very soul of all their pleasures."
“Mamma," interrupted Clara Reyburn, “you said you were going to tell a love story?”
“So I am, my dear, and I am just introducing you to one of the parties.”
“That Mr. Sheafe, mamma? Why you said he was thirty years old!”
“Yes, Clara, and he was thirty-five, before I come to the love part of my story.”
“Oh horrid, mamma!”
Mrs. Reyburn proceeded:
“Mr. Sheafe was not rich, but he had an easy fortune and few wants, and he continued to let it fall, like the quiet and plentiful dews of heaven, on the right and on the left. There was no burden in his favors. For five years he managed to make Mrs. Ewing live in a house rent free, of which he said he had taken a lease for a bad debt, that he had long ago given up as hopeless. He kept a servant and secretly paid him double wages for doing Mrs. Ewing's work. He had always some poor friend in the shape of a French dancing or music-master that he wanted to give a little money to, and Mrs. Ewing would particularly oblige him if she would allow the children to take lessons of them, as he did not like to ask them to take money without an equivalent. This was something like reversing the old adage of ‘killing two birds with one stone.’
“You will easily perceive that such a man, in the course of four or five years, would so involve himself with the concerns of a family, as to become indispensable to their happiness. In this five years Catharine or Kate Ewing, as we used to call her, had passed from the awkward age of her fourteenth to her nineteenth year.”
“Oh, now the love story is coming,” cried Clara Reyburn.
“And reason versus love,” said Anne.
Her mother smiled, and went on:—
“Kate was a light-hearted, happy-tempered young creature. She had been from the beginning a prime favorite of Sheafe's, but for the last two or three years he had appeared rather more reserved toward her. While she was a child he was unlimited in his beneficence to her. Her room was filled with his gifts, books and pictures. All her books—the prettiest of rose-wood book-cases—all were his gifts. All her expensive masters had been employed by him. Now, he ceased to be her open benefactor, some good earthly providence seemed still watching over her, and showering favors upon her. If a new book worth buying appeared, she was the first to possess it, and never had she occasion for a bouquet but a bouquet of the choicest flowers appeared at the door. Kate was not very far-sighted in such matters. She did not see why if Mr. Sheafe continued to give, he could not give openly as he had always done. Her simple hearted mother was easily eluded.
“’I know very well, Mr. Sheafe,’ she said, soon after these anonymous gifts began, ‘where Kate's presents come from. I may thank the giver if she cannot.’
“Mr. Sheafe looked grave and displeased. A rare look for him, for of all the men I ever knew he was the most cheerful, the most joyous, as he had a right to be, for he was the best. He said, ‘I perceive you mean your thanks for me, Mrs. Ewing. You are wasting them; whoever the giver of these trifles to Kate may be, he should be allowed the secrecy he chooses.’
“ ‘Well, I assure you,' replied Mrs. Ewing, completely baffled, ‘I have not the smallest notion who it is. I never once thought of anyone but you. To be sure I ought to have remembered that you never in years past made any secret of your gifts.’ A smile that in spite of him, played over Mr. Sheafe's lips, and a blush that deepened
[p. 16]
his rather deep colored cheek, would have told the truth to a more suspicious person than dear Mrs. Ewing. But she, as you know, Miss ____, always took the sense that met the ear.”
“But, mamma," interrupted Anne Rayburn, “I trust Mr. Sheafe was not a rosy bachelor. I can imagine a girl of Miss. Ewing’s age, falling desperately in love with a man, even if he were forty, if he were tall, with a pale, marble complexion, and fine large dark eyes and plenty of black hair.”
“Oh Anne, my dear,” replied her mother, laughing, “nothing can be more unlike your possible lover than my real one. Mr. Sheafe was not above the middle stature; a little inclined to the rotund and the ruddy; and as to his hair, once, alas! Of the softest, lightest brown, it had retreated so far from his forehead that he wore----”
“Oh, not a scratch, mamma; don't say he wore a scratch!”
“Not quite a scratch, Anne, but a small nicely fitted patch to hide the ravages of time. Plenty of black hair indeed! You will hardly find that on a man's head of thirty-five from Maine to Georgia.”
“But a patch, mamma! Baldness is better than that. My father's head now is beautiful; rather bald, to be sure, but the little hair that he has, is soft, bright, and curly.”
“Oh, father's head is lovely!” cried Clara Reyburn!
“Oh yes, I guess it is!” exclaimed in chorus half a dozen young voices.
Mrs. Reyburn and I exchanged smiles, she proceeded:
“Even the patch, Anne, did not conceal or deform the fine classic shape of his head, which with its moral and intellectual developments would have charmed a phrenologist. I am sure no large dark eye ever so expressed, as his beaming gray one did, the kindling and discharging of feeling. His lips between humor, kindness, tenderness and sympathy, were always in a sort of graceful movement, and in short, though he had none of your requisites of beauty, he was the most agreeable-looking man I ever saw.”
“Agreeable looking! Well, was Miss Kate Ewing agreeable looking too?”
Till now I had listened to what was to me an old story with as much interest as the young people, but now I interposed; and with enthusiasm, at the recollection of my charming cotemporary, I described her in terms that made all my young hearers exclaim:
“Oh, she must have been beautiful, and so interesting.”
And Clara Reybum said:—
“I hope that 'old bachelor' didn't dare to fall in love with her?”
“Not, perhaps, what you would quite call falling in love, resumed her mother, but the love he felt for her as a child, grew insensibly into a strange sentiment, and one bright day he was suddenly betrayed into a disclosure for which Kate was totally unprepared. She burst into tears, and frankly told him she had never thought of him as a lover, and never could; but that she loved him so dearly she would rather have died than told him so. A total change came over him—in place of his perpetual good humor and sunny cheerfulness, an immovable gravity and occasional melancholy. Poor Mrs. Ewing could not divine what it meant. She first thought his affairs must be embarrassed, and then she fancied it was an incipient fever, and begged him to take advice. She told him all the house would be wretched, if an evil overtook him, and called his observation to Kate, who, she said, had not smiled for a week. He made no reply to her, but the next morning she was astonished by the information that he was going abroad, and that he and his servant were packing up his furniture to be removed to a place of storage.
“It was a wretched day at the Ewings. Poor Mrs. Ewing walked up and down her room, wringing her hands and wiping her eyes, and wondering and wondering (till Kate wished herself deaf that she might not hear) what could have happened to Mr. Sheafe. Kate went to her worsted work, but her eyes were so blinded with tears, that she could not see it; she took up a book, but she did not know whether she read backwark or forward. She sat down to her piano and played so false, that even Mr. Sheafe heard and noted it.
“Mrs. Ewing saw the carpenters bringing in empty boxes.
“ ‘Dear me,' she said;’ it seems just as if a coffin was coming into the house.”
“ ‘Oh,’ thought Kate, in the impatience of her first misery; ‘I wish it were me, and that I were to be carried away dead in it!’
“ ‘Ma'am!'’ said the chambermaid, rushing in, ‘you never saw such an awful change as there is in Mr. Sheafe's room: its day changed into night —its as solitary as the tomb.’
“ ‘Is he gone, Jane,’ said Kate, starting up.
“ ‘Oh no, Miss—Lord how pale you look—but dismal like a tomb, I mean. The wardrobe is emptied—the books are all in boxes—the pictures, every one of them, even that pretty likeness of Mr. Sheafe that a body can never look at without feeling that he is just going to speak something pleasant—that is in a box, and it looked up at me somehow sorrowful, it did ma'am; and his dressing gown, that always hung there—always with the red cords and tassels hanging down by
[p. 17]
the bed-post, so lively and like Mr. Sheafe, that is packed up too.’
“ ‘Jane, do go away,’ said Kate, petulantly; ‘you make my head ache.’
“ ‘Why, Miss Kate!’ said Jane, and as she shut the door after her, she murmured to herself, ‘her heart ache more like, and its good enough; for her, for I know she is at the bottom of it.’
“A few moments after, in flounced Sophy, the, cook, and after turning her eye from Mrs. Ewing to her daughter, “ ‘Its true, ma'am,’ she said; ‘I see its true; I could not believe Jane. Well, how things does turn topsy-turvy in this world. I shall have to go too. I can't stand it. He never kept the dinner waiting, and never came too soon, and fretted for it. Who'll regulate the clock, now? I shall never take no more satisfaction in roasting a goose. He always said I did it to a turn.’ The tears actually rolled over her round, black cheeks. She continued: ‘With most every body, the scum will rise sometimes, but he's as clear as spring water. He knows what is what, Mr. Sheafe does. He says I’m the only one short of old England that can cook a Christian beefsteak, and he always has something funny to say. Oh he's sugar and spice too!’
“A poor humble widow, who served the house from her thread and needle basket, opened the door gently at this moment, and asked:
“ ‘Is it true, ma'am? is Mr. Sheafe going?’
“ ‘Yes.’
“ ‘The Lord have mercy then on the poor.’
“Every new voice brought forth a fresh shower of tears from Mrs. Ewing. While matters were at this point, the door was opened a crack, and Mr. Sheafe said in a broken voice, 'I am going out for an hour; when the carpenter calls, Mrs. Ewing, be kind enough to tell him the boxes are ready to nail up.’
“Half an hour after, when the carpenter did call, Kate sprang up and said, ‘I will speak to him, mamma.’ An hour or two more passed away, when Mr. Sheafe came in. He had a pass-key to the street door, and as he opened it and shut it, very gently, no one was apprized of his entrance.
“Of all the men I ever knew, he had the greatest repugnance to scenes. He dreaded dear Mrs. Ewing's ingenuous demonstrations, so he stole stealthily up the back stairs, and first entered his lodging room. The door communicating with his parlor was wide open, and through it he saw his books were replaced in his book-case; he advanced a little farther, the pictures were re-hung in their places—a little farther still, and he saw Kate Ewing standing on a chair before his picture which she had that moment replaced, and he heard her say:
“ ‘Dear, dear Mr. Sheafe—never, never shall you leave this house if I can help it.’”
My friend paused. Smiles were on her lips and tears in her eyes. It could no longer be concealed that she was the heroine of her own story. I looked round upon her children. Surprise and discovery were flashing from Anne Reyburn's bright eyes.
The younger girls cried, “Go on, go on, mamma,” and “what did Mr. Sheafe say?” and, “what could Miss Kate say?”
“I do not remember, my dear children. It was one of those rich moments of life when much more is felt than said; but this I know very well, that from that time to this, I have never repented the repentance of that morning ____ "
My friend was interrupted by the entrance of her husband. He had been into the village and brought home a basket of fruit and flowers which he threw among the children. His face had that expression of beaming, paternal happiness, which came from the consciousness that his footstep once over his threshold, was the welcomest sound ever heard there.
I think there was a slight struggle in Anne Reyburn's bosom, as there will be when old ideas are giving place to new ones, but it was soon over. A joyous light flashed from her soul as her eye fell on her father, and kissing her mother, she said, in a subdued voice, “Nobody but yourself, mamma, would have made me believe that yours was not a love-match in the beginning as it is in the end. Well, well, I have had many a dream of love; if I ever have such a reality as yours, I shall be quite content.”
The light just dawned on Clara. “Why, Anne!” she exclaimed; “Goodness, mamma! Mr. Sheafe, indeed! Dear, dear Mr. Sheafe! If you had shabbed him, mamma, I never would have forgiven you!”
A pretty family scene followed; a chorus of exclamations, a few tears, many questions, some jokes on the discarded patch, and a ringing of laughing voices ---- but here the curtain falls.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Look Before You Leap
Subject
The topic of the resource
Marriage, courtship, love vs. reason.
Description
An account of the resource
A mother tells her daughters the story of a young woman who decided to marry an older man of whom she was fond but not passionately in love.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Sedgwick, Catharine M.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Columbian Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine. (January 1846): 13-17.
Publisher
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Edited by John Inman and Robert A. West.
Date
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January 1846
Contributor
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Kristina Curtis; D. Gussman
Relation
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Collected in The Irving Offering, 168-86. New York: Leavitt, & Company, 1851. [pub. 1850]
Language
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English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Document
1846
bachelors
balding
Columbian Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine
courtship
daughters
Edmund Spenser
fathers
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
Love
love stories
marriage
Mothers
picnic
reason
servants
social reading
The Fairie Queen
widows
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https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/4347/archive/files/83e788cb3c5d39de5798cb9c0ee60cf1.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=tVlY%7Exfz2oLVC13rewidIundo62owWjQ0Xjrm63bKO-i4ZyDB4CY4KWOnKjapa%7EE98IEc5OQbWInU1HoT5WoAzkPWBOxbM1ALrreLMD7QKL75rfr7rgKHHkfCHLu-2lUS7R6SwfmAIyFjSeHdzOm%7ENCpnYznPZmI9O%7EOAtIhRkITQRNHMaMTSupkLdjoqgBOLp1P1omsZYLRjCiHTZGRxf8yGx8GL7UDBwMn4zUqMfa4TPa5lR5j0yBATpN15-9IntsUResjifxe7JSwuZucXa50eP9SbQd3WHIYy8JCKlaYizi7vIFY7ZKOSODz8PIzMU0Po26QwE8ri4qPp6FR8g__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
93d806ca3d019b9869b7eb19181cf95a
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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1845
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Text
Any textual data included in the document.
AN INCIDENT AT ROME
____________________________
BY MISS C. M. SEDGWICK
[104]
During a sojourn of some months at Rome, Lady C---- kindly offered to take me in her droski to Tusculum, a drive, as nearly as I can recall the distance, of some dozen miles. Accordingly, on one of those days, (of which we have often a counterpart in our autumnal months,) when the sky is of its deepest blue, and so serene that the eye seems to penetrate depths never before revealed, we passed the gate of St. John Lateran and entered on the Appian Way. Most
“Things by season seasoned are,
To their right praise and true perfection.”
But to the Roman campagna change of season brings no change. In the spring when, elsewhere, there is a general resurrection of vegetable life – a joyous beginning of the procession of the year – this unchanging aspect of the campagna is most solemn. When all the rest of Italy, as far as nature is concerned, has the beauty, gladness and promise of youth, is in truth a paradise regained, there are here no springing corn, no budding vine-stalks, no opening blossoms, scarcely a bird’s note. Nature, elsewhere so active, so plastic, so full of hope, is here monumental – a record of the inexorable past.
But though there be no look of cheerful habitancy, there is a solemn beauty. You can scarcely turn your eye without a strong emotion, without involuntarily uttering a name that is a charmed word. “There is Soracte!” “There is Tivoli!” “There is the country of the Sabines!” “There are the beautiful Alban Hills!” Behind you is Rome with its natural elevations, its splendid domes, towers and obelisks, its brooding pines, and sad cypresses – surely the most picturesque, the most suggestive of cities. The vast solitudes around you are filled with records of Rome and its magnificent life-time; broken aqueducts sometimes extending for a quarter of a mile, and then standing in fragments of three or four, or perhaps a single arch. On every side are monuments and tombs, by which the poor tenants hoped to perpetuate their names. The high sepulchral grass waves around them, the stones are a blank, or if the name be preserved – as in the still nearly perfect tomb of Cecilia Metella – it is but a name, all the rest is left to conjecture.
Lady C---- had resided several winters at Rome, and was perfectly familiar with its antiquities, and generous in her communications, and so delightfully did the time pass away that we hardly seemed to have emerged from the Porta San Giovanni when we drove into the little town of Frascati. The landlord appeared at the carriage door, with the usual smiles and potency of an Italian host, and answering the ready “Yes – yes – my lady!” to all Lady C’s demands, (the chief one being a parlor with a pleasant prospect,) he ushered us into the house and up a dirty stairway, and opened the door and windows of a little parlor, exclaiming, “Ecco, ecco, mi ladi, ecco una bella veduta!” We rushed to the window, expecting a beautiful view of the campagna, but instead of that we could see nothing but the villainous little piazza we had just left, with the usual accompaniments of an Italian place, beggars and an idle rabble. Lady C. smiled, and turning to me said, “The house affords nothing better, or he would have given it to us,” and bowing to our host as if she were quite satisfied, he took her orders and left us to ourselves.
“At what are you smiling?” she said to me.
“At your un-English way of proceeding, my dear Lady C.
Pardon my impertinence, but it would have seemed to me more nationally characteristic if you had broken out upon our host for attempting to impose this piazza on you for a beautiful prospect.”
“But it is to his eye. You are right, my friend. I have lived long enough abroad to get rid of a few prejudices, and some inconvenient and very unwise English habits. I do not now conclude that a thing is of course wrong because it is not in our Island fashion; and I am just learning to endure with good temper what I cannot cure, and to find out that every country, I might almost say every creature, has a bright side, at which we may look and thank God. Truly I am often ashamed of my snarling, barking, arrogant countrymen.”
I was charmed with the candor of Lady C’s concession, but being well aware that such a concession is much of the nature of a personal humiliation, I turned the subject by asking Lady C. if she had been frequently at Frascati?
“Often.” she said, and the last time she was there was rather memorable, and she proceeded to relate the following story, some part of which I had heard from our consul at Naples. Three years before, letters had been received at Rome, and in those Italian cities most frequented by the English, requesting inquiries to be set foot for a certain Murray Bathurst, a young Englishman, who had come to the Continent early in the preceding spring, intending to make the tour of Italy chiefly on foot. His mother, a widow, had received letters from him as late as October. He was then on his return from Naples to Rome, purposing to embark at Civita Vecchia for Marseilles. The mother’s letters expressed the misery of her suspense and anxiety so touchingly that many persons became interested in her behalf. Her letters were enforced by others from persons of note. I remember Lady C. mentioned Wordsworth or Southey’s name. This adventitious aid could scarcely have been necessary to stimulate benevo-
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lence. No adventitious aid would ever be in requisition if there were more of the human race like a certain little woman in Boston, who hearing an alarm given of a child being run over, rushed forward to rescue it with such signs of distress that a passer by asked, “Is it your child?” “No,” she replied, “but it is somebody’s child.” Diligent inquiries were made of the police, and the books of our consuls at the different cities examined. The result was that Murray Bathurst was traced from Milan to Naples, back to Rome, and thence to Civita Vecchia. His entrance from Rome into that most forlorn of all travelers’ depots was duly registered, and there all clew was lost. In vain were the registers of all the steamers and of every craft that left the port examined – there was no trace of him. It must have been the same Murray Bathurst that was noted elsewhere; for his tall, slender, un-English person, his large dark melancholy eyes, his pale complexion, and tangled long dark hair, were all so notable as to be recorded in the reports of the police. Many letters were written to the mother giving this unsatisfactory information, and expressive of condolence and regret that no more could be learned of the lost young man. In a little time the topic became trite, then was forgotten, and mother and son sunk into the oblivion of past things.
A year ran away, when one morning, just as Lady C. was sitting down to her solitary breakfast in the ---- palace, Mrs. Bathurst was announced. The name and its association had passed from Lady C’s memory. Mrs. Bathurst presented a letter of introduction, and said – “My apology for troubling you is that you are the only person in Rome whom I have ever seen before, and of whose interest and sympathy I feel assured.”
Lady C. was perplexed, but on glancing at the letter she expressed, I have no doubt with the graceful courtesy that characterized her, her readiness to serve Mrs. Bathurst in any mode she would suggest –“But where and when,” she asked, “have I had the pleasure of meeting you?”
“It is quite as natural that you should forget as that I should remember it – the meeting was accidental, but the place may serve to recall it to you. Do you remember, seventeen years ago, meeting a young woman in the widow’s weeds with a little boy, whose beauty I believe first attracted you, wandering about the Druidical remains at Stonehenge?”
“Perfectly – perfectly – and now, though certainly somewhat changed by time – more probably by recent sorrow – I recall your countenance. And that lovely boy, I am quite sure I should know him again. I never have forgotten his extraordinary look of curiosity and investigation as he wandered about amidst those stupendous ruins, nor the intelligent wonder with which he listened to our speculations.”
“And do you remember the subsequent evening we passed together at the inn, when our conversation turned on the antiquities of Italy, and you gave us some account of your then recent visit to Rome, and showed us many drawings in your port-folio, and gave my poor boy a beautiful sketch of one to the temples of Pæstum?”
“Yes, oh yes! and I remember being exceedingly surprised, and pleased, with the child’s extraordinary acquaintance with subjects of which few children of his age had ever heard.”
“Ah, it was then my pride, my fatal pride to instruct him on these subjects, which had always interested myself, and which had occupied much of my poor husband’s life. I developed prematurely, and most unwisely, his taste, and so concentrated his mind on the study of antiquities, that it became a passion. I was gratified by the development of what appeared to me extraordinary genius. Thus I fed the flame that was to consume my poor boy. I found too late that it was impossible to restore his mind to the interests natural, and of course healthy, to youth. My fortune was narrow. I lived with the most rigid economy to supply him with the means of education. He went to Oxford, where he acquitted himself honorably in all the prescribed studies. These were mere task work, except so far as the classics related to his favorite pursuits. His task done, he wasted his health in midnight antiquarian research. At the close of his college career we went into Devonshire at the invitation of my brother-in-law, Sidney Bathurst, to pass the winter.” At this point of her story Mrs. Bathurst paused, reluctant to indulge in the egotism of going into particulars not immediately connected with her loss, though greatly aggravating the calamity; but Lady C., full of sympathy, and not without curiosity, begging her not to omit any particular, she proceeded. “Sydney Bathurst had repaired the fallen fortunes of his family by a long residence in India. His mind was thoroughly mercantilized. He had rather a contempt for all young men, and such a thorough conviction of the unproductiveness of all learning, that my son’s pursuits did not shock him so much as I had feared. His only child, Clara Bathurst, was after his own heart, practical, cheerful even to gayety, careless of the past and future, and reflecting the present brightly as a mirror does sunshine. I soon perceived that her father’s design in inviting us was to give the young people an opportunity of falling in love. He naturally wished to transmit his fortune to one of his own name and family, and I – I trust without a covetous spirit – conscious that my son had no talent for acquitting fortune, was delighted with the prospect of his obtaining, with an amiable wife, the means of indulging his taste. Nothing – I am convinced of it – nothing goes right where fortune is the basis of a matrimonial project. Marriage is the Lord’s temple – the money-changers may not enter it with impunity. I must do myself the justice to say that fortune was not my primary object. I watched the indications of the young people’s affections with intense interest. There were few points of sympathy between them. My son seemed hardly to notice his cousin; at times, indeed, gleams from her sunny spirit entered his heart, but as if through a crack – no light was diffused there. With Clara the case was quite different. Affection is a woman’s atmosphere. We are flexible and clinging in our natures, and we attach ourselves to the nearest object. We lived in retirement. My
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son had no competitor. He was gentle in his manners, refined, graceful – handsome. He had the reputation of learning and talent.
“Clara became quiet and thoughtful. She took to reading, and, poor girl! at last came to poring over the huge old books in which my son buried himself. She seemed winding herself into a sort of chrysalis condition, in the hope of a transition to come.
“The winter passed away without change to Murray. One idea absorbed him. Early in the spring he asked a private audience of his uncle, and when Mr. Sydney Bathurst was prepared to hear a disclosure harmonizing with his favorite project, my son modestly imparted his desire to come to Italy, his longing to explore the Etruscan remains whose riches were just then developing. He perceived his uncle’s astonishment, disappointment and displeasure, and he intimated that though poor he was independent. His purpose was to travel on foot, and he had ascertained by inquiries and calculation that the half of his annual allowance would pay for his meat, drink, and lodging, which should be all of the simplest.
“‘And how’, his uncle asked contemptuously, ‘was his rummaging and groping about the dusty old underground ruins of Italy fit him for any manly career? When was he to set about getting his living?’
“My son replied that what others called a living was superfluity to him, that he would not exchange his favorite pursuits for all England’s wealth – for himself he had no favor to ask but to be let alone; but that it would be an inexpressible comfort if, during the six months of his absence, he might leave me in my present happy situation – in the society of his cousin, whom he was sure I loved next to himself.
“‘The only sensible thing he said,’ exclaimed my brother-in-law, when he repeated to me the conversation, ‘Such folly is incomprehensible. But there is no use in interfering. Let him go his own way and take the consequence. Bread and water regimen in perspective is well enough, but, my word for it, he will be tired of it and Italy and its rubbish before six months are past.’
‘I will not go into more particulars of our conversation. I naturally defended my poor son, but I felt that Mr. Bathurst’s objections were sound. It ended in my acquiescing in Murray’s carrying out the plan he had made, and encountering the hardships he contemned, in the hope they would prove the best medicine for his diseased mind. But I was to learn that a mental, like a physical, condition which has been cherished and fortified by education cannot be changed by medicine. My son left us. Poor Clara, like Undine, had found a soul in the development of her affections. Her gayety was gone. So long as my son continued to write to us she read every thing she could lay her hands upon connected with the scene of his travels and the researches that particularly interested him. Since then she had read nothing. For a time she fell into a deep melancholy. From this she was roused, in part by my earnest entreaties, but more by the force of her own conscience. She is now a sort of lay sister of charity to the neighborhood, and she finds, as the wretched have always done, the surest solace for her own misfortunes in softening the miseries of others.”
So far Lady C. had told me Mrs. Bathurst’s story as she recalled it in her own words. Six months had elapsed since young Bathurst had been seen at Civita Vecchia. Mrs. Bathurst had come to Italy in the hope that she might obtain some clew that had escaped the less interested search of strangers. Her brother-in-law had supplied her amply with the means of traveling, and she had resolved never to abandon the pursuit while the least ray of hope remained. The circumstances on which she mainly rested her belief that nothing fatal had happened to her son were, that as he was of the Roman Catholic faith – that as he spoke Italian like a native, and as his complexion and features were much more like the Italian than his own northern race, he might for years wander about the less frequented parts of Italy without incurring the suspicion that he was a foreigner. She conjectured that on arriving at Civita Vecchia he had yielded to an unconquerable reluctance to leaving Italy. She had no very definite idea of what had since been his fate. She alternated between hope and despair without any reason but the condition of feeling she happened to be in. The source whence young Bathurst had derived his antiquarian enthusiasm was soon quite obvious to Lady C. The only mode of drawing Mrs. Bathurst from her sorrowful maternal anxieties was to plunge her into some obscure, unintelligible ruin in Rome. She preferred the dim Thermæ of Titus, Caracalla’s baths, or Sallust’s garden, to St. Peter’s, and the fragments of the palaces of the Cæsars to all the glories of the Vatican. But there were times when she was so steeped in grief, so near despair, that she seemed on the verge of insanity: and it was one evening after trying in vain to rouse and soothe her that Lady C. proposed a drive to Tusculum the next day. They accordingly set forth the next morning, and the mother seemed to be drawn away from her personal sorrows on this monumental road, for who, it is natural to ask here, can escape the common destiny of man “made to mourn?”
They drove into the little town of Frascati, and stopped at this same inn where Lady C. and myself were now discussing our cold chicken. The piazza was as thronged and noisy then as now, as these places always are in Italy, and most noisy in the meanest, poorest, lowest-fallen towns. As the ladies alighted screaming guides and clamorous beggars thronged about them. Mrs. Bathurst hurried into the inn. Lady C., more accustomed to the disagreeable juxtaposition of fleas, dirt and importunity, quietly stopped to make her bargain with a guide, and give, as is her custom, a small sum to the landlord to be dispensed to the poorest poor. Her eye was attracted by a lean and miserable man who stood behind the crowd, and apart from it, and who, pale, emaciated and haggard, with a threadbare cloak closely drawn around him, and seeming most of all to need charity, was apparently unobservant and unconcerned.
“My friend,” said Lady C. to the landlord, and
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pointing to the man who had attracted her eye, “see to that poor wretch getting the largest share of my charity, and here,” she added, again opening her ever willing purse, “here is something more – get him a warm under-garment – he is shivering at this moment.”
“Ah, madame,” replied mine host, “he is well cared for; his senses are a little astray, and of such, you know, the Holy Virgin has special care. He wanders about from morning till night, and when, at evening, he comes into Frascati, there is not a churl in the town that would not give him a bed and lodging, though he never asks for either. He is innocent and quiet enough, poor fellow!”
“Has he no family – no relatives among you?” asked Lady C – but she received no reply – another carriage had drawn up, and the landlord with the ready civility of his craft was opening its door.
“Come with me to the other side of the house,” said Lady C. to Mrs. Bathurst, whom she found in a little back parlor overlooking the court. “Come with me and see a pensioner of the Holy Virgin – as our host assures me he is – a creature steeped in poverty, but without suffering, and with an aspect that having once looked upon you never can forget.” Before she had finished her sentence Lady C. was at the window of “la belle veduta,” overlooking the piazza. The throng of beggars was at the heels of the newly arrived gentry, and Lady C. looked about, for some time in vain, for the subject of her compassion. “Ah, there he goes!” she said, espying him. “Is there not a careless, objectless desolation in his very movement?”
“I do not see that he differs from the other beggars, except that he stoops, and has a less noble air than many of them.”
“My dear Mrs. Bathurst! But you do not see his face, and therefore cannot judge – poor fellow, he is taking to the sunny steps of the church like the rest of them, and there is languidly laying himself down to his best repose.”
After cold chicken and a bottle of wine at Frascati, the ladies proceeded on foot to Tusculum, preferring to be discommoded by a walk, somewhat too long, to the perpetual annoyance of clamorous yelling donkey drivers. After having gone up the long hill to Tusculum, they turned into the Ruffuiella, Lucien Bonaparte’s villa, and finding little to attract them in its formal adornments, they soon left it. As they turned toward the gate Lady C. exclaimed, “There is my poor friend again! he has taken the road to Tusculum; I hope we may cross his path there, I want you to see his face, if I do not mistake, it has a story, and a sad one.”
“I am ashamed to confess to you,” replied Mrs. Bathurst, “how little curiosity I feel about him; how little I am touched by all the misery I see here. My whole sentient being is resolved into one distressful feeling. At times, indeed, I am roused from it, and the thought that I am in Italy, sends a thrill of pleasure though my frame. Even here, in Tusculum, at this highest point of excitement, where, under ordinary circumstances, the very stones would burn my feet, my sorrow comes back upon me like a thunder-bolt.”
“Drive it away now, if possible,” said Lady C. “It is worth your while, I assure you, to possess your mind in this place – here is a cicerone who will give a name, right or wrong, whenever we ask for it. He told me the other day, in good faith, that the ciceroni all take their name from Cicero, who, in his day, showed the marvelous fine things here to strangers! I asked the fellow who this Cicero was, and he answered, un gran maestro, who taught little boys all the languages in the world, besides reading, writing, and arithmetic! * [*See Rome in the 19th century] A fair specimen of the veritable information of these gentry.”
The ladies proceeded under the conduct of their guide, to survey the broken walls called “la Scuola di ciceroni,” as some learned expounders conjecture from the philosophical academy, the institution of which at his own house, in Tusculum, is mentioned in one of Cicero’s letters.
Mrs, Bathurst’s antiquarian enthusiasm began to kindle, her eye dilated, and her pale cheek glowed. In a happy oblivion, for the moment, of her personal anxieties, she left Lady C. seated on the broken fragment of a column almost overgrown by weeds and grass, and followed her talking guide, to look at the reticulated walls of a row of houses, at a disinterred Roman pavement, and among a mass of ruins at the gradus of an amphitheater. While she was thus occupied, the poor pensioner of the Virgin emerged from a tangled thicket near Lady C., bearing and bending over a large flat stone, which he had hardly strength to carry, and with his eye riveted to it as if he were perusing it, he sat down on the ground apparently without observing her, near Lady C’s feet. The hair, as he studiously bent over the stone, hung in tangled masses over his face, so as to hide all but its outline. At this moment Lady C. heard Mrs. Bathurst approaching from behind. She pointed to the man, and signified to her not to disturb him. The guide misinterpreting her action, said “Fear nothing, my lady, he’s an innocent madman, who passes his time wandering about these ruins, digging and groping – half the world are somewhat in his way – the Virgin muddles their brains and sends them here to spend their money in poor old Italy. By St. Peter!” he continued, going close to the antiquary and bending over him, “he has found something worth while this time. What is it, my good fellow?”
The crazed man, after scraping away the plaster and rubbish that adhered to the stone, had found what he sought, an inscription, defaced, and so far obliterated that no mortal could make it out, but this in no sort abated his joy – it was an inscription made by hands that had mouldered for centuries. Whether it now or ever signified any thing he cared not. He clapped his hands, and as if for the first time conscious of the presence of others, he shook back his hair, and turned his eyes toward the ladies for sympathy – sympathy, the first and last want of human nature. His eyes met theirs – met Mrs. Bathurst’s – his mother’s. He did not move, but from the gush of blood over the
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deathlike paleness of his cheek, and a slight tremor that suddenly pervaded his whole frame, it was evident he recognized her, and that he felt at the same moment his changed and strange condition. The mother knew her son at a glance, and exclaiming, “Murray!” sprung to him and enclosed him in her arms. A shout burst from him so loud and so protracted, that it seemed as if it must shiver his frame – his mother recoiled and sunk fainting in Lady C’s arms.
The story of the unfortunate antiquarian has been already too long and too particular, and I shall only briefly add what remains to be told. A perfect stupor succeeded to Murray Bathurst’s recognition of his mother, and his first consciousness of his wretched condition. A fever ensued – medical attendants – tender nursing most remedial, the comforts from which he had long been estranged, nature and youth all combined to do the work of restoration. With the return of reason, came a horror of the passion that had led him astray, and he became as impatient as he had been reluctant to leave Italy. He remembered that after reaching Civita Vecchia, he felt like a lover tearing himself from the object of his passion. His feet seemed to grow to the rich dust of Italy. Day after day he delayed taking the passage. After wandering about late one night, he remembered awaking in the morning with a high fever, and from that time his memory became more and more obscure. He had dim recollections of being transported from one place to another, of missing, one after another, his articles of dress – of dreams of hunger and thirst – and of finding jugs of water and bread by his bedside – finally, all became a blank, till he awoke in his mother’s arms. Mrs. Bathurst, fearful of a relapse into his old habits of mind, lost no time in leaving Italy. She had since kept Lady C. informed of the progress of her son’s cure, which she now believed to be radical. He had the good sense to avoid all books related to his disastrous passion, and every thing associated with it. His uncle had received him with open arms, comforting himself with the verification of his prognostics for the past trials of his nephew, and saying somewhat coarsely, that to be sure the hair of the same dog would cure the bite, if you ate hide and all.
A more fitting mistress than Italy had taken possession of the young man’s imagination, and health and cheerfulness were in her train. The last letter communicated the marriage of the cousins – and now Mrs. Bathurst said they could look back with tranquil minds, to that “beautiful region” where
“A spirit hangs o’er towns and farms,
Statues and temples, and memorial tombs.”
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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An Incident at Rome
Subject
The topic of the resource
English travelers in Italy, antiquarianism.
Description
An account of the resource
The narrator, traveling in Italy, meets an English lady, who recounts the story of Mrs. Bathurst and her son Murray, a young antiquarian who goes mad while conducting research in Rome. He is eventually reunited with his mother and restored to sanity.
Creator
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C[atharine]. M[aria]. Sedgwick
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Graham's Magazine [edited by George R. Graham], March 1845: 104-8.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1845
Contributor
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Gabriela Siwiec
D. Gussman
Language
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English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Document
1845
antiquarian
antiquities
beggars
Cicero
Frascati
Graham's Magazine
India
Italy
madness
marriage
merchants
Mothers
pride
Roman Catholic
Rome
sons
Southey
sympathy
Tusculum
Wordsworth
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/4347/archive/files/586320d73c995b63356b88ec8c491dd0.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=v5FfmHkRmwigBxvlfjl3gGpQliFZPK78uiQlAI6etxBCZ1UO-EixE9JjO-3oMMlBNDSRM6eUP0FBEZnmPhxY1Ii%7Err9gEqBGqfiifv5E4FuNRUkmJsqkN0YiEOnj6nDXDFfVashZO-Xm7IjuedNcUrsQj3FwUB-XwOWPjP8yXbtM%7EhT4mq2HlCcjmuPtwjuJ0Re2buSdloqrTs1e3xd43%7EtqFzTEALe6vIE0Q2qD9X23f2%7E-cTN56JQrNLDmxfN0fGj5UjrL50G3cNBYDQHgSNvtbSRvvrtaTrRTGE222avdbqMoBZf1zs55mp1c9JoBGD9TslHoQnncQxdPOp-8SQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
8c9f93ccbb7e090aa61f362f898b849d
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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1828
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Text
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Dogs.
William Russel resides in one of our Massachusetts villages. He has recently been to New York; and on the evening after his return, while his brothers and sister were arranging their new toys, he began to describe, as well as he was able, the wonders he had seen in the great city. The toys were soon forsaken to listen to him—John’s stag-hunt was but half set up—Anne’s city looked as if an earthquake had tumbled down churches and houses in hopeless ruin—Mary’s doll was permitted to remain half-dressed—and even little Bess, the baby, caught the spirit of listening, ceased to jingle her silver bells, and , in sympathy with the rest, fixed her eager eye on William.
“Of all that I saw in the city of New York,” proceeded William, “that which pleased me most, was the learned dog, Apollo.”
“That is exactly like you, William,” exclaimed little Mary—“You always seem to care more about dogs, than any thing else.”
“Not one half so much as I care about you, Mary,” said the affectionate boy, kissing his sister’s round, red cheek.
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Mary’s eyes sparkled—she threw her arm over her brother’s shoulder, “Well, tell us all about Apollo, Will,” she said.
William then went on to recount the wonderful performances of this most wonderful of all speechless animals—“Apollo,” he said, “is a Greek by birth,--like many other heroes, a native of the celebrated city of Athens; but he is owned, and has been educated, by an Englishman.”
“Educated, William!” exclaimed John—“a dog educated!—that is a good one!”
“Yes educated, or taught, if you like that better, John,--and if you will please to listen, instead of laughing, you will find that your education had been going on a long time, before you knew as much as Apollo does. When he was exhibited, a circular piece of baize was spread on the floor, and twenty six cards placed around its edge, with the alphabet printed on one side of them, and numbers, up to twenty-six, on the other. The spectators encircled the baize. They were requested, by Apollo’s master, to ask him to spell any name, that occurred to them. Several names were put to him, which he invariably spelt right.”
“Could he speak?” asked Mary.
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“Oh! no—no Mary—I never heard of but one dog, that could speak—a dog belonging to a peasant of Misnias; and he could pronounce but twenty-five words.”
“A dog speak!” said Mary, shaking her head incredulously—“that I never will believe.”
“Neither should I believe it, Mary, but papa read me the account, which is by Leibnitz, a great philosopher, who saw the dog,--and I had rather believe a dog could speak, than that a great man would give a false report. But though my dog Apollo cannot speak, he makes himself perfectly understood. For instance, if I say ‘Apollo, spell Mary!’ He walks slowly round the cards—stops before M a r y , and puts his nose down to each; or, if you choose, he will bring them, and lay them at your feet.”
“Ah, but Mary is a very, very short name; do you believe he could spell Alexander?” asked the little girl.
“Yes—I put that to him myself, and several other names; but he astonished me still more when he came to his arithmetic.”
“Arithmetic!” exclaimed John—“well, if a dog can learn arithmetic, I hope I shall have a little more patience with it.”
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“Yes, arithmetic. He will multiply, or subtract, any number within twenty-five. For instance, you ask him, ‘Apollo, how much is five times four?’ and he will bring you the card, on which twenty is printed. Or, if you say ‘Apollo, add together three times five, and subtract six,’ he will bring you the card, on which nine is printed.”
“Oh!” said John, “he could not know all that. It is a mere trick. I dare say his master makes him some private sign.”
“Ah John, as a gentleman said at the show, to get rid of one difficulty, you make a greater. Many of the spectators were watching the master, and they could not perceive the least communication between him and the dog; so the dog, to see these signs, which you suppose, must have had keener wits than any of us. He did many other things; but they did not appear so wonderful to me, because they were uniform answers to certain questions, which might have been often repeated to him. For instance, he would tell the capitals of all our States, and of the countries of Europe:--where he was born—his age—the places he had visited, &c. He had even made acquaintance with the stars; could tell you the
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names of the planets, their distance from one another; and from the earth—the time they take to make their revolutions round the sun; and, in short,” continued William, smiling, “he is quite a Newton among dogs.”
After the children had exhausted their inquiries and expressions of admiration, William asked his mother if she did not think that, at some future time, there would be schools for dogs, as there were now for children. His mother thought no. “Men,” she said, “teach one another. One race of boys educated, teaches the next; but God, in denying speech to dogs, has denied them the power of transmitting their knowledge. Apollo, learned as he is, cannot impart his knowledge to another dog;--and it is not probable that man will ever make it his business to teach inferior animals, since such knowledge could be of no use after it ceased to be a curiosity. But, my children, we ought to be very glad to see the art of man employed on any other powers in dogs than the power of destruction. How much pains have been taken to train this interesting and useful animal to pursue and destroy other animals. In England, our mother country, dogs have been trained to fight, and tear bulls, for
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the amusement of the people. This disgusting sport was called bull-baiting. Even queens forgot the gentleness of their sex so far, as to be present at these sports. Queen Mary entertained a French ambassador, for two days successively, with an exhibition of this kind, only fit for Hottentots—and was herself present.”
“Perhaps, mamma,” said William, “these horrid spectacles made her cruel; for that Mary was the queen who put to death so many of her own subjects that she was called ‘bloody Mary!’”
“Yes, William, such sports would certainly have a tendency to confirm a cruel disposition. You will find that most kind-hearted people are kind to animals. He who treats his horses and cows with care and tenderness, will not neglect his wife and children.”
“You agree with the poet Cowper, mamma. Do you remember those lines you once pointed out to me:
‘The heart is hard in nature, and unfit
For human fellowship, as being void
Of sympathy, and therefore dead alike
To love and friendship both, that is not pleased
With sight of animals enjoying life.’”
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“Yes, my dear—and I thank you for remembering them. Cowper is a case in point himself. He was one of the most tender-hearted men that ever lived; and the history of his three little pet hares, Tiny, Puss, and Bet, which he has told so beautifully himself, and which you have all read, is a proof of his love of animals. But we were speaking of the cruelties taught to dogs. Do you know, William, that formerly blood-hounds were trained to pursue malefactors? This might be excused, on the ground that murderers and robbers deserved no mercy; but no apology can be made for the French of St. Domingo, one of the West India islands. Their slaves rebelled, and, determined to be free, carried on a war against their masters, by which they finally obtained their liberty. During this contest, the French trained blood-hounds to pursue and devour the negroes. I will read you the description of this mode of training the dogs, as it is given in the Encyclopedia.” William’s mother took down the book, and read the following extract:--
“In training the hounds to this inhuman pursuit, they are confined in a kennel, sparred like a cage, and sparingly supplied with the
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blood of other animals. The figure of a negro, in wicker-work, stuffed with blood and entrails, was occasionally exhibited in the upper part of the cage: the dogs struggled against their confinement, and as their impatience increased, the effigy was brought nearer and nearer, while their usual subsistence was gradually diminished. At length the figure was resigned to them; and while voraciously tearing it up, and devouring its contents, they were encouraged by the caresses of their keepers. Thus their hatred to black, and their love to white men, were, at the same time, excited. When their training was complete, they were sent out to the chase. The miserable negro had no means of escape; he was hunted down, and torn to pieces; his wife and children, perhaps, sharing his misfortune. This, however, was not the full extent of the calamity. The dogs frequently broke loose, and infants were devoured in an instant form the public way—sometimes the proceeded to the neighbouring woods, and surprising a harmless family of labourers, at their simple meal, tore the babe from the breast of its mother, or devoured the whole party, and returned with their jaws drenched in gore.”
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The children were loud in their expressions of indignation at these base cruelties; and, turning from them to the more agreeable subject of Apollo, they again discussed his accomplishments.
“After all, mother,” said Mary, “though I should like of all things to see Apollo, and I know I should admire him, yet I never could love him so much as I do poor Clara’s little dog, Foot.”
“No, my dear—because though talents, in man, woman, child, or dog, may excite our admiration, it is goodness that touches our hearts. Your eyes are wide open with wonder when you hear of Apollo; but the other day, when you witnessed the fidelity of Foot, they were moistened with tears of sympathy and tenderness.”
“Tears! Did we shed tears, mother?” asked Mary. “I am sure my feelings were pleasant.”
“They were indeed, Mary; but some of our pleasantest feelings bring tears to our eyes.”
That our young readers may understand what were the pleasant feelings, that brought tears to the eyes of these good children, we must tell the story of Clara, and her dog Foot.
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Clara, or rather Clary, (for I would give the accustomed sound to her name) is a poor girl in our village, who has suffered from epileptic fits; which, for the time, suspend her faculties, and have gradually impaired them, till she has become, in country phrase, quite “underwitted.” She leads, for the most part, an idle, vagrant life, straying about the field, gathering fruits, and collecting roots, and wildflowers. She may be seen every day, sauntering through our village-street, in rain, snow, and driving wind, heedless of the weather, excepting in the bitterest cold of winter, when she steals to some kindly hearth, and putting to the fire her feet, which appear half frozen through her torn shoes, she looks up with a vacant smile, and says, like Shakespeare’s fool, “poor Clary’s a-cold.”
Her little terrier dog, Foot, is always by her side—the only living thing that seems to love her—the only one she loves. When she ploughs through the deep snows, he follows, jumping and frisking, and half buried at every plunge;--and through the dismal rains, the poor fellow appears, still performing his forlorn duty, his head drooping, and his tail curled close to his legs. But in the fine, bright summer days, Foot has his pleasures too.
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When Clary is marching under the shade of the beautiful maples, that line our street—her torn frock trailing on the ground—her calico bonnet hanging back from her weather-beaten face—her alms-basket dangling on her arm,--and her knitting, (her constant occupation) in her hands, little Foot appears full of life and spirits. Every child in the street knows Foot—all respect his devoted friendship for Clary, (for true friendship, even in dogs, is beautiful,) and every little girl and boy gives him a kind word, or caress, or perchance a bit of gingerbread from the school-basket. Even the dogs—and there is an uncommon population of that race in our village—even the dogs bound towards little Foot with kind salutations, while he returns their greeting with a frolicksome play, and a short, joyous bark. But that which is most worthy of record about Foot, and that which excited the admiration of our young friends, yet remains to be told.
Poor Clary is sometimes seized with her fits by the road-side. During the paroxysms, and the long sleep, which sometimes succeeds them, Foot never quits her side. I saw him on one of these occasions, his paws placed on her arm, looking intently in his poor mistress’
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face, and yelping most piteously. “What,” thought I, “must be the tenderness of that Great Being, who has put such compassionate feelings into the breast of this little dog!”
Foot sometimes renders Clary essential service. Once, when she was returning from the fields, with a basket of fine strawberries, she sat down to rest herself, and was seized with a fit. A boy was passing, with an empty basket. He espied Clary’s beautiful strawberries, he saw she was unconscious, and he was tempted to steal them. He knew it was wicked to steal, and that this was cruel stealing,--but the pleasure of gratifying his appetite with the delicious fruit, was uppermost in his mind. He stole softly towards the strawberries, and was just emptying them into his own basket, when Foot sprang on him, grasped his coat between his teeth, and held him fast. The boy in vain tried to beat him off—he snarled, and threatened to bite him, but did not quit his hold. The boy then thought of screaming for help, but then whoever came to his relief, would be a witness of his disgrace. He stood, for a few moments, pondering in silence—then stooped down, poured the pilfered strawberries again into Clary’s basket, and placed it
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close to her side. When he had thus repaired his fault, Foot quietly released his prisoner, and returned to his mistress’ side. To the honor of the boy, it should be told, that he afterwards related the story himself; and said, that no spoken reproof—no whipping, ever made him suffer so much as the shame he felt, when he compared his dishonesty with the fidelity of this little brute.
I have often thought, when I looked on Clary and Foot, that there was no creature which walked on the earth, for whom God had not provided some pleasure. The possession of this little dumb friend, seems, in some measure, to be a compensation to Clary for her misfortunes. I thought so last week, when I went to her mother’s house, on a sorrowful occasion. She has been the most afflicted woman in our village; and last week, her husband, an industrious, hard-working man, died, after a few hours’ sickness. When I entered their miserable dwelling, I found that some kind neighbours had already been there, and the poor man was decently laid out, in an inner room. His son, a boy ten years old, who, a short time before, had his arms crushed in a mill, and afterwards amputated, sat by him, weeping bitterly; the mother, a poor paralytic,--one half of her body dead,
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was attempting to hush a famishing, crying baby; a little girl, the image of gentleness and patience, but pale, and emaciated with disease, and deformed with dropsy, lay on a ragged coverlet, in the middle of the floor. Clary sat on the door-stone, caressing Foot, in happy unconsciousness of the misery around her. Her eye rested on me for a moment, while I sat feeding the baby, and she seemed to notice the tears I dropped on the helpless little thing, as if she half understood my emotion; but presently turning again to Foot, and renewing her play with him, she said, with one of her strange, vacant laughs, “But you and I have pleasant times, for all—don’t we, Foot?”
I will not write out the moral of my story; for I well remember when I was a child, how I hated those formal morals to Aesop’s fables; how I thought them a dead weight, which almost crushed the life out of the pleasant story that went before them; and beside, I do not doubt my readers have sagacity enough to perceive, that little Mary preferred Foot, on account of his affection and fidelity, and we hope, that like her, they will always set the qualities of the heart above the faculties of the mind—goodness above genius.
Stockbridge. S.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Dogs
Subject
The topic of the resource
Dogs, dog-training, cruelty to animals, loyalty, goodness versus genius..
Description
An account of the resource
After an older brother tells his younger siblings all about an extraordinary dog he encountered in New York City, his mother criticizes animal cruelty and reminds them of the fidelity and goodness of dogs.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Sedgwick, Catharine M.
"Stockbridge S."
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<em>The Juvenile Miscellany</em> [edited by Lydia Maria Child], (March 1828): 30-43
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1828
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
L. Damon-Bach, D. Gussman
Relation
A related resource
Reprinted as <em>The Sagacity of Dogs.</em> Boston: Marsh & Capen, 1828. Collected in <em>Stories for Young Persons</em>, 153-63, 1840.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Document
Animal Cruelty
Bloodhounds
Dog Fighting
Dogs
Fidelilty
Goodness
Juvenile fiction
Juvenile Miscellany
Mothers
Siblings