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Title
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1830
Subject
The topic of the resource
Stories published in 1830.
Document
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Glory and gain the industrious tribe provoke.--Pope.
The little secluded and quiet village of H. lies at no great distance from our “literary emporium.” It was never remarked or remarkable for anything, save one mournful preeminence, to those who sojourned within its borders — it was duller even than common villages. The young men of the better class all emigrated. The most daring spirits adventured on the sea. Some went to Boston; some to the south; and some to the west; and left a community of women who lived like nuns, with the advantage of more liberty and fresh air, but without the consolation and excitement of a religious vow. Literally, there was not a single young gentleman in the village — nothing in manly shape to which these desperate circumstances could give the form and quality and use of a beau. Some dashing city blades, who once strayed from the turnpike to this sequestered spot, averred that the girls stared at them as if, like Miranda, they would have exclaimed —
“What 1st? a spirit?
Lord, how it looks about! Believe me, sir,
It carries a brave form: — But 'tis a spirit.”
A peculiar fatality hung over this devoted place. If death seized on either head of a family, he was sure to take the husband; every woman in H. was a widow or maiden; and it is a sad fact, that when the holiest office of the church was celebrated, they were compel led to borrow deacons from an adjacent village. But, incredible as it may be, there was no great diminution of happiness in consequence of the absence of the nobler sex. Mothers were occupied with their children and housewifery, and the young ladies read their books with as much interest as if they had lovers to discuss them with, and worked their frills and capes as diligently, and wore them as complacently, as if they were to be seen by manly eyes. Never were there pleasanter gatherings or parties (for that was the word even in their nomenclature) than those of the young girls of H. There was no mincing — no affectation — no hope of passing for what they were not — no envy of the pretty and fortunate — no insolent triumph over the plain and demure and neglected, — but all was good will and good humour. They were a pretty circle of girls — a garland of bright fresh flowers. Never were there more sparkling glances, — never sweeter smiles — nor more of them. Their present was all health and cheerfulness; and their future, not the gloomy perspective of dreary singleness, for somewhere in the passage of life they were sure to be mated. Most of the young men who had abandoned their native soil, as soon as they found themselves getting along, loyally returned to lay their fortunes at the feet of the companions of their childhood.
The girls made occasional visits to Boston, and occasional journeys to various parts of the country, for they were all enterprising and independent, and had the characteristic New England avidity for seizing a “privilege;” and in these various ways, to borrow a phrase of their good grandames, a door was opened for them, and in due time they fulfilled the destiny of women.
We spoke strictly, and a la lettre, when we said that in the village of H. there was not a single beau. But on the outskirts of the town, at a pleasant farm, embracing hill and valley, upland and meadow land ; in a neat house, looking to the south, with true economy of sunshine and comfort, and overlooking the prettiest winding stream that ever sent up its sparkling beauty to the eye, and flanked on the north by a rich maple grove, beautiful in spring and summer, and glorious in autumn, and the kindest defence in winter; — on this farm and in this house dwelt a youth, to fame unknown, but known and loved by every inhabitant of H., old and young, grave and gay, lively and severe. Ralph Hepburn was one of nature's favourites. He had a figure that would have adorned courts and cities; and a face that adorned human nature, for it was full of good humour, kindheartedness, spirit, and intelligence; and driving the plough or wielding the scythe, his cheek flushed with manly and profitable exercise, he looked as if he had been moulded in a poet's fancy — as farmers look in Georgics and Pastorals. His gifts were by no means all external. He wrote verses in every album in the village, and very pretty album verses they were, and numerous too — for the number of albums was equivalent to the whole “female” population. He was admirable at pencil sketches; and once with a little paint, the refuse of a house painting, he achieved an admirable portrait of his grandmother and her cat. There was, to be sure, a striking likeness between the two figures, but he was limited to the same colours for both; and besides, it was not out of nature, for the old lady and her cat had purred together in the chimney corner, till their physiognomies bore an obvious resemblance to each other. Ralph had a talent for music too. His voice was the sweetest of all the Sunday choir, and one would have fancied, from the bright eyes that were turned on him from the long line and double lines of treble and counter singers, that Ralph Hepburn was a note book, or that the girls listened with their eyes as well as their ears. Ralph did not restrict himself to psalmody. He had an ear so exquisitely susceptible to the “touches of sweet harmony,” that he discovered, by the stroke of his axe, the musical capacities of certain species of wood, and he made himself a violin of chestnut, and drew strains from it, that if they could not create a soul under the ribs of death, could make the prettiest feet and the lightest hearts dance, an achievement far more to Ralph's taste than the aforesaid miracle. In short, it seemed as if nature, in her love of compensation, had showered on Ralph all the gifts that are usually diffused through a community of beaux. Yet Ralph was no prodigy; none of his talents were in excess, but all in moderate degree. No genius was ever so good humoured, so useful, so practical; and though, in his small and modest way, a Crichton, he was not, like most universal geniuses, good for nothing for any particular office in life. His farm was not a pattern farm — a prize farm for an agricultural society, but in wonderful order considering — his miscellaneous pursuits. He was the delight of his grandfather for his sagacity in hunting bees — the old man's favourite, in truth his only pursuit. He was so skilled in woodcraft that the report of his gun was as certain a signal of death as the tolling of a church bell. The fish always caught at his bait. He manufactured half his farming utensils, improved upon old inventions, and struck out some new ones; tamed partridges — the most untameable of all the feathered tribe; domesticated squirrels; rivalled Scheherazade herself in telling stories, strange and long — the latter quality being essential at a country fireside; and, in short, Ralph made a perpetual holiday of a life of labour.
Every girl in the village street knew when Ralph's wagon or sleigh traversed it; indeed, there was scarcely a house to which the horses did not, as if by instinct, turn up while their master greeted its fair tenants. This state of affairs had continued for two winters and two summers since Ralph came to his majority and, by the death of his father, to the sole proprietorship of the “Hepburn farm,” — the name his patrimonial acres had obtained from the singular circumstance (in our moving country) of their having remained in the same family for four generations. Never was the matrimonial destiny of a young lord, or heir just come to his estate, more thoroughly canvassed than young Hepburn's by mothers, aunts, daughters, and nieces. But Ralph, perhaps from sheer good heartedness, seemed reluctant to give to one the heart that diffused rays of sunshine through the whole village.
With all decent people he eschewed the doctrines of a certain erratic female lecturer on the odious monopoly of marriage, yet Ralph, like a tender hearted judge, hesitated to place on a single brow the crown matrimonial which so many deserved, and which, though Ralph was far enough from a coxcomb, he could not but see so many coveted.
Whether our hero perceived that his mind was becoming elated or distracted with this general favour, or that he observed a dawning of rivalry among the fair competitors, or whatever was the cause, the fact was, that he by degrees circumscribed his visits, and finally concentrated them in the family of his Aunt Courland.
Mrs. Courland was a widow, and Ralph was the kindest of nephews to her, and the kindest of cousins to her children. To their mother he seemed their guardian angel. That the five lawless, daring little urchins did not drown themselves when they were swimming, nor shoot themselves when they were shooting, was, in her eyes, Ralph's merit; and then he was so attentive to Alice, her only daughter — a brother could not be kinder. But who would not be kind to Alice? she was a sweet girl of seventeen, not beautiful, not handsome perhaps, — but pretty enough — with soft hazel eyes, a profusion of light brown hair, always in the neatest trim, and a mouth that could not but be lovely and loveable, for all kind and tender affections were playing about it. Though Alice was the only daughter of a doting mother, the only sister of five loving boys, the only niece of three single, fond aunts, and, last and greatest, the only cousin of our only beau, Ralph Hepburn, no girl of seventeen was ever more disinterested, unassuming, unostentatious, and unspoiled. Ralph and Alice had always lived on terms of cousinly affection — an affection of a neutral tint that they never thought of being shaded into the deep dye of a more tender passion. Ralph rendered her all cousinly offices. If he had twenty damsels to escort, not an uncommon case, he never forgot Alice. When he returned from any little excursion, he always brought some graceful offering to Alice.
He had lately paid a visit to Boston. It was at the season of the periodical inundation of annuals. He brought two of the prettiest to Alice. Ah! little did she think they were to prove Pandora's box to her. Poor simple girl! she sat down to read them, as if an annual were meant to be read, and she was honestly interested and charmed. Her mother observed her delight. "What have you there, Alice?" she asked, "Oh the prettiest story, mamma! — two such tried faithful lovers, and married at last ! It ends beautifully: I hate love stories that don't end in marriage."
"And so do I, Alice," exclaimed Ralph, who entered at the moment, and for the first time Alice felt her cheeks tingle at his approach. He had brought a basket, containing a choice plant he had obtained for her, and she laid down the annual and went with him to the garden to see it set by his own hand.
Mrs. Courland seized upon the annual with avidity. She had imbibed a literary taste in Boston, where the best and happiest years of her life were passed. She had some literary ambition too. She read the North American Review from beginning to end, and she fancied no conversation could be sensible or improving that was not about books. But she had been effectually prevented, by the necessities of a narrow income, and by the unceasing wants of five teasing boys, from indulging her literary inclinations; for Mrs. Courland, like all New England women, had been taught to consider domestic duties as the first temporal duties of her sex. She had recently seen some of the native productions with which the press is daily teeming, and which certainly have a tendency to dispel our early illusions about the craft of authorship. She had even felt some obscure intimations, within her secret soul, that she might herself become an author. The annual was destined to fix her fate. She opened it — the publisher had written the names of the authors of the anonymous pieces against their productions. Among them the found some of the familiar friends of her childhood and youth.
If, by a sudden gift of second sight, she had seen them enthroned as kings and queens, she would not have been more astonished. She turned to their pieces, and read them, as perchance no one else ever did, from beginning to end — faithfully. Not a sentence — a sentence! not a word was skipped. She paused to consider commas, colons, and dashes. All the art and magic of authorship were made level to her comprehension, and when she closed the book, she felt a call to become an author, and before she retired to bed she obeyed the call, as if it had been, in truth, a divinity stirring within her. In the morning she presented an article to her public, consisting of her own family and a few select friends. All applauded, and every voice, save one, was unanimous for publication — that one was Alice. She was a modest, prudent girl; she feared failure, and feared notoriety still more. Her mother laughed at her childish scruples. The piece was sent off, and in due time graced the pages of an annual. Mrs. Courland's fate was now decided. She had, to use her own phrase, started in the career of letters, and she was no Atalanta to be seduced from her straight onward way. She was a social, sympathetic, good hearted creature too, and she could not bear to go forth in the golden field to reap alone.
She was, besides, a prudent woman, as most of her countrywomen are, and the little pecuniary equivalent for this delightful exercise of talents was not over looked. Mrs. Courland, as we have somewhere said, had three single sisters — worthy women they were — but nobody ever dreamed of their taking to authorship. She, however, held them all in sisterly estimation. Their talents were magnified as the talents of persons who live in a circumscribed sphere are apt to be, particularly if seen through the dilating medium of affection.
Miss Anne, the oldest, was fond of flowers, a successful cultivator, and a diligent student of the science of botany. All this taste and knowledge, Mrs. Courland thought, might be turned to excellent account; and she persuaded Miss Anne to write a little book entitled “Familiar Dialogues on Botany.” The second sister, Miss Ruth, had a turn for education (“bachelor's wives and maid's children are always well taught”), and Miss Ruth undertook a popular treatise on that subject. Miss Sally, the youngest, was the saint of the family, and she doubted about the propriety of a literary occupation, till her scruples were overcome by the fortunate suggestion that her coup d'essai should be a Saturday night book entitled “Solemn Hours,” — and solemn hours they were to their unhappy readers. Mrs. Courland next besieged her old mother. "You know, mamma," she said, "you have such a precious fund of anecdotes of the revolution and the French war, and you talk just like the “Annals of the Parish,” and I am certain you can write a book fully as good."
"My child, you are distracted! I write a dreadful poor hand, and I never learned to spell — no girls did in my time."
"Spell! that is not of the least consequence — the printers correct the spelling."
But the honest old lady would not be tempted on the crusade, and her daughter consoled herself with the reflection that if she would not write, she was an admirable subject to be written about, and her diligent fingers worked off three distinct stories in which the old lady figured.
Mrs. Courland's ambition, of course, embraced within its widening circle her favourite nephew Ralph. She had always thought him a genius, and genius in her estimation was the philosopher's stone. In his youth she had laboured to persuade his father to send him to Cambridge, but the old man uniformly replied that Ralph was a smart lad on the farm, and steady, and by that he knew he was no genius. As Ralph's character was developed, and talent after talent broke forth, his aunt renewed her lamentations over his ignoble destiny. That Ralph was useful, good, and happy — the most difficult and rare results achieved in life — was nothing, so long as he was but a farmer in H. Once she did half persuade him to turn painter, but his good sense and filial duty triumphed over her eloquence, and suppressed the hankerings after distinction that are innate in every human breast, from the little ragged chimneysweep that hopes to be a boss, to the political aspirant whose bright goal is the presidential chair.
Now Mrs. Courland fancied Ralph might climb the steep of fame without quitting his farm; occasional authorship was compatible with his vocation. But alas! she could not persuade Ralph to pluck the laurels that she saw ready grown to his hand. She was not offended, for she was the best natured woman in the world, but she heartily pitied him, and seldom mentioned his name without repeating that stanza of Gray's, inspired for the consolation of hopeless obscurity. :
“Full many a gem of purest ray serene,”
Poor Alice's sorrows we have reserved to the last, for they were heaviest. “Alice,” her mother said, “was gifted; she was well educated, well informed; she was everything necessary to be an author.” But Alice resisted; and, though the gentlest, most complying of all good daughters, she would have resisted to the death — she would as soon have stood in a pillory as appeared in print. Her mother, Mrs. Courland, was not an obstinate woman, and gave up in despair. But still our poor heroine was destined to be the victim of this cacoethes scribendi; for Mrs. Courland divided the world into two classes, or rather parts — authors and subjects for authors; the one active, the other passive. At first blush one would have, thought the village of H. rather a barren field for such a reaper as Mrs. Courland, but her zeal and indefatigableness worked wonders. She converted the stern scholastic divine of H. into as much of a La Roche as she could describe; a tall wrinkled bony old woman, who reminded her of Meg Merrilies, sat for a witch; the school master for an Ichabod Crane; a poor half wilted boy was made to utter as much pathos and sentiment and wit as she could put into his lips; and a crazy vagrant was a God-send to her. Then every “wide spreading elm,” “blasted pine,” or “gnarled oak,” flourished on her pages. The village church and school house stood there according to their actual dimensions. One old pilgrim house was as prolific as haunted tower or ruined abbey. It was surveyed outside, ransacked inside, and again made habitable for the reimbodied spirits of its founders.
The most kind hearted of women, Mrs. Courland's interests came to be so at variance with the prosperity of the little community of H., that a sudden calamity, a death, a funeral, were fortunate events to her. To do her justice she felt them in a twofold capacity. She wept as a woman, and exulted as an author. The days of the calamities of authors have passed by. We have all wept over Otway and shivered at the thought of Tasso. But times are changed. The lean sheaf is devouring the full one. A new class of sufferers has arisen, and there is nothing more touching in all the memoirs Mr. D'Israeli has collected, than the trials of poor Alice, tragi-comic though they were. Mrs. Courland's new passion ran most naturally in the worn channel of maternal affection. Her boys were too purely boys for her art — but Alice, her sweet Alice, was preeminently lovely in the new light in which she now placed every object. Not an incident of her life but was inscribed on her mother's memory, and thence transferred to her pages, by way of precept, or example, or pathetic or ludicrous circumstance. She regretted now, for the first time, that Alice had no lover whom she might introduce among her dramatis personse. Once her thoughts did glance on Ralph, but she had not quite merged the woman in the author; she knew instinctively that Alice would be particularly offended at being thus paired with Ralph. But Alice's public life was not limited to her mother's productions. She was the darling niece of her three aunts. She had studied botany with the eldest, and Miss Anne had recorded in her private diary all her favourite's clever remarks during their progress in the science. This diary was now a mine of gold to her, and faithfully worked up for a circulating medium. But, most trying of all to poor Alice, was the attitude in which she appeared in her aunt Sally's “solemn hours.” Every aspiration of piety to which her young lips had given utterance was there printed. She felt as if she were condemned to say her prayers in the market place. Every act of kindness, every deed of charity, she had ever performed, were produced to the public. Alice would have been consoled if she had known how small that public was; but, as it was, she felt like a modest country girl when she first enters an apartment hung on every side with mirrors, when, shrinking from observation, she sees in every direction her image multiplied and often distorted; for, notwithstanding Alice's dutiful respect for her good aunts, and her consciousness of their affectionate intentions, she could not but perceive that they were unskilled painters. She grew afraid to speak or to act, and from being the most artless, frank, and, at home, social little creature in the world, she became as silent and as stiff as a statue. And, in the circle of her young associates, her natural gaiety was constantly checked by their winks and smiles, and broader allusions to her multiplied portraits; for they had instantly recognized them through the thin veil of feigned names of persons and places. They called her a blue stocking too; for they had the vulgar notion that everybody must be tinged that lived under the same roof with an author. Our poor victim was afraid to speak of a book — worse than that, she was afraid to touch one, and the last Waverley novel actually lay in the house a month before she opened it. She avoided wearing even a blue ribbon, as fearfully as a forsaken damsel shuns the colour of green.
It was during the height of this literary fever in the Courland family, that Ralph Hepburn, as has been mentioned, concentrated all his visiting there. He was of a compassionate disposition, and he knew Alice was, unless relieved by him, in solitary possession of their once social parlour, while her mother and aunts were driving their quills in their several apartments.
“Oh! what a changed place was that parlour! Not the tower of Babel, after the builders had forsaken it, exhibited a sadder reverse; not a Lancaster school, when the boys have left it, a more striking contrast. Mrs. Courland and her sisters were all “talking women,” and too generous to encroach on one another's rights and happiness. They had acquired the power to hear and speak simultaneously. Their parlour was the general gathering place, a sort of village exchange, where all the innocent gossips, old and young, met together. “There are tongues in trees,” and surely there seemed to be tongues in the very walls of that vocal parlour. Everything there had a social aspect. There was something agreeable and conversable in the litter of netting and knitting work, of sewing implements, and all the signs and shows of happy female occupation.
Now, all was as orderly as a town drawing room in company hours. Not a sound was heard there save Ralph's and Alice's voices, mingling in soft and sup pressed murmurs, as if afraid of breaking the chain of their aunt's ideas, or, perchance, of too rudely jarring a tenderer chain. One evening, after tea, Mrs. Courland remained with her daughter, instead of retiring, as usual, to her writing desk. — "Alice, my dear," said the good mother, "I have noticed for a few days past that you look out of spirits. You will listen to nothing I say on that subject; but if you would try it, my dear, if you would only try it, you would find there is nothing so tranquillizing as the occupation of writing."
"I shall never try it, mamma."
"You are afraid of being called a blue stocking. Ah! Ralph, how are you?" — Ralph entered at this moment. — "Ralph, tell me honestly, do you not think it a weakness in Alice to be so afraid of blue stockings?"
"It would be a pity, aunt, to put blue stockings on such pretty feet as Alice's."
Alice blushed and smiled, and her mother said — "Nonsense, Ralph; you should bear in mind the celebrated saying of the Edinburgh wit — “no matter how blue the stockings are, if the petticoats are long enough to hide them."
"Hide Alice's feet! Oh aunt, worse and worse!"
"Better hide her feet, Ralph, than her talents— that is a sin for which both she and you will have to answer. Oh! you and Alice need not exchange such significant glances! You are doing yourselves and the public injustice, and you have no idea how easy writing is."
"Easy writing, but hard reading, aunt."
"That's false modesty, Ralph. If I had but your opportunities to collect materials" — Mrs. Courland did not know that in literature, as in some species of manufacture, the most exquisite productions are wrought from the smallest quantity of raw material — " There's your journey to New York, Ralph," she continued, "you might have made three capital articles out of that. The revolutionary officer would have worked up for the “Legendary;” the mysterious lady for the “Token;” and the man in black for the “Remember Me;” — all founded on fact, all romantic and pathetic."
"But mamma," said Alice, expressing in words what Ralph's arch smile expressed almost as plainly, "you know the officer drank too much; and the mysterious lady turned out to be a runaway milliner; and the man in black — oh! what a theme for a pathetic story! — the man in black was a widower, on his way to Newhaven, where he was to select his third wife from three re commended candidates."
"Pshaw! Alice: do you suppose it is necessary to tell things precisely as they are?"
"Alice is wrong, aunt, and you are right; and if she will open her writing desk for me, I will sit down this moment, and write a story — a true story — true from beginning to end; and if it moves you, my dear aunt, if it meets your approbation, my destiny is decided."
Mrs. Courland was delighted; she had slain the giant, and she saw fame and fortune smiling on her favourite. She arranged the desk for him herself; she prepared a folio sheet of paper, folded the ominous margins; and was so absorbed in her bright visions, that she did not hear a little by-talk between Ralph and Alice, nor see the tell-tale flush on their cheeks, nor notice the perturbation with which Alice walked first to one window and then to another, and finally settled herself to that best of all sedatives — hemming a ruffle. Ralph chewed off the end of his quill, mended his pen twice, though his aunt assured him “printers did not mind the penmanship,” and had achieved a single line when Mrs. Courland's vigilant eye was averted by the entrance of her servant girl, who put a packet into her hands. She looked at the direction, cut the string, broke the seals, and took out a periodical fresh from the publisher. She opened at the first article — a strangely mingled current of maternal pride and literary triumph rushed through her heart and brightened her face. She whispered to the servant a summons to all her sisters to the parlour, and an intimation, sufficiently intelligible to them, of her joyful reason for interrupting them.
Our readers will sympathize with her, and with Alice too, when we disclose to them the secret of her joy. The article in question was a clever composition written by our devoted Alice when she was at school. One of her fond aunts had preserved it; and aunts and mother had combined in the pious fraud of giving it to the public, unknown to Alice. They were perfectly aware of her determination never to be an author. But they fancied it was the mere timidity of an unfledged bird; and that when, by their innocent artifice, she found that her opinions could soar in a literary atmosphere, she would realize the sweet fluttering sensations they had experienced at their first flight. The good souls all hurried to the parlour, eager to witness the coup de theatre. Miss Sally's pen stood emblematically erect in her turban; Miss Ruth, in her haste, had overset her inkstand, and the drops were trickling down her white dressing, or, as she now called it, writing gown; and Miss Anne had a wild flower in her hand, as she hoped, of an undescribed species, which, in her joyful agitation, she most unluckily picked to pieces. All bit their lips to keep impatient congratulation from bursting forth. Ralph was so intent on his writing, and Alice on her hemming, that neither noticed the irruption; and Mrs. Courland was obliged twice to speak to her daughter before she could draw her attention.
"Alice, look here — Alice, my dear."
"What is it, mamma? something new of yours?”
"No; guess again, Alice."
"Of one of my aunts, of course?"
"Neither, dear, neither. Come and look for yourself, and see if you can then tell whose it is."
Alice dutifully laid aside her work, approached and took the book. The moment her eye glanced on the fatal page, all her apathy vanished — deep crimson overspread her cheeks, brow, and neck. She burst into tears of irrepressible vexation, and threw the book into the blazing fire.
The gentle Alice! Never had she been guilty of such an ebullition of temper. Her poor dismayed aunts retreated; her mother looked at her in mute astonishment; and Ralph, struck with her emotion, started from the desk, and would have asked an explanation, but Alice exclaimed — "Don't say anything about it, mamma — I cannot bear it now."
Mrs. Courland knew instinctively that Ralph would sympathize entirely with Alice, and quite willing to avoid an explanation, she said — "Some other time, Ralph, I'll tell you the whole. Show me now what you have written. How have you begun?"
Ralph handed her the paper with a novice's trembling hand.
"Oh! how very little! and so scratched and interlined! but never mind — “c'est le premier pas qui coute.”
"While making these general observations, the good mother was getting out and fixing her spectacles, and Alice and Ralph had retreated behind her. Alice rested her head on his shoulder, and Ralph's lips were not far from her ear. Whether he was soothing her ruffled spirit, or what he was doing, is not recorded. Mrs. Courland read and re-read the sentence. She dropped a tear on it. She forgot her literary aspirations for Ralph and Alice — forgot she was herself an author — forgot everything but the mother; and rising, embraced them both as her dear children, and expressed, in her raised and moistened eye, consent to their union, which Ralph had dutifully and prettily asked in that short and true story of his love for his sweet cousin Alice.
In due time the village of H. was animated with the celebration of Alice's nuptials: and when her mother and aunts saw her the happy mistress of the Hepburn farm, and the happiest of wives, they relinquished, without a sigh, the hope of ever seeing her an AUTHOR.
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
"Cacoethes Scribendi"
Subject
The topic of the resource
Women writers, love and marriage, village life.
Description
An account of the resource
A young woman is embarrassed when her writing is published by her family without her knowledge.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Sedgwick, Catharine M.
Miss Sedgwick
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<em>The Atlantic Souvenir</em>. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Lea, 17-38.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1830
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
J. Robinson
D. Gussman
Relation
A related resource
Also collected in: <em>Stories of American Life</em>, vol. 3, Ed. Mary Russell Mitford (London, 1830), pp. 162-186.<br /><em>Tales and Sketches</em>. By Miss Sedgwick. (Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard, 1835), pp. 165-181.<br /><em>Provisions: A Reader from 19th-Century American Women</em>. Ed. Judith Fetterley. Bloomington, (Indiana UP, 1985) pp. 49-59. <br /><em>The Norton Anthology of American Literature</em>, Vol. I, Ed. Nina Baym. (New York: Norton, 1998) pp.1007-1017.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Document
annuals
art
authorship
blue stocking
Boston
Disraeli
domestic duties
genius
Ichabod Crane
James Crichton
marriage
music
New England
New Haven
New York
North American Review
piety
Shakespeare
Sheherazade
Tasso
The Tempest
Waverley
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1833
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Stories published in 1833.
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A REMINISCENCE OF FEDERALISM
By Miss Sedgwick
‘O shame on men! devil with devil damn’d,
Firm concord holds: men only disagree
Of creatures rational, though under hope
Of heavenly grace: and God proclaiming peace,
Yet live in hatred, enmity, and strife.’
Milton.
A calm observer who has scarcely lived half the age of man, must look back with a smile at human frailty, rather than with a harsher feeling upon the subjects that have broken the world in which he has lived, (be it a little or a great one,) into opposed and contending parties. The stream for a while glides on with an unbroken surface, a snag interposes, and the waters divide, and fret, and foam around it till chance or time sweep it away, when they again commingle, and flow on their natural unruffled union. This is the common course of human passions. The subject in dispute may be more of less dignified; the succession to an empire, or to a few acres of sterile land; the rival claims of candidates for the presidency, or competitors for a village clerkship; the choice of a minister to England, or the minister of our parish; the position of a capital city, or of an obscure meeting house;* [1] the excellence of a Catalani, or of a rustic master of psalmody; a dogma
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in religion or politics; in short any thing, to which, as with the shield in the fable, there are two sides.
Some who have lived to swell the choral song to Adams and Jefferson, and blend their names in one harmonious peal, will remember when the one, in his honest distinction, was a patriot hero, and the other the arch enemy of his country. For myself, having been bred, according to the strictest sect of my political religion, a federalist, I regarded Mr. Jefferson, (whom all but his severest enemies do not now deny, to have been a calm, and at least well-intentioned philosopher,) as embodying in his own person whatever was impracticable, heretical and corrupt in politics, religion and morals. Some impressions of my early childhood which were connected with the subsequent fate of obscure but interesting individuals, have preserved a vivid recollection of those party strifes that should now only be remembered to assuage the heat of present controversies.
I was sent when a very young child, (I am not the hero of my own story, my readers must therefore bear with a little prefatory egotism,) to pass the summer in a clergyman’s family in Vermont, in a village which I shall take the liberty to call Carrington. Whether I was sent there for the advantage of a better school than my own village afforded, or for the flattering reason that governs the disposition of most younger children in a large family, to be got out of the way, the domestic archives do not reveal. Whatever was the motive I am indebted to the fact for some of the most interesting recollections of my life. The first absence from home
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is a period never forgotten, and always vivid. How well do I remember the aspect of that long, broad, and straight street that traversed the village of Carrington, as it appeared to me when I first entered it. The meeting house, with its tall, grenadier looking steeple; the freshly painted school house, the troop of shouting boys springing from its portal; the neat white houses with Venetian blinds, and pretty court-yards and gardens, the dwellings of the physician, the lawyer, and the merchant, the modest gentry of the place; and that, to my youthful vision, colossal piece of architecture, a staring flaming mansion, (I afterwards learned that Squire Hayford was its master,) with pilasters, pillars and piazzas, a balustrade, cupola, and four chimneys! Even then I turned my eyes from this chef-d’oeuvre of rustic art to the trees by the way side, whose topmost boughs in their freshest green, (for summer was still in its youth,) were flushed with the beams of the setting sun. And I eagerly gazed at the parsonage which stood at the extremity of the plain, flanked by an orchard of scrawny neglected apple-trees, its ill-proportioned form, and obtrusive angles sheltered by the most ample elm that ever unfolded its rich volume of boughs. A willow there was too, I remember, that hung its tresses over the old well-curb, for there Fanny Atwood and I have cracked may a ‘last year’s butternut,’ sweeter to us far than the freshest, most flavorous nuts of the south, or any thing else would now be.
It is difficult, in our leveling and disenchanted days, to recal the awe that thirty years ago the puritan clergy of New England inspirited in the minds of children.
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Who is there bred in the land of pilgrims, that has not in his memory an immaculate personage, tall or short but always erect, with a three-cornered cocked hat, long blue yarn stockings drawn over the knee, silver shoe buckles and a silver headed cane, looking stern and unrelenting, as if he embodied the terrors of the law? Who does not remember depressing his voice and checking the ‘little footsteps that lightly pressed the ground,’ as he passed the minister’s house, the domain that seemed to him to shut out all human sympathies, to stand between heaven and earth, a certain purgatory, at least to all youthful sinners?
With such prepossessions I entered Doctor Atwood’s family. The Doctor himself was absent on some pastoral duty when I arrived. I was soon put at my ease by the hospitalities of his social family. How the prejudices of childhood melt away and disappear in the first beam of kindness! A most kind and simple hearted race were the Atwoods. Miss Sally, the oldest, was housekeeper; a bountiful provider of ‘spring beer,’ cherry pies and gingerbread. Man and woman too, and above all a child, is an eating animal. The record of culinary virtues remains long after every other trace of good Miss Sally has faded from my mind. The second sister was Miss Nancy, a ‘weakly person’ she was called, and truly was. I can see her pale serious face now, in which sensibility to her own ailments, and solicitude for those of her fellow mortals, were singularly blended; her slender tall figure, as she stood shaking that vial with contents so mysterious to me, which she called her ‘mixture;’ her hands all veins and chords
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that seemed to have been made to spread plasters. Miss Nancy, in poetic phrase, was a ‘culler of simples.’ She gathered herbs, (for my friend Fanny called them sickness,) for all the village, and administered them too. She could tell with unerring certainty when motherwort would kill, and boneset would cure. Forgive me, gentle reader, (for Miss Nancy could not,) if I have mistaken an alias for a species. In brief, Miss Nancy was one of those prudent apprehensive people peculiarly annoying to children. Her memory was a treasure house of hair breadth escapes and fatal accidents; and her eye would fix upon that imaginative column in the newspapers devoted to the enumeration of such fancy articles as ‘caution to youths;’ ‘fatal sport;’ ‘hydrophobia!’ &c. &c., as a speculator devours the price of stocks. Malvina was the third daughter; I knew little of her, for she was a lady of the shears, and pursued her calling by keeping the even tenor of her way through the neighborhood, making ‘auld claiths look amaist as weel’s the new.’ I should have said that Malvina was among the few who would go through life content with the sphere providence had assigned her, without one craving from that ‘divinity that stirs within;’ limiting her ambition to pleasing the little boys, and satisfying their mammas, and her desires to her well earned twenty-five cents per day. But Malvina married and emigrated. Her husband was, as I have heard, a disciple of Tom Paine, and poor Malvina, who was only adequate to shape a sleeve or collar, began to reason of ‘fate and free will,’ foreknowledge absolute; and afterwards, when she visited her friends, she bewailed their irrational
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views, wondered they could believe the bible! and would have enlightened them with that precious textbook, the Age of Reason, had not Dr. Atwood consigned it forthwith to an auto-d-fé.
The doctor, according to the common custom of New England clergymen, who have an income of four or five hundred dollars a year, had educated several sons at college. One was a thriving attorney and counselor at law, in New York, and two others, (who closed the account of the doctor’s first marriage,) were keeping school, and qualifying themselves for the learned professions. The doctor in middle life, as it is by courtesy called, but long after his sun had declined from its meridian, had married a young and very pretty girl, who, by all accounts, looked much beside her autumnal consort, like a fresh blown rose attached to a stalk of sere and yellow leaves. The human frailty the doctor betrayed in his preference of this lamb of his flock over certain quite mature candidates for his conjugal favor, gave such scandal to his parish that the good man was fain to leave Connecticut, the land of his forefathers, and remove to Vermont, then called the new state, where his domestic arrangements were viewed with more indulgence. His wife, who seems to have had no fault but that one which was mending every day, died in the course of a few years, after having augmented the doctor’s wealth by the addition of one child.
This child was the gem of the family, and a gem of ‘purest ray serene,’ was my little friend Fanny. Fanny Atwood! Writing her name even at this distance of
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time makes my heart beat quicker. Affection has its bright, its immortal names, that will live after the trump of fame is a broken instrument, and the names it has pealed over the world are with all forgotten things. Perhaps I commit a mistake in making Fanny Atwood the heroine of a story. It may be that like those wild flowers she so much resembled, that are so delicate and sweet in their native green wood, but so fragile that they fade and droop as soon as they are exposed to the eye of the sun, and appear spiritless and insignificant when compared with the splendid belles of the greenhouse, on which the art of the horticulturist has been exhausted, so my little rustic favorite may seem tame, and she and her fortunes be derided by the fine ladies, if any such grace my humble tale with a listening ear.
I have known those who have drank of the tainted waters of a city till they confessed that the pure element as it welled up from the green turf, or sparkled in the crystal fountain of a mountain rock, was tasteless and disagreeable! But I know those too, who, though they have mastered the music of Rossini, have yet ears and hearts for wood notes wild. Nature is too strong for art, and those who are accustomed to the refinements of artificial life, may look without a ‘disdainful smile’ on Fanny Atwood as she was when I first saw her; as she continued, the picture of simplicity and all lovable qualities. She had a little round Hebe form. Her neck, chest, shoulders and arms were the very beau ideal of a French dress maker, so fair and fat; her hands were formed in the most delicate mould, and dimpled as an infant’s; her hair was of the tinge between flaxen
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and brown; glossy and wavy. Her mouth bore the signet of the sweet and playful temper that bade defiance to all the curdling tendencies of life, it was certainly the fittest organ for ‘words o’ kindness’ that could be formed. She had a slight lisp; graceful enough in childhood, but happily, as she grew up, it wore off. The line of her nose was sufficiently Grecian to be called so by her admirers, but her eyes, I am compelled to confess, even while I yet feel their warm and gentle beam upon me, were not according to the rule of beauty; they were clear and bright as health and cheerfulness could make them, but they lacked many shades of the violet, and were smaller than the orthodox heroine dimensions. If my bill of particulars fail to present the image of my friend, let my readers embody health, good humor, order, a disinterestedness, considerateness or mindfulness, a quick sympathy with joy and sorrow, in the image of a girl of nine years, and it cannot fail to resemble Fanny Atwood. She would have been a spoiled child, if unbounded love and indulgence could have spoiled her; but she was like those fruits and flowers which are only made more beautiful or flavorous by the fervid rays of the sun. She sometimes tried Miss Sally’s patience by a too free dispensation of the luxuries of her frugal pantry, and Miss Nancy’s by deriding her herb teas, even that ‘sovereignest thing on earth,’ her motherwort; and once, when in the act of raising a dose of the panacea, the mixture, to her lips, she let fall dose, vial and all; accidently, no doubt; but poor Miss Nancy! I think her nerves never quite recovered the shock. However,
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these offences were soon forgiven, and would have been, if magnified a hundred fold, for in the touching language of old Israel, she ‘was the only child of her mother, and her mother was dead.’
I was within a few months of Fanny’s age when we first met, and with the facility of childhood we became friends in half an hour. She had presented me to her two favorites, a terrier puppy and black cat, between whom she had so assiduously cultivated a friendship that she had converted their natural gall into honey, and they coursed up and down the house together to the infinite amusement of my friend, and the perpetual annoyance of the elderly members of the family. Nothing could better illustrate Fanny’s power than the indulgence she obtained for these little pests. Miss Sally prided herself on her discipline of animals, but she was brought to wink at Fido’s misdeeds, suffered him to sleep all day by the winter’s fire, and when she once or twice resolutely ordered him out for the night, she was persuaded by Fanny to get up with her and let him in. And the cat, though Miss Nancy’s aversion, fairly installed herself on a corner of Fanny’s chair, and was thrice a day fed from her plate.
As I have said, Fanny and I made rapid progress in our friendship. She had introduced me to her little family of dolls, which were all patriotic, all of home manufacture, and I had offered to her delighted vision my compagnon de voyage, a London doll; in our eyes the master piece of the arts. We were consulting confidently on some matters touching our respective families, when I heard the lumbering sound of the
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doctor’s chaise, and I felt a chill come over me like that of poor Jack, the bean-climber of aspiring memory, when seated at the giant’s hearth, and chatting with his lady, he first heard the homeward step of her redoubtable lord and master. My prejudices against the clerical order were certainly not dispelled by my first impressions of Doctor Atwood. He wore a thick set fozy wig, cut by a sort of equatorial line around the forehead. His chin was not a freshly mown stubble field, for it was Saturday, and the doctor shaved but once a week. His figure was tall and corpulent, and altogether he presented a lowering and most forbidding aspect to one who had been accustomed to a more advanced state of civilization than his person indicated. I had retreated to the farthest corner of the room, dropped my head and hidden my doll in my handkerchief, when Fanny, to my astonishment, dragging me into notice, exclaimed in the most affectionate tone, ‘Oh, father, how glad I am you have come! I wanted you to see C----‘s doll; she is the most perfect beauty! are you not glad she’s come?’ Now meaning me, not the doll.
The doctor made no reply for a moment, and when he did, he merely said, without a sign of courtesy or even humanity, ‘How d’ye do, child, pretty well?’
‘Father!’ exclaimed Fanny in a tone which betrayed her mortification and disappointment. I shrank away to my seat, abut Fanny remained hovering about the place where her father stood, lost apparently in sullen abstraction. The doctor sat down. Fanny seated herself on his knee, (I wondered she could.) ‘How
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funny your wig looks! father,’ she said, ‘its all awry.’ Then laughing and giving it a fearless twirl, she took a comb from the doctor’s waistcoat pocket, smoothed it down, threw her fat arms round his neck and kissed him first on one check, then on the other, saying, ‘you look quite handsome, now, father!’ Scanty as my literature was, a classical allusion occurred to me; ‘Beauty and the Beast!’ thought I, but far would it have been from the nature of that Beast to have been as dull to the caresses of Beauty as the doctor seemed to Fanny’s. She was evidently perplexed by his apparent apathy; for a moment she laid her check to his, then sprang from his knee and went to a cupboard about ten inches square, made in the chimney beside the fireplace, (an anomaly in the architecture, these puritan cupboards were,) and drew from it a long pipe, filled, lighted, and put it in her father’s lips. He received it passively, smoked it with continued unconsciousness, and when the tobacco was exhausted, threw pipe and all out of the window. Fanny looked at me and laughed, then suddenly changing to an expression of solicitude, she leaned her elbow on the doctor’s knee, looked up in his face, and said in a voice that must penetrate to the heart, ‘what is the matter, father?’
The doctor seemed suddenly to recover his faculties; to come to himself, in the common phrase, and with tears gushing form his eyes, he said, ‘Fanny, my child, poor Randolph’s mother is dead.’
‘Dead, father! What will Randolph do?’
‘Do, Fanny? Replied the doctor, brushing off his tears, ‘why, he will do his duty; no easy matter in the
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poor boy’s case.’ The doctor then proceeded to relate the scene he had just come from witnessing, and which had melted one of the tenderest hearts that ever was in a human frame, uncouth and repelling as that frame was. The facts which will explain the doctor’s emotions are briefly these. There was a certain Squire Hayford residing in Carrington, the proprietor of the stately mansion we have noticed. He was a democrat, according to the classification of that day, and one of the most impassioned order. A democrat in theory, but in his own little sphere as absolute a despot as ever sat on a throne. He was the wealthiest man in Carrington, owned most land, and had most ready money; in short, he was the great man of the place, and, as was happily said on another occasion, ‘the smallest of his species.’ Of all the men I ever met with he had the most unfounded and absurd vanity. His opinions were all prejudices, and in each and all of them he held himself infallible. He was the centre of his world, the sun of his system, which he divided into concentric circles. Himself first, then his household, his town, his county, his state, &c. Fortunately for himself, he had adopted the popular side in politics, and with a character that would have been particularly odious to the sovereign people he made himself an oracle among them. This man had one child, a daughter, a gentle and lovely woman as she was described to me, who some fourteen years before my story begins, had married a Mr. Gordon, from one of the Southern States. It was a clandestine marriage. Squire Hayford having refused his consent, because
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Gordon was a ‘southerner,’ and he held all ‘southerners’ in utter contempt and aversion, and never graced them with any other name than slave drivers, with the addition of such expletives as might give force to the reproach. Gordon was a high spirited man and an ardent lover, and he easily persuaded Miss Hayford to escape from the unreasonable opposition of her father, and transfer her allegiance to him. This was her first disobedience, but disobedience to him was an unpardonable sin in the squire’s estimation, and he permitted his only child to encounter the severest evils, and languish through protracted sufferings, before he manifested the slightest relenting. She lost several children; she became a widow, was reduced to penury, and sacrificed her health in one of our southern cities, in an attempt to gain a livelihood as governess. Her father then sent her a pitiful sum of money, and the information that a small house in Carrington, belonging to him was vacant, and she might come and occupy it if she would. The kindness was scanty, and the manner of it churlish enough; but disease and penury cut off all fastidiousness, and Mrs. Gordon returned to Carrington with her only son Randolph.
Here she languished month after month. The bare necessities of existence were indirectly supplied by her father, but he never spoke to her, and, what affected her far more deeply, he never noticed her son, never betrayed a consciousness of his existence.
Adversity, if it does not sever the ties of nature, multiplies and strengthens them. Never was there a tenderer union than that which subsisted between
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Randolph and his mother, and nothing could have been more natural than Fanny’s exclamation when told of Mrs. Gordon’s death, for it seemed as if the life of parent and child were fed from the same fountain. As my readers are now acquainted with the relative position of the parties, I shall give the doctor’s account to Fanny in his own words. ‘I left the chaise at Mrs. Gordon’s door, my child,’ said he, ‘that Randolph might take her to ride. They had ridden but a short distance when she complained of faintness, and Randolph turned back. She had fainted quite away just as they stopped at their own door. There was a man riding past; Randolph called to him for help. He came and assisted in carrying the poor lady to her bed. When she recovered her senses, she looked up and saw the man; it was her father, Fanny!’
‘Her father! what, that hateful old Squire Hayford?’
‘Yes, my child. Providence brought him to her threshold at the critical moment. When I called for the chaise, I went in. I saw she was dying. Randolph was bathing her head with camphor, and his tears dropped on the pillow like rain. Her father stood a little way from the bed. He looked pale and his lip quivered. Ah, Fanny, my child, death takes hold of the heart that nothing else will reach. When Mrs. Gordon heard my step she looked up at me and said, “I believe I am dying; pray with me once more Doctor Atwood; pray that my father may forgive—that—he—may—” here her voice faltered, but she looked at Randolph, and I understood her, and went to prayer.
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‘But, father, what did Squire Hayford do? you know he swore a horrid oath last independence that he would never hear “Parson Fed* [2] pray again.” ’
‘Yes, yes; Fanny, I remember, and he remembered too, for he walked out of the door and stood in the porch, but I took care to raise my voice so loud that he could not help hearing me. The Lord assisted me, my child; words came to me faster than I could utter them; thoughts, but not my thoughts; words, but not of my choosing, for their pierced even my own heart. When I had done, Squire Hayford came in, walked straight to the bed, and said, “Mary, I forgive you; I wish your troubles may be all at an end, but I am not answerable for your past sufferings; I told you what you must expect when you married that southern beggar.” ’
‘Father,’ exclaimed Fanny, ‘why did you not stop him.’
‘I did long to knock him down, Fanny, and I though Randolph would, for his black eyes flashed fire; but oh, how quick they fell again when his mother looked up like a dying saint as she was, and said, “Father, let the past be past.” ’
‘ “Well,” said he, “so I will; and as I am a man of deeds and not of words, I promise you I will do well by your boy; I will take him home, and he shall be the same as a son to me, provided—” ’
‘Here he paused. I think she did not hear his last word, for her face lighted up, she clasped her hands
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and thanked God for crowning with such mercy her dying hour; then she drew Randolph down to her, kissed him, and said, “now, my son I can die in peace.”
“But,” said her father, “you have not heard me out, Mary. Randolph must give up the name of Gordon for that of Hayford—”’
‘Oh, father,’ interrupted Fanny, ‘he did not, did he?’
‘Let me finish, child. The poor lady at the thought of her son giving up his dead father’s name, heaved a sigh so deep and heavy, that I feared her breath would have gone with it. She looked at Randolph, but he turned away his eye. ‘My dear child,’ she said, ‘it must be; it is hard for me to ask and you to do, but it must be; speak Randolph, say you accept the terms.’
‘Thus pressed, the poor boy spoke, and spoke out his heart, “Do not ask me that, mother;” he said, “give up my dear father’s name! No, never, never.” ’
‘ “My child, you must, you will be destitute; without a home, a friend, a morsel of bread.” ’
‘ “I shall not be destitute, mother, I can work, and is not Doctor Atwood my friend? and besides, mother, I care not what becomes of me when you are gone.” ’
‘ “But I do my son; I cannot leave you so. Oh, promise me, Randolph.” ’
‘ “Do not ask me, mother; I cannot give up the name I love and honor above all others, for that—” ’ I know not what the poor boy might have said, for his mother stopped him. “Listen to me my son,” she said, “my breath is almost spent; you know how I have been punished for one act of disobedience; how much misery I brought on your dear father, on all of us; you may
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repair my fault. Oh, give me peace, promise to be faithful in your mother’s place to her father.” ’
‘ “I will promise any thing, dear mother; I will do any thing but take his name.” ’
‘ “All is useless without that;” her voice sunk to a whisper,--“dear, dear child,” she added, “it is my last wish.” I saw her countenance was changing, and I believe I said, ‘she is going,’ and poor Randolph cried out, ‘Mother, mother, I will do every thing you ask—I promise—’ a sweet smile spread over her face. He laid his cheek to her’s, she tried to kiss him, but her lips never moved again, and in a few moments, my dear Fanny, she was with the saints in heaven.’
Fanny’s tears had coursed down her cheeks as her father had proceeded in his narration. Soon after I heard her repeating to herself, ‘Randolph Hayford, Randolph Hayford; I will never call him any thing but Randolph; but I suppose I shall not often have a chance to call him any thing. That cross of Squire Hayford hates you so, father, he’ll never let Randolph come and see us; he’ll never let him go any where but to some dirty democrat’s.’
I now look back, almost unbelieving of my own recollections, at the general diffusion of the political prejudices of those times. No age nor sex was exempt from them. They adhered to an old man to the very threshold of another world, and they sometimes clouded the serene heaven of such a mind as my friend Fanny Atwood’s.
The rival parties in Carrington were so nearly balanced, that each individual’s weight was felt in the
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scale. All qualities and relations were merged in the political attribute. I have often heard, when the bell tolled the knell of a departed neighbor, the most kind hearted person, say, ‘we’ or ‘they have lost a vote!’ Good Doctor Atwood was as sturdy in his political as in his religious faith. He had a vein of humanity like my Uncle Toby’s, that tempered his judgment in individual cases, but in the abstract I rather think he believed that none but federalists and the orthodox, according to the sound school of the Mathers and Cottons, could enter the kingdom of heaven. With this creed, with an ardent temperament that glowed to the last hour of his life, and with the faculty of expressing pithily what he felt strongly, and without fear or awe of mortal man, he was, of course, loved almost to idolatry by his own party, and hated in equal measure by the rival faction.
I have said that the village street of Carrington traversed a hill and plain. The democrats for the most part occupied the hill. What an infected district it then seemed to me! The federalists, (alas! was it an augury of their descending fortunes?) lived in the vale. The most picturesque object in the village, and one as touching to the sentimental observer as Sterne’s dead ass, was a superannuated horse; a poor commoner, who picked up an honest living by the way side. His walk was as regular as Edie Ochiltree’s, or any other licensed gaberlunzie’s. He began in the morning, and grazing along, he arrived about midday at the end of his tour, he then crossed the street and returned, now
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and then resting his weary limbs in the shadow of a tree planted by the way side. Thus sped his innocent life. It was an edifying sight to see the patience and satisfaction with which he gleaned his scanty portion of the bounties of nature. Jacques would have moralized on the spectacle. The children called him Clover, why, I know not, unless it were an allusion to his green old age. He was a great favorite with the little urchins; the youngest among them were wont to make their first equestrian essays on Clover’s bare back. My friend Fanny’s gentle heart went out towards him in the respect that waits on age. Many a time have I known her to abstract a measure of oats from the parson’s frugal store, and set it under the elm tree for Clover, and as she stood by him while he was eating, patting and stroking him, he would look round at her with an expression of mute gratitude and fondness, that words could not have rendered more intelligible.
Strange as it may seem, even poor Clover was converted into a political instrument. This ‘innocent beast and of a good conscience,’ was made to supply continual fuel to the inflammable passions of the fiery politicians of Carrington. His sides were pasted over with lampoons in which the rival factions vented their wit or their malignity safe from personal responsibility, for Clover could tell no tales. Thus he trudged from the hill, a walking gazette, his ragged and grizzled sides covered with these militant missives, and returned bearing the responses of the valley, as unconscious of his hostile burden, as the mail is of its portentous
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contents. Sometimes, indeed, Clover carried that which was more accordant with his kind and loving nature.
As Fanny had predicted, after Randolph’s removal to the great house, his grandfather prohibited his visits at Doctor Atwood’s, but Fanny often met him in the lagging walk to school, berrying, nutting, and on all neutral ground, and when they did not meet, they maintained a continual correspondence by Clover. The art was simple by which they secured their billetdoux from the public eye, but it sufficed. The inside contained the effusion of their hearts. The outside was scribbled with some current political sarcasm or joke. The initial letter of Randolph’s superscription was always F., Fanny’s G., for she tenaciously adhered to the name of Gordon. The communications were attached by the corners to Clover. I found recently among some forgotten papers one of Fanny’s notes, and childish as it is, I shall make no apology for inserting it verbatim.
‘Dear Randolph—I thank you a thousand times and so does C--, for the gold eagles. There never was any thing in the world so beautiful, I do’nt believe. They are far before the grown up ladies. We shall certainly wear them to meeting next Sabbath, and fix them so every body in the world can see them, and not let the bow of ribbon fall down over them, as Miss Clarke did last Sabbath, cause she has got that old democrat, Doctor Star, for a sweetheart; but I managed her nicely, Randolph. In prayer time when she did not dare move, I whirled round the bow
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so the eagle stood up bravely, and flashed right in Doctor Star’s eyes. I did not care so very much about having an eagle for myself, (though I do now since you have given it to me,) but I thought it very important for C— to wear the federal badge, because her father is a senator in Congress. Father is almost as pleased as we are. I see Clover coming, and I must make haste; poor old fellow! I heard his tread when it stormed so awfully last night, and I got father to put him up in our stable. Was not he proper good? It was after prayers, too, and his wig was off and his knee buckles out. There, they all go out of Deacon Garfield’s to read Clover’s papers. Good bye, dear, dear Randolph. F.A.’
If my readers are inclined to smile at the defects of my heroine’s epistle, they must remember those were not the days when girls studied Algebra, and read Virgil in the original before they were ten years old. Besides, I have not claimed for Fanny intellectual brilliancy. The manifestations of her mind were (where some bel esprits last look for it,) in the conduct of her daily life.
But I am fondly lingering on the childhood of my friend. I must resolutely pass over the multitude of anecdotes that occur to me, to those incidents that are sufficiently dignified for publication.
Eight years flowed on without working any other change in the condition of my friends in Carrington than is commonly effected by the passage of time. Doctor Atwood continued his weekly ministrations, varied only by a slight verbal alteration in his prayer.
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During Mr. Adams’ presidency, he implored the Lord to continue to us rulers endued with the spirit of their station. When Mr. Jefferson became chief magistrate, he substituted ‘give’ for continue. Miss Sally still brewed and baked with her accustomed energy. Miss Nancy by the too lavish consumption of her own nostrums, had lost every thing but her shadow. Squire Hayford was more opinionated and insufferable than ever. Poor old Clover was dead, and at Fanny’s request, had been honorably interred beneath the elm tree, his favorite poste restante. Fanny had preserved the distinctive traits of her childhood, and at seventeen, was as good humored, as simple, as lovely and, (as more than one thought,) far more loveable than when I first knew her.
The sad trials of Randolph’s youth had early ripened his character, and had given to it an energy and self-government that he could have derived alone from the discipline of such circumstances. The lofty spirit of his father had fallen on him like the mantle of an ascending prophet. His mother’s concentrated tenderness had fostered his sensibility, and the influence of her dying hour passed not away with the days of mourning, but stamped his whole after life.
Who has ever lost a friend, without that feeling so natural, that a painter of nature has put it into the mouth of a man lamenting over a dead beast? ‘I am sure thou hast been a merciful master to him’ said I. ‘Alas!’ said the mourner, ‘I thought so when he was alive, but now that he is dead I think otherwise.’
The solution of this universal lamentation and just
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suffering, must be found in the fact that the very best fall far short of the goodness of which their Creator has made them capable. It is in the spirit of expiation that far more deference is paid to the wishes of the dead than the living; and affectionate and devoted as Randolph was to his mother, I doubt if she had lived, that she ever could have persuaded him to the sacrifices and efforts he made for her sake when she was dead. He immediately assumed the name of Hayford, without expressing a regret, even to Fanny; and accustomed as he had been to the control alone of his gentle mother, he submitted without a murmur to the petty and irritating tyrannies of his grandfather. He suppressed the expression of his opinions and surrendered his strongest inclinations at the squire’s command. Never was there a case in which the sanctifying influence of a pure motive was more apparent. The same deference which Randolph paid to his relative, might have been rendered by a sordid dependant, but then where would have been that moral power which gave Randolph an ascendancy even over the narrow and unperceiving mind of his grandfather, and which achieved another and a more honorable triumph.
A Mrs. Hunt, a widowed sister of the squire, presided over the female department of his family. She was a well intentioned woman, a meek and patient drudge, who had been content to toil in his house, year after year, for the poorest of all compensations, presents; the common and wretched requital for the services of relations. Mrs. Hunt had been sustained in her endurance by a largess that now and then fell upon her
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eldest son, and by the hope that ultimately her brother’s fortune would descend to her unportioned children. This hope was suddenly blighted by his adoption of Randolph; and Randolph, of course, became the object of her dislike, and he daily suffered those annoyances and discomforts, which a woman always has in her power to inflict. To these he opposed a respectful department; a mindfulness of her convenience and comfort, and a generous attention to her children, which smoothed her rugged path, and all unused as she was to such humanities, won her heart. It was not long before the good woman found herself going to him, whom she had regarded as her natural enemy, for aid and sympathy in all her troubles.
If I am prosing, my readers must forgive me. It has always seemed to me that we may get the most useful lessons from those who are placed in circumstances not uncommon, nor striking, but to which a parallel may be found in every day’s experience. It is a common doctrine, but one not favorable to virtue, that characters are formed by circumstances. If it be true, my friend Randolph was a noble exception; his character controlled circumstances; and, by the best of all alchymy, he extracted wholesome food out of the materials that might have been poison to another.
His boyish affection for Fanny Atwood had ripened into the tenderest love, and was fully returned, without my friend ever having endured the reserve and distrust that are supposed to be necessary to the progress of the passion. Trials their love had, but they came from without. Doctor Atwood had heard the squire had
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said, ‘the parson might try his best to get his heir for his daughter Fanny; he’d never catch his heir, though he caught Randolph!’ The good doctor was a proud father, and a poor man, and, though it cost him many a heartache, he shut his doors against Randolph.
Meanwhile, the squire’s self complacency (the squire had the art of making every body’s merit or demerit minister to this great end of his being,) in Randolph increased. He was proud of his talents, his scholarship and his personal elegance, though his fac-simile resemblance to his father was so striking, that the squire was never heard to speak of his appearance, except to say, ‘what a crop of hair he has, just like all the Hayfords!’
There was on peculiarity about Randolph, that puzzled his grandfather. ‘The fellow is so inconsistent,’ said he to himself one day, after he had been reviewing his account books; ‘when he has money of his own earning he pours it out like water; gave the widow fifty dollars last week, but he seems as afraid of spending my cash as if I exacted Jews’ usury; quite contrary to the old rule, ‘light come, light go.’ I have footed it right; eight years since Mary died—day after we lost Martin’s election by the parson’s vote; can’t be mistaken; he’s got through college, fitted for the law, and I have paid out cash for him but ninety-nine pounds, five shillings, and three pence, lawful! By George! the widow’s brood has cost me more in that time. Ah! it’s number one after all; is sure of it at last, and that southern blood can’t bear an obligation. Trust me for seeing into a millstone. I can tell him he’ll have to wait; I feel as young as I did thirty years
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ago; sound grinders, good pulse, steady gait. Ten years to run up to three score, and ten may last to eighty. Grandmother Brown lived to ninety and upwards; why should not I? when I quit, am willing Randolph, (wish his name was Silas,) should have it. If it was not for that southern blood he’d be about the likeliest of the Hayfords. All his obstinacy comes from that ‘I’ll not disobey you, sir, and even if I would, Miss Atwood would not marry me without your consent; but be assured, sir, I shall never marry any other!’ We’ll see, my lord; while I can say nay, you shall never marry that old aristocrat’s daughter. Just one-and-twenty now; guess you’ll sing another tune before you are twenty-five. Time to go up to the printing office; wonder if we shall have another Hampden this week; confounded smart fellow that.’
Then looking at his watch and finding the happy hour for country ennuyés, the hour for the mail and daily lounge, had arrived, the squire sallied forth to take his morning walk to the printing office, the village reading room.
There was a weekly journal published in Carrington, the ‘Star’ or ‘Sun,’ I forget which, but certainly the ascendant luminary of the democrat party. There had appeared, recently, in this journal, a series of articles written temperately, and with vigor and elegance, on the safety of a popular government.
The writer advocated an unlimited trust in the sanitive virtue of the people; he appeared familiar with the history of the republics that had preceded ours, and
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contended that there was no reason to infer our danger from their brief existence. He maintained, (and it will now perhaps be admitted with truth,) that distrust of the people was the great error of the federalists; that the prestiges of the old government still hung about them, and that they were committing a fatal mistake in applying old principles to a new condition of things.
These articles were read, lauded and republished. The name of the author was sought, but in vain. Even the printer and the editor, (I believe one person represented both these august characters,) were ignorant, and could only guess that it was a judge—, or lawyer—, the lights of the state. But conjecture is not certainty, and the author still remained the ‘great unknown,’ not only of Carrington, but of the county and state.
The squire returned from his morning lounge with a fresh journal, containing a new article from Hampden, the signature of the unknown author. A fresh newspaper! Its vapor was as sweet as a regale to the little vulgar pug-nose of our village politician as the dews of Helicon to the votaries of the muses. It so happened that Randolph was sitting in the parlor, reading, when the squire came in. ‘Have you seen the paper, this morning, Randolph?’ he asked.
‘No; I have not.’
‘I guess not, I have got the first that was struck off. Another article from Hampden, I understand. He is answered in the Boston Centinel. They own he writes ‘plausibly, ably and eloquently;’ the d—speaks truth for once I guess the Boston chaps find their
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match at last.’ The squire had a habit not peculiar to him, but rather annoying, of reading aloud a passage that either pleased or displeased him, without any regard to the occupations of those around him. His comments, too, were always expressed aloud. He drew out his spectacles and sat down to the paper. His sister, Mrs. Hunt, was sewing in one corner of the room, and Randolph sitting opposite to him, but apparently absorbed in his book. ‘Too deuced cool,’ grumbled the squire, after reading the first passage. ‘Ah, he warms in the harness; not up to the mark, though; I wish he’d give ‘em one of my pealers.’ ‘Good, good; wonder what the Centinel will say to that.’ ‘By George, capital! I could not have writ it better. I would have put in more spice, though.’
‘Ha! as good as the Scripture prophet.’ ‘Listen, Randolph.’ The squire then read aloud. ‘We are aware that prediction is not argument, but we venture to prophesy that in twenty years from this time the federal party will have disappeared. The grandsire will have to explain the turn—’
‘Term, sir,’ interposed Randolph.
‘Yes, yes, term. The grandsire will have to explain the term to the child at his knee. We shall be a nation of republicans, and whenever—’
‘Wherever, sir.’
‘So it is; wherever an American is found, at home or aboard—’
‘Abroad, sir.’ This time there was a slight infusion of petulance in Randolph’s tone, and still more in the squire’s at the repeated interruptions as he proceeded.
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‘At home or abroad, in office or out of it, in high station or low, he will claim to be a Republican, and cherish the title as the noblest and happiest a civilian⎯’
‘Citizen, sir⎯noblest and happiest a citizen can claim.’
‘Confound you, Randolph!” exclaimed the squire, dropping the paper and fixing his eyes on his grandson; ‘how do you know the words before I speak them?’ This was rather an exclamation of vexation than suspicion. Randolph was conscious that in involuntarily interposing to save his offspring from murder he had risked a secret, and he answered the squire’s exclamation with a look of confusion that at once flashed the truth upon his obtuse comprehension. He jumped up, clapped Randolph on the shoulder, exclaiming, ‘You wrote it yourself, you dog, you can’t deny it. It’s a credit to you, a credit to the name. But you might have known I should have found you out. Just like all the Hayfords, keep every thing snug till out it comes with a crack.’
‘I thought all along,’ meekly, said Mrs. Hunt, who had been plying her needle unobserved and unobserving, ‘I thought all along cousin Randolph wrote them pieces.’
‘Now shut up, widow,’ retorted the squire, ‘you did not think no such thing; just like all fore-thoughts, come afterwards. Now, ma’am please to step out; I must have a little private conversation with Mr. Hampden.’
‘Be kind enough before you go, aunt,’ said Randolph, ‘to promise me that you will say nothing of what has
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just passed. I have made no admissions, and I do not wish to be thought the writer of the Hampden articles.’
Mrs. Hunt, of course, promised to be faithful. As soon as she was out of hearing, ‘What does that mean?’ asked the squire. ‘It is all stuff to make a secret of it any longer.’
‘I think not, sir. The articles have far more reputation and influence, (if I may believe they have influence,) than if they were known to proceed from a young man whose name has no authority.’
‘Hoity-toity! who’s got a better name than yours? a’nt willing the Hayfords should have the credit, hey!’ Randolph did not vouchsafe any reply to the squire’s absurd mistake, and after a few moments his gratified vanity regained its ascendancy.
‘The pieces please me,” said he, “though if you had told me you were writing them I could have given you some hints that would have improved them. They want a little more said about men, less of principles. They want fire too; egad, I’d send ‘em red-hot bullets; but they’ll do; you’ve come out like a man, on the right side, and now I believe, what I felt scary about before.’ Here the squire paused, and fixed one of his most penetrating glances upon Randolph. ‘I believe you will vote to-morrow, and vote right.’ Randolph made no reply.
A few words will here be necessary to explain the dilemma in which Randolph was about to be placed. The annual election of a representative to the state legislature was to occur the next day. The rival parties in Carrington were known to their champions to be exactly balanced. There was not a doubtful vote
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except Randolph Hayford’s. He had never yet voted, not having till now arrived at the requisite age. He had not thrown himself into the scale of either party. His opinions were independent, and independently expressed. The squire’s hopes of his vote were very much encouraged by the Hampden articles, but still there were circumstances in this case that made him somewhat apprehensive.
‘Your vote,’ resumed the squire, ‘will decide the election to-morrow.’ Again he paused, but without receiving a reply. ‘I can’t have much doubt which way Hampden will vote, but I like to make all sure and fast. Randolph, I know what scion you want to see engrafted on that tree.’ The squire pointed to the only picture in his house, a family tree, that in a huge black frame stretched its frightful branches over the parlor fireplace. On these branches hung a regiment of militia captains, majors, colonels, sundry justices of the peace; precious fruit all, supported by an illustrious trunk, a certain Sir Silas Hayford, who flourished in the reign of Charles the First. Strange and inconsistent as it may appear with his ultra democracy, never was there a man prouder of his ancestral dignities, or more anxious to have them transmitted, than our village squire.
‘Randolph,’ he continued, assured of success by the falling of Randolph’s eye, and a certain half pleased, half anxious expression that overspread his face. ‘Randolph, I have always said that I never would give my consent to your marriage with that old aristocratic parson’s daughter. But circumstances alter cases. I am a man that hears to reason when I approve of it. I have no
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fault to find with the girl; never heard her speak; believes she’s well enough.’ Randolph bit his lips. How hard it is to hear an idolized object spoken of as if she were of the mass of human kind. ‘To come to the point, Randolph,⎯if you’ll go forward to-morrow like a man, and give in your vote for Martin and make Ross’ scale kick the beam, I’ll withdraw my opposition to this match. Hear me out. I’ll do more for you. I’m pleased with you, Randolph. I’ve just received the money for my Genesee lands. I’ll give you two hundred pounds to buy your law library, and you may go next week to any town in the state you like, and open your office, and be your own man, and take your girl there as soon as you like.’
‘Good Heaven!’ exclaimed Randolph, ‘you can offer nothing more; the world has nothing more to tempt me.’ And he left the room in a state of agitation in which the squire had never before seen him. The squire called after him,— ‘Take time to consider, Randolph. To-morrow morning is time enough for your answer.’
In the course of evening, Randolph met Fanny Atwood. Whether the meeting was accidental, I cannot pretend to say. It would seem to have been disobedience in my friend to have kept up her intercourse with Randolph after the doctor had shut his doors upon him. But Fanny well knew there was nothing beside herself, the doctor loved so well as Randolph; nothing that in his secret heart he so much desired as to see them united, and that his resolute and rather harsh procedure in excluding Randolph from his house had been a sacrifice of his own inclinations to his
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honest pride. This being the state of matter, it cannot appear strange that Fanny should be willing to meet him when ‘with rosy blush,
‘Summer eve is sinking;
When on rills that softly gush,
Stars are softly winking;
When through boughs that knit the bower,
Moonlight gleams are stealing.’
Or at any of those times and places which nature’s and our poet had appointed to tell, ‘Love’s delightful story.’
The lovers took a sequestered and favorite walk to a little waterfall at some distance from the village. Here, surrounded by moonlight, the evening fragrance and soft varying and playful shadows, they seated themselves on the fallen trunk of a tree, one of their accustomed haunts.
When they first met, Fanny had said, ‘So Randolph, your secret is out at last.’
‘Out! is it?’
‘Pshaw, you know it is. Your grandfather hinted it at the post office, and the town is ringing with it.’
‘I am sorry for it. I was aware that my grandfather knew it, but I have seen nobody else to-day. Has your father heard it, Fanny?’
‘Yes; finding it was out, I told him myself. Dear father! he both laughed and cried.’
‘Cried!’
‘Yes; you know that is no uncommon thing for him to do. He was grieved that you had to come out on the democratic side, for you know he thinks a democrat next to an infidel; but then he was pleased to find you could write such celebrated articles. He has said all
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along that they had more sense and reason in them than could be distilled from every thing else written by the democrats. Now he is amazed, he says, that a boy, (you know he calls every one a boy that is not forty,) should write so wisely, and above all, so temperately.’
‘Ah, my dear Fanny, adversity, though a ‘stern rugged nurse’ she be, enforces a discipline that makes us early wise. Heaven grant that her furnace may not be heated so hot as to consume instead of purifying.’
‘What do you mean, Randolph? you are very sad this evening. Are you not well? You are not troubled about this secret. I thought you looked very pale; what has happened to you?’
Randolph kissed the hand that Fanny in her earnestness had lain on his, ‘My dearest Fanny,’ he replied, ‘since you have exchanged those vows with me that pledge us to ‘halve our sorrows as well as double our joys,’ you have condemned yourself to trials too severe for your sweet and gentle spirit.’
‘Randolph, if my spirit is sweet and gentle, it can the better bear them; and besides, nothing can be a very, very heavy trial that I share with you. But tell me quick what it is? I am sure I shall think of some way of getting rid of it.’
Randolph shook his head, and then related his morning’s conversation with his grandfather. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘you see the cruel predicament in which I am placed. You, my beloved Fanny, the object of my fondest hopes, all that makes life attractive and dear to me, are placed within my grasp; an honorable career is opened to me, escape from the galling thralldom of my
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grandfather’s house, from the perpetual annoyance of his vulgarity, his garrulity, jealousy, and petty tyrannies; and this, without the slightest deviation in the spirit or even the letter from my promise to my dying mother.’ Randolph paused. Fanny watched every motion of his countenance with breathless expectation; she could not speak; she did not know what remained to be said, but she ‘guessed and feared.’ He proceeded. ‘But the price, Fanny, the price I am to pay for these ineffable blessings! I must give my vote to an unprincipled demagogue, and withhold it from an honest man. I must sacrifice the principles that I have laid down to govern my conduct. They may be stigmatized as juvenile, romantic, and fantastical; as long as I believe them essential to integrity, I cannot depart from them without a consciousness of degradation. My moral sense is not yet dimmed by the fumes of party, and it seems to me as plain a proposition as any other, that we ought only to support such men and such measures as are for the good of the country, and the whole country. It seems to me, that no man enlists under the banner of a party without some sacrifice of integrity. My grandfather says to me, in his vulgar slang, ‘between two stools you will fall to the ground. Be it so. It will be ground on which I can firmly plant my foot, and look up to heaven with consciousness that I have not offended against the goodness that made me a citizen of a country destined to be the greatest and happiest the world ever saw, provided we are true to our political duties. Dearest Fanny, do not think I am haranguing and not feeling. God knows I have had a sore conflict;
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my heart has been wrung. You cover your face. Have I decided wrong?’
‘Oh, no, no;’ she replied in a voice broken by her emotion. ‘For all the world, I would not that you should have decided otherwise. And yet, is it not very, very hard? I mean for you, Randolph. For myself, I have a pleasant home, and I am happy enough while I can see you every day, and be sure each day that we love one another better than we did the last. Besides,’ she added, looking up with her sunny smile, ‘on some accounts it is best as it is; it would almost break father’s heart to part from me; and, as he says, dear Randolph, when the right time comes, ‘Providence will open up a way for us.’’
‘Then, Fanny, you approve my decision?’
‘Approve it, Randolph! I do not seem proud, perhaps; but it would humble me to the very dust to have you think even of acting contrary to what you believe to be right. Oh, if we could only live in a world where it was all love and friendship and no politics!’
Randolph smiled at the simplicity of Fanny’s wish, and expressed, with all a lover’s fervor, his admiration of the instinctive rectitude of her mind. He confessed that he had resolved and re-resolved his grandfather’s proposition, in the hope that he might hit upon some mode of preserving his integrity and securing the bright reward offered him, but in vain.
Our lovers must be forgiven if they protracted their walk long after the orthodox hour for barring a minister’s doors. My friend, still the ‘spoiled child,’
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found her old sister Sally sitting up for her; and as they crept up their rooms, ‘They say old maids are cross,’ said Fanny, ‘but they don’t know you who say so. You remember, sister, when you used to love to walk by the moonlight, with a certain Mr.⎯⎯⎯?’
‘Whisht, nonsense, Fanny,’ said our ‘nun demure,’ but she finished the ascent of the stairs with a lighter step, and as Fanny kissed her for good night, she saw that a slight blush had overspread her wan cheek at the pleasurable recollections called up. So true is woman to the instincts of her nature.
On the next morning, Randolph was absent, and Mrs. Hunt said, in answer to his grandfather’s inquiries that he had ridden to the next village on business, and had left word that he should return in time for the election. The squire was excessively elated. He was on the point of obtaining a party triumph by the casting vote of his grandson; he should exhibit him for the first time in the democratic ranks, ‘enlisted for the war,’ with the new blown honors of Hampden thick upon him. There are elevated points in every man’s life, and this morning was the Chimborazo of the squire’s.
At the appointed hour the rival parties assembled at the meeting house; that being in most of our villages the only building large enough to contain the voters of the town, is, notwithstanding the temporary desecration, used as a political arena. There the rival parties met as (with sorrow we confess it,) rival parties often meet in our republic, like the hostile forces of belligerent nations, as if they had no interest nor sentiment in common.
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The balloting began. Randolph had not arrived. The squire, though not yet distrustful, began to fidget. He had taken his station beside the ballot box; a station which, in spite of its violation of the courtesies if not the principle of voting by ballot, is often occupied by eager village politicians, for the purpose of peering into the box, and detecting any little artifice by which an individual may have endeavored to conceal his vote. Here stood the squire, turning his eyes from the door where they eagerly glanced in quest of Randolph, to the box, and giving a smile or scowl to every vote that was dropped in. ‘What keeps the parson back?’ thought he, knitting his gristled brows, as he looked at Doctor Atwood, ‘he is always the first to push forward.’ This was true. The doctor’s principles kindly coincided with his inclination in bringing him to the poll, but once having ‘put in his mite,’ as he said, ‘into the good treasury,’ he paid so much deference to his office, as immediately to withdraw from the battle-field.
The doctor had controlling reasons for lingering on this occasion. Fanny had acquainted him with Randolph’s determination. The old man was touched with his young favorite’s virtue, and the more (we must forgive something to human infirmity,) that Randolph’s casting vote would decide the election in favor of the federal party. The balloting was drawing to a close, and still Randolph did not appear. The doctor now fully participated the squire’s uneasiness. He took off his spectacles, wiped them over and over again, and strained his eyes up the road by which Randolph was to return. ‘It was not like him to flinch,’ thought the sturdy old man, ‘he is always up to the mark.’ Still,
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as the delay was prolonged his anxiety increased. ‘Better have come boldly out on their side than sneak off in this fashion. I might have known that no one tainted with this jacobinism could act an upright manly part. He writes well, to be sure; find sentiments, but nothing so namby pamby as sentiment that is not backed up by conduct. Well, well; we are all in the hands of the Lord, and he may see fit yet to turn his heart; poor little Fanny; I’ll throw in my vote and go home to her.’ The doctor gave one last look through the window, and now, to his infinite joy, he descried Randolph approaching. In a few moments more he entered the church. His vote had been a matter much debated and of vital interest to both parties. As he entered, every eye turned towards him, and a general murmur ran round the church. ‘He’ll vote for us!’ and ‘he’ll vote for us!’ passed from mouth to mouth, and as usual the confident assertions were vouched by wagers. Whatever wrestlings with himself Randolph might have had in secret, he was too manly to manifest his feelings to the public eye, and he walked up the aisle with his customary manners, revealing nothing by look or motion to the eager eyes of his observers; though there was enough to daunt, or at least to fluster a man of common mettle, in the well known sound of the doctor’s footsteps, shuffling after him, and in the aspect of the squire standing bolt upright before him; confidence and exultation seeming to elevate him a foot above his ordinary stature.
‘Ha,’ thought he, ‘every man has his price; bait your hook with a pretty girl, and you’ll be sure to catch these boys.’ At this critical moment, Randolph
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dropped in his vote. It was open, fairly exposed to the squire’s eye, and it bore in legible, indubitable characters, the name of the Federal candidate. The doctor involuntarily grasped his hand, and whispered, ‘You have done your duty, my son, God bless you!’
Words cannot describe either the squire’s amazement or his wrath. Randolph had presumed too far when he hoped that the decency due to a public meeting would compel his relative to curb his passion, till reflection should abate it. It burst forth in incoherent imprecations, reproaches, and denunciations; and Randolph, finding that his presence only served to swell the storm, retreated.
The votes were now counted, and notwithstanding Randolph’s vote, and, contrary to all expectation, there proved to be a tie. Some federalist had been recreant. The balloting was repeated. Doctor Atwood had gone, and the democratic candidate was elected by a majority of one.
This unexpected good fortune turned the tide of the squire’s feelings. His individual chagrin was merged in the triumph of his party. They adjourned to the tavern to celebrate their victory in the usual mode of celebrating events, by eating and drinking. Excitement had its usual effects on our unethereal squire, and he indulged his stimulated appetite somewhat beyond the bounds of prudence.
Even the tiger is said to be comparatively good natured on a full stomach. The squire’s wrath was appeased by the same natural means; and when Hampden was toasted, he poured down a bumper, saying
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to his next neighbor as he did so, ‘I might have known a fellow with his nonsensical notions would have voted for the man he thought best of.’ The conviviality of our politicians continued to a late hour. Libations were poured out to all the bright champions of their party. The moderns unfortunately swallow their libations. Finally, the squire proposed a parting glass to ‘the confusion and overthrow of all monarchists, aristocrats, federalists, or despots, by whatever name called,’ and in the very act of raising it to his lips, he was seized with an apoplexy, which, in spite of his ‘sound grinders, full pulse, steady gait and grandmother Brown having to lived to ninety,’ carried him off in the space of a few hours, leaving his whole estate real and personal to his legal and sole heir, Randolph Hayford.
And how did Randolph bear this sudden reverse of fortune in his favor? This versification, as it truly seemed, of the doctor’s prophecy, that ‘Providence would open up a way for them.’
In the first place, he laid the axe to the root of the Hayford tree, renouncing at once and forever the name, (of which he had so religiously preformed the duties,) and resuming with pride and joy his honored patronymic. He then, by a formal deed of quit claim, relinquished all right and title to the estate, real and personal, and goods and chattels of Silas Hayford, Esquire, in favor of Martha Hunt, said Silas’ sister.
Thus emancipated, and absolved from all farther duties and obligations to the name of Hayford, with a character improved and almost perfected by the exact performance of self-denying and painful duties, he
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began his professional career, depending solely on his own talents and efforts; thank heaven, a sure dependence in our favored country.
My sweet friend, Fanny, who seemed to be the pet of destiny, as well as of father, sisters, and friends, was thus indulged in bearing the name of Gordon, to which she so fondly adhered. She was soon transferred to Randolph’s new place of residence, and without breaking her father’s heart by a separation. He having rashly preached an ultra federal sermon on a fast day, that widened the breach between himself and the majority of his parish, so far, that it was impossible to close it without emulating the deed of Curtius. To this the good doctor had no mind, and just then most fortunately (we beg his pardon, his own word is best,) ‘providentially’ receiving a call to vacant pulpit in the place of Randolph’s residence, he once more transferred his home; spent his last days near his favorite child, and at last, in language of scripture, ‘fell asleep’ on her bosom.
----------
[Sedgwick’s notes]
[1] This fruitful subject of dispute, has rent asunder many a village society in New England.
[2] Federalist.
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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A Reminiscence of Federalism
Subject
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Federalists and Democrats, partisanship, voting, friendship, courtship.
Description
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The narrator recounts the partisan divide between Federalists and Democrats in a New England town by reminiscing about a childhood friend, and her suitor's coming of age.
Creator
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Sedgwick, Catharine M. [By Miss Sedgwick]
Source
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The Token, edited by Samuel G. Goodrich.
Publisher
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Boston: Charles Bowen
Date
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1834 [pub. 1833]
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Jenifer Elmore, Naomi Lau, Kaylin Ricciardi, Abigail Skinner
Relation
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Collected in Catharine Sedgwick, Tales and Sketches. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea, and Blanchard, 1835: pp. 9-43. Collected in The Norton Anthology of American Literature, vol. 1, edited by Nina Baym, pp. 1017-38. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1998.
Language
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English
Type
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Document
"Hymn to Adversity" (1782)
"Il Penseroso" (1645)
1833
1834
A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy (1768)
Acts 7.60
Angelica Catalani
anonymous publication
aristocracy
As You Like It
ballots
Beauty and the Beast
Chimborazo
clergy
coming of age
Cotton Mather
courtship
Curtius
Death
death-bed promise
Democrat
Edie Ochiltree
elections
Federalism
Gioachino Rossini
Helicon
herbalist
Increase Mather
inheritance
Jack and the Beanstalk
Jacobin
Jews
John Adams
John Cotton
John Milton
Judges 11:34
lampoons
Laurence Sterne
lawyer
letters
Love
marriage
New England
newspapers
Norton Anthology of American Literature
Paradise Lost
partisan
pseudonym
Puritans
second wives
Shakespeare
Sir Walter Scott
sisters
Southerners
spinster
Tales and Sketches -First Series
The Age of Reason (1794)
The Antiquary (1816)
The Token
Thomas Gray
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Paine
Tristam Shandy
Uncle Toby
Vermont
Virgil
widowers
William Cullen Bryant
-
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a74118cb16354596951d77f93a08d6c4
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Title
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1846
Subject
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Stories published in 1846.
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Text
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AN AUCTION SALE.
BY MISS C.M. SEDGWICK
[126]
Did you ever attend an auction, my dear friend? a domestic auction – if that word domestic (of happiest associations) does not in this combination imply a contradiction in terms. I mean a sale of household furniture, held in a deserted home. I have lately been betrayed into an expenditure of time at two of these places, the only irretrievable loss—for the money made or last, as bargains are made or missed—is a small matter. You may, it is true, gain experience, but that is, alas! the stern light, of improbable use to yourself, and who will lay his course by it? Who will take it from you as a gift?
However, my auction mornings were not all lost to me. _____ was my companion, and she coins into gold the hours passed with her, and stamps them with her own impression. Gold! They become imperishable treasures for memory. You do not know her. She is generous of every thing, even of time, of which other wise and good people are niggardly from principle. She makes existence so heavenly, that she loses all sense of mortality and finiteness. There is no rude appalling interruption of life before her. She lives here, as she will live in heaven, simply because she will live there as she does here – doing her Father’s business – Showering her love and kindness upon just and unjust. Her unconsciousness of time—I can call it nothing else – is sometimes to be dreaded by those who, like myself, are of a less heavenly temperament. If I have half a dozen visits to pay I go last to her, or the rest would be forgotten. I avoid a seat next to her the latter part of the evening, lest I should forget there is a time to go. If I have any mortal care not to be evaded, I shun her as I would a Lethean draught. In short, there are times when she, a central source of social life and warmth, must be avoided by those who have not like her wings to spread and fly over the materialities of life. I say this feelingly, at this moment, my dear friend, having been beguiled into going to auction with her just before May-day, and May-day moving—that day of domestic desecration, discomfort, chaotic uproar, and household dissection—a day to convert the most spiritual Mary into a Martha. By the way, I fancy they had no moving-days in those good old cities of Judea. Certainly here, the Marthas are at a premium.
Our first auction was at a peremptory sale of “splendid furniture” – peremptory, because a wealthy proprietor chose to get rid of it even at a loss. It was at the court end of our great city, in a superb mansion, and it being well known that its possessor had selected it without any plebian reference to expense, and that some of it had been designed by the artistic taste of the lady of the mansion, purchasers of a more fashionable potential order than usual were attracted. Bargains were not expected, and, therefore, pawn-brokers, those “obscene birds of prey,” did not darken the doors. I observed a few of those unfortunate ladies who brood over every auction—who, I presume, go to these marts “as amateurs,” as a certain man confessed he went to a hanging, who take the conspicuous places, and occupy from the beginning to the end of the sale, the easiest seats, having nothing worse or better to do, there or anywhere, than to kill time—time that so soon dies a natural death.
Some were there to snatch a lucky change of possessing elegancies not to be compassed at their regular price, and others there were, leeches full to plethora of worldly goods, calling for more and more, whose brows are ploughed and their hearts eaten out with sordid cares. Oh, my countrywomen, is life, so full of import and so brief, to be thus thrown away? Can none of its pursuits with their plenitude of knowledge and happiness win you? Have you no fellow creature in ignorance to be instructed? None fallen to be rescued—none in sickness or sorrow to be tended?
The sale began. I do not know precisely what my friend’s objects were. I think she had a general and rather indistinct purpose to buy anything that tempted her taste and was within the circle of her means. She has a refined taste, which, if not a creator of wants is rather suggestive of them, so that noting within this richly furnished house was quite out of the field of her vision, quite beyond her possible possession. For myself though I earnestly desired that neither wood not stone consecrated by the use of the late generous tenants of the mansion should be profaned by unworthy hands, I had no selfish purpose beyond the possession of one of three chairs of such construction that any one of them might have given ease to a monarch on his throne, so that he might with this
[127]
luxurious appliance have slept almost as well as the “wet sea-boy in the cradle of the rude imperious surge.” These “sleepy hollows” would have been far beyond by hopes at the warehouse. Their carved rose-wood and tapestry covering I was not ambitious of, but the backs, sides, and arms so deliciously stuffed, I did covet. Their forms so skillfully turned and adjusted that I could fancy every bone, muscle, and even nerve of the nervous friend for whom I designed the gift, reposing and wrapped in Elysium on their soft cushions. Their could not be purchasers for all three of them. I should certainly get one – perhaps two! and then I might be munificent and self-indulgent too. How unqualified, how sure, my dear friend is one’s generosity of possible possessions! The auctioneer soon finished his kitchen sales, for there were few competitors for the mean mere necessaries of life. The drawing rooms were crowded, and eager eyes bent on the man of power. As curtains, chairs and sofas passed under his hammer, my friend and I exchanged glances. She now and then timidly bid. Even I ventured upon a few articles; soared to them, but with a fluttering wing. They soon went far beyond my flight. The chairs were yet in perspective. In the meantime we were verging to a piano. “Do you think of bidding on the piano?” asked my friend. My reply “stuck i’ the throat.” I certainly did think of it – anxiously. I confessed I had been long looking for a piano, hoping to get one of the very best kind, but far from the highest price. This, I knew was made by Chickering, had been little used and had been tested by good musicians; it had striking beauty, a quality to be valued, though of as subordinate importance to the musical construction as a woman’s face to her soul. I saw by some eager eyes bent on it, and by disparaging whispers about it that I should have formidable competitors. My heart beat as bid after bid carried it up, and it was soon struck off at a price beyond me. Then there was a little cabinet in the field – artistically carved, after an exquisite design of the proprietor, made for a coroner and that would just fit an empty corner that now seemed to me an aching void. Surely no one could desire to possess it so earnestly as I did, but alas! if they desired less, they bid more and away went the cabinet. Then there were some girandoles – sufficiently elegant for any townhouse, and modest enough for the country. My imagination at once lighted their pretty circlet of candles on a certain country tea-table. But they have gone to send their beams upon a stranger’s walls! In the meantime sofas, tables, curtains, carpets, &c. &c. passed before my friend’s consideration and beyond it. Of some things, she was not sure she knew the actual value. (_____ has a vein of prudence -- though it requires something like a prismatic director to show it.) Others were not quite the thing, and there were a few that she was not certain she wanted; so all were knocked down to other bids. At last one of my chairs was set up – mine! Voices rose from every part of the house. I did not even bid for it. “Never mind,” whispered my dear friend); (____ has an antidote for every evil in life, be it great or small,) “the next will suit you better.” After waiting another mortal hour, the second was in the field, and so eager was the contest for it that one might have fancied the philosopher’s stone was imbedded within it. It soon went far beyond my grasp. At last, toward the close of the sale came, to my deferred hope, the last. But now to the wearied wretches who had been standing for hours, a chair was a vision of heavenly rest. “Show it—lift it up,” cried the auctioneer, and its soft cushioned sides were elevated to meet every eye. “You all want this!” he exclaimed, exultingly. He augured rightly; all did seem to want it, and one lucky mortal soon obtained it. “Let us go away now, “ said I to my friend. She smiled pitifully upon the blank disappointment too evident and said, “Oh no, we must wait for the sweetmeat jars;” they are coming to them now. There were a lot of jars, that before the auction began we had agreed to buy (in some parenthesis of our purchases,) and divide between us. Before they were set up, my friend and I got separated by a half a dozen people. The jars were started at a reasonable price; I bid upon them. Some competitor seemed determined to have them—but her resolution was not stouter than mine. She as well as myself, had learned the skill by a nod, so the rival bids were only known by the announcement, “Eighteen cents is bid, ladies, nineteen—nineteen each---twenty—twenty-two –three, twen-three—twenty-four” – I turned my eye to the jars; “did they cost so much?” vaguely passed through my mind, but this was my last chance for anything and the jars I would have; so on it went, “twenty-five—six—twenty-six each—twenty-seven—going at twenty-seven—at twenty-seven going—twenty-eight! – twenty-eight! –going- gone! – The jars were mine. The auctioneer smiled. ‘Thank you ladies—a brave bid for the sweetmeat jars!” I felt myself the object of the rather contemptuous observation of my neighbors, and of the rather thrilling suppressed laugh that was passing round. But imagine my consternation when my friend making her way to me said, in a voice of the most piteous deprecation: “My dear! that was my bid!” Never were two women more chop fallen. We left the auction together, after four hours lost there, and thus ended our first and last bargain aspiration of which the sweetmeat jars will long remain a ludicrous monument.
[p. 128]
I have not done. This was not our last appearance on an auction theatre. We inverted the usual order, and went from comedy to tragedy. You know our friend Mrs. _____, is still languishing with an illness in a distant land. Her house is let, and as her furniture could not be otherwise conveniently disposed of, Mr. _____ decided to have it sold by auction. So my friend, (the joint proprietor of the sweetmeat jars,) being the earthly providence of all those she loves, determined to prevent, as far as she could, the sacrifice of her absent friend’s possessions. I readily consented to meet her, and early on the morning of the auction, we met at that threshold which our beloved friend’s last footsteps had sanctified. The odious red flag was flying over it. Very fitting that it should be of the piratical color! Strange and common faces were thronging in that home which beauty had graced, and cultivation, refinement, and elegance had embellished, and affection had sanctified. More than one pale form rose to our imaginations, and brimmed our eyes with tears. We were unfit members of the motley congregation about us, and both of us would gladly have run away from the sound of feet careering up and down our friend’s house and desecrating the places that she and her’s had made sacred to us, but our sentiment was to be turned to account, and not lost in air.
The sale began. “Oh, hear them!” whispered my friend, they are bidding off that China for nothing!” and visions of her friend’s hospitable table came swimming before her. “Let us bid upon it,” she continued eagerly, “and then either of us can take it!” And thus by a competition, unexampled at an auction I believe, we ran it up, till a late dawning of prudence, forbade our going further, and the China, to me an utter superfluity, was knocked down to my bid. Our absent friends as you know, are rather remarkable for their utter incapacity to possess anything that is not costly. Not from ostentation—heaven knows, there were never people farther from that vulgar vice—but refinement and taste are an essential part of their composition. The art and taste of the artisan must be required, and one cannot buy Meak’s rosewood chairs for the price of a flag-bottomed one from a Yankee factory; and French China, of rare dye, is far more costly than “blue Liverpool.” My friend and I are, as you know, prudent women, but our feelings stimulated by the occasion were destined to empty our purses that day. The amount of my purchases was, comparatively and smal[l], if I bought champagne glasses with little prospect of ever using them, “fine cut lemonades” for a friend, who would look upon them as only suited for the orgies of the demon of dyspepsia, I was consoled by the thought that they would minister to pleasant memories, and were certainly saved from falling to the level of other household goods in the hands of those who had never seen them mantling with the hospitalities of our dear friends. For _____, you should know the irrepressible warmth of her friendships, as well as the unbounded liberality of her disposition, to understand the seeming recklessness with which she bought on the right hand with the left, to save her friend’s property from sacrifice or vulgar possession. I was standing near a chair, which and old harpy, with a regular auction aspect, was examining. I was sure, by a certain devouring expression of her eye, that she meant to buy it, though turning the end of her nose up, and the corners of her mouth down, she called the attention of other birds of prey, who were hovering over it, to some darns on the chintz cover. A few moments after my friend came to examine it, and the darns catching her eye she bent over them as if she would have kissed them as holy relics, and pointing them out to me said, “her own dear darns! – I must have this chair!” and chair, as curtain, beds, and chairs had done it before, passed into her possession. Where they are to be bestowed in a house already thoroughly furnished, I know not, but I am sure some mark, like the dear friend’s darn, will be upon them all, and they will remain as sacred in her eyes as were the holy vessels of the Temple to the ancient Jews.
“The heart’s the gold for a’ man.” If the trading of the “money changers” profaned the holy place, that of my friend sanctified one auction sale.
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
An Auction Sale
Subject
The topic of the resource
Auctions, friendship.
Description
An account of the resource
The narrator describes two auctions in which she took part, and reflects on friendship, buying, and selling.
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 (September 1846): 126-28.
Publisher
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Edited by John Inman and Robert A. West
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1846
Contributor
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D. Gussman
Language
A language of the resource
English
auctions
Chickering & Sons
Elysium
Friendship
furniture
History of Henry IV Part II
J. & J.W. Meeks
Jews
Judea
Liverpool blue china
Martha
Mary
money changers
pawn broker
piano
Shakespeare
Temple
-
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900806d5afb33cd8c73737e67de94f80
Dublin Core
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Title
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1836
Document
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Text
Any textual data included in the document.
DANIEL PRIME.
___________
“Beware of Covetousness.”
[p. 215]
I remember, when a child, having my curiosity strongly excited by the fag end of a story which an old family servant was telling to my elders when I entered the room. “But are you sure,” asked a gentle lady, who could not give credit to such a demonstration of emotion, “are you sure his hair actually stood up?”
“As sure as that I see you now, ma’am; and an awful sight it was. He was a thickset, strong-built fellow, with a tripy skin—lips, cheeks, forehead, all one colour; his eyes were gray and large, and his eyebrows black as jet, and solid; but his hair was considerable gray, and cut shortish—stiff, ugly hair it was—and, altogether, he looked as cruel as a meat-axe. He stood all as one as where ma’am stands now. There were two cotton-wicked candles on the table, burning bright, for I had just snuffed them. The colonel sat in his armchair, looking terrible—he could look so on them that desarved it—and the clark had his pen in his hand. The colonel gave me a sign; I opened the door, and he came in, as it were into that door, right in Prime’s face. I kept
[p. 216]
my eye on Prime. His hair rose and stood on end, straight and stiff as bristles. Every one took notice of it, and often have I heard the colonel speak of it.”
“But what made his hair rise?” I naturally asked. “Do not tell her,” interposed the aforesaid gentle lady; “it is too horrid a tale for a child’s ears.” Then followed the trite hint about “little pitchers,” and the promise, usually broken to the hope, that the story should be told me “one of these days.” That day did not, however, in this case, prove an illusion. The story was, in due time, told to me by that dear old servant and friend, who was one of the most acute observers I ever knew. On her veracious testimony I now repeat it.
Many more complicated and startling criminal cases may be found among “les causes celébres.” This is chiefly interesting, as illustrating the tendency of the indulgence of any one passion of the human mind to destroy its balance, and produce the diseases termed fixidity and monomania. These are, doubtless, actual diseases. The great truth to be learned from them is, that they might, in most instances, be avoided by moral education. The mind cannot safely dwell long and intently on one subject. The effect is precisely analogous to that produced on the physical system by bearing on one muscle—the muscle is inevitably weakened, if not destroyed.
[p. 217]
John Dorset was a wealthy yeoman in the southwestern part of Massachusetts. His was the best farm under the shadow of the Tahconnic, there where its swelling and lofty summits bound the western horizon of the pretty village of Sheffield. Dorset was a hard-working, sagacious farmer, acute, or, in rustic phrase, close at a bargain, but liberal in his ordinary transactions. “He gave freely of his bread to the poor, and his bountiful eye was blessed.” He was violent in his temper and self-willed, liable to sudden bursts of feeling, and governed by impulses. His heart was somewhat like iron, hard and resisting; but, if sufficient heat was applied, it glowed intensely, and might be worked at will. He had a fit helpmate; such as abounded in the good olden time of undisputed authority on the part of the husband and unquestioning submission on that of the wife. Dame Dorset worked diligently with wool and flax, and looked well to the ways of her household; in short, she was a wife after the old Puritan pattern. One only child had this thriving pair, to whom her father gave the name he deemed indicative of the condition and virtues of her sex, Submit, and truly did it express the very essence of her character. She was a gentle, comely, well-nurtured lass. Her father was wont to boast her accomplishments in such phrases as these: “Submit need not turn her back upon any gal in the New-England States. She can spin on the great wheel and
[p. 218]
the little wheel”—alas! for the cheerful, domestic sounds that have passed away from the farmer’s home—“she can make butter and cheese equal to her mother’s, roast a pig without cracking the skin, and make an Indian pudding that you can slice like wax; read, write, and cipher as well as any woman need to, and, what is more than larning, she never disobeyed me in her life !” With such store of accomplishments, and sole apparent heir of John Dorset’s wealth, no wonder that the fair Submit heard every day the preliminary question in the rustic treaty of marriage of that good olden time, “Will you undervaly yourself so much as to overvaly me so much as to keep company with me?” But none of the aspirants was she known to vouchsafe the propitious response, “No undervalyment at all, sir!”
Submit lost her mother, and her father, seeing his domestic affairs prosper in her hands, and loving her with all the strength of his undivided affection, was well pleased with her maidenly reserve.
“You are right, Submit,” he would say, when he had seen her close the door after some suiter in holyday array; “when the right one comes will be time enough. I despise those gals that are ready to say snip to every man’s snap.” Poor Dorset! who shall prophesy of human wisdom? The heaviest storms are sometimes brewing when not a cloud is to be seen.
[p. 219]
The proprietor of the farm adjoining Dorset’s was a certain Rube Prime, a careless, rack-rent fellow, negligent of his own rights, and regardless of the rights of others; an unprofitable acquaintance, and a most inconvenient neighbour, annoying in every way to a man of Dorset’s irritable temper and thrifty habits. Dorset’s dislike of the father was extended to his brood of marauding boys, with the exception of one among them, Daniel. “He,” Dorset said, “was different from the rest”—he did not mark the blush on Submit’s cheek when he said so; and once, when he was anathematizing the whole Prime race, he made a notable and long-remembered exception in favour of Daniel. “There is not a mother’s son of them worth a curse,” said Dorset, in his fury. “Yes, yes,” he added, “I will except Daniel.” Daniel was indebted for the honour of this exception to being the pet of a maiden aunt, Marah Prime, who had carefully trained him in the way in which she thought he should go, and HE DID GO THEREIN. “A penny saved is a penny gained,” was the first lore his infant lips learned. He was taught to exchange his share of pudding and cakes with his short-sighted brothers for something that could be kept or again bartered. His thriftless father was held up before him as a beacon; and modes of practising on the old man were suggested, similar to Jacob’s upon the unwary Laban, and this, he learned, “was a way to
[p. 220]
thrive.” Women of all ages, conditions, and tempers, will weave a thread of love into the web of a favourite’s destiny. It was when Submit was receiving her name over the baptismal font that Aunt Marah predestined her the wife of Daniel; and from that moment of sordid election, she shaped all device and action to this end.
“For once,” boasted one of the young Primes, “I’ve made a bargain out of Dan; he’s given me three fourpence ha’pennies for my string of birds’ eggs!”
The birds’ eggs might be seen the next day festooned round Submit’s looking-glass.
“What has become of Bob?” asked all the little Primes, in a breath, and asked again without being answered. Bob was a pet squirrel, tamed by Aunt Marah, and, in due time, conveyed, by Daniel’s hand, to Submit. Daniel was the only Prime permitted to enter Dorset’s premises, and he was only suffered, not encouraged. He, however, in the reputed spirit of his countrymen, made the most of his opportunity by gaining the heart of the gentle heiress. We are compelled to pass in this etching style over the years that brought Daniel to man’s estate. In the mean time his father died, his brothers scattered over the world, and he remained—“a rolling stone gathers no moss,” said Aunt Marah—he remained rooted to the farm, toiling hard to redeem it from encumbering mortgages. Now he fancied himself
[p. 221]
securely floating into the harbour so long desired, and day after day did his eye feast on Dorset’s fertile fields, and night after night did he reckon up the value of the lands, tenements, stock, goods, and chattels, that were to be conveyed to him by that sure and precious instrument, Submit. Aunt Marah felt his grasp so certain that she began to grumble at the liberality of Dorset’s housekeeping. “But time,” she trusted, “would change with masters!” Submit, and Submit alone, had secret forebodings that her father, though he tolerated Daniel, would not fancy him for a son-in-law; and, with all a woman’s timid forebodings, she saw the evening approach on which, by her acquiescence, consent was to be asked. Her father had been out all day. He came home with a ruffled countenance, and she saw they had fixed on an inauspicious moment. As he threw off his coat, he grumbled, “A pretty business! A chip of the old block! I knew the devil would out, in some shape or other!” And when Submit suppressed her ominous fears, and asked, in a low voice, “What has taken place, sir?” he narrated a transaction of Daniel Prime’s with a friend of his—whose simplicity Dorset had always sheltered under the wing of his superior sagacity—in which his friend had been overreached: a mode of cheating particularly odious to a man of Dorset’s frank temper. “I always told you, Submit,” he added, after finishing his narration, “you
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can’t ‘wash a checked apron white;’ ‘what’s bred in the bone’—but I’ll fix him, that I will.” At this moment Daniel entered. Dorset did not return his deferential greeting; but Dorset often had his surly moments, and when all seemed murky, the sun shot forth from the clouds. Submit in vain tried to give her lover a warning signal. Prime’s mind was intent on his purpose; and when she, hoping he might have understood her, and trusting, at any rate, that he was too discreet to unfold his purpose in her father’s present humour, left the room, Daniel spoke, or tried to speak; for no sooner did Dorset comprehend his meaning, than he broke out upon him, poured forth epithets as stinging as blows, and finished by opening the doors, and actually kicking him out of the house. Daniel slunk home, and calculated the cost of a lawsuit, and the probable amount of a verdict in a suit for assault and battery; but, after repeated consultations with Aunt Marah, he made a better estimate of the chances of profit and loss, and the next week, while Dorset was gone to Boston, he took a ride with Submit to the adjacent territory of New-York, where his marriage was effected without the previous publication of “intentions of marriage,” which the prudent Puritans prefixed to that rite.
We pass over the rage of the wronged father. We have no space to record his reiterated vows—too faithfully kept—that he would
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never again speak to his child, and that never a penny of his should pass into Daniel Prime’s hands. He made a will at once, and published it, formally disinheriting his daughter, and devising his property to various public institutions. Dorset tried to appear as cheerful as was his wont, for he was a proud man, and loth, even tacitly, to confess his dependence on any human being or circumstance; but nature was too strong for him; and when he was alone, walking over those fine fruitful fields, whose transmission to his posterity he had so often contemplated as a sort of self-perpetuation, his disappointment would break forth in exclamations and audible groans; and when he returned to his home, and missed his gentle, patient child, who had anticipated his wants, and endured his impatience without a murmur, his parental tenderness would find its way in tears; but, after the first ebullition of passion, never a word of complaint or regret escaped him. He went on as if nothing had happened, enriching his farm, and dispensing liberally from storehouses always full.
In the mean time, Submit, born to be an unresisting thrall to whatever power might master her, faithfully kept her vow of allegiance to her new lord, though her heart pined in secret for the abundance and cheerfulness of her old home. Her father’s temper was gusty, but the storms were short, and succeeded by sunshine and a healthy atmosphere. Her husband’s
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disposition was of the brooding, anxious, forecasting sort, that hangs like a leaden sky and pestilential fog over the domestic scene. He was not severe or unkind to her. As the means of attaining the great end of his life, she was inestimable to him; but he was apprehensive and restless till that was secured. He never, for a moment, believed that her fitful, impulsive father would persevere in his disinheritance of his only child; but there was no passion keener than avarice, and he was continually forcing her on active measures to recover her father’s favour. This imbittered her life. She could endure and suffer to the end of the chapter; there was no limit to her passive virtue; but to execute what her husband planned—to confront her storming father—was an enterprise for Submit similar to a passage under the sheet of water at Niagara.
In obedience to her husband, she repeatedly wrote to her father. The letters were returned unopened. She even, like a trembling victim, went to his house again and again. The good-natured servants—they were slaves, for our story dates before the Revolution—gathered about her with their honest, hearty welcomes, but her father passed by her without one glance of recognition; and if she ventured, in a half-stifled voice, to address him, he gave no sign of hearing her. Thus matters went on for three years. Aunt Marah, whose whole life was devoted to that most teasing
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domestic alchymy by which one man’s shilling can be made to go as far as another man’s dollar, was a continual thorn in Submit’s side.
At the end of three years the light broke in upon her weary existence. She had a child! that best of Heaven’s blessings—that ray of celestial light which penetrates the intensest darkness that can encompass a mother’s soul. A child! Who could be miserable with such a treasure? a gift that enriches every other possession: that is riches to poverty; meat and drink to the hungry and thirsty; rest to the wearied; health to the sick; an immeasurable present joy, and an infinite promise!
Our poor mother’s soul was kindled with new life; her home was no longer a waste and desolate place. She turned her eye from the dark spirit brooding in her husband’s face, and felt the smiles of her child warming her heart. She listened to the first sweet sounds from its lips, and was deaf to Aunt Marah’s eternal chidings.
“You say your father likes babies,” said her husband. “Sibyl begins to take notice”—the child had been warily named Sibyl Dorset, after its maternal grand-parents—“dress her up in her best, and take her to your father’s; don’t be scared away by the first frown—stay a while—he’ll come to at last: an old dog don’t turn for the first whistle.”
Submit obeyed with alacrity, because with hope. She believed her child irresistible, and
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longed to see it her father’s arms. The little girl had arrived at the prettiest stage of infancy; she was fat, and fair, and bright, and dressed in her prettiest, all-conquering in her mother’s eye. No wonder she walked with a light step up the narrow lane that led to the only place her heart called home. She was humbly making her way towards the kitchen door, when the old house-dog sprang upon her, and licked the baby’s hands. Dorset stood, unseen, at a window, stealthily watching the approach. The baby, instead of crying, clapped her little hands in reply to the dog’s caress. An exclamation of pleasure escaped from Dorset. Submit, unconscious of the auspicious omen, proceeded. The door was opened by Juno, an old negro matron. She summoned her daughters, Minerva and Venus; and the three goddesses exhausted on the child every epithet of endearment and admiration in their vocabulary. The doors communicating with the “dwelling-room” were open, and there was the grandfather, all ear.
“My!” cried Juno, “what pretty black eyes; for all the world like master’s!”
“That’s well!” thought Dorset; “no black eyes among the Primes—gray, squint, or walleyed, every d—l of them.”
“Dear! what a cunning little cherry mouth!” said Venus.
“Dan Prime’s mouth is like a wolf’s!” murmured Dorset.
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“This beats the Dutch—master’s peaked ear!” exclaimed Minerva; “and on the left side, too.”
“I saw, when I first looked at her, she favoured father,” said Submit, tremulously; “I suppose it was thinking of him so much!”
Dorset longed to take mother and child to his heart, but the remembrance of his rash vow checked the impulse. A project by which he might, in part, evade its consequences, dawned upon him. He went into the kitchen. Juno—experience made her the boldest—Juno held the baby up to him: “Isn’t she a beauty, master? as pretty as a London doll.”
“Put out your hands, Sibyl Dorset,” said the trembling mother. The little girl, instinctively eloquent in her own cause, stretched out her hands, smiled, and jumped towards her grandfather. He caught her in his arms, looked steadily in her face for a moment, exclaimed, “All Dorset, by Jupiter!” and then returning her to the servant, his eyes blinded with tears, he made his way to his apartment, slamming the doors after him as a sort of expression or echo to his feelings. Poor Submit, after lingering in faint hope or fear till the day closed, was obliged to return to her disappointed, sullen husband.
Two years after this first meeting, as Dorset was returning home, he saw a little girl tottling along the roadside, picking dandelions. His old dog Cæsar sprang upon her and threw her
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down. She patted him, calling him “naughty Cæsar.” They were familiar friends. “It is she!” thought Dorset; and he quickened his steps, and gave her his hand to help her up. She grasped his, and retained it. The pressure of a child’s soft, chubby hand is an electric touch to the heart.
“Ain’t you my danfather?” said Sibyl.
“Yes.”
“Then do you come and live with us. Mother tells me every day I must love you, and how can I love you if I don’t see you?”
“I can’t go to live with you, child, but would you like to come and live with me?”
“With you and Cæsar! yes, if mother will come too.”
“And your father?”
The child started at his changed tone of voice. “No, no, not father; let father and Aunt Marah stay at home.”
Dorset conducted the little runaway to her own premises, went home, passed a sleepless night, and the next morning sent the following note to Prime’s:
“TO DANIEL PRIME AND WIFE.
“If you will send me your child, Sibyl Dorset, and sign a quitclaim to her, and you, Daniel Prime, promise, under oath, never intentionally to see, and never speak with her during my life, I, in return, will take her as my own child, and will endeavor so to bring her up,
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that, when come to woman’s estate, she’ll not quit me for any rascal on earth.
“Signed, JOHN DORSET.”
This proposition was rather more than Prime could at once submit to; but, after a little reflection on the precariousness of Dorset’s life—how very uncertain other men’s lives seem!—his cupidity prevailed over his pride and every manly sentiment, as well as over his affections. “We must make hay while the sun shines,” said Aunt Marah; and many a case did she recount of breaches healed by the intervention of grandchildren. So little Sibyl was to be sent to serve the purpose of patent cement, and make the broken parts adhere more firmly than ever.
The weakest, most timid animal will turn to defend her young, and Submit, for the first time in her life, when she heard her husband’s decision, resisted. To give up Sibyl was to resign all that made existence tolerable to her.
“I cannot consent to this,” she said, with unprecedented firmness; “all the land on the round earth would not tempt me; no, not all my father’s money, ten thousand times told.”
“You talk like a fool, wife.”
“Oh, Daniel Prime, I think there is no folly like that of craving for more and more. You are always toiling, and selling, and gaining, and it all does no good to any one, and least of all
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to you. Are you happy? are you even content?”
“No, I am not; but I have been disappointed—balked. I shall be happy,” he stretched his hand towards Dorset’s, “when I get that farm.”
“No, Prime, there is neither good nor happiness to those that forget the laws of God, and you are breaking his tenth commandment. But,” she added, raising her voice, “you will never get it. I cannot part with Sibyl. I was taught never to give away the least trifle given to me, and can I give away God’s gift? No, never!”
Prime would at once have enforced obedience, but he feared that his wife, driven to extremity, might fly to her father, and remonstrate; he therefore let her exhaust her courage, and then urged compliance as a duty to her father. At this point she was vulnerable. From her child’s birth, and the simultaneous burst of parental feeling in her own breast, she had—a very common case—experienced a new sense of filial duty; had lamented her infidelity to her father, and ventured to express her remorse in Prime’s presence. She had now, as her husband urged, an opportunity to atone for her fault, and this foregone, would be lost forever. Her father was old; more children she might have, never another father. And when she ceased to answer, but still wept, he suggested that her father’s terms might be
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softened; he might consent to her seeing the child; and, finally, and more than all, Sibyl must prove a successful mediator between them.
Submit at last yielded so far as to write to her father. The letter was modified by her husband, blotted with her tears, and sent. The following reply was immediately returned: “The mother and child may meet as often as is reasonable; but Daniel Prime must be to Sibyl as though he were not. Let no more be written or said about it. Send her—on these conditions, mind ye!—to-morrow.”
Sibyl was sent, and her mother left to solitude and pining. She saw her child often. She found her always affectionate and kind, but there was little sympathy between them. Sibyl was a healthy, bright, stout-hearted girl, living and laughing in sunshine, and unable to sympathize with her weak, drooping mother, who had no pleasure in life but her meetings with her child, and those imbittered by Dorset’s unrelaxing adherence to his vow.
Eight dreary years passed away. There was no change in Daniel Prime but a gradual deepening of the lines of his character; or, rather, the one line, the channel to which everything tended, wore deeper and deeper. Not one of all the passions of the human race is so insatiable as avarice. The poet has well selected the wolf as its symbol, always hungry, never satiated—“E dopo ‘l pasto ha piu fama
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che pria” (and, after eating, he is more hungry than before). And if to avarice is added hoarding—a passion without motive, without present contentment or future reward—the folly is complete, the spirit is extinct, the image of God effaced. Prime grew more and more acute at his bargains, and with every acquisition more greedy of gain. Like his prototype, so well described by the satirist, he was always pouring into his grand reservoir from other men’s scanty cisterns, going hither and yon to add to his stores, and withering away for the want of one refreshing draught. So cautiously and securely did he keep within the bounds of legal honesty, that no one could have suspected the fatal trespass for which the inordinate growth of his ruling passion was preparing him. Every circumstance tended to sharpen this passion. The riches which had seemed to him within his grasp were before his eyes, whetting his appetite, like a plentiful table spread in the presence of the hungry man, who is always approaching, but never attains it. He knew the will alienating Dorset’s property from his posterity had been burned—Was there another made? Prime believed not; for Dorset was proverbially open in all his affairs.
Eight years, as we have said, passed away, and Submit was again a mother. Prime, who till this time had been like a rock over which the billows are continually rolling, so that nothing
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that thrives by the kind processes of nature could take root in his sordid soul, now felt something like affection at his heart, and with it came a jealousy and dislike of his eldest child. He hoped the pride of transmitting a name might induce Dorset to transfer his favour, and the boy too was sent to the grandfather to seek his fortune, but in vain. Sibyl had her citadel in the old man’s heart, and no one could dispossess her. She loved her brother, and would gladly have divided all her possessions, even her dearest, her grandfather’s affections, with him. But these were not a transferable treasure. He loved Sibyl better than he had ever loved his own daughter. Sibyl had a mind of her own, independent thought, and free action, and he liked her the better for it. He felt too late that there was no reliance on a machine worked by another’s will.
He had some natural dreads when his favourite approached the marriageable age, and strong likings and dislikings were manifested towards the aspirants for her favour. Fortunately, hers—as if their affections were governed by the same spring—coincided with his; and, finally, when, with untold hopes and purposes, he brought home a distant relative whom he had known and liked as a boy, the full measure of his contentment was filled up by a sudden and mutual liking between the young people.
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All went on smoothly. Dorset was perfectly happy; his own child was like a dropped and forgotten link. Bountiful preparations were made for celebrating the marriage, and Sibyl was maturing a plot for effecting a reconciliation with her mother at this auspicious moment, when all these fair prospects were forever overcast by the sudden death of the old man from a fall from his horse.
While poor Sibyl, in a paroxysm of grief, was lamenting over his lifeless body, and her mother, in more subdued, but far more bitter sorrow, was weeping in silence, Daniel Prime was prowling over the house, searching desks and drawers for a will. None was forthcoming; and with an exulting heart and decent countenance he performed the offices of the occasion. The funeral over, the servants were disposed of, the house shut up, Sibyl removed to her father’s, and he was proceeding to take out letters of administration, when a friend of Dorset returned from a journey, and produced a will deposited with him. The entire of Dorset’s property was bequeathed to his granddaughter. The will was simple and direct. There was no flaw, no pretext for a cavil.
Daniel Prime afterward confessed to a spiritual director and friend, that the thought which first occurred to him after the shock of the discovery of the will was over, was—but we will give it in his own words: “The devil put it into my head that, if Sibyl died a minor,
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and without issue of her body, I was her heir.” “Whoso breaketh a hedge, a serpent shall bite him.”
Long before this Aunt Marah had fretted herself into that resting-place which awaits even such harassed and harassing souls as hers, and Daniel Prime was left without even her counsel and sympathy in the final failure of the hopes and plans of years. He was always a man of few words; now he was more moody and brooding than ever. Sibyl had painful recollections of his influence on her childhood; she had since been taught to shun him; she perceived her mother’s fear and dread of him; and now, whenever she met his evil eye, she felt a shiver pass over her as if a blight were upon her. Sad is it when nature’s sweet fountains are turned to bitterness.
When the letters she wrote at this juncture to her absent lover, intimating secret unhappiness, were afterward exhibited, it was believed by the superstitious that she had received some warning of the impending future; but in our rational days we find the natural explanation in the shock she had received from her grandfather’s violent death, and the sadness resulting from the transition from a cheerful home to a murky atmosphere. She loved her mother, but their natural relation was reversed; she was the sustainer, her mother the dependant; and now Sibyl was too weak and dejected to bear the burden. Her little brother
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seems to have been her sole comfort. She often alludes to him in her letters, recounts anecdotes of his manliness, his devotion to her, and always interweaves his destiny with the web of her future life.
The time appointed for her marriage drew near. She would not listen to her father’s suggestion to delay it. The day for her lover’s return arrived. She went out alone, at twilight, to await him at a secluded spot a mile distant from her father’s dwelling, where the road, after winding along the declivity of a steep, wooded hill that descended to the Housatonic, crossed a rickety old bridge. The river, noisy and shallow above the bridge, was there made deep and still by a dam erected a short distance below.
For the first time since her grandfather’s death, Sibyl went out with her natural light step, and her face bright and smiling, and looking, as she cast aside her mourning veil, like the sun beaming forth from a drapery of clouds.
In less than an hour she returned, her face muffled in her veil, her dress disordered, and the agitation of her whole frame betraying emotions that she vainly struggled to conceal. Her mother—whose whole life was an illustration of that axiom made for woman,
“’Tis meet and fit,
In all we feel, to make the heart submit”—
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William, her lover, might yet arrive to-night, or, if he did not, another was coming;” and concluded with that common comfort of the experienced, which passes by the young like idle wind, “we must all learn to bear disappointments!” Sibyl’s mother knew little of the manifestations of feeling, or she would have guessed a different cause than the mere delay of a lover’s return for the horror painted on her child’s countenance. She seemed to have shrank to half her usual size. In reply to her mother, she only said, “I cannot help it; I am disappointed;” and when she heard her father’s footstep, returning at his usual hour, she said, in a half-suffocated voice, “For mercy’s sake, mother, take no more notice of it!”
It was not observed at the time, but Sibyl’s mother afterward remembered, in recalling all the circumstances, that her husband was less reserved than usual; that he mentioned some particulars of business he had been transacting in the village; said he had brought a letter from the postoffice for Sibyl; asked where she was—she had left the room before he entered—and sent her brother with the letter to her, telling him to wait and ask “what news there was in it.”
The boy lingered till called by his father, and then he said, “Sibyl was crying because William was not coming for a week.”
“So much the better! so much the better!” said Prime. He ate heartily, sat for a long time
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looking intently at the embers, and then went to bed, muttering to himself, “Not coming for a week!”
His wife, after waiting till she had sure tokens her husband was sleeping, stole to Sibyl’s room. She was not there! Submit was returning, alarmed, by a back passage, through her boy’s little room, when she found Sibyl sitting by his bedside, her head on the pillow close to his, and her cheek as white as the linen it pressed. She signed to her mother to leave the room, and she obeyed, as she always obeyed the motions of others; but she subsequently confessed that she had vague apprehensions excited. Sibyl did not appear the next morning till her father had gone to his daily occupations. It was evident she had passed a sleepless night. She was all day nervous and restless. In the afternoon, having ascertained that her father was gone to the village, and would not return till late in the evening, she announced to her mother a sudden determination to go to a friend’s, five miles from them, and remain there till her lover’s return. Her mother remonstrated. There was no way of going but on foot, and the rustic girls of those days were not better pedestrians than those of ours. But the walk seemed no obstacle to Sibyl; she only asked that her brother might accompany her through “that dismal bit of woods”—so she called it—and as far as the bridge. To this her mother
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consented; but when, at parting, Sibyl threw her arms round her, and sobbed hysterically on her bosom, she felt some sad presentiment, and wished she had resisted, and kept her children at home.
The time came for the boy’s return. He did not appear. The mother grew anxious. Again and again she went to the window, but there was no sign of him; again and again she fancied she heard his footsteps, but it proved to be the dog tramping up the steps, or some other sound as unlike that of his light tread. At last, beginning to feel that, where happiness is at stake, we never “learn to bear disappointments,” she went forth in quest of him. She traversed the “dismal bit of woods,” crossed and recrossed the bridge—which never could she cross again—and then, calming her mind with the conclusion that Sibyl must have taken her brother to her place of destination, she returned home.
Her husband came from the village, where he had been, as was afterward proved, detained, settling some complicated accounts. On first entering the house, he inquired for Sibyl. His wife told him, in an apologetic tone, as if deprecating his displeasure, that “poor Sibyl seemed as if she could not content herself,” and had gone to spend a week with her friend. He grumbled something about “it being a poor bringing up that made a girl uneasy in her own father’s house,” and,
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as his wife said, seemed to think no more of it, for he was eating his supper as usual, when suddenly he broke off, and asked “if Dorset were abed.” His wife communicated the boy’s absence, and the supposition by which she explained it. Prime was not satisfied, but started up, exclaiming, “He did not go with her!” and after standing for a moment in evident agitation, he added, “I’ll go and look after him,” and left the house, but soon returned, saying, “To-morrow will be time enough.” He went to bed at his customary hour, but not to sleep, as his wife thought, excepting once, for a few moments, when he started up, exclaiming, “No, it is not a dream; it is all mine.” Ah, that word mine!
He was up with the first ray of light, professedly anxious about his boy. There could be no doubt he was intensely so; but, notwithstanding this, one of his neighbours afterward deposed that he saw him, soon after daylight, walking over John Dorset’s cornfield, and pulling up some weeds that, since the proprietor’s death, had, for the first time, been permitted to grow unmolested in the rich soil. After breakfast, he announced his intention of going in quest of his boy. His wife wondered when she saw him set forth on the circuitous road that did not pass over the bridge. He had not long been gone, when some men arrived from the village. One dismounted, entered the house, and
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inquired for Prime; his wife said he was absent, and told the occasion of his absence. There was something that alarmed her in the inquirer’s face. She watched his return to his companions, saw them confer together, and afterward a part of them rode off, while the rest remained lurking about the house.
We must leave her wondering at this procedure, and tormented with apprehensions for her boy, to follow Prime, who, having gone to Sibyl’s friend’s on the pretence of ascertaining if his son were there, and being told that neither he nor Sibyl had been seen there, turned his course, and went up the river to Barrington, where an uncle of his wife resided, who had been observed the preceding evening driving on the road Sibyl had taken, and with whom, as he professed to believe, his children might have gone. Returning from Barrington, he was met by the party in search of him, and, in virtue of a warrant issued by Colonel Ashley, he was taken into custody, and conveyed to that magistrate’s house. He submitted at once, declaring, however, that he was not conscious of having offended against the laws of God or man.
And here we have arrived at that point in the story where the narrator, with whom I began it, became an eye-witness. She was then a slave, belonging to Colonel Ashley—I believe the sole, but certainly the most eminent magistrate in the western part of Massachusetts
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in those days, when either the magistracy made great men, or great men were appointed to the magistracy. I remember seeing him in his extreme old age, when his “youthful hose” was
“A world too wide for his shrunk shank;”
but even then I was impressed with traditionary respect for his magisterial attributes, and for the gentler qualities that tempered the pride of office. He might have sat for the picture of Allworthy, for his temper was ever of the cream of the milk of human kindness.
It was twilight when Prime arrived at his house. He was immediately conducted to the office, where preparations had been made to receive him. When he entered, Colonel Ashley, instead of manifesting the compassion that seemed his instinct, turned away his face, as if an evil spirit in mortal shape had come before him. “Prime was the first guilty person,” said my informer, “that I ever saw the colonel look upon without pity!” Prime was himself undaunted, and was the first to speak. He demanded why he was brought there. Colonel Ashley signed to him to advance, and stand beside the table, and bade his clerk be ready to take notes. Then, after a solemn admonition to Prime to deport himself as became the solemnity of the occasion, he said, “The body of your child, Sibyl Prime, has been found in the river, below Pine Hill bridge, with evident tokens of having been placed there by violent hands.”
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“Who dares say it was I that put her there?” demanded Prime, fiercely.
“It would better befit you to be both still and humble,” replied the magistrate.
“I will be neither till I know who dares accuse me.”
“Miserable man, forbear! you shall both know and see your accuser;” and, turning to the servant, “Call in the witness,” he said.
Prime fixed his eyes on the door through which the witness was to enter, and, for the first time, some fading of colour was evident through his dark, leathery skin. He did not speak. It did not seem to have occurred to him that nature demanded some expression of horror and surprise at hearing of the murder of his child. His heart had ossified under one indurating passion, and he had forgotten the ebb and flows of nature’s current. Yet now the possibility of what might ensue to himself and his possessions thrilled through his frame; and while his eye was fixed with intense eagerness on the door, he vainly tried to subdue the throbbings of his heart with repeating mentally, “There was no witness!” The door was reopened. A witness did appear—his own son! It was at this moment that Daniel Prime’s hair rose and stood like quills upon his head; so said my informant, and I believed her; for, though a woman, her observation and judgment were stronger than her imagination. The boy seemed inspired
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with supernatural strength and intrepidity. He bore, without flinching, the scowling brow and burning glance of his father. “One would have reckoned,” said my eye-witness, “that he had grown ten years older in twenty-four hours.” The usual preliminary forms over, Colonel Ashley asked,
“Did your sister request you to accompany her on the Canaan road yesterday?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did she give any reason for wishing your company?”
“No, sir. She always loved to have me go with her, and I always loved to go.”
“How far did you go?”
“To Pine Hill bridge, sir.”
The examination was for a moment interrupted by a convulsive cough from Prime.
“Did your sister say anything by the way?” proceeded the magistrate.
“Yes, sir. She asked me if I would not be afraid to go back through the woods alone. I told her, not a bit, and asked her if she was afraid; she said, not when I was with her. And then I told her I would go all the way; but she said she should not be afraid after she got over the bridge, and down to the mill, for the road beyond there was not so lonesome.”
“Did she say anything more?”
“Yes, sir. She said she never should come home again, and she cried, and I told her I did not want to live at home when she was
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gone; and then she said she hoped, one of these days, mother and I would come and live with her and William; she said she was not coming to live in grandfather’s house, but as soon as she was married she should move off somewhere.”
“Was anything more said?”
“No, sir; only when we came near the bridge, she squeezed my hand so tight that I told her she hurt me. When we got over the bridge, she told me I must make haste home, and she bid me good-by, and said I must always be very kind to mother—and these were the last words she spoke.”
“Go on, my child. What happened then?”
“I knew there was a sassafras tree that grew on the bank just above, and I wanted some sassafras, so I got over the fence; and when I got up the hill, I thought I’d just go on to Deacon Sam’s Rock, as they call it, and watch Sibyl till she got past the mill, and the minute I stepped on to it I saw him.”
“Saw whom?”
“Father.”
At this point of the testimony Prime’s knees shook together, and he was obliged to support himself by leaning on the colonel’s desk, against which he stood.
“Go on, my poor child,” said the good magistrate.
“He had a club,” continued the boy; “Sibyl had just come to the corner—she heard him,
[p. 246]
and looked back—he struck the club across her face.” The boy paused, and became intensely pale. Colonel Ashley passed his arm around him, and supported him.
“And what then?” he asked.
“Then,” replied the boy, with a burst of tears and sobs, “then Sibyl fell back
and—died—sir.”
“He lies! he lies!” cried Prime, vehemently. Colonel Ashley commanded silence, soothed the boy, and bade him proceed.
“Then, sir, he dragged her down the bank, and through that miry place where the trees are so thick, and he put her in the river, and put a stone on her head, and another on her feet.”
“Did he then come away?”
“Yes, sir, a few steps; but he went back again, and got her purse out of her pocket, and put it inside his leather pocket-book.”
“Lord have mercy on us!” murmured Colonel Ashley. After a moment’s pause of horror at this proof of the man’s cupidity, he asked the boy “if he knew whether his sister had any money in her purse?”
“Yes, sir, she had five gold pieces that grandfather gave her. She was showing them to mother only two days ago; and he took them, and chinked them in his hand.”
“Did your father then leave the spot?”
“Yes, sir; he got over the fence, and went across the lots very fast.”
[p. 247]
“Why did you not scream when first you saw him?”
“It was not half a minute, sir, before he struck, and I never thought of any harm till it was all done.”
“Why did you not then scream?”
“I don’t know, sir; I suppose I could not.”
“If you were so frightened, why did you not run away?”
“I don’t know, sir. After Sibyl fell dead, I can’t remember about feeling afraid, or feeling anything. I only stood there and looked. After he was gone, I began to think. I felt as if I could not go home and tell mother; then I thought I would stay in the woods till I died, and nobody would ever know he did it; and the night came—oh! such a long night! I did not sleep—I think I shall never sleep again. When daylight came, I felt as if I should burst if I did not tell somebody. I thought of you, sir. I remembered mother telling me you never punished anybody more than you could help, and so I came here, sir.”
Here ended the poor boy’s story, which hardly seemed to require the corroborating proof afterward derived, from finding Sibyl’s purse within her father’s pocket-book, and from ascertaining that he had informed himself of her intention of leaving home on that fatal afternoon.
It is hardly necessary to add, that Prime was committed for trial. After his trial and
[p. 248]
condemnation to death, he confessed he had made an attempt on his child’s life on the day preceding the murder, and near the same place. He had been baffled by the sudden appearance of a horseman on the road.
It appears that the boy’s grief at the fatal result of his accusation of his father so moved Colonel Ashley’s kind heart, that he accompanied the child to Boston, and seconded his affecting appeal to the governor in behalf of his parent. It was alleged that the man’s mind was so clouded and diseased by the predominance of his ruling passion, that he might be regarded as insane. This consideration, combining with compassion for his unfortunate and respectable family, induced the governor to commute the sentence of death to banishment.
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
Daniel Prime
Subject
The topic of the resource
Avarice, murder.
Description
An account of the resource
A father disinherits his daughter because he disapproves of the man she marries. The husband's plot to regain his father-in-laws estate leads to fatal consequences.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Sedgwick, Catharine Maria.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Tales and Sketches, Second Series.
Publisher
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Harper & Brothers
Date
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1844
Contributor
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Anna Mullis, L. Damon-Bach, D. Gussman
Relation
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Originally published in The Magnolia, edited by Henry William Herbert, 281-311. New York: Bancroft & Holley, 1837 [pub. 1836]. Also collected in The Irish Girl and Other Tales, 95-128, 1850, and in Stedman, Edmund Clarence and Ellen Mackay Hutchinson, eds. A Library of American Literature: An Anthology in Eleven Volumes, Vol. V , 199-215, 1891.
Language
A language of the resource
English
1836
1844
As You Like It
avarice
colonial New England
colonies
covetousness
Ecclesiastes 10:8
filial piety
George Crabbe
inheritance
magistrate
maiden aunt
marriage
Massachusetts
murder
Shakespeare
slavery
Tales and Sketches
The Magnolia
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/4347/archive/files/004fe657f5b4b93928cac538a4bea083.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=NyTJv6RrkR94d51cIVA-vDn6AWFIkZaPzaGlyj73Ar1PZNfUaIQcrrBUbi5xBp-BZT-qLHVrOEwfoOPSS4HDqIGr0EvSBxtDvbmhCP23RSN%7Eqyw5avqyPswfTTcPbmNJvUxmaARawRbb8xDyCsSgwRhR8QO1u%7EKv%7EMC-U-0AKQbRrxmHZkIZ%7EIMVFlgjl6XupvtJUP8zoLajf2FSDQUO8iM7IP1b7tHwAzUJmWLis97AJhGzVwnwjnB6av%7EeHku7PIAi9eL-neP2rXzthvrg4Ws86P9poGEI-RtCVycXqaOnjbxR%7Eddt-mhOdQUMWY2-SbnLUB9n2iOGJqVKUd8Guw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
5300b53043dc1cb493d8cbce565ae0f7
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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1836
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Text
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FULL THIRTY.
By Miss Sedgewick.
[p. 212]
‘In faith Lady, you have a merry heart.’
‘Yea my Lord, I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy side of care.’
THE first visit I paid after coming to town this winter, (this, to New York, most disastrous winter of 1836) was to Mrs. Orme, and her daughter Augusta.
Augusta I knew well and loved. She is the very impersonation of the spirit of cheerfulness, if brightness, intelligence, youth and health should be the indicated attributes of that spirit. Mrs. Orme was a stranger to me except by report. She was a southern lady by birth, and had resided with her family for many years at New Orleans, and at her house there, and her plantation in the neighborhood, some of my friends had enjoyed that hospitality which the southern members of our great family so generously and so gracefully extend to their brethren of the north. She had had several children, healthy and promising till they approached the age of maturity, when they were in turn the victims of the bilious diseases of their native climate. The anxiety consequent upon these repeated losses, induced the mother to consent to a proposal that Augusta should go to the North, where a different climate might avert the anticipated danger. Augusta came to Massachusetts, and the separation that was to have been for one year, was, by various circumstances, prolonged to five. At
[p. 213]
the expiration of that period, her mother, having in the mean time lost two younger children, and buried her husband, came to the north with impaired health and a fortune reduced, but still ample for her wants. Here, either from the change of climate or the more potent influence of the re-union with her daughter, she was in a very few months so renovated, that she determined to remain at least till time (“Time, the consoler !” ) should render the local association with her sorrows less vivid. She had relatives in the fashionable circles of New York, who she thought would give éclat to Augusta's introduction to society, and this decided her to fix her residence in this city. No two persons, of the same sex and country, and both amiable and well principled, could be more different than my laughing, singing, self-relying friend Augusta, and her timid, nervous, dependent mother. This difference, in part constitutional, was confirmed by education. Education, though it may bend the tree, does not change its nature. In any classification of the human family, the mother and daughter belong to different orders; but this will, if I mistake not, be manifest in the circumstances I am about to relate.
I found them at one of the fashionable boardinghouses at the lower end of Broadway. Mrs. Orme received me with her usual gentle courtesy, Augusta with her usual animation. My first enquiries were as to their accommodations, fellow-boarders, &c.
‘Accommodations!’ replied Mrs. Orme, shrugging her shoulders, ‘we do as well as we can — you know, of course, that I am obliged to dispense with a private drawing-room.’
‘Yes,’ said Augusta, ‘but then we have such a delightful room — see what a nice place for my piano.’
[p. 214]
‘A nice place enough,’ said the mother in a sad tone, ‘but what is the use, Augusta, when there is no one to hear you?’
‘Nobody, mama!’ she replied, laughing, and rattling her fingers over the keys,’ when I have you and myself— where else should I find such admiring, patient listeners?’
‘Dear child!’ said her mother, ‘I believe she would be content in a prison.’
‘Your sound reasons for such faith, mama?’
Mrs. Orme turned to me, slightly blushing, as if she feared I might think she had overpraised her child. ‘I am sure,’ she said, ‘if you knew how well she bears her trials, you would not think I speak with a mother's partiality.’
‘Trials! mama,’ echoed Augusta.
‘Yes, my love — it certainly is a trial to be obliged to shut ourselves in our own room, or be liable to mix with any one who chooses to share the common drawing-room with us.’
‘A trial, mama!’
‘You may call it what you please, Augusta — I call it a trial.’
‘Well, I never once thought of it being disagreeable even.’
‘Then,’ continued the mother, still addressing me, ‘it is so very inconvenient not to have a servant of your own.’
‘It seems so to mama, because she has been accustomed to having so many; but the servants of the house, though somewhat resembling those spirits who 'will not come when you do call them,’ yet, when they do come, they are very civil and kind.’
[p. 215]
‘But they do not belong to me,’ urged Mrs Orme.
‘But do I not belong to you, mama?’ replied Augusta, and am I not always ready
‘To answer thy best pleasure; be't to fly,
To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride
On the curled clouds,’’ -----
‘Thou art a dainty spirit,’ thought I, as I looked on her bright face, sun-lit from the soul; and then to turn my friends’ thoughts from the evident discomforts of a boarding house, I asked if they had any agreeable inmates?
A list of them followed, by which it appeared they had the average fortune of persons so domiciliated. There were gentlemen and their wives, who had private drawing rooms — very kind they were to Augusta; but Mrs. Orme did not like to accept civilities which she could not return on equal terms. Then there were two or three pairs who were very much inclined to be sociable; but they were those sort of persons that one does not care to be intimate with.
‘Very good, kind persons, for all,’ interrupted Augusta.
‘There were some young merchants, very civil, --- but ---’
‘But merchants,’ said Augusta archly, ‘mama cannot divest herself of her southern prepossessions against all persons engaged in trade.’
‘That is not strange, Augusta, our prejudices are the last infirmities we get rid of.’
‘Just what Mr. Rayson said yesterday, and because, he said, not having any real foundation, you could not oppose truth to them.’
[p. 218]
‘There is a widow here,’ continued Mrs Orme, ‘a convenient sort of chronicler, who knows all the world, in all places and in all their affairs.’
‘And what she does not know,’ said Augusta, ‘she invents. Mamma, did you not overhear Mr. Rayson say to his next neighbour yesterday, when Mrs Wilson finished her long story about that poor man — I forget his name —that committed suicide, but she related every particular of the deed — not only the circumstances that preceded it, but the motives that led to it, and all that his wife said, and his father said, and his friends said, did you not hear Mr. Rayson whisper ‘founded on fact?’
‘Yes, I heard that, but I think there is no love lost between Mrs Wilson and Mr. Rayson.’
‘No, he can't like her, and of course she wont like him.’
‘There may have been some reason for her dislike — he is very satirical.’
‘I like such satire,’ said Augusta, ‘it only falls where it is provoked and deserved, for instance, this morning when those Englishmen were finding fault with every thing here, and blustering about every thing in that pattern little island of theirs, how aptly he quoted, from their own poet too — no, not theirs, ours — the world's,
‘Hath Britain all the sun that shines? Day, night,
Are they not but in Britain— Pr'ythee, think
there's livers out of Britain.’
‘Who is this Mr. Rayson, Augusta, that seems such a prodigious favorite,’ I asked, and added to my friend Mrs Orme, ‘you must look out — these boarding-house likings are dangerous.’
[p. 217]
Augusta laughed, as is her wont on all occasions, and then said, ‘Even Mamma will not be alarmed at that danger — why dear lady, Mr. Rayson is an old bachelor.’
‘How old, Augusta?’
‘Oh, old as the hills —full thirty.’
I know that 'full thirty' seems to eighteen almost the extreme limit of human life, but I had known too, stranger things happen than the approach of these distant points; and so I told my young friend.
Augusta laughed again, and said unless Mr. Clement Rayson was an illustration of the old syllogism ‘I move or I do not move; I do not move, therefore I move,’ she did not see how they were to become acquainted; for he was the only person in the house, that had not, directly or indirectly, sought an introduction to them.
This was true. Clement Rayson, though not soured to the world, (he had no acidulating tendencies in his character,) was shy of it, and particularly distrustful of the fashionable world. He had his reasons, as our chronicling widow had told the Ormes, in a long spun out fiction that had, as is usual in such romances, a substratum of truth. This short and simple truth was, that at the all-believing age he had loved, and had plighted his troth to a beautiful girl who had deserted him for a man full fifty years old, but who was rich and fashionable, neither of which, at that period, was Clement Rayson. He had since acquired a moderate fortune. His lacerated affections were much longer than is usual in such cases, in the process of healing.
In the mean time he withdrew from society, and having no family ties in the city to counteract his disposition to solitude, it grew upon him. He appeared to have
[p. 218]
the peculiarities incident to the single condition — appeared—but never was there a spirit less exclusive, and more unselfish. One class, and one alone, was excluded from his sympathies — the fashionable. He thought them all heartless fainéants, ‘unproductive consumers,’ cumberers of the ground. He knew that Mrs Orme belonged to this class, and he perceived that to her the world had but two phases — the one enlightened, the other unenlightened; the fashionable, and the unfashionable. Of course, his orbit could never cross hers. But with this undeniable infirmity, Mrs Orme had so much gentleness, such feminine softness, so much of the spirit, as well as of the letter of politeness, that it was difficult to sustain a sturdy dislike towards her. At first, Augusta did not impress him agreeably. He admired her Hebe freshness, her well-turned features, and the good humour and animation that almost made her beautiful, but he thought she wanted the timidity and reserve that so becomes a young creature on the threshold of an unknown world, a world veiled in shadow, and beset with danger. But he misjudged my young friend. Her boldness arose from what some philosophers, of the German school, have called the ‘unconscious.’ She did not, if we may use the expression, feel herself, nor was she looking in others' faces to see her own image reflected there. The present was to her for action and enjoyment, and if the future brought dangers, (she apprehended none,) she had resolution and strength to overcome them. Her most happy temperament seemed a sort of charm, an amulet against the principle of evil, in all its proteus shapes. ‘Miss Orme is not troubled with bashfulness,’ whispered
[p. 220]
Mrs. Wilson to Clement Rayson, as Augusta, at a first request, sat down to the piano, and played with great expression, a Spanish national air.
A similar criticism had clouded the clearer atmosphere of Rayson's mind; but there are some persons whose touch always produces discord, and Mrs. Wilson was eminently one of these. ‘Miss Orme is not bashful,’ he replied somewhat testily, ‘but bashfulness as often springs from vanity, and a craving for admiration, as from delicacy and self-distrust.’
‘Bless me! I thought you did not admire Miss Orme.’
‘I do not know her.’
‘Of course you would if you admired her. She is not of the thistle order. Every one in the house has observed your distant manner to the Ormes.’
Clement Rayson was, as we have said, reserved: he liked no intruding observers within his own little world of feelings — of likings and dislikings; and towards Mrs. Wilson he had an antipathy, resembling that which is often cherished for the feline race, to which she seemed to him to belong. He was annoyed by her remark, but he did not choose to enter into a defence, or explanation, and therefore he remained silent. The shield of silence is the most effectual defence against a thorough gossip; and if generally resorted to, their offensive weapons would rest for want of use.
‘Of all people on earth,’ said Mrs Wilson, crossing the room and seating herself next Augusta Orme, who had already forgotten her musical triumph, and was absorbed in a book she had taken from the table, ‘of all people on earth, I detest your close-mouthed ones.'
‘Do you, Mrs. Wilson?— thought we were apt to like our opposites.’
[p. 220]
‘No inuendo, I trust, Miss Orme?’
‘Certainly not, I merely meant that you were communicative.’
This was so much more flattering a term than that suggested by the lady's conscience, that she took it as a compliment, and replied that she was naturally frank, and added that she thought Miss Orme and herself much alike.
‘Heaven forefend!’ thought Augusta, and laughed, a laugh that could not have stirred a feather on the ‘fretful porcupine,’ and therefore it did not ruffle the widow Wilson's plumes. On the contrary, she gave a proof of her graciousness by whispering —‘ How strange it is that Clement Rayson is so prejudiced against you!’
‘Is he? I am sorry for it.’
‘You do not look much disturbed.’ There was something almost provoking to our touchy lady in the serenity she could not cloud.
‘Why should I, Mrs. Wilson? I have done nothing that I am conscious of to create the prejudice, and therefore can do nothing to remove it. But I do sincerely wish the good man would get rid of it, for prejudices must be uncomfortable burdens, and Mr. Rayson seems a very clever and a very agreeable person to those he likes.’
Mrs. Wilson, finding the daughter impracticable, transferred her efforts to the mother, who, as she found, was more facile. It was no difficult achievement to make Mrs. Orme uncomfortable on any given subject, and the next time I saw her, I found her very much puzzled in solving the riddle of ‘that Mr. Clement Rayson's dislike to her and Augusta.’ Her consolation
[p. 221]
was, that he knew nobody that they knew, and therefore she did not see how it could very well do them any injury; but still it was dangerous to have an enemy, especially for a young lady just ‘coming out.’
All this fabric of Mrs. Wilson's mischievous brain would have been harmless, but that it augmented Mrs. Orme's horror of the society of boarding houses; infused a double quantity of coldness into her deportment towards Mr. Rayson; heightened the barriers between herself and the cleverest and best person in the family; confirmed our friend's prejudices against all fashionable people; and finally gratified widow Wilson's petty malignity against him. How true it is, that the lesser as well as the greater evils of life, are of our own creation!
In the mean while, Clement Rayson's eye (doubtless without the consent of his will) often turned towards Augusta's face, so bright with health and happiness. There is a peculiar charm in this sunny character, to men who have passed the zenith of youth. This may account for the devotion of sexagenarian bachelors to the youngest girls in company. We do not mean to implicate Rayson in any such foible; for, if guilty of the count in the indictment — if ‘full thirty,’ he was not much more. Regarding himself as a fixture in this aforesaid boarding house, he had surrounded himself with those rare comforts in this city, where persons rather alight than abide, provisions for permanence. He had his dressing-room, his sleeping apartments, and his library. [1]* This library adjoined the room occupied by
[p. 222]
Mrs. Orme and her daughter, and here, secure from observation, Clement Rayson would lay aside his book, to listen from beginning to end, to songs that he had often wished, with a certain licensed churl, ‘were impossible as well as difficult.’ He even began to entertain a secret fondness for Italian music, which he had deemed all monotonous, and like a certain friend of ours, had affected to believe, and dared to say, there was but one Italian song. Augusta had a collection of fine old English ballads. These she occasionally sung, and he heard them, every word, for her piano was placed against the wall that separated the two rooms. Of course her face was towards him, and often did he wish that this wall, like him who enacted ‘lime and and roughcast,’ in Pyramus and Thisbe,
‘----- having thus its part discharged so,
And being done, this wall away would go.’
that he might have a glimpse of the bright face behind. ‘That face,’ he said to himself, ‘that is like a gleam of sunshine to every thing it looks upon.’
‘I must have my library removed — I can never read a word here,’ thought he, as he smiled in silent response, to the merry peals of laughter that ever and anon came from that apartment over which a ‘dancing star’ seemed to him to preside. And as he listened to the cheerful tones
[p. 223]
that responded to Mrs. Orme's low monotonous voice, ‘how can she’ thought he, ‘resist such an influence! but she will soon be exposed to worse and more potent influences: to the parrotry, frivolity, and heartlessness of the world, and there this enchanting buoyancy of spirit, the mere virtue, perchance after all, of health of constitution! will soon be dimmed and lost.’ Alas! Augusta's buoyancy was soon to be tried by a very different pressure from that he anticipated, and a far heavier.
The evening of the sixteenth of December I passed with Mrs. Ornie and Augusta. They were both in a state of pleasurable excitement. The floor was strewn with boxes, and the table, sofa, and chairs were covered with dresses, caps, artificial flowers, and curious decorations just sent home in time for the gay season. Invitations had been sent out and accepted to parties and balls. Under what circumstances of overwhelming distress these invitations were soon after recalled, will long be remembered in the brilliant circles of our metropolis, where the bridal array was changed for mourning weeds.
Mrs. Orme was in all the flutter of indecision as to the dress to be selected for the coming out evening. She preferred the blue embroidered Seraphine crape which a friend had selected in Paris; she was certain, absolutely certain that it was perfectly new. There is magic in that word which may not convey its true import to the ears of our rustic reader. It does not mean simply that it is unworn, but that it is fresh from the inventive loom of a Paris milliner around whose head ‘such light visions float.’ While I was examining and
[p. 224]
duly admiring the blue Seraphine, Augusta put her veto upon it. She would not come out in a dress that would make her so conspicuous. In vain her mother urged the importance of the first impression — the coup de théatre. Augusta laid the Seraphine crape aside, and was wavering between a silk that her mother pronounced ‘the loveliest pink,’ and a white muslin, when a servant entered with a Camelia Japonica directed to Miss Orme. One pure, stately white flower sat upon the stalk, between two buds, like a queen between her maids of honor. ‘This decides me,’ exclaimed Augusta ‘my white muslin, and this Camelia in my hair.’
‘Who sent it?’ asked the mother. The servant did not know, and all that we could ascertain was that it had been left at the door by a man who merely said it was ordered at their green-house, but whether that green-house was Thorburn's, Smith's, or Hogg's, was uncertain, and Mrs. Orme concluded her enquiries by saying she was glad on the whole not to know, for she preferred Augusta should come out unshackled by even so slight an obligation as the gift of a flower imposed.
Augusta's curiosity, as was natural, was more excited than ours, and before the Camelia was deposited in a glass of water, she had run over the list of her gentlemen acquaintance, and in turn guessed all but — the right one.
People who are well advanced in life are prone to look upon its events and circumstances in the light of a shell enclosing a kernel, for their picking, the moral of the tale. And this kernel, like the jewel found by a certain classic bird, is apt to prove sweet or bitter, valueless or priceless, according to the character of the
[p. 225]
finder. This tendency must excuse the moralizing humor I fell into, on seeing my young friend so much engrossed and fluttered by the approach of this grand era of her life — her coming out.
‘If Augusta,’ thought I ‘rational, well educated, with a mind so well balanced that all its motions are harmonious, is thus affected by her advent, what a perilous moment it must be to those who are neither fitted by nature nor education, for the sudden transit from obscurity to notoriety. Inexperienced and unreflecting, what views must they have of the social laws, of their nature, of the objects of society, of the purposes and responsibilities of existence.’
Man has been justly called an imitative animal. Here we are, a young nation, set apart from the families of the old world, with every incitement to, and facility for making a new experiment in the economy of human life, and like the Chinese, who made the new shoes slip-shod, after the pattern, we copy the forms of European society, bad enough where they exist, but as ill adapted to our use as the slip-shod shoes to the wearer — as fantastical for us as a fan for an Iceland belle.
For example, in this working country, where the gentlemen must be at their offices and counting-houses by nine o'clock — where the domestic machine must stop, or the springs be set in motion by the mistress of the family before that hour, — with the pressure of this necessity upon us, we assemble at our evening parties at ten and eleven, because forsooth the fainéants of Europe do so! And for the same sufficient reason, our young ladies must have their comings out!
But what is to be done? How are their school-days and society compatible? The processes of nature are to be imitated. The dawn preludes the day: the bud slowly unfolds to the sun, gathering strength with every expanding leaf to bear its rays.
We are aware that there are no Quixotes more extravagant than those who preach revolutions in manners and customs; but where, as in our case, they are not the natural result of the condition of the people, may we not hope for modifications and ameliorations? for the dawn of a millennium on our social world, when the drawing-room shall no longer be an arena, where there is a short contest for a single prize, (what are the modes of that contest, and what the prize so obtained ? ) but shall become the social ground where men and women shall be players, as well as spectators, — where rational christian people may meet without a sacrifice of health or duty; and where young people and children shall come for the formation of their social character, and where all may enjoy on equal terms the very highest pleasure of our gregarious natures ? — But we beg pardon, our tale is becoming a homily.
Before the evening closed, I perceived, and with secret satisfaction, that Augusta manifested some weariness at her mother's endless anxieties upon the details of the coming evening, such as ‘whether they should go at ten or a quarter past ? — whether, in case Augusta were asked, she had best sing ? — whether there could be any objection to her waltzing, with her cousin ? — she waltzed so well! and sundry other momentous questions. When the field of vision is narrow, the objects are magnified. ‘Dear mamma,’ said Augusta, ‘pray leave these trifles to fate.’
[p. 227]
‘Life is made up of such trifles, my child.’
‘Mine shall not be,’ replied Augusta. Little did she think what a seal was soon to be set to this lightly uttered resolution.
The mercury was below zero, and as I walked briskly home I heard the first stroke of the bell that sounded the alarm of that fire which before morning laid so rich a portion of our city in ruins.
The bells rang at first, for the most part, unheeded, for as the Turk moves tranquilly amidst the plague, hardened by use, so we, familiarised to the every-day tocsin, pursue our usual avocations when it sounds throughout the city. But there were some who, on that memorable night, answered from the first with quickened pulses to the boding sound. They knew the firemen were exhausted by a severe labor of the preceding night, that their hose were frozen, and that there was no supply of water in the city. They reflected that the fire had broken out amidst packed warehouses, filled with combustibles; that the perfect dryness of the atmosphere and the extreme cold must accelerate its progress; but reason, fear, imagination, all fell far short in their anticipations of the horrid reality.
We have no intention to perpetrate such a presumption as an attempt to describe the scene would imply; we can only note the particulars — the spreading of the fire, quicker than thought, windward and leeward from house to house, and from street to street — the pillar of flame that shot up from the lofty dome of the Exchange — the crash of its falling — the calmness, though sublime courage of the men, who, with their casks of gunpowder proceeded through showers of sparks
[p. 228]
to the edifices marked for explosion — the momentary wavering of those edifices when the match was fired — the explosion — and at the very instant the stately pile was a prostrate mass of ruins — the consternation of the citizens— the firemen, the very men who had so often seemed the chartered masters of the devouring element, looking on, mute, paralyzed, impotent spectators — the piles and masses of merchandise moved twice and thrice, and finally consumed. Merchants hurrying from their up-town residences to the scene of action, and coaches bearing ladies to the spectacle!
The appearance to the more distant observer, to whom the flames looked like a solid wall against the clear blue sky, and the gems of Heaven, like celestial witnesses, calmly gazing on this mortal coil — all this will not be forgotten, and cannot be described. But there were instances of self-command, generosity, and heroism, the moral phœnixes which rose from the gross elemental fire that may be recorded by the humblest pen, and will at least live longer on the pages of an annual than in the columns of a forgotten newspaper.
One anecdote was given in the journals of the city, the day after the fire, which we have since heard from unquestionable witnesses, and which we shall repeat unvarnished. Who would try, by coloring, to add beauty or grace to such truth?
A gallant young man belonging to our navy, who a few days before, for some slight misdemeanor had been ejected from it, was busied with thousands in removing merchandise, when he heard piercing shrieks from a woman. He made his way to her. In the general distress she was little heeded. She seemed like a maniac.
[p. 229]
In answer to his demand of ‘what is the matter?’ she pointed to one of the burning houses and said, ‘my child is there!’ ‘In what part of the house?’ She was calmed by his interposition, and described the room in the third story. He darted towards the house. As he placed his foot on the threshold, the firemen adjured him to come back, and told him if he went on he could not return. They were attempting to force him back, but he sprang beyond their grasp, and unchecked by the flames that were crackling along the beams, he mounted to the apartment and entered it — the fire was glancing around the cornice of the room. — The child, a sturdy infant of some six or seven months, was awake, and holding up its hand before its eyes, and twining it around, delighted with the reflection of the flame, that in another moment would have reduced its little frame to ashes. His preserver caught the boy in his arms, and descended to the last landing place. The bannister was on fire. He hesitated—he had passed an open window — should he return and leap from that? — he might crush the child. So pressing against the wall, he rushed down uninjured, save the scorching of his coat — a scorch that will make it a precious relic.
Those who have never heard the spontaneous gushings from that holy fountain which is never quite dried in any heart, should have heard the shoutings and clappings of hands when the young man reappeared and placed the boy in his mother's arms — they should have seen how, for a moment, every other interest was suspended in admiration, and how the young hero, finishing his generous act with the only grace that could be added to
[p. 230]
it, modestly shrank from the tribute he had so well earned, and disappeared. [2 *]
The morning of the 17th found the city in indescribable anxiety, dismay, and bewilderment. No one could calculate the extent of the loss — the direct loss — no one dared to anticipate the loss from the bankruptcy of merchants, the failure of monied institutions, and the suspension of business and payments. All sympathy was directed to the merchants, for to few had it then occurred that the ruin would pass over the palace, and prostrate the cottage.
The first intimation I had of such a result was from a gentleman who said to me, ‘I fear your friend Mrs. Orme has lost every thing. I am told her agent Robert Smith invested all her property in fire insurance stock.’ I knew such ill news as this must have flown to her ears, and I determined immediately to go to her.
The streets were a wild exhibition of the horrible and the ludicrous — the strange motley that human affairs so often wear. Here were militiamen called out as guards, bustling along in all the mock importance of their brief authority, and there were firemen dragging themselves to their homes — looking like ghosts who had outstayed their time.
Here was timid, shivering poverty, stealing stealthily along, amid bales of blankets, and stacks of woolen goods, eyeing them wishfully from beneath the half lifted lid — and there, (a timely admonition!) were
[p. 231]
police-men dragging detected pilferers to justice. Here the merchant on whose face was written ‘sudden calamity has overtaken me,’ and beside him the bold beggar, her shoulders laden with piles of half consumed blankets, ends of shawls, and bits of silk that yesterday made a part of his countless wealth!
‘Take physic, pomp,
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
That thou may'st spare the superflux to them
And show the Heavens more just.’
I crossed a street, making my way through carts, wagons, and coaches laden with boxes and cases of the richest merchandise, and turned out of my course to a point of view where a group of amateur spectators were gazing at the ruins — not with tearless eyes. We all stood for a few moments in profound silence looking at the standing fragments of walls — the smouldering piles of brick that covered thousands (millions?) of unconsumed and inaccessible property — at the fire still burning unresisted, because irresistible, towards the water's edge — at the ashes of to-day — the millions of yesterday. ‘This’ said a gentleman next me, ‘is the levelling system with a vengeance!’
‘Yes, but it is a levelling to teach levellers,’ replied another, ‘those ignorant and corrupt persons who would construct barriers between the rich and poor, out of their evil passions, must now acknowledge their mutual dependence — the demonstrated identity of their interests. The working men will realise that the enterprise and industry of the wealthy merchant feeds the channels of their prosperity. Heaven grant they may not long feel it from a loss of the supply.’
[p. 232]
‘The rascals! it's a good lesson for them.’ This bitter exclamation was made by one of those who look upon themselves as having a chartered right to their accidental prosperity, and who, as far as they can oppose the laws of Providence, obstruct those supplies of Heaven-directed bounty to the poor.
I turned from the idlers and pursued my course, winding as well as I might, along the walks encumbered with the various merchandise that comes from every explored corner of our globe to this great commercial mart; bales of cotton, piles of domestic goods — hard ware and porcelain — English woolens and Dutch toys— French silks and stacks of German baskets, &c, &c.— a volume might be filled with the specifications indicated by these et cetéras, but I have already abused the curiosity of my readers, if perchance they have any, in the fate of my heroine.
I found my friend Mrs. Orme, as I had feared, plunged into the depths of despair. She was pacing up and down her room. As I entered, she clasped her hands, exclaiming, ‘ruined ! — totally ruined!’
‘But my dear friend, your property was not surely all invested in fire insurance stock?’
‘Yes, all. At least, I have no reason to doubt it. — Of course you know, being totally unacquainted with business myself, [3]* I leave my affairs entirely to the discretion of my agent, and Mrs Wilson says she heard him say only last week that he had vested my money — all of it — in six different companies, so that I should be quite safe. I remember, too, he asked me about fire stock, and I told him it would make me uncomfortable
[p. 233]
whenever the bell rung. But he said something about the companies always making good dividends; and I have not thought of it since, till Mrs. Wilson came into my room at two o'clock, to prepare my mind, as she said. Mrs. Wilson blames Mr. Smith, and so do I.’
‘I did not controvert this position, for I know it is the most common solace of undisciplined minds, to impute the blame to another. ‘Where,’ I asked, ‘was Augusta?’
Her mother did not know. She believed she had gone out —‘Strange that she could go out, and leave me, at such a moment. She is a dear child, but she has one defect — it is a natural one, and she can not cure it. I do not blame her, but I often feel it. She wants sensibility. I dont mean to complain of her, but think how I must have felt to see her go, just as usual, about her ordinary avocations this morning. She even, once or twice, while she was putting away the things you saw here last night, sang! I suppose it was involuntary — but it is so strange — so unlike me!’
Mrs. Orme is not the only person that measures the qualities of others by her own, as if that were an infallible standard. I ventured to intimate that it was very fortunate for Augusta if she could meet such a reverse with firmness.
‘Firmness — oh, yes! but then do you know she has been- trying to convince me that it is not a calamity to weep for? that, I think, as Mrs. Wilson says, is carrying firmness a little too far; but she is a dear child, and, except in this blemish, every thing I could wish. And this perhaps spares her a great deal of suffering.’
[p. 234]
‘Useless suffering,’ thought I, ‘suffering never designed by him who chasteneth because he loveth.’
‘But where,' continued the mother, ‘can Augusta stay! It is not considerate of her, as Mrs. Wilson says, to leave me this morning.’
Her perplexities were ended by Augusta's entrance. Her face was beaming. ‘Good news, mama! she cried, ‘the last ten thousand remitted from New Orleans, is safe.’ She kissed her mother, and wiped the tears that flowed afresh at this unexpected intelligence.
‘These shall be the last tears this business costs you, mama; then turning round, she saw me, apologized for having overlooked me, and instinctively sought a shelter for the undue grief she knew her mother must have exhibited to me.
‘This horrid fire,’ she said, ‘has kept mama up all night, and made her so nervous!’
‘But are you certain you are rightly informed, Augusta?’ asked the mother, ‘Mrs. Wilson was so sure!’
‘Oh, Mrs. Wilson! I was sure from the moment that trumpery woman said it, it could not be so. Her reports, like dreams, go by contraries. But I was afraid, mama, of inspiring any false hope, so I resolved to go at once to Mr. Smith.’
‘And that was what you went out for ? — Dear child!’
I ventured to say, for I could not help it, ‘there are other manifestations of sensibility than passiveness and tears.’
‘I went first,’ continued Augusta, ‘to Mr. Smith's house, but, as I ought to have foreseen, he was not at home.’
[p. 235]
‘But surely, my child, you did not go alone down Wall street.’
‘No; fortunately, just as I was turning into Wall street, and thinking what a piece of work I should have to make my way, I met Mr. Clement Rayson. He stopped, and asked me where I was going, and begged leave to attend me. It was very kind of him, and amusing too, after we had sat opposite for three weeks, without speaking. Well, I found Mr. Smith with a face as long as my arm; but he seemed quite relieved, when I told him it was so much better than we expected, and assured him, mama, you would not care for the loss, since we had enough left.’
‘Enough!’ sighed the mother, who already began to shift her unhappiness from the total loss of their finances to their reduction.
Augusta did not hear her mother, or else, to turn the current of her thoughts, she said, ‘Oh, mama, Mr. Rayson has told me such a sad piece of news — quite enough to put the loss of property out of one's head. That beautiful, lovely woman, Mrs. Moreson, whom we saw at Dr. Hayward's, is dead. She died without a moment's warning, while her sister was dressing for her cousin's wedding.’
After the usual exclamations of sympathy and sorrow, Mrs. Orme said she supposed the parties, then, would be given up.
‘Yes, of course,’ replied Augusta, ‘and there is my beautiful Camelia must fade unseen.’
‘Your fit emblem, I fear, my child; for now, you cannot come out.’
‘But I can stay in, mama, without drooping. There
[p. 236]
are some hardy plants that do not need sunshine — I think I am one of those.’
And so it proved. A few days after, I was again with my friends, anxious to know what their arrangements were to be, for I was well aware that the income of ten thousand dollars could not maintain them in their present style of living — would not even pay their board. I found Mrs. Orme troubled and undecided — Augusta, strong and cheerful in her self-reliance.
‘You have come,’ she said, receiving me affectionately, ‘just in time to aid our deliberations. We find that we can live independently and pleasantly in the country on our present income.’
‘It comes very hard upon me, though,’ said Mrs. Orme, ‘for I have an antipathy to a country life.’
‘And therefore,’ continued Augusta, ‘I wish mama not to think of it. Her income is quite sufficient to secure her an agreeable town residence, and I should be ashamed of myself if I could not earn my own support. I have a double object in this. Mama has grown so nervous about losses, that she is afraid of being stripped of what remains; and I want to convince her, that even in that event we should do well enough.’
‘But how, my dear girl, can you earn your living?’
‘Oh, in twenty ways. I can turn governess.’
‘I utterly object to that,’ said the mother, ‘I have seen too many of them, and I know what dog's lives they lead.’
I ventured to suggest that I had seen some very happy ones.
‘I should have no fears on that score,’ said Augusta, ‘for I believe our own happiness is in our own hands;
[p. 237]
but then any employment that will separate me from mama, is objectionable. I can give music lessons; combine music and singing lessons, which would be very profitable.’
‘Dear child, dont use such words — they make me so nervous. I cannot consent to your giving music lessons, there is something so degrading in running from house to house, and selling your time to other people.’
‘This is what ninety-nine hundredths of the world do, mama, and I do not wish to be among the exempts. I would,’ she continued, addressing me, ‘open a school, but I am afraid I am too young to have children confided to my care.’
‘Pity you are not ‘full thirty,’ said I.
‘Ah,’ replied Augusta, ‘that reminds me of Clement Rayson. Last night I was speaking of that beautiful camelia, and I do suspect he knows where it came from, but he will not give me the least clew. He merely said it must be from some very young man, for they were addicted to such fooleries! That was a saying, was it not, that marked the sayer ‘full thirty ?’ — But what were we talking of— my occupation; it is not, like Othello's ‘gone’ — would that it were come!’
‘I have an excellent plan,’ interposed the mother, ‘if we can only persuade Augusta to adopt it. When summer comes, I shall be quite willing to make an experiment of country life. In the mean time, a very slight addition to our income would pay our expenses here without intrenching on our capital. Perhaps you do not know it, but Augusta excels in all sorts of ingenious, lady-like manufactures — worsted work in particu-
[p. 238]
lar. And she is so quick! she net the loveliest purse for Clement Rayson — all of it yesterday.’
‘I trust, Augusta,’ said I, ‘you marked it ‘full thirty,’ for ladies' favors are sometimes misinterpreted.’
‘Clement Rayson is past the danger of such coxcomberies,’ replied Augusta.
‘Now,’ resumed the mother, ‘Augusta could dispose of her work at the ‘Ladies' Depository,’ without the slightest exposure. The utmost delicacy is observed there, Mrs. Wilson tells me. By the way, Augusta, it just occurs to me that Mrs. Wilson must work for the Depository, how else could she afford to wear blond capes ? — but, as I was saying, she tells me that the names of those who deposite articles there, are religiously kept secret. Your orders are referred to numbers, not names.’
‘And why all this reserve?’ I innocently asked.
‘My dear friend, the institution is designed for ladies of reduced fortune, to enable them to dispose of their work without it ever being known that they work for their living.’ [4]*
I smiled, and Augusta said, ‘you think as I do, I am sure of it.’
‘And how is that, Augusta?’
‘Why, that these same reduced ladies might as well
[p. 239]
be ashamed of giving bread to their children, as of earning it for them; and that this very labor of which they are ashamed, is most creditable — perchance the most honorable act of their whole lives.’
‘Pity,’ I ventured to add, ‘it does not occur to them, that working for their living, places' them in the same category with the first in the land — the lawyer, the clergyman, the merchant, &c., — and rescues them from the helplessness and dependence into which misfortune usually casts females of their class.’
Those little understand the country they live in, who, by such an institution, virtually pronounce labor degrading, and virtually insult those of their sex, who professedly work for their living.’ [5]*
‘As you agree with me,’ resumed Augusta, ‘I hope you will persuade mama to let me do something more productive than lady-like work. I have three projects — pray dont laugh at me—if one fails, another may succeed, you know. When I was at school in Boston, I made some translations from the French and Spanish, for a work a friend of ours was publishing there. He paid me compliments on my success, which, making due allowance for his partiality, and gratitude, &c, allow me to aspire to the place of a hack translator to the Harpers, or some other publishing house here.’
I knew my young friend understood French and Spanish well, and wrote her own language with correctness and freedom. I gave my hearty concurrence to the plan.
[p. 240]
‘When I can't get work from a publisher, continued Augusta, ‘I can copy music — I can do that very rapidly. I have often copied songs for poor Stefani to sell to her scholars.’
‘Now for your third project, Augusta.’
‘You will think me a great braggart — but you know I must give an inventory of my commodities. When I was staying at Mr. Johnson's, he had an accumulation of law papers to be copied. Grace Johnson and I assisted him, and he gave me the credit of doing mine in right clerkly style. Mama herself taught me to write, and now, dear mama, I may pay you for the pains you took in forming my hand.’
‘It is the only thing, my child, I ever taught you.’
‘But, my dear Mrs. Orme, you have given her a firstrate education, and she is now going to prove to you that this is the safest investment of capital.’
My friend, propitiated by these agreeable truths, was evidently leaning our way, when a new difficulty occurred to her.
‘But how,’ she asked, ‘is Augusta to get this work? I had rather starve than she should go bustling about to book stores, music shops, and lawyers' offices.’
‘I have thought of all that, mama, and I mean to get Mr. Rayson to make inquiries for me. I shall ask the favor of him as freely as if he were my father.’
‘Your acquaintance, Augusta,’ said I, ‘with Clement Rayson, has made astonishing progress since the fire.’
‘Yes, our walk down Wall street, that morning, put us on a friendly footing at once, and ever since, he has been as kind to mama and me as possible. He has a very fine library, and he lends us his books, and obliges us in every possible way.’
[p. 241]
‘I knew,’ said I, ‘his library occupied the apartment next yours, and to tell you the truth, I was afraid your piano might annoy him — he is not fond of music.’
‘Oh pardon me ! indeed he is, for he has asked me again and again to play the songs I had unconsciously sung to him through the wall. I am sure you are wrong, no one seems to relish them as he does.’
I believed I was right, but I had the grace not to persist in saying so, while I admired the rare happiness of Augusta's mind, in being unsusceptible to small as well as great evils. Mrs. Orme, after a good deal of persuasion, more availing with her than reason, came into our plans, and I was deputed to engage Clement Rayson's friendly offices.
At my request, I was admitted to his library, where I unfolded my errand. I spoke of Augusta as I felt, and I am sure his heart responded, for never did I see his fine face so lit with animation, till I chanced to quote, as a sort of apology for the trouble we were giving him, the reason Augusta had assigned for the freedom she felt in applying to him. His countenance changed — he repeated my words with a vexed accent, ‘as soon as if I were her father! would she?’ At that moment, fortunately, Augusta commenced one of his favorite songs, and exorcised the evil spirit. He was all ear till she finished, and then reverting to our last words, ‘tell me,’ he asked, ‘honestly, do I look so desperately old?’
‘Oh no! two minutes ago, you might have passed for a gallant lover, who indited sonnets to his mistress' eye brow, and secretly sent her those orthodox love-tributes — bouquets!’ He blushed, and knocked down half a dozen books by a sudden movement of his arm. While
[p. 232]
he was replacing them, I added, ‘when my friends first came to this house, I confess you looked to me careworn— I might have taken you for full thirty.’
‘I am thirty-one precisely. That, however, is not quite old enough for Miss Augusta's father. However he added, wisely shifting the subject to a better point of view, ‘I am content to make any impression that affords me an opportunity of serving her. An admirable creature she is, and most fortunate!’
‘Admirable she certainly is, but I should not select this moment of her life to call her fortunate.’
‘Is she not plucked from the brink of fashionable life, and an opportunity afforded her of using her fine faculties to some purpose?’
Every man has his mania. I was aware of Clement Rayson's and forbore to oppose it.
Nothing could be more zealous, than was Rayson in procuring employment for Augusta. His zeal might have been stimulated by the certainty that if her earnings were intermitted, she and her mother must seek less expensive lodgings. So never a day passed over her head that she had not that prime blessing — plenty of work; and time to read, to sew, to walk, (how, in spite of the snow-storms, ice, slop, and avalanches of this worse than polar winter, has she daily achieved a two or three mile walk!) to play, and sing, and be agreeable; in short, to do every thing, even ‘lady-like work.’ Best of all was it, in her mother's opinion, that she found time to accept the civilities of certain fashionable people, whose attentions to her were no wise abated, by their knowledge of the fact that she worked for her living. Superior people are not superior to
[p. 243]
prejudices, but if truth can be fairly brought to bear upon them, it dissolves them as the direct rays of the sun melt away the ice. As a fashionable equipage that had brought visiters to the Ormes, drove away from the door, ‘there are exceptions to my rule,’ thought Clement Rayson. ‘I was wrong to involve a whole class in the opinion I had conceived of individuals of that class.’ For the first time it occurred to him, that the inconstancy of his early love might have been rather owing to some inherent defect in her, than to the influence of her fashionable associates. ‘After all,’ thus he concluded his mental reverie, ‘there is no character to be relied on but that which, instead of being subdued by circumstances, resists and controls them — a character like Augusta Orme's.’
When a man — be he full thirty — begins to make a young lady his standard of ideal perfection, the next act of his drama may be anticipated.
I knew my friends were getting on well, that Augusta was turning her industry to good account, often earning by mere copying three dollars a day, [6]* and that Mrs. Orme was enjoying the sense of independence and security naturally inspired by the exercise of her daughter's power, and satisfied they were happy, and being otherwise occupied, I had not seen them for more than a month when, one fine morning, a ring at the street door was followed by Augusta's appearance in my room. Her face was full of meaning. I could not guess what
[p. 244]
it meant. She was embarrassed too, the first time I had ever seen her so.
She untied and retied her bonnet, sat down, rose, and sat down again—then after a vain struggle burst into tears, the first I had ever seen flow from her bright eyes; and finally, throwing a letter into my lap exclaimed, ‘what a fool I am!’ and laughed.
‘That laugh at any rate, proves you are yourself,’ I said, ‘which I very much doubted.’
I read the letter. It was from Clement Rayson—the very ‘quotidian of love’ was upon him.
‘You find it hard to say no to so ardent a lover.’ No reply. ‘There is no evidence here,’ I continued, ‘that the climate of full thirty has chilled his heart.’
‘How can you always remind me of that foolish speech?’
‘Then you do not mean to say no?’
‘I mean to do just what you advise me—if ’ she added archly, and in her natural vein, ‘you advise me as I wish. Here is anothyer letter, and this it is that perplexes me.’ The second letter was brief, and like its precursor, unfit for quite sane readers. Therefore we copy it.
‘The enclosed I wrote two days ago, but had not the courage to send it to you. Necessity now makes me bold. Within the last hour I have received intelligence that obligers me to go to Europe—for two years! – perhaps longer—I must sail next week. I cast all on a single die—happiness or misery is before me. If I go alone, I go the most wretched outcast on earth.’
‘If you invest me with the right, I shall beg Mrs. Orme to go with us. Us! Am I not presumptuous?’
[p. 245]
My pencil was in my hand. 'Shall I cross out this us, Augusta?'
‘First tell me, do you not think it is quite too hasty?’
‘Why, let us see, your acquaintance began on the morning of the 17th of December. January, February, March — three months under the same roof, beginning with paternal protection on the one part, and filial confidence on the other—‘
‘Pray — if you love me, pray do not again advert to that, but tell me honestly, do you not think it is quite too short a time to have matured a sentiment to be relied on for life?’
‘Some fruits ripen wonderfully fast in some soils, and under certain influences.’
‘But you do think — I am sure of it from your repeated hints--’ now there was a tremulousness in her voice, as in the patient's when he discloses his worst symptom to his physician, ‘you do think the difference of age an objection?’
‘An inferior objection to thousands that are every day surmounted.’
Her face brightened. ‘And you think it possible perfectly to recover from a first love — from an attachment so strong as that which Clement confesses in his first foolish letter he long cherished for that jilt?’
‘Possible! every day's experience proves it to be very easy.’
‘There is no use’ she said, her pretty lips curling into their natural smile, ‘in urging any more objections, for you will certainly obviate them.’
‘Yes, Augusta, just as long as I see you urge them to be obviated. That decides the affair in my opinion.
[p. 246]
This affection which is the staple of life springs up and is matured under every variety of circumstances, character and condition. The only point to be settled, is that it exists in its purity and perfection. In this case, I am quite sure as to that point, so are you, my dear ; now run home and write a fit answer to this ‘foolish’ letter.’ She threw her arms around my neck. Love, like a fire kindled for a specific purpose, imparts its warmth to whatever approaches it. One propriety occurred to me that my young friend seemed to have overlooked. ‘Is mama propitious?’ I asked.
‘Not yet consulted, because I feared to tell her while there was the least uncertainty as to which way the scale would turn — Clement is such a prodigious favorite with her nowadays.’
‘Then all is well.’ A few days after, in obedience to a previous summons from Augusta, I joined a male friend, and we, with her mother, were the only witnesses of her marriage vows before the altar of Grace Church. She was dressed in the white muslin she had selected for her coming out, and a white camelia in her hair, so like the one presented to her for that occasion, that I at once came to the right conclusion — it was the gift of the same donor.
My friends had secured the best boon of human life, and therefore I resigned without a sigh the expectation that Augusta Orme would have gone on to illustrate my favorite theory — that a good education, and a well principled and happily balanced mind, will render a woman independent of the vicissitudes of fortune.
[*Notes]
[1]* Many persons suppose that a library is not a natural appurtenance for a merchant. This is a mistake. Our merchants constitute a cultivated class, and many among them indulge in the refined luxury of books, to an extent that would be incredible to those who have formed their opinion of the body from some of the impotent members. We happen to know that one of our merchants has a fine library at his house, and another, for his leisure moments at his counting house, where there are duplicates of books of reference — expensive editions of such works as Boyle's Dictionary. This is indeed the luxury of fortune — if that can be called luxury, which, as the political economists say, is reproduced by its consumption.
[2]* We have just heard that the President has fitly rewarded his heroism by a restoration to his place in the navy. An opportunity thus offered him, his promotion may be safely left in his own hands.
[3]* So are most women. Should they be so?
[4]* It is but justice to state that this institution, though originally set on foot for the purpose specified in the text, is no longer limited to that. With the exception of this one very objectionable feature, viz: the facility afforded for the indulgence of a false pride, and sickly sensibility, it is a most creditable institution, and, from the character of the ladies who manage it, we may hope that this imperfection will not long be permitted in deference to prejudices that should be exploded.
[5]* I once heard a young lady say of a gentleman, — a teacher of the learned languages — that he was ‘a charming person, but not in society.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘Oh, he works for his living, you know.’ ‘Straws show,’&c.
[6]* Lest the example of our favorite should be impotent for want of credibility, we inform our young lady readers that we have known this amount of labour performed in six hours out of the twenty four , day after day, by a girl minus fifteen.
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
Full Thirty
Subject
The topic of the resource
The Great Fire of 1835, women and work, May-December romance.
Description
An account of the resource
A young woman and her mother find themselves in reduced circumstances after a fire that devastates New York City. The daughter is supported in her efforts to earn a living by an older female friend of the family, who narrates the story, and a mature bachelor who develops romantic feelings for the young woman.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Sedgwick, Catharine Maria
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
The Token and Atlantic Souvenir, [edited by Samuel G. Goodrich], pp. 214-246.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Boston: Charles Bowen
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1837 [pub. 1836]
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
D. Gussman
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Document
1836
As You Like It
bachelors
boarding house
camelias
class
coming out
Cymbeline
fashion
Female education
fire insurance stock
Grace Church
Harpers
heroism
King Lear
Ladies' Depository
marriage
May-December romance
Much Ado About Nothing
New York City
Pyramus and Thisbe
self reliance
Shakespeare
society
The 1835 Great Fire of New York
The Tempest
The Token and Atlantic Souvenir
the unconscious
Wall Street
women and work
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5f1b1d8b1ddde5de35e83b921acc61bd
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1826
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MODERN CHIVALRY.
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BY THE AUTHOR OF REDWOOD.
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“But when the hour of trouble comes to the mind or the body---and when the hour of death comes, that comes to high and low---Oh, my leddy, then it is’na what we hae dune for oursells, but what we hae dune for others, that we think on maist pleasantly.”---Heart of Midlothian.
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THE assertion that a tale is founded on fact, is a pious fraud of story tellers, too stale to impose on any but the very young, or very credulous. We hope therefore, not to be suspected of resorting to an expedient that would expose our poverty without relieving it, when we declare that the leading incidents of the following tale are true—that they form, in that district of country where some of the circumstances transpired, a favourite and well authenticated tradition—and that our hero boasts with well-earned self-complacency, that there is no name better known than his from ‘Cape May to the Head of Elk.’ That name, however honourable as it is, must be suppressed, and we here honestly beg the possessor’s pardon for compelling him, for the first time in his life, to figure under false colours.
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In the year 1768, an American vessel lying in the Thames and bound to Oxford, a small sea-port on the eastern shore of Maryland, was hailed by a boat containing a youth, who, on presenting himself to the captain, stated that he had a fancy for a sailor’s life, and offered his services for two years, on the simple condition of kind treatment. The captain, though himself a coarse illiterate man, perceived in the air and language of the lad indications of good breeding, and deeming him some disobedient child, or possibly a runaway apprentice, declined receiving him. But William Herion, as he called himself, was so earnest in his solicitations, and engaging in his manners, and the captain, withal, in pressing need of a cabin-boy, that he waved his scruples, quieted his conscience with the old opiate that it was best not to be more nice than wise, and without inquiring too curiously into the boy’s right of self-disposal, drew up some indentures, by which he entitled himself to two years’ service.
The boy was observed for the first day to wear a troubled countenance. His eye glanced around with incessant restlessness, as if in eager search of some expected object. While the ship glided down the Thames, he gazed on the shore as if he looked for some signal on which his life depended, and when she passed Gravesend, the last point of embarkation, he wept convulsively. The captain believed him to be dis-
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turbed with remorse of conscience; the sailors, that these heart-breakings were lingerings for his native land, and all hinted their rude consolations. Soothed by their friendly efforts, or by his own reflections, or perhaps following the current of youth that naturally flows to happiness, William soon became tranquil, and sometimes even gay. He kept, as the sailors said, on the fair weather side of the captain, a testy, self-willed old man, who loved but three things in the world—his song, his glass, and his own way.
All that had been fabled of the power of music over stones and brutes, was surpassed by the effect of the lad’s melting voice on the icy heart of the captain, whom frty years of absolute power had rendered as despotic as a Turkish Pacha. When their old commander blew his stiffest gale, as the sailors were wont to term his blustering passions, Will could, they said, sing him into a calm. Will of course became a doting piece to the whole ship’s company. They said he was a trim built lad, too neat and delicate a piece of workmanship for the stormy sea. They laughed at his slender fingers, fitter to manage threads than ropes, passed many jokes upon his soft blue eyes and fair round cheeks, and in their rough language expressed Sir Toby’s prayer, that “Jupiter in his next commodity of hair, would send the boy a beard.” In the main Will bore their jokes without flinching, and returned them with even measure; but sometimes when they verged to rudeness, his rising blush or a tear
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stealing from his downcast eye, expressed an instinctive and unsullied modesty, whose appeal touched the best feelings of these coarse men.
The ship made a prosperous voyage, and in due time arrived off the American coast. It is a common custom with sailors to greet the first sight of land with a sacrifice to Bacchus. The natural and legalized revel was as extravagant on this, as it usually is on similar occasions. The captain with unwonted good humour, dealt out the liquor most liberally to the crew, and bade William sing them his best songs. Will obeyed, and song after song, and glass after glass carried them, as they said, far above high water mark. Their language and manners became intolerable to William, and he endeavoured to steal away with the intention of hiding himself in the cabin, till the revel was over. One of the sailors suspecting his design, caught him rudely and swore he would detain him in his arms. William struggled, freed himself, and darted down the companion way, the men following and shouting.
The captain stood at the entrance of the cabin door. William sunk down at his feet terrified and exhausted, and screaming “protect me—oh! For the love of heaven, protect me.”
The captain demanded the occasion of the uproar, and ordered the men to stand back. They, however, stimulated to reckless courage, and in sight of the land and independence, no longer feared his authority, and
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they swore that they would not be balked of their frolic. Poor Will, already feeling their hands upon him, clung in terror to the captain, and one fear overcoming another, confessed that his masculine dress was a disguise, and wringing his hands with shame and anguish, supplicated protection as a helpless girl.
The sailors touched with remorse and pity, retreated; but the brutal captain spurned the trembling supplicant with his foot, swearing a round oath that it was the first time he had been imposed on, and it should be the last. Unfortunately the old man, priding himself on his sagacity, was as confident of his own infallibility as the most devoted Catholic is of the Pope’s. This was his last voyage, and after playing Sir Oracle, for forty years—to have been palpably deceived—incontrovertibly outwitted by a girl of fifteen, was a mortification that his vanity could not brook. He swore he would have his revenge, and most strictly did he perform his vow. He possessed a plantation in the vicinity of Oxford; thither he conveyed the unhappy girl, and degraded her to the rank of a common servant, among the negro slaves in his kitchen.
The captain’s wrath was magnified, by the stranger’s persisting in refusing to disclose the motive of her deception, to reveal her family, or even to tell her name. Her new acquaintance were at a loss what to call her, till the captain’s daughter, who had been
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on a visit to Philadelphia, and seen the Winter’s Tale performed there, bestowed on her the pretty appellative of Hermione’s lost child, Perdita.
The captain, a common case, was the severest sufferer by his own passions. His wife complained that his “venture,” as she provokingly styled poor Perdita, was a useless burden on her household—“a fine lady born and bred, like feathers, and flowers, and French goods, pretty to look at, but fit for no use in the world.” The captain’s daughters partly instigated by compassion, and partly by the striking contrast between the delicate graces of the stranger and their own buxom beauty, incessantly teased their father to send her back to her own country; and neighbours and acquaintances were forever letting fall some observation on the beauty of the girl, or some allusion to her story, that was a spark of fire to the captain’s gunpowder temper.
Weeks and months rolled heavily on without a dawn of hope to poor Perdita. She was too young and inexperienced herself, to contrive any mode of relief, and no one was likely to undertake voluntarily the difficult enterprise of rescuing her from her thraldom. Her condition was thus forlorn, when her story came to the ears of Frank Stuart, a gallant young sailor on board the Hazard, a vessel lying in the stream off Oxford, and on the eve of sailing for Cowes in the Isle of Wight. Frank stood deservedly high in the confidence of his commander, and on
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Sunday, the day preceding that appointed for the departure of the ship, he obtained leave to go on shore. His youthful imagination was excited by the story of the oppressed stranger, and he strolled along the beach in the direction of her master’s plantation, in the hope of gratifying his curiosity by a glimpse of her. As he approached the house, he perceived that the front blinds were closed, and inferring thence that the family were absent, he ventured within the bounds of the plantation, and saw at no great distance from him a young female sitting on a bench beneath a tree. She leaned her head against its trunk, with an air of dejectedness and abstraction, that encouraged the young man to hope he had already attained his object. As he approached nearer, the girl started from her musings and would have retreated to the house, but suddenly inspired by her beauty and youth with a resolution to devote himself to her service, he besought her to stop for one instant and listen to him. She turned and gazed at him as if she would have perused his heart. Frankness and truth were written on his face by the finger of heaven. She could not fear any impertinence from him, and farther assured by his respectful manner, when he added, “I have something particular to say to you—but we must luff and bear away, for we are in too plain sight of the look out there,” and he pointed to the house—she smiled and followed him to a more secluded part of the grounds. As soon as he was sure
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of being beyond observation, “Do you wish,” he asked with professional directness, “to return to old England?”
She could not speak, but she clasped her hands, and the tears gushed like an open fountain from her eyes—“you need not say any more—you need not say any more,” he exclaimed, for he felt every tear to be a word spoken to his heart—“If you will trust me,” he continued, “I swear, and so God help me as I speak the truth, I will treat you as if you were my sister. Our ship sails to-morrow morning at day light, make a tight bundle of your rigging, and meet me at twelve o’clock to-night at the gate of the plantation. Will you trust me?”
“Heaven has sent you to me,” replied the poor girl, her face brightening with hope, “and I will not fear to trust you.”
They then separated—Perdita to make her few preparations, and Frank to contrive the means of executing his romantic enterprise.
Precisely at the appointed hour the parties met at the place of rendezvous. Perdita was better furnished for her voyage than could have been anticipated, from the durance she had suffered. A short notice and a scant wardrobe, were never known to oppose an obstacle to a heroine’s compassing sea and land; but as we have dispensed with the facilities of fiction, we are bound to account for Perdita’s being in possession of the necessaries of life, and it is due to the
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captain’s daughter to state, that her feminine sympathy had moved her from time to time to grant generous supplies to Perdita, which our heroine did not fail to acknowledge on going away, by a letter enclosing a valuable ring.
A few whispered sentences of caution, assurance and gratitude, were reciprocated by Frank and Perdita, as they bent their hasty steps to the landing-place where he had left his boat; and when he had handed her into it, and pushed from the shore on to his own element, he felt the value of the trust which this beautiful young creature had reposed to him. Never in the days of knightly deeds was there a sentiment of purer chivalry, than that which inspired the determined resolution and romantic devotion of the young sailor. He was scarcely twenty, the age of fearless project, and self-confidence. How soon is the one checked by disappointments—the other humbled by experience of the infirmity of human virtue!
Stuart had not confided his designs to any of his shipmates. He was therefore obliged warily to approach the ship, and to get on board with the least possible noise. He had just time to secrete Perdita amidst bales of tobacco, in the darkest place in the hold of the vessel, when a call of “all hands on deck,” summoned him to duty. He was foremost at his post, and all was stir and bustle to get the vessel under way. The sails were hoisted—the anchor
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weighed, and all in readiness, when a signal was heard from the shore, and presently a boat filled with men seen approaching. The men probed to be Perdita’s master, a sheriff, and his attendants. They produced a warrant empowering them to search the vessel. The old captain affirmed that the girl had been seen on the preceding day, talking with a young spark, who was known to have come on shore from the Hazard. In his fury he foamed at the mouth, swore he would have the runaway dead or alive, and that her aider and abettor should be given over to condign punishment. The master of the Hazard declared, that if any of his men were found guilty, he would resign them to the dealings of land law, and to prove if there was a plot, he was quite innocent, but he not only freely abandoned his vessel to the search, but himself was most diligent in the inquest. The men were called up, confronted and examined; not one appeared more cool and unconcerned than Frank Stuart, and after every inquiry, after ransacking as they believed, in every possible place of concealment, the pursuers were compelled to withdraw, baffled and disappointed.
The vessel proceeded on her voyage.—Frank requested the captain’s permission to swing a hammock alongside his birth, on the pretence that the birth was rendered damp and unwholesome by a leak in the deck above it. The reasonable petition was of course granted, and when night had closed watch-
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ful eyes, and dropped her friendly veil, so essential to the clandestine enterprises of the most ingenious, Frank rescued Perdita from a position, in which she had suffered not only the inconveniences, but the terrors of an African slave; and wrapping her in his own dreadnought, and drawing his watchcap over her bright luxuriant hair, he conducted her past the open door of the captain’s state-room, and past his sleeping companions, to his own birth; then whispering to her, “that she was safe as a ship in harbour,” he gave her some bread and a glass of wine, for which he had bartered his allowance of spirits, and laid himself down in his own hammock, to the companionship of such thoughts as are ministering angels about the pillow of the virtuous.
The following day a storm arose—a storm still remembered, as the most terrible and disastrous that ever occurred in Chesapeake Bay. There were several passengers of consequence on board the Hazard, among others two deacons who were going to the mother country to receive orders—for then, we of the colonies, who have since taken all rights into our own hands, dared not exercise the rights God had given us, without the assent of the Lords Bishops. Night came on, the storm increased, and then, when the ship was in extremity, when death howled in every blast, when “the timid shrieked and the brave stood still”—then was the unwearied activity, the exhaustless invention, and the unconquerable re-
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solution of Frank Stuart, the last human support and help of the unhappy crew. The master of the Hazard was advanced in life, and unnerved by the usual feebleness and timidity of age. He had but just enough presence of mind left, to estimate the masterly conduct of young Stuart, and he abandoned the command of the vessel to him, and retired to what is too often only a last resource—to prayers with the churchmen.
Once or twice Stuart disappeared from the deck, ran to whisper a word of encouragement to his trembling charge, and then returned with renewed vigour to his duty. Owing, under Providence, to his exertions, the Hazard rode out a storm which filled the seaman’s annals with many a tale of terror. Gratitude is too apt to rest in second causes, in the visible means of deliverance, and perhaps an undue portion was now felt towards the intrepid youth. The passengers lavished their favours on him—they supplied his meals with the most delicate wines and fruits, and the choicest viands from their own stores; he, with the superstition characteristic of his profession, firmly believed that heaven had sent the storm to unlock their hearts to him, and thus afford him the means of furnishing Perdita with dainties suited to her delicate appetite, so that she fared, as he afterwards boasted, like the daughter of a king in her father’s palace.
Stuart was kept in a state of perpetual alarm by the mate of the vessel. He knew that this fellow, one
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of those imbeciles that bend like a reed before a strong blast, had been hostile to him ever since the storm, when the accidental superiority of his station had been compelled to bow to Frank’s superior genius. He was aware that the mate had, by malicious insinuations, estranged the captain from him, and he was but too certain that he should have nothing to hope, if his secret were discovered by this base man. Perhaps this apprehension gave him an air of unwonted constraint in the presence of his enemy; certain it is, the mate’s eye often rested on him with an expression of eager watchfulness and suspicion, and Stuart, perceiving it, would contract his brow and compress his lips, in a way that betrayed how hard he strove with his rising passion. The difficulty of concealment was daily increasing, as one after another of his messmates, either from some inevitable accident, or from a communication becoming necessary on his part, obtained possession of his secret. But his ascendency over them was complete, and by threats or persuasions, he induced them all to promise inviolable secrecy. There is an authority in a determined spirit, to which men naturally do homage. It is heaven’s own charter of a power, to which none can refuse submission.
Frank never permitted his comrades to approach Perdita, or to speak a word to her; but in the depths of the night, when the mate’s and the old captain’s senses were locked in sleep, he would bring her forth
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to breathe the fresh air. Seated on the gunwale, she would bestow on him the only reward in her gift—the treasures of her sweet voice; and Frank said the winds sat still in the sails to listen. There were times when not a human sound was heard in the ship, when these two beings, borne gently on by the tides in mid ocean, felt as if they were alone in the universe.
It was at such times that Frank felt an irrepressible curiosity to know something more of the mysterious history of Perdita, whose destiny heaven, he believed, had committed to his honour; and once he ventured to introduce the topic nearest his heart, by saying, “you bade me call you Perdita, but I do not like the name; it puts me too much in mind of those rodomontade novels, that turn the girls’ heads and set them asailing, as it were, without chart or compass, in quest of unknown worlds”—He hesitated; it was evident he had betaken himself to a figure, to avoid an explicit declaration of his wishes—after a moment’s pause he added—“it suits me best to be plain-spoken—it is not the name that I object to so much, but—but, hang it—I think you know Frank Stuart now, well enough to trust him with your real name.”
The unhappy girl cast down her eyes, and said “that Perdita suited her better than any other name.”
“Then you will not trust me?”
“Say not so, my noble, generous friend,” she ex-
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claimed—“trust you!—have I not trusted you!—you know that I would trust you with any thing that was my own—but my name—my father’s name, I have forfeited by my folly.”
“Oh no—that you shall not say—a brave ship is not run down with a light breeze, and a single folly of a young girl cannot sink a good name—a folly!” he continued, thus indirectly pushing inquiries, “if it is a folly, it’s a common one—there’s many a stouter heart than your’s, that’s tried to face a gale of love, and been obliged to bear about and scud before the wind.”
“Who told you?—how did you discover?” demanded Perdita in a hurried, alarmed manner.
Frank’s generous temper disdained to surprise the unwary girl into confidence, and he immediately surrendered the advantage he had gained. “Nobody has told me,” he said—“I have discovered nothing—I only guessed, as the yankees say—now wipe away your tears—the sea wants no more salt water, and believe me Frank Stuart has not such a woman’s spirit in him, that he cannot rest content without knowing a secret.”
In spite of Frank’s manly resolution, he did afterwards repeatedly intimate the longings of his curiosity, but they were always met with such unaffected distress on the part of Perdita, that he said he had not the heart to press them.
As the termination of the voyage approached,
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Stuart became more intensely anxious lest his secret should be discovered. Stuart became more intensely anxious lest his secret should be discovered. The mildest consequence would be, that he should forfeit his wages. That he cared not for¬—like Goldsmith’s poor soldier, he could lie on a bare board, and thank God he was so well off. “While he had youth and health,” he said, “and there was a ship afloat on the wide sea, he was provided for.” But his companions who had been true to him might forfeit their pay; for, by their fidelity to him, they had in some measure become his accessaries. But he found consolation even under this apprehension; “the honest lads,” he said, “would soon make a full purse empty, but the memory of a good action was a treasure gold could not buy—a treasure that would stick by them forever—a treasure for the port of heaven.” There was, however, one apprehended evil, for which his philosophy offered no antidote.
He was sure the captain would deem it his duty, or make it his will, (even Frank’s slight knowledge of human nature told him that will and duty were too often convertible terms,) to return the fugitive to her soi-disant master in Maryland. Nothing could exceed the vigilance with which he watched every movement and turn that threatened a detection, or the ingenuity with which he evaded every circumstance that tended to it—but alas! the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.
One night when it was blowing a gale, a particular
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rope was wanted, which the mate remembered to have stowed away in the steerage. Frank eagerly offered to search for it, but the mate was certain that no one but himself could find it, and taking a lantern he went in quest of it. Frank followed him with fear and trembling. He has since been in many a desperate sea-fight, but he declares he never felt so much like a coward as at that moment. The mate’s irritable humour had been somewhat stirred by Frank’s persisting in his offer, to go for the rope, and when he turned and saw him at his heels, he asked him angrily, “what he was dogging him for?” “The ship rolls so heavily,” replied Frank in a subdued tone, “that I thought you might want me to hold the lantern for you.” Frank’s unwonted meekness quite conciliated the mate, and though he rejoined, “I think I have been used to the rolling of a ship a little longer than you, young man,” he spoke good-naturedly, and Frank ventured to proceed.
Most fortunately, as Frank thought, the mate directed his steps to the side of the ship opposite Perdita, but making a little circuit in his return, he passed between Frank’s hammock and Perdita’s birth. At this moment the poor lad’s heart, as he afterwards averred, stopped beating. The ship rolled on that side, and the mate catching hold of the birth to save himself from falling, exclaimed, “In heaven’s name what lazy devil is here, when every hand is wanted on deck;” and raising his lantern to identify
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the supposed delinquent sailor, he discovered the beautiful girl. For a moment he was dumb with amazement, but soon recalling the search at Oxford, the whole truth flashed upon him: he turned to Frank, and shaking his fist in his face, “Ah, this is you, Stuart!” he said, and enforced his gesture with a horrible oath.
“Yes,” retorted Frank, now standing boldly forth, “it is me, thank God”—and then drawing a curtain that he had arranged before Perdita’s birth, he bade her fear nothing.
“Oh Frank,” she exclaimed, “I cannot fear where you are.” This involuntary expression of confidence went to her protector’s heart. There is no man so dead to sentiment, as not to be touched by the trust of woman, especially if she be young and beautiful. Frank was at the age when sentiment is absolute, and he was resolved to secure his treasure at every hazard. Perdita’s declaration, while it stimulated his zeal, awakened the mean jealousies of the mate.
“And so my pretty miss,” he said, “you fear nothing where this fellow is—I can tell you, for all that he may boast, and you may believe, he is neither master nor mate yet, and please the Lord I’ll prove as much to him this very night.”
“And how will you prove it?” asked Stuart, in a voice which, though as calm as he could make it, resembled the low growl of a bull dog before he springs on his victim.
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“I’ll prove it, my lad, by telling the whole story of your smuggled goods to the captain. A pretty piece of work this, to be carried on under the nose of your officers. It’s no better than a mutiny, for I’ll warrant it the whole ship’s crew are leagued with you.”
Stuart reined in his passions, and condescended to expostulate. He represented to the mate that he could gain nothing by giving information to the captain. He described with his simple eloquence, the oppression the poor girl had already suffered; the cruelty of disappointing her present hopes, just as they were on the point of being realized, for the ship was not more than twenty-four hours sail from Cowes; he appealed to his compassion, his generosity, his manliness, but in vain, he found no accessible point. The mean pride of having discovered the secret, and the pleasure of humbling Stuart, mastered every good feeling of the mate, if indeed he possessed any, and he turned away, saying with a sort of chuckling exultation, “that he should go and do his duty.”
“Stop,” cried Frank, grasping his arm with a gripe that threatened to crush it. “Stop and hear me—I swear by him that made me, if you dare so much as to hint by word, look or movement, the secret you have discovered here, you shall not cumber the earth another day—day—said I—no, not an hour—I’ll send you to the devil as swift as a canon ball ever went to the mark—Look,” he continued, tearing away the
[24]
curtain he had just drawn before Perdita—“could any thing short of the malice of Satan himself contrive to harm such helpless innocence as that—do you hear me”—he added in a voice that outroared the storm—“in God’s name look at me, and see I am in earnest.”
The mate had no doubt to satisfy, he trembled like an aspen leaf—in vain he essayed to raise his eyes, the passion that glanced in Frank’s face, and dilated his whole figure, affected the trembling wretch like a stroke of the sun. He reeled in Frank’s iron grasp, his abject fear changed Stuart’s wrath to contempt, and giving him an impulse that sent him quite out of the door, he returned to sooth Perdita with the assurance that they had nothing to fear from the “cowardly dog.” She was confounded with terror, but much more frightened by the vehemence of Stuart’s passion than by the threats of the mate. She had always seen her protector move like an unobstructed stream along its course, in calm and silent power. Now he was the torrent, that no human force could control or direct.
She saw before her calamities far worse than any she had endured. She believed that the mate, as soon as he was recovered from his paroxysm of terror, would communicate his discovery. She apprehended the most fatal issue from Frank’s threats and determined resolution, and the possibility that his generous zeal for her might involve him in crime, was intolerable to her. Such thoughts do not become less
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terrible by solitary meditation—in the solemnity of night and amidst the howlings of a storm. Every blast spoke reproach and warning to Perdita, and tortured by those harpies remorse and fear, she took a sudden resolution to reveal herself to the captain, feeling at the moment that if she warded off evil from her protector, she could patiently abide the worst consequences to herself. She sprang from her birth as if afraid of being checked by a second thought, and rushed from the steerage to the cabin. All was perfect stillness there—the passengers had retired to their beds. The captain was sitting by the table, he had been reading, but his book had fallen to the floor, his head had sunk on his breast, and he was in a profound sleep. The light shone full on his weather-beaten face—on large uncouth features—on lines deepened to furrows—and muscles stiffened by time. Never was there an aspect more discouraging to one who needed mercy, and poor Perdita stood trembling before him and close to him, and dared not, could not speak. She heard a footstep approaching, still her tongue was glued to the roof of her mouth. Then she heard her name pronounced in a low whisper at the cabin door, and turning, she saw Stuart there beckoning most earnestly to her. She shook her head, signed to him to withdraw, and laid her hand on the captain’s shoulder. There was but one way to thwart her intentions, and Frank’s was not a hesi-
[26]
tating spirit, he sprang forward, caught her in his arms, and before the old man had rubbed his eyes fairly open, Perdita was again safe in the steerage.
Stuart’s threats produced the intended effect on the mate; he was completely intimidated. He scarcely ventured out of Frank’s sight lest he should incur his dangerous suspicions, and the next day the vessel, accelerated by the gale of the preceding evening, arrived at Cowes. The captain and mate immediately landed, and Stuart no longer embarrassed by their presence, was able to take the necessary measures for Perdita. She assured him that if once conveyed to the main land, to Portsmouth or Southampton, she could herself take the coach for London, and there, she said, happiness or misery awaited her, which her noble protector could neither promote or avert.
A wherry was procured. Before Perdita was transferred to it, she took leave of all the sailors, shook hands with each of them, and expressed to them individually, her gratitude and good wishes. Her words conveyed nothing but a sense of obligation, but there was something of condescension in her manner, and much of the grace of high station that contrasted strikingly with the abased, fearful, and shrinking air of the girl who had, till then, only been seen gliding like a spectre along the deck, attended by Stuart, and veiled by the shadows of night. As the wherry parted from the ship, she bowed her head
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and waved her handkerchief to Frank’s shipmates, and they returned her salutation with three loud cheers.
Stuart attended her to an inn at Portsmouth, engaged for her a seat in the London coach, and then followed her to a private apartment which he had secured, to bid her farewell.
Perdita, from the moment she had felt her emancipation from a degrading condition, and the joy of setting her foot again on her native land, had manifested perhaps, an undue elation of sprits, an elation so opposite to Frank’s feelings, that to him it was a grating discord; but when she saw him for the last time, every other emotion gave place to unfeigned sorrow and inexpressive gratitude.
Stuart laid a purse on the table beside her. “My shipmates” he said, “receive their wages to-morrow, so they have been right glad to make their pockets clear of the little trash that was in them, which may be of service to you, though it is of no use to them.”
“Oh Frank!” she exclaimed, “if I should ever have any thing in my gift—if I could but reward you for all you have done for me!”
All the blood in Frank’s heart rushed to his face, and he said in a voice almost inarticulate with offended pride, “there are services that money cannot buy, and thank God, there are feelings in a poor man’s breast worth more than all the gold in the king’s coffers.”
“Oh what have I said,” exclaimed Perdita, “I
[28]
would rather die—rather return to the depth of misery from which you rescued me—yes, ten times told, than to speak one word that should offend you—you to whom I owe every thing—my life—and more than life. I did not say—I did not think, that money could reward you.”
“Do not speak that word again,” said Frank, half ashamed of his pride, and half glorying in it. “Reward! I want none but your safety and the blessed memory of having done my duty. Money—ho! I care no more for it, than for the dust I tread upon.”
“I know it—I am sure of it,” cried Perdita, humbled for the moment by a sense of an elevation of soul in Frank, that exalted him far above any accidents of birth or education. “Frank, you are rich in every thing that is good and noble—and what am I, to talk of reward—poor—poor in every thing but gratitude to you, Frank—I am not poor in that—you must not then despise me, and you will not forget me—and you will keep this ring for my sake.”
Frank took the ring, and the lily hand she extended to him—his tears fell fast upon it—he struggled for a moment with his feelings, then dashed away his tears, and half-articulating “God bless you!” he hurried out the apartment. Thus separating himself from the beautiful young creature, for whom he had performed a most difficult service with religious fidelity; and of whose name even, he was forever to remain in ignorance.
[29]
The enterprising talent of Stuart ensured its appropriate reward. In one year from the memorable voyage above related, he commanded a vessel; and on the breaking out of the revolutionary war, he devoted himself to his country’s cause, with the fervent zeal with characterized and consecrated that cause—which made the common interest a matter of feeling—a family affair to each individual.
Stuart commanded an armed merchantman, and disputes with the noted Paul Jones the honour of having first struck down the British flag. However this may be, he was distinguished for his skill and intrepidity—and, above all, (and this distinction endures when the most brilliant achievements have become insignificant,) for his humanity to those whom the fortune of war cast in his power.
While on a cruise off the West Indies, Stuart intercepted an enemy’s ship bound to Antigua. His adversary was far superior to him in men and guns, but as it did not comport with Stuart’s bold spirit to make any very nice calculations of an enemy’s superiority, he prepared without hesitation for action. The contest was a very severe one, and the victory long doubtful; but at last the British captain struck his colours. Though we certainly are disposed to render all honour to the skill of our hero, yet we dare not claim for him the whole merit of his success, but rather solve the mystery of victory at such odds, by quoting the expression of a patriotic English boy,
[30]
who said on a similar occasion—“Ah, but the Americans would not have beaten, if the Lord had not been on their side.”
After the fight the English commander requested an interview with captain Stuart; he informed him that the wife and mother of the governor of Antigua were on board his vessel, and that they were almost distracted with terror; he entreated therefore that they might be received with the humanity which their sex demanded, and the deference always due to high station. Stuart replied, “that as to high station, he held that all God’s creatures, who feared their Creator and did their duty, were on a dead level—and as to the duties of humanity, he trusted no American captain need go further than his own heart, for instructions how to perform them.” The British captain was ignorant of the spirit of the times, and auguring nothing favourable from Stuart’s republican reply, returned with a heavy heart to the ladies to conduct them on board the captor’s ship. The elder lady the mother, was a woman of rank, with all the pride and prejudice of high birth. The Americans she deemed all of that then much despised order—the common people; rebels and robbers were the best names she bestowed on them, and in the honesty of her ignorance she sincerely believed that she had fallen into the hands of pirates. The younger lady, though deeply affected by their disastrous situation, endeavoured to calm her mother’s apprehensions, and assured her that
[31]
she had heard there were men of distinguished humanity among the American sailors. The old lady shook her head incredulously. “Oh heaven help us,” she groaned, “what can we expect from such horrid fellows, when they know they have lady Strangford and the right honourable Mrs. Liston in their power—and your beauty, Selina! your beauty child! it is a fatal treasure to fall among thieves with—depend on’t— arrange your veil so that it will hang in thick folds over your face—I will draw my hood close.” The precaution on her part seemed quite superfluous, but the young lady obscured some of heaven’s cunningest workmanship with her impervious veil.
The servants were ordered to deliver the ladies baggage to the American captain, with a request that some necessaries might be reserved. Stuart answered that he interfered with no private property, and that all the baggage of the ladies remained at their disposal.
Lady Strangford was somewhat reassured by this generosity, and attended by her captain and followed by her daughter and servants, she proceeded to Stuart’s ship. Stuart advanced to meet them and offered her his hand—she proudly declined it and passed silently on. A gust of wind blew back her hood—“Faith!” exclaimed one of the sailor who observed the scrupulosity with which she replaced it, “the old lady had best show her face, for I’m sure we’ll all give a good birth to such an iron-bound coast as that.” But as the same breeze blew aside the young lady’s
[32]
veil, there was a general murmur of admiration. She had at the moment graciously accepted the tender of Stuart’s hand, in the hope of counteracting the impression of her mother’s rudeness, and when her veil was removed he had a full view of her face; conscious that many were gazing on her, she blushed deeply, and hastily readjusted it without raising her eyes. Stuart dropped her hand—smothered an exclamation, and retreated a few paces, leaving her to follow her mother alone.
One of his officers observing his emotion, said, “How is this captain? you don’t wink at a broadside, and yet you start at one flash from a lady’s bright face.”
“I got a scratch on my right arm in the engagement,” returned Stuart, evading the raillery, “and the lady’s touch gave me a pang.”
He then retired to his state-room, and wrote the following note, which he directed to be delivered to the young lady. “Captain Stuart’s compliments to the ladies under his protection—he incloses a ring once bestowed upon him in acknowledgment of honourable conduct, as a pledge to them that the hand that has worn such a badge shall never be sullied by a bad deed. Captain Stuart will proceed immediately to Antigua, conveying the ladies with the least possible delay to their destined port.” Such a communication to prisoners of war, might naturally excite emotion in a generous bosom, but it did not account for the ex-
[33]
cess of it manifested by the young lady. She became pale and faint, and when her mother, alarmed at such a demonstration of feeling, took up the note, she caught it from her, and then, after a second thought, relinquished it to her.
“I see nothing in this Selina,” said the old lady, after perusing and reperusing it, “to throw you into such a flurry, but you are young, and are thinking no doubt of getting home to your husband and children, young people’s feelings, are, like soft wax, easily melted.”
“There is a warmth in some kindness,” rejoined the daughter earnestly, “that ought to melt the hardest substance.”
“Really, I do not see any thing so very striking in this man’s civility. It would be, of course you know in the British navy; politeness, and all that sort of thing being inborn in an Englishman, but it may be, indeed I fancy it is, quite unheard of in an American.”
“Shall I write our acknowledgments, madam, to captain Stuart?” asked the young lady with evident solicitude to drop the conversation.
“Certainly—certainly, my dear Selina, always be ceremoniously polite with your inferiors.”
“Madam, I think this noble captain,” she would have added, “has no superiors,” but afraid of further discussion, she concluded her sentence with the tame addition, “richly deserves our thanks.”
She then wrote the following note. “Mrs. Liston,
[34]
in behalf of her mother in law lady Strangford, and on her own part, offers her warmest thanks to captain Stuart—the ladies esteem it heaven’s peculiar mercy that captain Stuart is their captor. They have already had such experience of his magnanimity, as to render them perfectly tranquil in reposing their safety and happiness on his honour.” The ring, without any allusion to it, was reinclosed.
When captain Stuart had perused the note, he inquired if the lady had not requested to speak with him. He was answered that so far from intimating such a wish, she had said to her mother that she should remain in her state-room, till she was summoned to leave captain Stuart’s vessel. The captain looked extremely chagrined, he knit his brows, and bit his lips, and gave his orders hastily, with the usual sea expletives appended to them—“a sure sign,” his men said, “that something went wrong with their captain,” but these signs of repressed emotion were all the expression he allowed to his offended pride, or perhaps his better feelings. The Ladies were scrupulously served, and every deferential attention paid to them that lady Strangford would have anticipated in the best disciplined ship in his majesty’s service.
A few days’ sail brought the schooner to the port of Antigua. She entered the harbour under a flag of truce, and remained there just time enough for the disembarkation of the ladies and their suite. During this ceremony the captain remained in his birth, under
[35]
pretext of a violent head-ache; but it was observed that they were no sooner fairly off than he was on the deck again, moving about with an activity and even impetuosity that seemed quite incompatible with a debilitating malady.
Captain Stuart continued for some months a fortunate cruise about the West India islands. His was not the prudent maxim that “discretion is the better part of valour,” but when valour would have been bootless he knew how to employ the alternative, and his little schooner was celebrated as the most desperate fighter and the swiftest sailor in those seas, and her captain became so formidable, that the English admiral off that station gave orders that the schooner should be followed and destroyed at all hazards.
Soon after this he was pursued by a ship of the line and compelled to take refuge in the harbour of St. Kitts, a French, and of course a friendly port to the American flag. Here he anchored his vessel, and deeming himself perfectly secure, and wearied with hard duty, he retired to his birth after setting a watch, and dismissing his crew to repose. In the middle of the night he was alarmed by an attack from the pursuing frigate, which had contrived to elude the vigilance of the fort that guarded the entrance of the harbour, and was already in such a position in relation to him as to cut off every possibility of escape. His spirit, far from quailing, was exasperated by the surprise. He fought as the most courageous animals
[36]
fight at bay. To increase the horror of his situation, the commander of the fort, from some fatal mistake, opened a fire upon him. He was boarded on all sides by boats manned with eighty-four men. We are too ignorant of such matters, and too peaceably inclined to give any interest to the particulars of a sea-fight. Suffice it to say, that our hero did not surrender till he was himself disabled by wounds, his little band cut down, and his schooner a wreck. When the British commander ascertained the actual force with which he had contended, his pride was stung with the consciousness that a victory so dearly bought, had all of defeat but the disgraceful name; and, incapable of that sympathy which a magnanimous spirit always feels with a noble captive, he arraigned captain Stuart before him as a criminal, and demanded of him how he dared against the law of nations, to defend an indefensible vessel.
“Did you think,” retorted Stuart with cold contempt, “that I had gunpowder and would not burn it? do you talk to me of the law of the nations! I fight after the law of nature, that teaches me to spend the last kernel of powder and the last drop of blood, in my country’s service.” His conqueror’s temper heated before, was inflamed by Stuart’s reply. He ordered him to be manacled and put into close confinement. This conduct may appear extraordinary in the commander of a British frigate, but the English, in their contest with the colonies were not always
[37]
governed by those generous principles, by which they have themselves so much alleviated the miseries of war. A defeated American was treated as a lawful enemy, or a rebel, as suited the individual temper of the conqueror.
The frigate was so much injured in the fight as to render a refit necessary, and her commander sailed with his prize for Antigua.
Stuart well knew that his fidelity to his country, rendered him obnoxious to the severest judgment from the admiralty court, and though he might plead the services he had rendered the ladies of the governor’s family in mitigation of his sentence, he proudly resolved never to advert to favours, which he had reason to believe had been lightly estimated.
Spirits most magnanimous in prosperity are often most lofty in adversity. Frank Stuart, mutilated by wounds, dejected by the fatal calamities of his faithful crew, irritated by the indignities heaped on him by his unworthy captor, and stung by secret thoughts of some real or fancied injury—chafed and overburdened with many griefs, received, and sullenly obeyed a summons to the presence of the governor. It cannot be denied, that reluctantly as he appeared before the governor, he surveyed him at his introduction with a look of keen curiosity. He was not surprised to see a man rather past his prime, though not yet declined into the vale of years. With generous allow-
[38]
ance for the effect of a tropical climate, he might not have been more than forty-five. His physiognomy was agreeable, and his deportment gentlemanly. He received captain Stuart with far more courtesy than was often vouchsafed from an officer of the crown, to one who fought under the rebel banner, and remarking that he looked pale and sick, he begged him to be seated.
Stuart declined the civility, and continued resting on a crutch, which a severe wound in his leg rendered necessary.
“You are the commander of the schooner Betsy?” said the governor.
“What’s left of him,” returned Stuart.
“You appear to be severely wounded,” continued the governor.
“Hacked to pieces,” rejoined Stuart, in a manner suited to the brevity of his reply.
“Your name, I believe, is Frank Stuart?”
“I have no reason to deny the name, thank God.”
“And, thank God, I have reason to bless and honour it,” exclaimed the governor, advancing and grasping Frank’s hand heartily. “What metal did you deem me of, my noble friend, that I should forget such favours as you conferred on me, in the persons of my wife and mother.”
“I have known greater favours than those forgotten,” said Frank, and the sudden illumination of his
[39]
pale face, showed how deeply he felt what he uttered.
“Say you so!” exclaimed the governor with good humoured warmth; “well, but that I am too poor to pay my own debts to you, I should count it a pleasure to assume those of all my species—but heaven grant, my friend, that you do not allude to my wife and mother. I blamed them much for not bringing you on shore with them—but my mother is somewhat over punctilious, and my wife, poor soul! her nerves were so shattered by that sea-fight, that she is but now herself again. On my word, so far from wanting gratitude to you, she never hears an allusion to you without tears, the language women deal in when words are too cold for them. But come,” concluded the governor, for he found that all his efforts did but add to Stuart’s evident distress, “come, follow me to the drawing-room, the ladies will themselves convince you, how impatient they have been to welcome you.”
“Are they apprised,” asked Stuart, still hesitating and holding back, “whom they are to see?”
“That are they—my mother is as much delighted as if his majesty were in waiting, and my wife is weeping with joy.”
“Perhaps,” said Stuart, still hesitating, “she would rather not see me now.”
“Nonsense, my good friend, come along. It is not for a brave fellow like you to shrink from a few friendly tears from a woman’s eye.”
[40]
Nothing more could be urged, and Stuart followed governor Liston to the presence of the ladies. Lady Strangford rose and offered him her hand with the most condescending kindness. Mrs. Liston rose too, but did not advance till her husband said, “come Selina, speak your welcome to our benefactor—he may misinterpret this expression of your feelings.”
“Oh no,” she said, now advancing eagerly, and fixing her eye on Stuart, while her cheeks, neck, and brow were suffused with crimson, “Oh no, Captain Stuart knows how deeply I must feel benefits, which none but he that bestowed them could forget or undervalue.”
“It was a rule my mother taught me,” replied Frank with bluntness, softened however by a sudden gleam of pleasure, “that givers should not have better memories than receivers.” There was a meaning in his honest phrase hidden from two of his auditors, but quite intelligible to her for whom it was designed, and to our readers, who have doubtless already anticipated that the honourable Mrs. Liston was none other than the fugitive Perdita. A sudden change of colour showed that she felt acutely Stuart’s keen though veiled reproach.
“A benefit,” she replied, still speaking in a double sense, “such as I have received from you, Captain Stuart, may be too deeply felt to be acknowledged by words—now heaven has given us the opportunity of deeds, and you shall find that my grati-
[41]
tude is only inferior to your merit.” Stuart was more accustomed to embody his feelings in action than speech, and he remained silent. He felt as if he were the sport of a dream, when he looked on the transformed Perdita. He knew not why, but invested as she now was, with all the power of wealth and the elegance of fashion, he felt not half the awe of her, as when in her helplessness and dependence, “he had fenced her rounde with many a spelle,” wrought by youthful and chivalric feeling.
He perceived, in spite of Mrs. Liston’s efforts, that his presence was embarrassing to her, and he would have taken leave, but the governor insisted peremptorily on his remaining to dine with him. Then saying that he had indispensable business to transact, and must be absent for a half hour, he would, he said, “leave the ladies to the free expression of their feelings.”
When he was gone, Mrs. Liston said to her mother, “I do not think your little favourite, Francis, is quite well to-day—will you have the goodness to look in upon him and give nurse some advice.” The old lady went without reluctance, as most people do to give advice, and Mrs. Liston turned to Stuart, and said, “I gave my boy your name, with a prayer that God would give him your spirit. Do not, oh do not think me,” she continued, her lip quivering with emotion, “the ungrateful wretch I have appeared. I am condemned to silence by the pride of another.
[42]
My heart rebels, but I am bound to keep that a secret, which my feelings prompt me to publish to the world.” Stuart would have spoken, but she anticipated him: “Listen to me without interruption,” she said, “my story is my only apology, and I have but brief space to tell it in. It was love, as you once guessed, that led me to that mad voyage to America. I had a silly passion for a young Virginian, who had been sent to England for his education—he was nineteen, I fifteen, when we promised to meet on board the ship which conveyed me to America. His purpose, but not his concert with me was discovered, and he was detained in England. You know all the events of my enterprise. I left a letter for my father, informing him that I had determined to abandon England, but I gave him not the slightest clue to my real designs. I was an only, and as you will readily believe, a spoiled child. My mother was not living, and my father hoping that I should soon return, and wishing to veil my folly, gave out that he has sent me to a boarding-school on the continent, and himself retired to Switzerland. When I arrived in London, I obtained his address and followed him. He immediately received me to apparent favour, but never restored me to his confidence. His heart was hardened by my childish folly, and though I recounted to him all my sufferings, I never drew a tear from him; but when I spoke of you, and dwelt on the particulars of your goodness to me, his eye would moisten, and he would exclaim,
[43]
‘God bless the lad.’ I must be brief,” she continued, casting her eye apprehensively at the door; “Mr. Liston came with his mother to Geneva, where we resided; he addressed me—my father favoured his suit, and though he is, as you perceive, much older than myself, I consented to marry him, but not, as I told my father, till I had unfolded my history to him. My father was incensed at what he called my folly—he treated me harshly—I was subdued, and our contest ended in my solemnly swearing never to divulge the secret, on the preservation of which he fancied the honour of his proud name to depend.”
“Thank God,” then exclaimed Frank with a burst of honest feeling, “it was not your pride, cursed pride, and I may still think on Perdita as a true, tender-hearted girl, it was a pleasant spot in my memory,” he continued, dashing away a tear, “and I hated to have it crossed with a black line.”
Mrs. Liston improved all that remained of her mother’s absence in detailing some particulars, not necessary to relate, by which it appeared that notwithstanding she had dispensed with the article of love in her marriage, (we crave mercy of our fair young readers,) her husband’s virtue and indulgence had matured a sentiment of affection, if not as romantic, yet quite as safe and enduring as youthful passion. She assured Stuart that she regarded him as the means of all her happiness. “Not a day passes,” she said, raising her beautiful eyes to heaven, “that I do not
[44]
remember my generous deliverer, where alone I am permitted to speak of him.” The old lady now rejoined them, bringing her grandchild in her arms. Frank threw down his crutch, forgot his wounds, and permitted his full heart to flow out, in the caresses he lavished on his little namesake.
The governor redeemed Stuart’s schooner, and made such representations before the admiralty court of Stuart’s merits, and of the ill treatment he had received from the commander of the frigate, that the court ordered the schooner to be refitted and equipped, and permitted to proceed to sea at the pleasure of captain Stuart. He remained for several days domesticated in the governor’s family, and treated by every member of it with a frank cordiality suited to his temper and merits. Every look, word and action of Mrs. Liston expressed to him, that his singular service was engraven on her heart. He forbore even to allude to it, and with his characteristic magnanimity never inquired, directly or indirectly, her family name. He observed a timidity and apprehensiveness in her manner that resulted from a consciousness that she had, however reluctantly, practiced a fraud on her husband, and he said “that having felt how burdensome it was to keep a secret from his commander for a short voyage, he thought it was quite too heavy a lading for the voyage of life.”
The demonstrations of gratitude which Stuart received from governor Liston and his family, he deem-
[45]
ed out of all proportion to his services, and being more accustomed to bestow than to receive, he became restless, and as soon as his schooner was ready for sea, he announced his departure, and bade his friends farewell. He said that the tears that Perdita, (he always called her Perdita,) shed at parting, were far more precious to him than all the rich gifts she had bestowed on him.
At the moment Stuart set his foot on the deck of his vessel, the American colours, at the governor’s command, were hoisted. The generous sympathies of the multitude were moved, and huzzas from a thousand voices rent the air. Governor Liston and his suite and most of the merchant vessels, then in port, escorted the schooner out of the harbour. Even the stern usages of war cannot extinguish that sentiment in the bosom of man, implanted by God, which leads him to do homage to a brave and generous foe.
Captain Stuart continued to the end of the war, to serve his country with unabated zeal, and, when peace was restored, the same hardy spirit that had distinguished him in perilous times, made him foremost in bold adventure.
He commanded the second American trading vessel that arrived at Canton after the peace; and this vessel with which he sailed over half the globe, was a sloop of eighty tons, little more than half the size of the largest now used for the river trade. This adventure will be highly estimated by those who have
[46]
been so fortu
nate as to read the merry tale of Dolph Heilegher, and who remember the prudence manifested, at that period, by the wary Dutchmen in navigating these small vessels: how they were fain to shelter themselves at night in the friendly harbours with which the river abounds, and, we believe, to avoid adventuring through Haverstraw bay or the Tappan sea, in a high wind.
When Stuart’s little sloop rode into the port of Canton, it was mistaken for a tender from a large ship, and the bold mariner was afterwards familiarly called by the great Hong merchants, “the one-mast captain.”
_____
Fifty-seven years have gone by since the Hazard sailed from Oxford, and our hero is now enjoying in the winter of his life, the fruits of a summer of activity and integrity. Time, which he has well used, has used him gently—his hair is a little thinned and mottled, but is still a sufficient shelter to his honoured head. His eye when he talks of the past, (all good old men love to talk of the past,) rekindles with the fire of youth, his healthful complexion speaks his temperance, and a double row of unimpaired ivory, justifies the pleasant vanity of his boast, that he can still show his teeth to an enemy.
Professional carelessness or generosity has left him little of the world’s ‘gear,’ but he is rich—for he is independent of riches. He says he would recom-
[47]
mend honest dealings and an open hand, to all who would lay up stores of pleasant thoughts for their old age; and he avers—and who will gainsay him, that in the silent watches of the night, the memory of money well bestowed is better than a pocket full of guineas. He loves to recount his boyish pranks, and recal his childish feelings—how he rattled down the chincapins on the devoted heads of a troop of little girls; and how he was whipped for crying to go with Braddock and be a soldier! but above all, he loves to dwell on some of the particulars we have related, and in the sincerity of religious feeling to ascribe praise to that being, who kept his youth within the narrow bound of strict virtue.
I saw him last week surrounded by his grandchildren, recounting his imminent dangers and hair bread ‘scapes to a favourite boy, while the nimble fingers of rosy-cheeked, bright-eyed little girls were employed in making sails for a miniature ship, which the old man has just completed. Long may he enjoy the talisman that recals to his imagination, labour without its hardship, and enterprise without its failure—and God grant gentle breezes and a clear sky to the close of his voyage of life!
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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Modern Chivalry
Subject
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Runaways, female virtue, chivalry, heroism, Revolutionary War.
Description
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A young American sailor rescues a mysterious young female English runaway, and goes on to become a heroic naval captain in the Revolutionary War, and a later a prosperous merchant.
Creator
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Sedgwick, Catharine Maria. [By the author of Redwood]
Source
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The Atlantic Souvenir, 5-47
Publisher
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H. C. Carey & Lea
Date
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1826
Contributor
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Dr. Jenifer Elmore with Megan Konynenbelt, Sarah Selden, and Rachel Sakrisson; D. Gussman
Relation
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Reprinted in New-York Mirror, edited by Horace Greeley, 25- Nov. 1826: 137-39.
Collected in The Ladies' Monthly Museum, Vol. XXV pp. 260-264, 325-331 and Vol. XXVI pp. 29-36, 91-97, London: Dean and Munday, 1827.
Collected in Lights and Shadows of American Life, vol.. 3, edited by Mary Russell Mitford, 226-73, London: H. Colburn and R. Bentley, 1832.
Collected in Yorkshire Literary Annual for 1832, pp.202-232, edited by C. F. Edgar, London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Browne & Greene, 1832.
Collected as "The Chivalric Sailor" in Sedgwick, Tales and Sketches, pp.237-78, Philadelphia: Carey, Lea, and Blanchard, 1835.
Language
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English
Type
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Document
1826
A Winter's Tale
Antigua
Atlantic Souvenir
Bacchus
British colonies
Canton
Cape May
Catholic
Chesapeake Bay
China
Cowes
cross-dressing
disguise
Dolph Heilegher
Don Juan Canto II
Ecclesiastes 9:11
Elk River
England
Gravesend
Haverstraw Bay
Henry IV Part I
Hermione
Historical fiction
Hong merchants
Hudson River
indenture
Isle of Wight
John Paul Jones (1747-1792)
Lord Byron
Maryland
Oliver Goldsmith
Pasha
Perdita
Philadelphia
plantation
Pope
Redwood: A Tale
Revolutionary War
Rodomontade novels
Romance novels
sailing
sailors
sentimentality
servants
Shakespeare
shipwreck
Sir Oracle
Sir Toby Blech
Sir Walter Scott
slavery
St. Kitts
Storm
tears
Thames River
The Heart of Midlothian
The Merchant of Venice
Twelfth Night
Washington Irving
West Indies
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/4347/archive/files/4bdd8ab286fd377ba95741eeba328700.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=gR1EKYvBMms02S0KPupmtCbL6hPieq2pkflo83611x8eS3aXWNfPSxRSzycm3Tfcs49ct5pR0buWWU%7E32xjllyHyc5197jHu8mtumwtAepkXh2IZ0Foj6LL5lxxZ4uSJco6ZPuHoJiu%7E1cev9V5fj%7EL9HCN%7Ejd9dj1HU8FHMzTUaj1yZKE%7EtHDJBOun1g7Ua9pmvu2yMRU%7ExygKzxBgORFiJADh2Q9TP3Ba0X6ffixsrHJw7t8Bufnh%7EP1yeK9DAz1%7EMQ%7EQocgdhEQ4KDWqJg1vpd56Y3jmLGicNTLLAB5JJLGkFNKTGckLzHaea9R3MXjC6m9Vep39EVT1NMu63qw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
73c5198ed3034f75a7054b05c56ef047
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1827
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Text
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ROMANCE IN REAL LIFE
By the Author of ‘Redwood’
------------
‘La Nature fait le mérite,
La Fortune le met en preuve.’
------------
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Many fortunate travellers on the western border of Massachusetts, and not many miles from the Hudson, have been refreshed at the inn of Reliance Reynolds. Reliance, as his name indicates, was born in the good old times. We are aware that the enthusiasts about the ‘progress of the age,’ deny this golden period any but a retrospective existence, and maintain that, retrace the steps of the human family far as you will, it is like the age of chivalry, always a little behind you. But we adhere to the popular phraseology and call those, ‘good old times,’ when the Puritanical nomenclature prevailed; when such modest graces as faith and temperance had not been expelled from our taverns, kitchens, and workshops, by the heroes and heroines of romance – the Orlandos and Lorenzos, Rosamonds and Anna Matildas.
Reliance belonged to the ‘good old times,’ too, in the more essential matter of downright honesty, simplicity, and respectful courtesy. His was a rare character in New England – a passive spirit, content to fill and fit the niche nature had prepared for him. It was not very high,
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but he never aspired above it; nor very low, but he never sank below it. He was the marvel of his neighbours, for he could never be persuaded into an enterprise or speculation. He never bought a water privilege, nor an oar bed; subscribed to a county bank, or ‘moved to the West;’ or in any mode indicated that principle in man, which, in its humble operations, its restlessness, in its lofty aspirations, a longing after immortality. Reliance’s desires never passed the bounds of his premises, and were satisfied, even within them, with a very moderate share of power. He stood at his door, his hat in his hand, to receive his guests; he strictly performed the promise of his sign, and gave ‘good entertainment to man and horse;’ he rendered a moderate bill and received his dues with a complacent smile, in which gratitude was properly tempered with a just sense of his own rights. In short, as must be already quite manifest, Reliance, though a pattern landlord, is a very poor subject for a storyteller; his qualities, like the color in a ray of light, all bending and forming one hue, and his life, presenting the same monotonous harmony.
We should not have forced him from his happy obscurity into the small degree of notoriety he may incur on our humble page, but for his being the adjunct of his wife, an important personage in our narrative.
Mrs Reynolds, too, like her husband, performed exactly the duties of her station. She never perhaps read a line of poetry, save such as might lurk in the ‘Poet’s Corner’ of a village paper, but her whole life was an illustration of the oldfashioned couplet –
‘Honor and shame from no condition rise,
Act well your part, there all the honor lies.’
She never was presidentess of a ‘society for ameliorating the conditions of the Jews,’ or secretary or treasurer
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of any of those beneficent associations that rescue the latent talents of women from obscurity and mettrent en scéne gems and flowers that might otherwise shine and exhale unnoticed and unknown; but though humble was her name and destiny, her memory is dear to the wayfaring. Quiet, order, and neatness, reigned at her bed and board. No pirates harbored in her bedsteads, no bad luck, that evil genius of housewives, curdled her cream, spoiled her butter or her bread, but her table was spread with such simple, wholesome fare as might have lit a smile on the wan visage of an old dispeptic; and this we take to be the greatest achievement of the gastronomic art.
With the duties of life so peacefully and so well performed, our good hostess ought, according to all the rules of happiness, to have been happy; but it is our melancholy duty to confess she was not, and to explain the cause. She had been married many years without having any children; that blessed possession that in transmitting, the parents’ existence, seems to extend its bounds, and to render even here, the mortal immortal. In addition to the feeling, common to all women, who naturally crave the sweetest objects for their tenderest and strongest affections, Mrs Reynolds lamented her childless state with a bitterness of repining approaching to that of the Hebrew wives. With everything else in her possession that could inspire contentment, her mind was fixed on this one desired good, and, like Hannah of old, she was still a ‘woman of a sorrowful spirit.’ She had endeavoured to solace herself with the children of her kindred, and several, from time to time, had been adopted into her family; but some proved disagreeable, and others homesick, and there was always a paramount duty or affection that interfered with her’s, till finally her
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almost extinguished hopes were gratified, and Providence gave her a child worthy all her care and love.*
In the autumn of 1777, two travellers arrived just at nightfall at Reynold’s inn. Its aspect was inviting; situated in the heart of a fertile valley that had lately been refreshed by the early rains of autumn, and in its bright garb resembling a mature beauty that had happily harmonized some youthful tints with her soberer graces. A sprightly, winding stream gave life and music to the meadows. On every side the landscape was undulating and fertile, but not then as extensively cultivated as now, when, to the Tauconnuc on the south, and the lofty blue outline of the Catskills on the west, the eye ranges over a rich and enjoyed country. Beside the accidental charm of a pretty landscape, the inn had advantages peculiar to itself. Instead of being placed on the roadside, as most of our taverns are – for what reason we know not, unless a cloud of travellers’ dust be typical of a shower of gold to the vision of mine host – Reynold’s inn was separated from the highway by a court yard, shaded by two wide spreading elms, and enlivened with a profusion of autumnal flowers, marigolds, cockscombs, and china asters.
There was nothing that indicated any claims to particular civility in the appearance of our travellers. They were well looking and respectably appareled; and, accordingly, having announced their determination to re-
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main for the night, they were shown to an inner room, the parlour, par excellence, where Mrs Reynolds appeared, and having opened a door which admitted the balmy air and a view of the western sky, just then brightened by the tints of the setting sun, she received their orders for their supper, and retired without one of those remarks or inquiries by which it is usual, on such occasions to give vent to curiosity. Nothing passed between our travellers in the dull interval that elapsed before their meal was ready, to give to our readers the least clue to their origin or destiny. One of them lulled himself into a doze in the rocking chair, while the other, younger and more active and vivacious, amused himself out of doors, plucking flowers, enraging an old petulant cock turkey, and mocking the scolding of some Guinea hens, the Xantippes of the feathered race.
The interval was not long. The door opened and the tea table was brought in, already spread (a mode we wish others would adopt from our pattern landlady), and spread in a manner to characterize our bountiful country.
What a contrast does the evening meal of our humblest inn present to the leanness of an English tea table! A cornucopia would have been the appropriate symbol for Mrs Reynolds’s table. There were beef steaks, and ham and eggs; hot cakes and toast; bread and gingerbread; all the indigenous cakes, such as crullers and nutcakes, &c.; honey, sweetmeats, apple sauce, cheese, pickles, and an afterpiece of pies. Kind reader do not condemn our bill of fare as impertinent and vulgar. We put it down to show the sacred political economists, that, with us, instead of the population pressing on the means of subsistence, the means of subsistence presses on the population.
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Our travellers fell to their repast with appetites whetted by a long fast and day’s ride. Not a word was spoken, till a little girl, who was sitting on the doorstep caressing a tame pigeon, perceiving that one of the guests had garnished his buttonhole with a bunch of marigolds, plucked a rose from a monthly rose bush, trained over a trellis at the door, and laid it beside his plate. He seemed struck with the modest offering, and, turning with a look of gratitude to the child, he patted her on her head, and exclaimed instinctively, ‘Merci, merci, ma petite!’ and then correcting himself, he said, in very imperfect English, ‘I thank you, my little girl.’
The child’s attention was fixed by the first word he uttered, and as he addressed his companion in French, her countenance indicated more emotion than would naturally have been excited by the simple circumstance of hearing, for the first time, a foreign language. ‘Qu’elle est belle, cette petite,’ he continued, turning to his companion; ‘c’est la beauté de mon pays – voilá, brunette, et les yeux, si grands, si noirs, et la tournure aussi – quelle grâce, quelle vivacité! Ah! Monsieur, Monsieur, c’est tout-á-fait Françoise.’ As he proceeded the child advanced nearer to him. She shook back the rich, dark curls that shaded her face, bent her head forward, half parted her bright lips, and listened with the uncertain and eager expression of one who is catching a half remembered tune, the key to a thousand awakening recollections. It was evident that she did not comprehend the purport of the words, and that it was the sound alone to which her delighted ear was stretched.
A smile played about her lips, and tears gathered in her eyes, and there seemed to be a contrariety of emotions, confounding even to herself; but that which finally prevailed was indicated by her throwing her apron over
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her head, and retreating to the doorstep, where she sat down, and for some moments, vainly attempted to stifle her sobs. She had just become tranquil, when Mrs Reynolds entered.
The elder traveller said, in an interrogating tone, ‘That is your child, ma’am?’
‘I call her mine,’ was the brief and not very satisfactory reply.
‘She resembles neither you nor your husband,’ resumed the traveller.
‘No; she does not favor us.’
‘I fancied she had a French look.’
‘I can’t say as to that,’ replied the landlady; ‘I never saw any French people.’
‘My friend here is a Frenchman,’ pursued the traveller, ‘and the little girl listened to him so intently, that I thought it possible she might understand him.’
‘No, I guess she did not sense him,’ replied Mrs Reynolds, with an air of indifference; and the turning hastily to the child, ‘Mary,’ she said, ‘there is more company; go and see if our father does not want you.’
She went and did not return. Mrs Reynolds herself removed the table. The elder gentleman sat down to write a letter; while the Frenchman walked to and fro, opened the doors, and peeped in every direction to get a glimpse of the little girl, who seemed to have taken complete possession of his imagination. Once, as she ran through the passage, he called to her, ‘Doucement! doucement! mon petit ange’ – she stopped as if she were glued to the floor. ‘How call you your name, my dear?’
‘Mary Reynolds, sir.’
‘Then Madame there, Mistress Reynolds, is your maman?’
‘She is –
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‘Mary, what are you staying for? Here – this instant!’ screamed Mrs Reynolds from the kitchen door, in a tone that admitted no delay, and the child ran off without finishing her sentence.
‘C’est bien singulier!’ muttered the Frenchman.
‘What do you find so singular, Jaubert?’ asked his companion, who had just finished his letter, and thrown down his pen.
‘Oh! it is nothing – perhaps – but – ’
‘“But” what, my friend?’
‘Why, there seems to me some mystery about this child; something in her manner, I know not what, that stirs up strange thoughts and hopes in my mind. She is not one of the pale, blond beauties of your climate.’
‘Ah! my good friend, we have all sorts of beauties in our clime. All nations, you know, have sent us their contributions. The blue eye and fair skin, the Saxon traits, certainly prevail in our Eastern States; but you know we border on New York, the asylum of the dark eyed Huguenots, and it is not impossible that to this child may have been transmitted the peculiarities of some French ancestor. Nothing is more common than a resemblance between a descendant and a far off progenitor.’
‘Ah! it is not only the French, the Norman aspect, the – do not ridicule me – the Angely traits that attract me; but you yourself noticed how she listened to my language, and then this Mistress Reynolds does not say she is her child, but only she calls her so.’
‘Pshaw! Is that all? It is the way of my country people, Jaubert; their indirectness is proverbial. If one of them were to say “yes” or “no,” you might suspect some deep mystery. I confess I was at first startled with the little girl’s emotion, but I soon perceived it was nothing but shame and embarrassment at
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the curiosity she had betrayed. I see how it is Jaubert; fruitless and hopeless as is our search, you cannot bear to relinquish it, and are looking for some coup de théâtre – some sudden transition from disappointment to success.’
We have put into plain English a conversation that was supported in French, and was now broken off by the approach of Mrs Reynolds, who came to tell the travellers their bedrooms were ready. By the light of the candle she brought, discovered Mary, concealed in a corner of the passage close to the door, where, in breathless stillness, she had been listening. ‘You here, Mary!’ exclaimed the good woman; ‘I thought you had been in bed this half hour. You will make me angry with you, Mary, if you do not mind me better that this,’ she added in an under tone, and the child stole away, but without looking either very penitent or very fearful; and in truth she had cause for neither penitence nor fear, for she had only gratified an innocent and almost irrepressible inclination, and as to Dame Reynolds’s anger, it was never formidable.
The travellers retired to their respective apartments, and while the landlady lingered to adjust her parlour, the letter that had been left on the table caught her eye. Nothing could be more natural than for her to look at the superscription. Painfully she spelt out the first line. ‘A Monsieur, Monsieur’ – but when she came to the next, her eye was rivetted, ‘St Jean Angely de Crève-Coeur.’ After gazing on it till she had made assurance doubly sure, she was hastening to her husband to participate the discovery with him, when, apparently changing her intentions, she retreated, bolted the door, and returned to the examination of the letter. It was unsealed. Reluctant to open it, she compromised with her conscience, and peeped in at both ends, but the writing was not perceptible, and her interest overcoming
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her scruples, she unfolded the letter. Alas! it was in French. In vain her eye ran over the manuscript to catch some words that might serve as clues to the rest. There was nothing in all three pages she could comprehend, but ‘arrivé á New York’ – ‘la rivière d’Hudson’ – ‘le manoir de Livingston.’
She was refolding the letter, when the following postscript, inadvertently written in English, caught her eye; ‘As we have no encouragement to proceed farther in our search, and Jean and Avenel are all impatience, Jaubert will embark in the Neptune, which is to sail on the first.’
A gleam of pleasure shot across Mrs Reynolds’s face, but it soon darkened again with anxiety and perplexity. ‘Why did I open the letter?’ she asked herself. ‘Why did I look at it at all? But nobody will ever know that I have seen it unless I tell it myself; and why should I tell?’ A burst of tears concluded this mental interrogation, and proved that, however earnestly her heart might plead before the tribunal of conscience, yet the stern decision of that unerring judge was heard. Self-interest has a hard task when it would mystify the path of one who habitually walks by the clear light of truth straight onward in the path of duty.
It may seem unnatural to the inexperienced, that Mrs Reynolds did not communicate her embarrassment and irresolution, from whatever cause they proceeded, to her husband; but she knew well what would be the result of a consultation; for he, good man, never viewed a subject but from one position, and we are all slow to ask advice that we foresee will be counter to our wishes.
Mrs Reynolds, so far then from appealing to the constituted authority of her household, locked her discovery within her own bosom, and to avoid all suspicion and inquiry, she composed herself as soon as possible, and
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retired to her bed, but not to sleep; and at peep of dawn, she was up and prepared to obtain all the satisfaction that indirect interrogation could procure from the travellers, and her mental resolution, invigorated by a night’s solitary reflection, was to ‘act up to her light.’
They had ordered breakfast at a very early hour, and she took care to be the only person in attendance on them. When they were seated at table, she placed herself in a rocking chair behind them, a position that happily reconciles the necessity of service with the dignity of independence, and began her meditated approaches, by saying to her own countryman, ‘I believe you left a letter here last night, sir; I laid it in the cupboard for fear of accidents.’
‘Thank you, ma’am; I ought to have been more careful. It was a letter of some consequence.’
‘Indeed! Well, I was thinking it might be.’
‘Ah! what made you think so?’
Now we must premise, that neither of the parties speaking, knew anything of that sensitiveness that starts from a question as if an attack were made on private property; but they possessed, in common, the good-natured communicativeness that is said to characterize the New England people, who, in their colloquial traffic, as in other barter, hold exchange to be no robbery.
Most women are born diplomatists, and Mrs Reynolds took care to reply to the last interrogatory so carefully as not to commit herself. ‘It stands to reason,’ she said, ‘a letter that is to go all the way over the wide sea to the old countries, should be of consequence.’
‘Yes – it is a long voyage.’
‘You have taken it yourself, perhaps, sir?’
‘I have. I went out an officer on board one of our cruisers, and was wrecked on the coast of France.’
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‘Of France! Well, we are hand and glove with the French now; but I tell my husband it seems to me like joining with our enemies against those of our own household.’
‘Ah! Mrs Reynolds, “friends are sometimes better than kindred.” I am sure my own father’s son could not have been kinder to me than was Monsieur Angely de Crève-Coeur – hey, Jaubert?’
‘Ah! vraiment, Monsieur! c’est un bien brave homme, Monsieur St Jean Angely.’
‘Angely!’ said Mrs Reynolds, as if recalling some faded recollection, ‘Angely – I think I have heard that name before.’
‘It may be. The gentleman I speak of resided some time in this country.’
‘But it can’t be the same,’ replied Mrs Reynolds; ‘for the person I speak of lived over in Livingston’s manner; and kind to strangers he could not be, for he deserted his own flesh and blood, and went off early in the war.’
‘It may be the same for all that, and must be. As to deserting his children, “thereby hangs a tale;” but it is a long one.’
‘Well, sir, if you have anything to say in his favor, I am bold to say I think you ought to speak it; especially as the gentleman seems to have stood your friend in a cloudy day. The story certainly went sadly against him here.’
‘I have not the slightest objection, ma’am, to telling the story, if you have the patience to hear it; especially as I see I must wait till Jaubert has finished two more of your nice fresh eggs – “eggs of an hour,” Mrs Reynolds.’
‘We always calculate to have fresh eggs, sir. But what was you going to say of Mr Angely?’ she added,
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betraying in the tremulous tones of her voice, some emotion more heart stirring than curiosity. Jaubert turned a glance of inquiry on her that was unanswered by the sudden rush of blood to her cheeks; but the narrator proceeded without noticing anything extraordinary. ‘It was my good, or ill luck,’ he said, – ‘and it is the only in the long run we can tell whether luck be good or ill – but it was my luck to be shipwrecked on the coast of Normandy, and good luck it certainly was, Jaubert, in my distress, to make such a port as the Château de Crève-Coeur – the castle, or as we should call should call it here, Mrs Reynolds, the estate of the Angely’s. A fine family they are. You may think what a pleasure it was to me to find a gentleman acquainted with my country, and speaking my language as did Mr St Jean Angely. He was kind and affable to me, and always doing something for my pleasure, but I could see he had a heaviness at his heart – that he was often talking of one thing and thinking of another – nothing like so gay as the old gentleman, his father; who was like a fall flower – one of your marigolds, Mrs Reynolds, spreading itself open to every ray of sunshine, as if there were no frosts and winter and death at hand. I felt a pity for the young man. With everything that heart could desire, and without a heart to enjoy, he seemed to me like a sick man seated at a feast of which he could not taste. The day before I was to have come away, he took me aside, and, after saying that I had won his entire confidence, he disclosed to me the following particulars: –
‘He entered the French army early in life, and while yet a hotblooded, inconsiderate youth, he killed a brother officer in a duel, and was obliged to fly to his country. He took refuge in Lisbon. Judgment, I may say mercy, too – in the dealings of Providence, Mrs Reynolds, one is always close on the track of the other – followed
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him thither. Mr Angely found employment in a mercantile house, and was standing writing at his desk at the moment of the terrible earthquake that laid Lisbon in ruins. The timbers of the house in which he was, were pitched in such a manner as to form a sort of arch over his head, on which the falling roof was sustained, and thus he was, as it were, miraculously delivered from danger. From Lisbon he came to this country. “Mechanics,” says a Spanish proverb, “make the best pilgrims,” but, I am sure, not better than Frenchmen; for cast them where you will, they will get an honest living. Mr Angely came up into Livingston’s Manor, and there he took a fancy to a pretty Yankee girl, the only child of a widow, and married her. He earned a subsistence for his family by surveying. The country was new, and skillful surveyors scarce. After a few years his wife died and left him three children.’
‘Three!’ repeated Mrs Reynolds, involuntarily sighing.
‘Yes, poor things! there were three of them; too many to be left in these hard times fatherless and motherless.’
‘Ah sir! and what must we think of the father that could forsake his little children at such a time?’
‘Think no evil, my friend; for Mr Angely did not deserve it. He was employed by Mrs Livingston, early in the war, to go down the river to survey some land near New York. There he was taken by the British as a spy, and, in spite of his remonstrances, sent to England. This was before the French had taken part with us, and he obtained leave to go to France, on giving his parole that he would not return to America. He received a parent’s welcome, and affair of the duel being nearly forgotten, a pardon was obtained for him without difficulty. If he could have forgotten his children, he would have been as happy as man could
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be; but his anxiety for them preyed on his health and spirits; and when I arrived at the château, his friends imagined he was sinking under some unknown disease. He had not communicated to his father the fact of his marriage and the existence of his children when I arrived there. The old gentleman, kind hearted and reasonable in the main, has all the prejudices of the nobility in the old countries about birth, and his son was afraid to confess, that he had smuggled an ignoble little Yankee into the ancient family of the Crève-Coeurs. So good an opportunity as I afforded of communicating with his children, could not be passed by, and he at length summoned courage to tell the truth to his father. At first he was wroth enough, and stormed and vapored; but after a little while his kind nature got the mastery of the blood of the Crève-Coeurs, and he consented to the children being sent for – the boys, at least.’
‘Only the boys!’ exclaimed Mrs Reynolds, feeling relieved from an insupportable weight.
‘Only the boys. But the old gentleman might have as well saved all his credit and sent for the girl too; but that was not his pleasure. Well, Monsieur Jaubert here, a relative and particular friend of the family, came out with me to take charge of the children. We found the boys without much difficulty; two noble little fellows that a king might be proud of. After waiting for some time for Monsieur Angely’s return, the overseers of the poor, believing he had abandoned his children, bound them out. The little girl had been removed to some distance from her brothers. We found the place where she had been, but not the family. The husband and wife had quarrelled, and separated, and disappeared; and all the information we could obtain, was a vague story such a child had lived there and had run away; and as nobody in these troublesome
times
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can do no more than look after their own children, this poor thing was left to her fate. Hopeless as it appears, Jaubert is not willing to give up our search. He fancies every brunette he sees is the lost Marie, and only last evening he would have persuaded me, that your black eyed little girl might be this stray scion of the Crève-Cœurs.’
Mrs Reynolds rose and left the room, and did not return till she was sufficiently composed to ask, in an assured voice, ‘What was their object in looking for the girl, if a father did not mean to reclaim her?’
‘He did mean to reclaim and provide for her,’ replied the traveller, ‘and for that purpose I have ample funds in my hands. He only conceded to the old gentleman her remaining in the country for the present.’
‘Had you any direction as to how you were to dispose of her?’
‘Yes, positive orders to convey her to Boston, and place her under the guardianship of a French lady who resides there, a friend of Mr Angely—one Madame Adelon.’
‘But could you find no trace of the child?’
‘Not the slightest.’
‘And you have determined to make no further inquiry?’
‘Why should we? Inquiry is useless, and would but delay to a tempestuous season, Jaubert’s return with the boys.’
Our readers are doubtless sufficiently aware, that the adopted child of our good landlady was the missing child of Monsieur Angely. A few words will be necessary to explain how she became possessed of her.
Mrs Reynolds and her husband were, two years prior to this period, approaching the close of a winter day’s ride. Their sleigh was gliding noiselessly through a dry, new fallen snow, when their attention was arrested by
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the moanings of a child. To stop the horses and search the sufferer from whom the sounds proceeded, was the instinctive impulse of benevolence. They had not gone many yards from the road, when, nestled close to a clump of laurels, they found a little girl, her hands and feet frozen, and nearly insensible. They immediately carried her to the sleigh, and put their horses to their utmost speed; but, as they were none of the fleetest, and the nearest habitation was at several miles distance, a considerable time elapsed before they could obtain the means of restoration, and in consequence of this delay, and of severe previous suffering, it was many weeks before the child recovered. In the mean time, though Mrs Reynold’s residence was not more than thirty miles from the place where she had found the child, no inquiry was made for her. The account she gave of herself sufficiently explained this neglect. She said she had no mother; that her father had left home just after the snows melted and the birds came back; that he had left her and her two brothers, Jean and Avenel, with a woman to take care of them; that when this woman had waited a great while for their father, she grew tired and was cross to them, and then she too went away, and left them quite alone. Then she said they had nothing to eat, and she supposed they were the poor, for the men they called the overseers of the poor took her and her brothers, and separated them, and she was carried a great way off to a woman who was very cross to her, and cross to her own children, and her husband was cross too. One night he came home in a great passion, and he began to whip his wife with his big whip, and his wife beat him with the hot shovel, and she, the child, was scared, ran out of the house, and far up into a wood, to get beyond their cries; and when she would have
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returned, the snow was falling, and she could not find the path, and she had wandered about till she was so cold and tired she could go no farther. Her name, she said, was Angely, and she believed her father was called a Frenchman. The only parental relic she possessed confirmed this statement. It was a locket which she wore suspended at her neck. It contained a lock of hair; an armorial crest was engraven on the back, and under it was inscribed, ‘St Jean Angely de Crève-Cœur.’ This simple story established the conviction, that had been gaining strength in Mrs Reynold’s mind, with every day’s attendance on the interesting child, that they had been brought together by the special providence of God; and most faithfully did she discharge the maternal duties that she believed had been this miraculously imposed on her. The little girl was on her part happy and delighted, and though she sometimes bitterly lamented her father and brothers, yet, as the impressions of childhood are slight, the recollection of them was almost effaced when the mysterious energies of memory were awakened by the sound of a language that seemed to have been utterly forgotten. These events occurred during the revolutionary war, a period of disaster and distress, when a very diligent search for a friendless child was not likely to be made, and as no inquiry ever reached Mrs Reynold’s ear, and as she deemed the foundling an orphan, she had not hesitated to appropriate her. Her name was changed from Marie Angely to Marie Reynolds; and the good woman seemed as secure and happy as any mother, save when she was reminded of the imperfection of her title by the too curious inquiries of the travellers. On these occasions, she was apt to betray a little irritability, and to veil the truth with a slight evasion, as in the instance which excited the suspicion of our sagacious Frenchman.
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Her condition was now a pitiable one. She had the tenderness, but not the rights of a parent. She was habitually pure and upright; but now she was strongly swayed by her affections. She would have persuaded herself, that the abandonment in which she first found the child, invested her with a paramount claim; but the stranger’s story had proved that her father had not voluntarily abandoned her. Then she thought, ‘It cannot be for Mary’s interest, that I should give her up;’ and her mind took a rapid survey of the growing property of which the child was the heir apparent. But she would ask herself, ‘What do I know of the fortune of her father?’ ‘But surely he cannot, he cannot love her as I do.’ ‘Ah I do not know the feeling of a real parent;’ and a burst of tears expressed the sadness of this conviction, and obliged her abruptly to withdraw from the presence of her guests, and leave them amazed at her sudden and violent emotion, while she retired to her own apartment, to implore guidance and support from Heaven. Those who honestly ask for light to point out a way which they would fain to see, and for power to endure a burden from which their nature shrinks, are often themselves astonished at the illumination vouchsafed, and the strength imparted. This was the experience of Mrs Reynolds. She rose from her devotions with the conviction, that but one course remained to her, and with a degree of tranquility, hastened to Mary’s bedroom.
The child was just risen and dressed. Without any explanation to her—she was at the moment incapable of making any—she tied her locket, her sole credential, around her neck, led her down stairs, and placing her hand in Jaubert’s, she said, ‘You have found the child!’ and then retreated to hide the emotion she could not subdue.
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It was fortunate for her, that she was not compelled to witness the gay demonstration of Jaubert’s ecstasies. the graver, but not more equivocal manifestations of his companion’s satisfaction, and the amazement and curiosity of the little girl, who was listening to the explanation of the strangers, with childlike animation, without adverting to her approaching separation from her who had given her the affection and cares of a parent.
But when she came to be severed from this kind friend, she made amends for her thoughtlessness. She clung to her as if nature had knit the bonds that united them, and, amid her cries and sobs, she promised always to remember and love her as a mother. Many have made such promises. Marie Angely kept them.
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Ten years subsequent to the events above narrated, a letter, of which the following is a translation, was addressed by a foreigner in a high official station in this country, to his friend.
‘DEAR BERVILLE—
‘It is, I believe, or should be, a maxim of the true church, that confession of a sin is the first step towards its expiation.
‘Let me, then, invest you with a priest’s cassock, and relieve my conscience by the relation of an odd episode in my history. When I parted from you, I was going with my friend, Robert Ellison, to visit his father, who has a beautiful place on the banks of the Hudson. Young Ellison, as you know, is a thorough republican, and does not conceal his contempt for those of his compatriots, who, professing the same principles, are really aristocrats in their prejudices and manners; who, having parted, and as they pretend voluntarily, with the substances, still grasp at the shadow. To test these false pretensions, and to mortify an absurd pride, he joyfully acquiesced in a proposition I made to him, to lay aside the pomp and circumstances of my official character, and to be presented to his friends without any of the accidental advantages with which fortune has invested me. You will inquire my motive, for you will not suspect me of the absurdity of crusading against the follies of society, the most hopeless of all crusades. No, as our own Moliére says,
C’est une folie, à nulle autre seconde,
De vouloir se méler de corriger le monde.
My motives were then, in the first place, a love of ease, of dishabille; an impatience of the irksomeness of having the dignity of a nation to sustain; and, in the second place, I wished to ascertain how much of the favor lavished on me I should place to the account of the ambassador, and how much I might reserve to my own proper self.
‘You may call this latent vanity. I will not quarrel with you. I will not pretend that I was moved solely by a love of truth, by a pure desire to find out the realities of things; but alas! my dear Berville, if we were to abstract from the web of our motives, every thread tinged with self, would not warp and woof too disappear? Let, then, my motive be what it might, you will allow the experiment required courage.
‘We had some difficulty in settling the precise point at which to gage my pretensions. “Do not claim a drop of noble blood,” said my friend, “it would defeat your purpose. There is something cabalistic in that word ‘noble.’ The young ladies at ____ would at once invest you with the attributes of romance; and the old dowagers would persecute you with histories of their titled ances-
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tors, and anecdotes of lords and ladies that figured in the drawing rooms of the colony. Neither must you be a plain gentleman of the fortune, though that may seem to you a sufficient descent from your high station; but fortune has everywhere her shrines and her devotees. You must be the artificer of your own fortune, a talented young man who has no rank or fortune to be spoken of. What say you to the profession of a painter, a portrait painter, since that is the only branch of the art that gets a man bread in this country.” I acceded without shrinking, secretly flattering myself that my friend either underrated my intrinsic merit, or did the world rank injustice.
‘When we arrived we found a large party of the neighbouring gentry assembled to dine at _____. I was received with great courtesy by the elder Ellison, and with kindness by Madame, on the ground, simply, of being an acquaintance of their son’s. My friend took care to prevent any elation from my reception by saying to me in a low voice, “My father, God bless him, has good sense, good feeling, and experience, and he well knows that the value of gold does not depend on the circulation it has obtained;” and truly if he had known that I bore the impress of the king’s countenance he could not have received me more graciously. There might have been more formality in his reception of the public functionary, but there could not have been more genuine hospitality. He presented me to his guests, and here I was first reminded of my disguise. Instead of the sensation I have been accustomed to see manifested in the lighting up of the face, in the deferential bow, or the blush of modesty, no emotion was visible. No eye rested on me, not a link of conversation was broken, and I was suffered, after rather an awkward passage through the ceremony, to retire to my seat, where I remained, observing, but not
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observed, till dinner was announced. From the habit of precedence, I was advancing to lead Madame to the dining room, when I encountered my friend’s glance, and shrunk back in time to avoid what must have appeared an unpardonable impertinence. I now fell into my modest station in the rear, and offered my arm to an awkward, bashful girl, who I am sure had two left hands by the manner in which she received my courtesy, and who did not honor me so far as to look up to see who it was that had saved her from the mortifying dilemma of leaving the drawingroom alone. I helped my companion from the dish nearest to me, and waited myself till Madame, reminded by her son of her oversight, sent me a plate of soup. I was swallowing this, unmolested by any conversation addressed to me, when my friend’s father said to him, “When have you seen the French ambassador, Robert? I hoped you would have persuaded him to pay us a visit.”
‘“Perhaps he may,” replied my friend, “before the summer is over. He is at present out of the city on some excursion.”
‘“A prodigious favorite is your son with the French ambassador, as I hear from all quarters,” said a gentleman who sat next Mr Ellison.
‘“Ah! is that so, Robert? Are you intimate with Monsieur—?”
‘“He does me the honor to permit my society, sir.” Every mouth was now opened in praise of the ambassador. None of the company had seen him, but all had heard of his abilities, the charms of his conversation, his urbanity, his savoir plaire. “You must be proud of your countryman, M. Dufau?” (this was my assumed name) said my host, with that courtesy that finds a word for the humblest guest.
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‘I said it was certainly gratifying to my national feeling to find him approved in America, but that, perhaps it was not his merit alone that obtained him such distinguished favor; that I had understood he was a great admirer of this country, and though I should do him injustice to say “he praised, only to be praised,” yet I believed there was always a pretty accurately measured exchange in this traffic.
‘“The gentleman is right,” said an old Englishman who sat opposite to me, and who had not before vouchsafed to manifest a consciousness of my existence; “this is all French palaver in Monsieur —. He cannot be such a warm admirer of this country. The man knows better; he has been in England.”
‘I was too well acquainted with English manners to be startled by any manifestation of that conviction which an Englishman demonstrates in every part of the world, that his nation has no equal; but I instinctively defended my countryman, and eager for an opportunity to test the colloquial powers so much admired in the ambassador, I entered the lists with my English opponent, and thus stimulated, I was certainly far more eloquent than I ever had been before, on the history, the present condition, and the prospects of this country. But alas for the vanity of M. Dufau! my host, it is true, gave me all the attention he could spare from the courtesies of the table, but save his ear, I gained none but that half accorded by my contemptuous, testy, and impatient antagonist, who after barking out a few sentences at me, relapsed into a moody silence.
‘I next addressed some trifling gallantries to my bashful neighbour, fancying that she who was neglected by everybody else, would know how to appreciate my attentions; but her eyes were riveted to a fashionable beauty at the upper extremity of the table, and a half a
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dozen “no, sirs” and “yes, sirs,” misplaced, were all the return I could obtain from her. To remain silent and passive, you know, to me, was impossible; so I next made an essay on a vinegar faced dame on my left, far in the wane of life. “If my civilities have been lead elsewhere, in this market,” thought I, “they will at least prove silver or gold.” But here I received my cruelest rebuff; for the lady, after apparently listening to me, said, “I do not understand you.” I raised my voice, but she, determining to shelter the infirmity of age at my expense, replied, “I am not so deaf, sir, but really you speak such broken English, that I cannot understand you.” This was too much, and I might have betrayed my vexation, if an intelligent and laughing glance from my friend had not restored my good humor, and a second reflection, suggesting that it was far more important to the old woman’s happiness that her vanity should remain unimpaired, than it could be to me to have mine reduced, even to fragments, I humbly begged her pardon, and relapsed into a contented silence, solacing myself with the thought, that our encounter was but an illustration of that of the china earthen jars. But I will not weary you with detailing all the trials of my philosophy, but only confess that the negligence of the servants was not the least of them—the grinning self-complacency with which these apes of their superiors signified to me that my wants might be deferred.
‘After all, my humble position would not have been so disagreeable, if I had been accustomed to it. The world’s admiration, like all other luxuries, in the end becomes necessary, and then, too, like other luxuries, ceases to be enjoyed, or even felt, till it is withdrawn and leaves an aching void. If this is Irish, set it down to my broken English.
‘After dinner, I followed the ladies to the drawingroom, and was presented by my friend to Miss —, a reigning beauty. She received me with one of those gracious smiles, that a hacknied belle always bestows on a new worshipper at her shrine. These popular favorites, be it a clergyman, politician, or beauty, are as covetous of the flatteries they receive, as a miser is of gold. No matter how unclean the vessel from which the incense rises; no matter what base alloy may mingle with the precious metal. Have you ever encountered one of those spoiled favorites in the thronged street, and tried to arrest the attention for a moment; to fix the eye that was roving for every tributary glance? If you have, you will understand without my describing it, the distrait manner with which the belle received my first compliments. Even this was not long accorded me, for a better accredited and more zealous admirer than myself appearing, she left me to my meditations, which were not rendered the more agreeable by my overhearing an old lady say, in a voice, which, though slightly depressed, she evidently made no effort to subdue to an inaudible key, “I wonder what possessed Robert Ellison to bring that French portrait painter here! How the world has changed since the Revolution! There is no longer any house where you don’t meet mixed society.” My friend had approached in time to overhear her as well as myself. “The ignorant old fool!” he exclaimed, “shall I tell her that artists are the nobility of every country?”
‘“No,” said I, “do not waste your rhetoric; there is no enlightening the ignorance of stupidity; a black substance will not reflect even the sun’s rays.”
‘Ellison then proposed that I should join a party at whist; but I complained of the heated air of the drawingroom, and, availing myself of an insignificance, I fol-
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lowed the bent of my inclinations, a privilege the humble should not undervalue, and sauntered abroad. The evening was beautiful enough to have soothed a misanthrope, or warmed the heart of a stoic. Its peace, its salutary, sacred voice restored me to myself, and I was ashamed that ‘my tranquility had been disturbed. I contemned the folly of the artificial distinctions of life, and felt quite indifferent to them—when alone.
‘The ground in front of my friend’s house slopes to the Hudson, and is still embellished with trees of the majestic native growth. Where nature has left anything to be supplied by art, walks have been arranged and planted; but carefully, so as not to impede the view of the river, which was now in perfect repose. A sloop lay in the channel, its sails all furled, idly floating on the slumbering surface. While I was wishing my friend were with me, for I am too much of a Frenchman to relish fully even nature, the favorite companion of sentimentalists, in solitude, I saw a boat put off from the little vessel, and row slowly towards the shore. Presently a sweet female voice swelled on the stillness of the night, accompanied by the notes of a guitar, struck by a practised hand. Could any young man’s mercury resist moonlight and such music? Mine could not, and I very soon left behind me all of terra firma that intervened between me and the siren, and ensconced myself in a deeply shaded nook at the very water’s edge, where I could see and hear without being observed. The boat approached the spot where I stood, and was moored at half a dozen yards from my feet; but as my figure was in shadow, and sheltered by a thick copse of hazel bushes, I was perfectly concealed, while, by a flood of moonbeams, that poured on my unsuspicious neighbours, I saw them as plainly as if it were daylight. These were two men, whom I soon ascertained to be the captain
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of the sloop and an attendant, and that they were going to a farm house in the neighbourhood for eggs, milk, &c. The two females were to remain in the boat till their return. The lady of the guitar was inclined to go with them as far as the oak wood on the brow of the hill; but the captain persuaded her to remain in the boat, by telling her there was a formidable dog on the place, which she might encounter. As soon as the captain was gone, her companion, an elderly, staid looking country woman, said to her, “Now, child, as I came here for your pleasure, you must sing for mine. None of your newfangled fancies, but good Old Robin Grey.”
‘“Oh, Robin Grey is a doleful ditty; but anything to reward you for indulging me in coming on shore.”
‘She then sung that touching ballad. The English, certainly the Scotch, excel us as much in the pathos of unembellished nature and truth, as we do them in all literary refinement, ingenuity, and grace. I know not how much of the tribute that gushed from my heart was paid to the poetry and music, and how much to the beautiful organ by which they were expressed, for the fair musician looked herself like one of the bright creations of poetry. I would describe her, but description is cold and quite inadequate to convey an idea of her, and of the scene with which she harmonized. It was one of nature’s sweetest accords; the balmy air, the cloudless sky, the river, reflecting like a spotless mirror the blue arch, the moon and her bright train; my enchantress, the embodied spirit of the evening, and her music the voice of nature. I might have forgotten that I was in human mould, but I had one effectual curb to my imagination; one mortal annoyance. Argus, confound him! had followed me from the house, and it was only by dint of continued coaxing and caressing that I could keep him quiet. Before the ballad was
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finished, however, he was soothed by its monotonous sadness, and crouching at my feet, he fell asleep, I believe. I forgot him. Suddenly “the dainty spirit” changed from the low breathings of melancholy to a gay French air – the very air, Berville, that Claudine, in her mirthful moments, used to sing to us. The transition was so abrupt that it seemed as if the wing of joy had swept over the strings of her instrument. I started forth from my concealment. That was not all. Argus sprang out, too, and barking furiously, bounded towards the boat. The old woman screamed, “There is the dog!” and the young lady, not less terrified. Dropped her guitar, and, unhooking the boat, she seized an oar and pushed it off without listening to my apologies and assurances. In her agitation she dropped the oar, and her companion, still more tremulous than herself, in her attempt to regain it, lost the other, which she had instinctively grasped. As soon as the first impulse imparted to the boat was expended, it scarcely moved at all, and I had leisure to explain my sudden appearance and to say that my dog, far from being the formidable animal they imagined, was a harmless spaniel, who should immediately make all the amends in his power for the terror he had caused. I then directed him to the floating oars. He plunged into the water and brought them to me, but he either did not, or would not understand my wish that he should convey them to the boat, which, though very slowly, was evidently receding from the shore. I then, without farther hesitation, threw off my coat, swam to the boat, and receiving there the oars from Argus’s mouth, I soon reconducted the boat to its haven. There was something enchanting to me in the frankness with which my fair musician expressed her pleasure at the homage I had involuntarily paid to her art, and the grace with which she re-
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ceived the slight service I rendered her. Perhaps I felt it the more for the mortifying experience of the day. I do not care very nicely to analyze my feelings, not to ascertain how much there was of restored self complacency in the delicious excitement of that hour.’
‘The elderly lady, for lady she must needs be since my fair incognita called her mother, expressed a matronly solicitude about the effect of my wet garments, but I assured her that I apprehended no inconvenience from them, and I begged to be allowed to remain at my station till the return of their attendants. The circumstances of out introduction had been such as to dissipate all ceremony. Indeed, this characteristic of English manners would have as ill fitted the trustful, ingenuous, and gay disposition of my new acquaintance, as a coat of mail her light, graceful person. She sung, at my request, our popular opera airs, with more effect, because with far more feeling, than our best professed artists. She talked of music, and of the poetry of nature, with genius and taste; and she listened with that eager and pleased attention, which is the second best gift of conversation. I should have taken no note of the passage of time but for the fidgeting of the old lady, who often interrupted us with expressions of her concern at the captain’s delay, for which he, quite too soon, appeared to render an account himself. As I was compelled to take my leave, I asked my fair unknown if I might not be allowed to think of her by some more accurate designation than the “Lady of the Guitar.”
‘”My name is”—she replied promptly, and then, after a moment’s hesitation, added, “No—pardon me, your romantic designation better suits the adventure of the night.” I was vexed at my disappointment, but she chased away the shade of displeasure by the graceful playfulness with which she kissed her hand to me as the
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boat pushed off. I lingered on the shore till she had reached the vessel, and then slowly retraced my steps towards the house. I was startled by meeting my friend, for my mind was so absorbed that I had not heard his approaching footstep. “Ah!” he exclaimed, ‘is this your philosophy? turned misanthrope at the first frown from the world?”
‘”My philosophy,” I replied, “has neither been vanquished, nor has it conquered, for I had forgotten all its trials.”
‘My friend evidently believed, notwithstanding my disclaimer, that my vanity required some indemnity for the humiliations it had sustained, and he repeated to me some assuaging compliments from his father, “But,” he concluded, “tell me, have you really turned sentimentalist, and been holding high converse with the stars?”
‘With a most brilliant star,’ I replied, and related my adventure.
‘Ellison’s curiosity was excited, and he proposed we should take our flutes, go out in the barge, and serenade the “Lady of the Guitar.” I, of course, assented, and the next half hour found us floating around the little vessel like humble satellites. We played an accompaniment and sung alternately, he in English, and I in French; but there was no token given that the offered incense was accepted; no salutation, save a coarse one from the captain, who invited us to go “on board and take some grog.” We of course declined his professional courtesy. “Then, for the Lord’s sake, lads,” he said, “stop your piping, and give us a good birth. Sleep, at this time o’ night, is better music than the jolliest tune that ever was played.”
‘Thus dismissed, and discomfited by the lady’s neglect, we resumed our oars and were preparing to return to the shore, when the cabin window was gently rais-
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ed, and our fair incognita sung a sweet little French air, beginning “Adieu, adieu ! ” We remained, sound, motion, almost breath suspended till the song was finished.’
“So sweetly she bids us adieu,
I think that she bids us return,”
said my friend, and we instantly rowed our boat towards the stern of the vessel. At this moment the sash was suddenly dropped, and taking this for a definitive “Good night,” we retired.
‘Now, dear Berville, I have faithfully related the adventures of my masquerade—my boyish pastime, you may call it. Be it so. This day has been worth a year of care and dignity. I shall return to New York in a few days. Till then farewell. Yours,
CONSTANT.’
But though M. Constant professed himself satisfied with his day, there was a lurking disquietude at his heart. He had written to assure himself there was nothing there he dare not express, and yet he had concluded without one alluding to the cause of his self-reproach. He had folded the letter, but he opened it, and added ;—
‘P. S. I did not describe to you my friend’s vexation that the responded song was in French. “Ah!” said he, “I see there is no chance for such poor devils as I, so long as you are neither married nor betrothed.”’
He again closed the letter, and was for a moment satisfied that there could be nothing in the nature of that which he had so frankly communicated that required concealment. He walked to the window and eyed the little vessel as a miser looks at the casket that contains
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his treasure ; then starting from his reverie, he took from his bosom a miniature, and contemplated it steadfastly for a few moments; ‘It is my conscience that reproaches me,’ he said, ‘and not this serene, benign countenance. O Emma ! thou art equally incapable of inflicting and resenting wrong, and shall thy trust and gentleness be returned by even a transient treachery ? Am I so sure of faithfully keeping the citadel that I may parley with an enemy? ’
The result of this self-examination was a determination to burn the letter, and to dismiss forever from his mind the enchantress whose power had so swayed him from his loyalty. But though he turned from the window, resolutely closed the blind, and excluded the moonlight, which he fancied influenced his imagination as if he were a lunatic; though he went to bed and sunk into the oblivious sleep, the spirit was not laid. Imagination revelled in its triumph over the will. He was in France, in beautiful France—more beautiful now than in the visions of memory and affection. He was at his remembered haunts in his father’s grounds ; the ‘Lady of the Guitar’ was with him ; she sang his favorite songs ; he saw her sparkling glance, her glowing cheek, her rich, dark tints,
‘The embrowning of the fruit that tells
How rich within, the soul of sweetness dwells;’
He heard the innocent childlike laugh, that,
—‘without any control,
Save the sweet one of gracefulness rung from her soul.’
Then there was interposed between him and this embodied spirit of his joyous clime a slowly moving figure; a cold, fail, pensive countenance, that had more of sorrow than resentment, but still, though its reproach was gentle, it was the reproach of the stern spectre of con-
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science. He cast down his eyes, and they fell in the word ‘BETROTHED,’ traced in the sand at his feet. The ‘Lady of the Guitar’ was gaily advancing towards him. Another step and her flowing mantle would have swept over the word, and effaced it forever. He raised his hand to deprecate her approach, and awoke ; and while the visions of sleep still confusedly mingled with the recollections and resolutions of the preceding day, he was up and at the window ; had thrown open the blind and ascertained that the vessel still lay becalmed in the stream. That virtue is certainly to be envied, that does not need to be shielded and fortified by opportunity and circumstance. If the vessel had disappeared, the recollections of the evening might have been as evanescent and ineffectual as the dreams of the night; but there it was, in fine relief, and as motionless as if it were encased in the blue waters. In spite of M. Constant’s excellent resolutions, he lingered at the window, and returned there as if he were spellbound. Strange power that could rivet his eyes to an ill shapen little Dutch skipper! But that body did contain a spirit, and that spirit, seemingly as perturbed as his own, soon appeared, moving with a light step to and fro on the deck.
The apartment M. Constant occupied, was furnished, among other luxuries, with a fine spyglass. To resist using this facility for closer communion was impossible; and by its aid he could perceive every motion of the ‘lady of his thoughts,’ almost the changes of her countenance. He saw she was gazing on the shore, and that she turned eagerly to her companion to point her attention to some object that had caught her eye, and at the same moment he perceived it was his friend, who was strolling on the shore. Ellison saw him too, and waved his handkerchief in salutation. M. Constant returned the greeting, threw down the glass, and with-
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drew from the window with a feeling of compunction at his indulgence, as if he had again heard that word betrothed spoken. Why is it that external agents have so much influence over the mysterious operations of conscience? Why is it that its energy so often sleeps while there is no witness to the wrong we commit? ‘Keep thy heart, for out of it are the issues of life.’
After breakfast, Ellison said to M. Constant, ‘I am afraid you find your masquerade dull. Let us beguile the morning by a visit your “Lady of the Guitar.” There is nothing lends such wings to time as a pretty girl. Our guests are a dull concern.’
‘A dull concern, when there is a beauty and a fortune among them!’
‘Yes, a sated belle is to me as disagreeable as a pampered child; as my grandmother’s little pet Rosy, whom I saw the other day, tossing away her sugar plums, and crying “’T is not sweet enough;” and as fortune, though I am neither a philosopher not a sentimentalist, I shall never take the temple of Hymen in my way to wealth; for of all speculations, a matrimonial speculation seems to me the most hazardous, and the most disgraceful. But we loiter. Will you pay your devoirs to our unknown?’
‘I believe not; I have letters to write this morning,’
‘To Emma? Pardon me—I do not mean to pry into your cabinet, but if the letters are to her they may be deferred. She is a dear good soul and will find twenty apologies for every fault you commit.’
‘If they are to her, such generosity should not be abused. No, I will not go. But on what pretext will you?’
‘Pretext indeed! does a pilgrim seek for a pretext to visit my Lady of Loretto, or the shrine of any other saint ? Here comes the gardener with a basket of fine fruit which I have ordered to be prepared, and of which
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I shall be the bearer to the sufferers pent in that dirty sloop this breathless August morning—from mere philanthropy you know. Commend me to Emma, ’ he added gaily; ‘I will bear witness for you that your enthusiasm for this unknown was a mere coup de la lune, and that when daylight appeared you were as loyal, and—as dull as a married man.’
Ellison’s raillery did not render the bitter pill of self-denial more palatable to M. Constant. He turned away without reply, but instead of returning to his apartment he obtained a gun, and inquiring the best direction to pursue in quest of game, he sauntered into a wooded defile that wound among the hills, and was so enclosed by them as not to afford even a glimpse of the river. Here he threw himself on the grass, took a blank leaf from his pocketbook and began a sonnet to constancy, but broke off in the middle; scribbled half a dozen odd lines from the different songs that had entranced him on the preceding evening; sketched a guitar, then rose, and still musing, pursued his way up the defile. The path he had taken led him around the base of an eminence to a rivulet that came frolicking down a hill now leaning and now loitering with the capricious humor of childhood. He traced it to its source, a clear fountain bubbling up from the earth at the foot of a high, precipitous rock. Clusters of purple and pink wild flowers hung from the clefts of the rock, wreathing its bare old front, and presenting a beautiful harmony in contrast, like infancy and old age. The rock and the sides of the fountain formed a little amphitheatre, enclosed and deeply shaded by the mountain ash, the aromatic hemlock and the lofty basswood. This sequestered retreat, with its fresh aspect and sweet exhalations, afforded a delicious refuge from the fierce heat and overpowering light of an August day. M. Constant
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was lingering to enjoy it when his ear caught the sound of distant and animated voices. He started, and for a moment thought himself cheated by the illusions of a distempered fancy ; but, as the sounds approached nearer, he was assured of their reality, and they affected him like the most painful discord, though they were produced by the sweet, clear, penetrating voice of the unknown and the hitherto welcome tones of his friend.
The impropriety of a young girl straying off into such a solitude with an acquaintance of an hour was obvious, but was perhaps more shocking to M. Constant than it would have been to a perfectly disinterested observer. It gave a dreadful jar to his preconceived notions, and contrasted, rudely enough, with the conduct of the preceding night, when the lady had, with such scrupulous delicacy, forborne to show herself on the deck of the sloop. As they drew nearer he thought there was something in the gay, familiar tones of Ellison, disgusting; and the laugh of the lady, which before had seemed the sweetest music of a youthful and innocent spirit, was now harsh and hoydenish. The strain of their conversation, too, for they were near enough to be heard distinctly, while the windings of the path prevented his being seen, though it was graceful chitchat enough, appeared to him trifling and flippant in the extreme. As they came still nearer he listened more intently, for he had a personal interest in the subject.
‘And so, my “Lady of the Guitar,”’ said Ellison, ‘you persist in preserving that scrap of paper, merely, I presume, as a specimen of the sister arts of design and poetry. You are sure those scratches are meant for a guitar, and not a jewsharp, and that the fragment is a sonnet and not a monody?’
‘Certainly it is a sonnet; the poet says so himself. See here—“Sonnet à la Constance.”’
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‘Well, it is certainly in the strain of a “lament.” My friend was in a strait ; what he would do he could not. Constancy is a very pretty theme for a boarding-school letter, but I am afraid the poor fellow will not find his inspiration in this tame virtue ?’
‘Ah ! these tame virtues, as you call them,’ replied the lady, ‘ are the salutary food of life, while your themes of inspiration are intoxicating draughts, violent and transient in their effects.’
‘A very sage lesson, and very well conned. Did your grandmother teach it to you ?’
‘No matter—I have got it by heart.’
‘O those moral New Englanders, they change all the poetry of life to wise saws. Thank heaven you have escaped from them in time to retain some portion of your mercurial nature. But now let me tell you, my sage young friend, that same paper may prove as dangerous where you are going as a match to a magazine. So let me advise you, either keep it quite to yourself, or give it to the winds.’
‘You talk riddles, Mr Ellison; but I will not be quizzed into believing this little castaway scrap of paper can be of any import.’
‘Let me label it for you then, if, as I see, it is to be filed among the precious stores of your pocketbook.’
There was a short pause when the lady, as M. Constant supposed, looking over Ellison’s superscription, read aloud, ‘Love’s Labor Lost,’ and then exclaimed, ‘Pshaw, Robert, how absurd !’ and tore off the offensive label, while he laughed at her vexation.
M. Constant felt that it would be very embarrassing for him to be discovered as a passive listener to this coversation. He had been chained to the spot by an interest that he would gladly not have felt, but which he could not suppress.
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Another turn would bring them directly before him. To delay longer without being seen was therefore impossible. As he put aside the rustling branches, he heard Ellison exclaim, “Ha! there are some startled quail ;’ but before his friend could take a more accurate observation, he had sprung around an angle of the rock, and was beyond sight and hearing.
The gentlemen met before dinner. M. Constant was walking on the piazza, apparently moody and little disposed to sympathize with Ellison’s extravagant expressions of admiration of the unknown, or of regret that the fresh breeze was now wafting the vessel and its precious cargo far away.
‘In the name of Heaven, Constant,’ he said, ‘what has so suddenly turned you to ice? Last night you seemed to think it necessary to invent—pardon me—allege some apology for your prompt sensibility, and you said it was not the beauty, the voice, the grace, or any of the obvious and sufficient charms of this young enchantress—that was your word—that fascinated you, but it was a resemblance to the glowing beauties of your own clime ; and now, if you had been born at the north pole and she at the equator, you could not manifest less affinity.’
‘There are certain principles,’ replied M. Constant, coldly, ‘that overcome natural affinities. I hope you have passed your morning agreeably.’
‘Agreeably ? Delightfully ! Our incognita is more beautiful than you describe her.’
‘Is she then still incognita to you?’ asked M. Constant with a penetrating glance.
‘Not exactly ; she favored me with her name.’
‘Her name ! what is it ?’
‘ Pardon me, I am under a prohibition not to tell.’
‘The lady certainly makes marked distinctions. She is as reserved towards others, as frank to you.’
‘She had her reasons.’
‘Doubtless; but what were they?’
‘Why, one was that I refused to tell her your name.’
‘And why did you that ?’
‘I had my reasons, too.’
M. Constant was vexed at the mystery his friend affected. H was annoyed, too, at his perfect self complacency and imperturbable good nature, and more than all, ashamed of his own irritability. He made an effort to overcome it, and to put himself on a level with Ellison. He succeeded so far in his efforts as to continue to talk of the lady with apparent nonchalance till he was summoned to dinner ; but though he tried every mode his ingenuity could devise, he could not draw from his friend the slightest allusion to the lady’s extraordinary visit to the shore, or any particular of their interview, which explained the perfect familiarity that seemed to exist between them ; and what made this mystery more inscrutable, was the tone of enthusiasm which Ellison maintained in speaking of the lady, and which no young man sincerely feels without a sentiment of respect.
In spite of M. Constant’s virtuous resolutions and efforts, the ‘Lady of the Guitar’ continued to occupy his imagination, and he determined to take the surest measures to dispel an influence which he had in vain resisted. As he parted from his friend at night, he announced his intention of taking his departure the following morning. After expressing his sincere regret, Ellison said, ‘You go immediately to town ?’
‘No, I go to Mr. Liston’s.’
‘Ah! Is it so ?’
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‘Even so. Ellison ; but no more till we meet again. I have supported my masquerade with little spirit ; but do not betray me, and we, neither of us, shall lose reputation.’
M. Constant had for a long time been on terms of intimacy and friendship with Miss Liston. This lady belonged to one of the most distinguished families in our country. She was agreeable in her person, had a fund of good sense, was well informed and perfectly amiable. Such characters are admirable in the conduct of life, if not exciting to the imagination ; that precious faculty, which, like the element of fire, the most powerful and dangerous agent, may warm, or may consume us. Long and intimate friendship between unfettered persons of different sexes is very likely to terminate, as that of M. Constant and Miss Liston terminated, in an engagement.
He had a sentiment of deep and fixed affection for her, which, probably, no influence could have materially affected; but when that being crossed his path who seemed to him to realize the brightest visions of his youth, he felt a secret consciousness that the fidelity of his affection was endangered. The little mystery in which the unknown was shrouded, the very circumstance of calling her ‘the unknown,’ magnified the affair, as objects are enlarged, seen through a mist. He very wisely and prudently concluded that the surest way of dispelling all illusion, would be frankly to relate the particulars to Miss Liston, only reserving to himself certain feelings which would not be to her edification, and which he believed would be dispelled by participating their cause with her. Accordingly, at their first meeting he was meditating how he should get over the embarrassment of introducing the subject, when Miss Liston said, ‘I have a great pleasure in reserve for
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you,’ and left him without any farther explanation, and in a few moments returned, followed by a lady, and saying as she reentered, ‘Marie Angely, you and Constant, my best friends, must not meet as strangers.’ A half suppressed exclamation burst from the lips of both. All M. Constant’s habitual grace forsook him. He overturned Miss Liston’s workstand, workbox, and working paraphernalia, in advancing to make his bow. Miss Angely’s naturally high color was heightened to a painful excess; she made an effort to reciprocate the common courtesies of an introduction, but in vain; the words faltered on her lips, and after struggling a moment with opposing feelings, the truth and simplicity of her heart triumphed and turning to Miss Liston, she said, ‘Your friend, Emma, is the gentleman I met on the river.’
Miss Liston had been the confidant of all her romantic young friend’s impressions from her moonlight interview with the stranger, and it was now her turn to suffer a full share of the embarrassment of the other parties. She looked to M. Constant for an explanation. Never had he, in the whole course of his diplomatic career, been more puzzled; but after a moment’s hesitation he followed Miss Angely in the safe path of ingenuousness and truly told all the particulars of his late adventures, concluding with a goodhumored censure of his friend Ellison, who had long and intimately known Miss Angely, and who, to gratify his mischief loving temper, had contrived the mystery which led to the rather awkward d́énouement.
Thus these circumstances, which might have been woven into an intricate web of delicate embarrassment and romantic distress, that might have ended in the misery of one, perhaps of all parties, were divested of their interest and their danger by being promptly and frankly disclosed.
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Miss Angely, whom our readers have already recognised as the little girl of the inn, had met with Miss Liston at a boarding school in Boston, where, though Miss Liston was her elder by several years, they formed an enthusiastic, and rare in the annals of boarding schools, an enduring friendship. Marie Angely had faithfully discharged the debt of gratitude to Mrs Reynolds, and though acquiring, as may be supposed, somewhat of the fastidiousness that accompanies refined education and intercourse, no one could perceive any abatement of her respect or affection for her kind protectress, or the slightest diminution of her familiarity with her. She passed a part of every summer with her, always called her mother, and, by the fidelity of her kindness and the charm of her manner, she diffused light and warmth over the whole tract of Mrs Reynolds’s existence. She linked expectations, that might have been blasted, to a happy futurity, and cherished and elevated affections, which, but for her sunny influence, would have been left to wither and perish. Oh that the fortunate and happy could know how much they have in their gift!
Miss Angely had been on one of her annual visits to her humble friend, and was on her way, accompanied by her, to New York, where she was to join Miss Liston, when the incidents occurred which we have related.
There is nothing in the termination of our tale to indemnify the lover of romance for its previous dullness; but it is a true story, and its materials must be received from tradition, and not supplied by imagination.
M. Constant was, in the course of a few weeks, united to Miss Liston. This lady had long cherished a hope that her friend would be a permanent member of her family, and she used every art of affection to persuade her to remain with her at least so long as she should decline the suits of all the lovers who were now
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thronging around her, attracted by her beauty, or loveliness, or the eclat she derived from her intimacy with the wife of the ambassador. M. Constant did not very warmly second his wife’s entreaties. He perhaps had a poignant recollection of certan elective affinities, and his experience taught him the truth, if indeed he had not derived it from a higher source, that, in the present infirm condition of human virtue, it is always safest and best not voluntarily to ‘enter into temptation.’
Miss Angely returned to Boston. M. Constant’s union with Miss Liston was one of uninterrupted confidence and conjugal happiness; but it was not destined to be of long duration. His wife died in about a year after their marriage. Among her papers was found a letter addressed to her husband, written in expectation of the fatal issue of the event that had terminated her life, in which she earnestly recommended her friend as her successor. In due time her request was honored. M. Constant married Miss Angely. After residing for some time in America, they went to France, where she was received as an ornament to her noble family, and acknowledged to be, ‘the brightest jewel in its coronet.’
Far from the mean pride of those who shrink from recurring to the humble stages in their progress to the heights of fortune, Madame Constant delighted in relating the vicissitudes of her life, and dwelt particularly on that period, when, as Mrs Reynolds’s handmaid, she considered herself honored in standing behind the chair of the wife of the great General Knox.
‘The longest day comes to the vesper hour.’ Madame Constant closed at Paris a life of virtue, prosperity, and happiness, in July 1827.
_______________
*We would gladly have had it in our power to be exact in dates, as our story in good faith is true in all, even the least important particulars. Some few circumstances, and the ‘spoken words,’ had escaped tradition, and of course were necessarily supplied, as the proper statue receives a foot or finger from the ruder hand of modern art. The name of the heroine having been subsequently merged and forgotten in that of her husband, we have ventured to retain it. The rest we have respectfully veiled under assumed appellations.
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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Romance in Real Life
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Sedgwick, Catharine Maria. [By the Author of "Redwood."]
Source
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The Legendary, edited by Nathaniel Parker Willis, 118-61.
Publisher
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Boston: Samuel G. Goodrich
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1828 [pub. 1827]
Relation
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Reprinted in The Garland, pp. 198-264, Boston, 1839. Reprinted in The Diadem, New York: 1850. Collected in Tales and Sketches, By Miss Sedgwick, Author of "The Linwoods," "Hope Leslie," &c. &c. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea, and Blanchard, 1835, pp. 237-78.
Format
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Document
Language
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English
Contributor
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Esther Hagan, Savvy Myles, and Angelica Tijerino, with Dr. Jenifer Elmore (Palm Beach Atlantic University); and Julia Carey, Sean Godbout, Emily Kay, Isabella Lopresti, Diana Villanueva, Jake Lyons, with Dr. Lucinda Damon-Bach (Salem State University),
Subject
The topic of the resource
Historical fiction, Romance, French and American relations.
Description
An account of the resource
An historical romance in two parts, focusing first on the Boston childhood of orphan Marie Reynolds/Angely (implied to be the long-lost daughter of a fictionalized Hector St. Jean de Crèvecoeur), and subsequently on Marie's mysterious meeting with and eventual marriage to a US diplomat.
1777
1787
1827
1839
adoption
Alexander Pope
ambassador
An Essay on Man -Epistle IV
Anna Matilda
As You Like It
Auld Robin Gray
boarding school
Boston
Catskills
class
Comte de Mosloy
constancy
Count Louis-Guillaume Otto
courtship
Death
Della Crusco
disguise
Dogs
Elizabeth Livingston
engagement
France
French
Friendship
General Henry Knox
guitar
Hannah
Hannah Cowley
Hudson River
Huguenot
Hymen
I Samuel 1
inn
J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur
Jewsharp
Lady of Loretto
Le Misanthrope
letters
Letters from an American Farmer
Lisbon
locket
Lorenzo
Love
Love’s Labour Lost
marriage
Massachusetts
Michel Guillaume Jean de Crèvecœur
Moliére
Mothers
music
New York
nobility
Normandy
Orlando
Paris
portrait painter
Providence
Revolutionary War
Robert Livingston
Robert Merry
Romance
Samuel Daniel
Saxon
Shakespeare
shipwreck
sonnets
spy
Tales and Sketches (First Series)
Tauconnuc
The Complaint of Rosamund
The Garland
The Legendary
United States
Xantippes
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/4347/archive/files/6dbe76dacbcf79a6c57d3176adf0229f.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=M8nmU7VIApuqcykPEOMj3kxw6Hr0xe2A3cP4mrUIMNjmhEJZiYg5qMMg17Jfn2JRqL0RstCF2y%7Et5OdPjRbjsthxb%7Etqn6yjRfYd81xd1p5qB5DUTH8qrDQt7O9paOdUmg4xGUQpcZwO0HP-4uvB6HtUFPOs%7EqOOdERHZactBF2S0i1N8gO09y%7EoQ32htnQJZ66sn58HulomkuIRtIykQhikeZpv266BXSU37yXm2Mobzluv0eCO5QHPMNUXDT1VoZ0POAaQZ-kxL2iHJ4HBulk1OmO2rrxl%7EYHWEGCAsSzIXwQuOosLDL3RAH%7Evhg2e3QcOKfYnhz%7EbPq1vomfHvQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
dca14a578024dc81f86bcd1fd6da74c1
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
1839
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.
Second Thoughts Best.
By Miss Sedgwick.
“Grace, being the soul of your complexion, shall keep the body of it ever fair.” –Measure for Measure
It is a common saying, that no individual profits by another’s experience,—there are few, we believe, that profit by their own; few to whom may not be justly applied that striking saying of Coleridge that “experience is like the stern lights of a ship, which only illuminate the way that is passed.” But, of all the scholars I have ever known in this ever-open school of experience, my friend, Mrs. Dunbar, is the most unteachable. With a fair portion of intellect, with a quick observation, and fifty years’ acquaintance with the world, she is as trustful, as credulous, and as hopeful, as, when a child, she believed the rainbow was a rope, of substantial, woven light, with a golden cup at the end of it; that there was a real man standing in the moon, and that the sky would, one of these bright days, fall,
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and we should catch larks. Being of a benevolent and equable temperament, her credulity has the most happy manifestations. Her faith in her fellow-creatures is implicit, and her confidence in the happiness of the future unwavering; so that, however dark and heavy the clouds may be at any given moment, she believes they are on the point of breaking away.
I have known but a single exception to the general and pleasant current of my friend’s life. One anxiety and disappointment crossed her, which even her blessed alchymy could not gild or transmute. Her husband lost all his fortune; this was not the cross. Mrs. Dunbar said, she saw no reason why they should not take their turn on Fortune’s wheel; she did not doubt they should come up again, and, if they did not, why, her own private fortune was enough to secure them from dependence and want. Her husband had none of her philosophy, or, rather, happy temperament;—philosophy gets too much credit. He had an ambitious spirit, and his ambition had taken a direction very common in our cities; an aspiration after commercial reputation, and the wealth and magnificence that follow it. Mr. Dunbar had mounted to the very top rung of the ladder, when, alas, it fell! and his possessions and hopes were
[203]
prostrated. A fever seized him in the severest hour of disappointment, and the moral and physical pressure killed him. But this was not the cross. Mrs. Dunbar loved and honored her husband, without having any particular sympathy with him. He imparted none of his projects to her, and neither interfered with nor participated her quiet, every-day pursuits and pleasures; so that no harmonious partnership could be dissolved with less shock to the survivor. Mrs. Dunbar, beside the common-place solaces, on such occasions, such as, “We must all die,” “Heaven’s time is the best time,” had a particular and reasonable consolation in being relieved from the sight of unhappiness that she could not remove or mitigate. This was not selfishness, but the necessity of her nature, which resembled those plants that cannot live unless they have sunshine, and plenty of it.
Mrs. Dunbar had one son, Fletcher, a youth of rare promise, who was just seventeen at his father’s death. He most happily combined the character of his parents,—the aspiring and firm qualities of his father, and the bright spirit of his mother. His education had been most judiciously directed by his father; and his mother, without any system or plan whatever, had, by the sponta-
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neous action of her own character, most happily moulded his affections. At seventeen, Fletcher Dunbar seemed to me the perfection of a youth; with a boyish freshness and playfulness, and a manly grace, generosity, and courtesy. Much more attention than is usual in our country had been given to the adornments of education; but his father, who had all respect to the solid and practical, had taken care that the weightier matters were not sacrificed; and he had a prompt reward. So capable and worthy of trust was Fletcher at his father’s death, that the mercantile house in which he was clerk offered him, on advantageous terms, an agency for six years, in France and England. Mrs. Dunbar consented to his departure. But this parting of the widow from her only son, her only child, and such a child, was not the cross. “There was nothing like throwing a young man, who had his fortune to carve, on his own responsibilities,” she justly said. “Fletcher would get good, and not evil, wherever he went. She should hear from him by every packet, and six years would soon fly away.” And they did, and this brings me to the story of that drop, that diffused its bitterness through the cup of my friend till now had preserved sweet and sparkling.
The six years were gone; six years they had
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been to Fletcher, of health, prosperity, and virtue. I need say nothing more for a young man, who had been exposed to the temptations of London and Paris. The happy day and evening of his arrival had passed away. Uncles, aunts, and friends had thronged to welcome him, and gone to their homes, and Mrs. Dunbar was left alone with Fletcher and Ellen Fitzhugh.
I have said, that Mrs. Dunbar had but one child; but, if it be possible for the bonds of adoption to be as strong as those of nature, Mrs. Dunbar loved Ellen as well as if she had been born to her. This instance was enough to prove, that there may be the happiness of a maternal affection without the instincts of nature, or the feeling of property in the object, which more selfish natures than my friend’s require. Ellen was the child of a very dear friend of Mrs. Dunbar, who, from a goodly portion of nine daughters, surrendered this, the fairest and best, to what she then deemed a happier destiny than she could in any other way secure for her.
I do not believe Mrs. Dunbar could have told which she loved the best, Ellen Fitzhugh or her son; in truth, they were so blended in her mind that they made but one idea. When she saw Ellen, Fletcher was in her imagination; when she
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thought of Fletcher, Ellen was the present visible type through which her thoughts and affections went out to him.
Now he had returned; they were under the same roof;—Fletcher was three and twenty, with a handsome fortune to begin the world with; and Ellen was just eighteen, with
“a countenance, in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;
A creature not too bright or good
For human nature’s daily food;
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.”
Never was there a fitter original for this beautiful description of the poet, than Ellen Fitzhugh; and could there be any thing more natural that Mrs. Dunbar’s firm belief, that Fletcher would set right about weaving into an imperishable fabric of golden threads she had been spinning for him?
The first evening had passed away; the old family domestics had received from Fletcher’s hand some gift “far fetched,” and enriched with the odor of kind remembrance; and Mrs. Dunbar and the young couple lingered over the decaying embers, to talk over the thousand particulars that are omitted in the most minute correspond-
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ence. “Pray tell me, Fletcher,” asked Mrs. Dunbar, “who was that Bessie Elmore you spoke of so frequently in your last letters?”
“Bessie Elmore! Heaven bless her! She was the daughter of a lady who was excessively kind to me the last time I was in London. She bore a striking resemblance to Ellen, so I called her cousin,—a pretty title to shelter a flirtation;—I should inevitably have lost my heart, but for the presumption of asking her to give up her country.”
“Was she very like Ellen?”
“Excessively; her laugh, too, always recalled Ellen’s. She was a charming little creature!”
Ellen blushed slightly, and Mrs. Dunbar’s happy countenance smiled all over as she said, “Ellen is very English in her looks.”
“Yes, aunt, a ‘rosy, sturdy little person,’ as English Smith used to call me.”
“Not too sturdy, Ellen,” said Fletcher, “and not too little,—just as high as our hearts, mother, is she not?”
“She has always just filled mine,” replied the delighted mother, who had already jumped to the conclusion that the affair was as good as settled, and the wedding, and the happy years to follow, floated in rich visions before her. She ventured on one question she was anxious to have
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settled. “You have no occasion to go abroad again, Fletcher?”
“None. A happy home, in my own country, has long been my ‘castle in the air,’ and now, thank Heaven, I can give it a terrestrial foundation.”
“Ellen is not the person to relish this ‘taking for granted,’” thought Mrs. Dunbar; Fletcher should be more reserved.
Fletcher soon turned the current of her apprehensions. “Pray,” he asked, “what is the reason, Ellen, that you and my mother have so seldom mentioned Matilda Preston in your letters of late?”
“We have seen much less of her than usual the winter past. Matilda cannot
‘To a party give up what was meant for mankind.’
I suppose you know she has been a ‘bright and particular star’ this winter,—a belle?”
“Has she? I am sorry for it!”
“So is not Matilda. She enjoys her undisputed reign. She has, to those she chooses to please, captivating manners, and you know she is talented. The beaux, of a score of years standing, declare there has been nothing like her in their time. She is beset with admirers and lover. She says she is obliged, when she goes
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to a ball, to keep an ivory tablet under her belt, with a list of her partners. Some wag pasted up on Carroll Place, where the Prestons live, ‘Apollo’s Court,’ on account of the perpetual serenades there. Poor Rupert Selden told me, he has thrown away half a year’s commissions on bouquets and serenades to her, which, in his own romantic phrase, had ‘ended in smoke.’ She is said to be engaged.”
“Engaged!” Fletcher bit his nails for two or three minutes in deep abstraction, and then added, “To whom is she engaged?”
“Pray don’t look so distressed, cousin; I only reported it as an on dit,—I forgot your flame for Matilda.”
“Pshaw, Ellen! but who is the person?”
“The preeminent person at the present moment is Ned Garston.”
“Ned Garston! a monkey, --impossible!”
“Oh, he is much improved by foreign travel, and, if still a monkey, a romantic monkey, a monkey en beau. He has put himself into the hands of some Parisian master of the science of transforming the deformed, and has come forth the tableau vivant, copied after a famous picture of some Troubadour in the Louvre.”
“What do you mean, Ellen?”
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“I mean, that Ned Garston’s very pretty, black hair hangs in hyacinthine curls over the collar of his coat,—that he wears tresses, like a girl’s, on each side of his face, and mustachios and whiskers that would befit a grand Sultan. The girls call him ‘the Sublime Porte.’”
“And is it possible that Matilda Preston, that gifted, beautiful creature, is going to throw herself away upon this Jackanapes?”
“How wildly you talk, Fletcher!” interposed his mother, “you have not seen Matilda Preston since she was a mere child.”
“But a rare child, my dear mother; Matilda Preston, at thirteen, was a fit model for sculpture and painting. She moved like a goddess, and her faculties were worthy such a form. Lord bless me, what a sacrifice!—is it a sacrifice to Mammon, Ellen?”
“Do not insist that the sacrifice is certain,”—
“I have no doubt it is his fortune,” said Mrs. Dunbar, for the first time, I believe, in her life, turning a scale against an absent person that might have been struck in her favor, “that is to say, fortune and style. Garston has the most showy equipage in the city, and his family, you know, are all in the first fashion.”
“The fashion would have more influence with
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Matilda than fortune, I suspect. You know, aunt, she refused Stanhope Gilmore, who is very rich, and very clever into the bargain.”
“But you remember, Ellen, she told us her father would never have consented to her marrying a loco-foco.”
“Loco-foco! what the mischief is that, mother?”
“Why——the lowest of people—an agrarian, you know—a Tory.”
“What does my mother mean, Ellen? I never heard such a confusing combination of terms.”
“You surely know what we mean by Whigs and Tories?”
“Not I.”
“Do you never read our newspapers?”
“Very seldom,—never the party papers. An American abroad is ashamed of the petty wrangling, virulence, and vulgarity of our political papers. We care only for the honor and prosperity of the country at large. We love our countrymen, by whatever name they are called, and it makes us heart-sick to take up one of our popular journals and see it proclaimed, that ‘a crisis is at hand!’—that ‘the country is on the brink of ruin!’—that ‘the constitution is in jeopardy!’ and can only be saved by a doubtful ma-
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jority, rallying with all their strength against a corrupt faction, about to prostrate the liberties of the country! The only way to keep your temper is never to look into a newspaper. But, pray, can you tell me what are these loco-foco Tories?”
Poor Mrs. Dunbar never disturbed the serene heaven of her mind with politics. She received a very vague impression from the persons she associated with, and in accordance with this impression, she now replied, “I don’t know precisely,—I remember my father talking about the Tories in Revolutionary days being the enemies of their country, and I suppose it is just the same now.”
Mrs. Dunbar answered in good faith. The changes of the last sixty years, the new formations, and the remodellings; the old parties with new names, and the new parties with old names, still existed in her mind as the ideas had originally entered it, as banded Whigs and Tories. Fletcher laughed at her reply and said, “I see, my dear mother, you are just where I left you. The loco-focos, I take it for granted, Ellen, are the administration party.”
“Yes.”
“And Stanhope Gilmore, sprung from the most aristocratic family in the State, is a loco-foco?
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and Matilda Preston’s father, of a purely democratic origin belongs to the aristocratic party?”
“Just so.”
“Well, thank Heaven, our party associations may make a great uproar, but they can never have the element of danger while they are so unstable and accidental!”
A ring at the door, and the entrance of a note “To Miss Fitzhugh,” cut the thread of Fletcher’s generalizations. He cast his eye on the note, and exclaimed, “That I am sure is from Matilda Preston, though I have not seen her writing for six years. If there is nothing private in it will you allow me to look at it, Ellen?”
“Certainly, there is nothing private, only such a strange proposition!”
“Read it aloud, please, Fletcher,” said Mrs. Dunbar; and Fletcher read as follows:
“Dearest Ellen,
“You are engaged to go to Mrs. Reeves’s costume-ball to morrow evening. Some tiresome people have been persuading me to appear as Rebecca. Now I am well aware, that, in the article of beauty, I am not fitted to impersonate the lovely Jewess, but I am half inclined to try it, because I can so well arrange a dress for the
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character. Mamma has a remnant of a last century’s dress, a bright yellow India silk, embroidered with silver, that, with my ostrich feather and agrafe, will do admirably for the turban. I do not quite comprehend Rebecca’s simarre, but I think the bodice of my brocade will do as substitute.
“My note was interrupted by a visit from Madame Salasuar. She offers me her diamonds,—à bas pride, I’ll wear them. They are essential to give the Eastern character of magnificence. Then, you know my ‘sable tresses,’ my ‘aquiline nose,’ my ‘dark complexion,’ and my ‘Oriental eyes,’ as De Ville will call them, will all work in as accessories, to give a vraisemblance to the tableau vivant.
“Now, my sweetest Ellen, I cannot appear as the Jewess, unless you accompany me as the Lady Rowena. Pray,—pray do not refuse me, why should you?
“Perhaps you think ‘l’obscurité convient aux femmes’; — my dear, it will come soon enough when there are kitchens and nurseries for us to supervise,—let us buzz a little while in the sunshine first.
“Do you know a possible Ivanhoe among the invited? I do not. My acquaintances are all
[215]
party-going, unknightly gentry enough. Garston proposes to appear as Brian de Bois-Guilbert!!! The perverse winds and waves! if they had but sent us Fletcher Dunbar!” (Here the reader blushed, smiled, and hesitated. “Read on, my son,” said his mother impatiently, and on he stammered.) “A Palmer’s dress, in which you know Ivanhoe first appears, would have been just the thing for Fletcher’s advent from foreign land, though the uprooted oak, the device of his shield at the tourney, and the motto, Desdichado, (Disinherited,)” would have ill fitted dear Mrs. Dunbar’s heir-apparent. It is so intolerably provoking that he has not arrived, when he is probably within two days’ sail of us. He is so clever and with such a born-hero look! Perhaps, after all, he might be cross and refuse; so let us be philosophers, and do as well as we can without him. You, dearest Ellen, will not refuse me? You will be the ‘Queen of Love and Beauty’; I only the poor Jewess, who, you remember, the Prior of Jorvaulx swore was far inferior to the lovely Saxon Rowena.”
“Is Matilda Preston out of her head?” exclaimed Mrs. Dunbar. “A fitting character for you, truly, Ellen, that pompous, cold, disagreea-
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ble, insipid Rowena. Don’t think of it, my dear child.”
“I shall not think of it for other reasons, aunt. I cannot conceive of any thing more absurd than for me to personate a beauty,—a tall beauty, too! born ‘to the exercise of habitual superiority, and the reception of general homage.’”
“I see no objection in that, my dear child. There are not half a dozen readers of Ivanhoe, who remember whether Rowena was tall or short; and as to beauty, that is, as to what is really engaging and captivating, I am sure”——
“Pray, dear aunt,”——
“The servant is waiting for an answer,” said Mrs. Dunbar’s maid.
“He shall have it instantly,” replied Ellen, taking up her pen.
“Stop one moment, my dear cousin,” said Fletcher, laying his hand on hers; “if it is not too disagreeable to you, say Yes. I should particularly like surprising Matilda, and joining you at this ball in the way she proposes. I do not see, that, in merely dressing in costume for Rowena, and calling yourself that name, you arrogate yourself beauty, and queenship, and all that. Where you make one of a group, the resemblance is a matter of inferior consequence.
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Matilda’s Jewess will be so striking, that she will shelter all our imperfections.”
Ellen still hesitated, and looked perplexed, and Fletcher added, “I see it annoys you, — it is a sacrifice of your prepossessions, — write the note as you at first intended.”
The word sacrifice seemed to Ellen to set her reluctance in a ridiculous light, and she felt ashamed of having hesitated, at this moment of Fletcher’s return, to acceded to a request that involved pleasure to him. “I will write it as I should have intended, if I had not been more thoughtful of myself then of others’ pleasure. You must make up your mind, aunt, to my doing the Lady Rowena too much honor! Shall I tell Matilda I can find an Ivanhoe, and that we will meet her at Mrs. Reeve’s at ten?
“Thank you, Ellen, — yes, — but pray don’t give a hint of my arrival; let us see, what was the Palmer’s dress, — do you remember, mother?”
Mrs. Dunbar did not; but, believing and hoping in her heart it would be something so unsuitable as to induce Fletcher to abandon the project, she eagerly sought the first volume of Ivanhoe on the book-shelf, and gave it to him. Fletcher opened at the entrance of the Palmer into Roth-
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erwood. “ ‘A mantle of coarse, black serge,’” he read aloud, “admirable! that is easily got up, and can be easily thrown aside. ‘Coarse sandals bound with thongs on his bare feet.’ By your leave, Sir Palmer, I shall not meddle with those. ‘A broad and shadowy hat, with cockle-shells stitched on its brim.’ Excellent! ‘A long staff shod with iron, to the upper end of which was attached a branch of palm.’ As we are not to tramp to Holy Land, we will omit the shoeing. The branch of palm is the grand point. That can be got from my old friend Thorburn.”
“And what is Ellen’s dress to be?” asked Mrs. Dunbar, — “I hope that will not be forgotten.”
“My dear mother, forgive me, —Ellen was busy with her note, —finished and sent is it! –you always execute while others are planning, Ellen. Ah, here is the description; ‘Hair betwixt brown and flaxen,’ — yours has a touch of the auburn, — the Saxon red.”
“Red!” interposed Mrs. Dunbar, “Ellen’s hair red! It has a true golden tinge.”
“Red gold, mother.”
“At any rate, Fletcher, it is not red, flaxen, or brown; I might have remembered Rowena’s hair was flaxen, — everything about her was unmeaning.”
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“ ‘Her hair,’ ” proceeded Fletcher, “ ‘was braided with gems.’ ”
“Le Fleur will manage all that,” said Mrs. Dunbar, “with my set of pearl.” She began to feel a little womanly interest in the getting up of the dress.
“‘A golden chain,’ ” proceeded Fletcher, “‘to which was attached a small reliquary of the same metal hung round her neck.’ That, my dear cousin, you must allow me to manage, that is, if a cross will do in place of a reliquary, and, as they are both symbols of the same religion, I do not see why it will not.” He unlocked a very beautiful dressing-case, which he now told Ellen he had brought for her, and took from it a rich gold chain, with an exquisitely wrought cross attached to it. “I brought this prophetically,” he said, clasping it round Ellen’s neck.
“Would the chain, and not the cross, had been prophetic!” thought Mrs. Dunbar, and she heaved a deep sigh.
“The memory of affection is always prophetic, Fletcher,” said Ellen; “it links the memory of past to future kindness.”
“What, my dear?” asked Mrs. Dunbar; “I don’t clearly understand you.”
The chain and the cross were too suggestive
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to Ellen’s mind to admit of any very clear explanation. Fletcher’s quick eye perceived her embarrassment, and imputing it to the awkwardness that very commonly attends receiving a gift, he went on with the book. “ ‘Her dress was an under gown and kirtle of pale green silk.’ ”
“Your new gown is the very thing, Ellen,” interrupted Mrs. Dunbar; “how fortunate! green, your own color.”
“Ellen’s color the emblem of desertion! mother?”
“No, no indeed, Fletcher; no one who has ever loved Ellen could forsake her.”
Fletcher, all unconscious of the feeling that was bubbling up from his mother’s heart, coolly proceeded in his trying process. “Here is a stumbling-block! ‘The Lady Rowena wore a long, loose crimson robe, manufactured of the finest wool, which reached to the ground.’ ”
“A stumbling-block? By no means, Fletcher; Amande can convert my India shawl into such a robe without the least injury to it, and I’ll answer for it the Lady Rowena’s mantle was dowlas to that. Is there any thing else?”
“ ‘A veil of silk interwoven with gold.’ ”
“My Brussels lace will be just the thing; it is magnificent, and will shelter without concealing.”
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At another time Ellen’s right joyous spirit would have found merriment enough in the project of arraying her little, unobtrusive person in a crimson robe, flowing to the ground, and at the simplicity of good Mrs. Dunbar, in supposing she could carry off any thing “magnificent.” She had another kind of veil to wear, for the first time in her life, to conceal her feelings, and to assume cheerfulness she did not feel.
Mrs. Dunbar retired for the night. Ellen, after despatching some trifling home affairs, was following her, when Fletcher, who had been leaning abstractedly on his elbow, said, “Ellen, do not go; I have something to say to you.” Ellen turned with a beating and foreboding heart. “Tell me, Ellen, honestly, is it your belief that Matilda Preston is engaged to Garston?”
“I do not believe she is.”
“Why are you in such haste? Sit down, — there, thank you; but do not look as if I had murder to confess, — I have only to tell you the weakness and the strength of my heart. You know, my dear Ellen, — cousin, — sister, I should rather call you, for, without any tie of blood, no sister was ever dearer, there is no one but you to whom I can communicate my feelings, projects, and hopes, —from whom I can take coun-
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sel. To begin, then when I left America you and Matilda Preston were very intimate. I do not find you so much so now; what is the cause of this alienation?”
“There is no alienation, Fletcher; we are intimate still.”
“Affectionately intimate?”
“Matilda is very kind, — very affectionate to me.”
“And you not so to her? I am sure you never repelled affection with coldness. There must be some reason for this. My mother, too, seems to have a prejudice against Matilda; pray be frank with me, Ellen.”
Frankness was Ellen’s nature. She was one of the few beings in this world, who are thoroughly and habitually, by nature and by grace, true. For the first time a cloud had passed over her clear spirit. She began to speak, faltered, began again, and finally said; “It may be more mine than Matilda’s fault, that we are less intimate than formerly. Our circumstances, our tastes are different. I think Matilda is much what she was when you left us, — that is, — that is, allowing for the difference between a school-girl and a belle, Fletcher.”
“A belle! — how I hate the term. But how
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could it be otherwise in a city atmosphere, with Matilda’s beauty, talents, and accomplishments? I see she is not quite to your taste, Ellen; I am sorry for it, but this is better than I feared. Now for my confession is brief. When I left you, I was a reserved boy. Neither you, nor my mother, probably, ever suspected my predilection, but for two years I had been desperately in love with Matilda Preston. I believed she loved me. We exchanged many a love-token, many a promise. It is true she was a mere child, I a mere boy; but there are such childish loves on record, Ellen. The germ of the fruit is in the unfolding bud. It may, after all, have been, on her part, a littler innocent foolery, forgotten long ago; but, if so, I was coxcomb enough to take it all in dead earnest. Through my six years of absence I have cherished, lived upon, these remembrances. All my projects, all my successes have blended with the thought of Matilda; and, blessed by Heaven in my enterprises, I have now come home determined to throw myself at her feet, if I find her what memory and a lover’s faith have painted her.” Fletcher fixed his eye on Ellen. Hers fell. “Will you not, — can you not, Ellen, give me a ‘God speed’?”
The flush on Ellen’s cheek faded to a deadly
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paleness. After a moment’s hesitation, she summoned her resolution; and, raising her eye to meet Fletcher’s, replied, with a tolerably steady voice, “do not ask a ‘God speed’ of me now Fletcher; — wait till you have seen Matilda, and studied her character, as you to study that on which the happiness of your life is to depend; and then, if your ripened judgment confirms your youthful preference, you shall have my” — “God speed,” she would have said but her honest tongue refused to utter the word to which her heart did not answer, and adding, “my earnest wishes, — my prayers,” she burst into irrepressible tears, and, horror-struck at what she feared was a betrayal of her true feelings she fled, without even a “good night,” to her own apartment.
The truth did once flash across Fletcher’s mind. “It is a phenomenon to see Ellen in tears, save at some touching tale or known grief,” he thought; “Ellen, with her ever bright buoyant spirit, — her ‘obedient passions, will resigned.’ Has my dear, imprudent mother, with her equal fondness for us both, been kindling a spark of tenderness in Ellen’s heart?” The thought was no sooner conceived than rejected. There was no latent vanity in Fletcher’s mind to please itself with cherishing it. It was happily improbable,
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and it soon gave place to thick-coming and most pleasant fancies. But one cloud hovered over them, — Mrs. Dunbar’s and Ellen’s all too evident distrust of Matilda. “I will ‘study her character,’ and abide by the decision of my ‘ripened judgment,’ ” resolved Fletcher. Alas for the judgment of a young man of three and twenty as to talented beauty of nineteen with the desperate make-weight against it of a long-cherished love!
When love takes possession of a mind perfectly sane in other respects, it acts like a monomania. This one idea has on independent existences, a complete ascendency, and absolute rule. The faculties of perception, comparison, judgment, have no power to modify, — the will no control over it. An angel, surely, should keep
“Strict change and watch, that —
No evil thing approach or enter in”
the paradise of the affections.
The trials of the evening were not over for Ellen. It was her invariable custom to undress in Mrs. Dunbar’s apartment, and to have a little gossip over the interests of the closing day, and the anticipations of the leaf of life next to be turned, before they parted for the night. This is the
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hour, that, of all others, unlocks the treasures of the heart. Memory pours out her hoarded stores and young hope shows, by her magic lantern, her visions of the future.
Ellen had often sat with her loving friend over the dying embers, reading and re-reading the passages in Fletcher’s letters, where he dwelt on the fond remembrance of home. Every mention of Ellen, and the letters abounded with them, his mother repeated and repeated, and always with an emphasis and smile, that sometimes made Ellen’s blood tingle to her fingers’ ends. And yet, simple as a child, the good woman never dreamed that she was communicating her faith and hopes, and awakening feelings never to sleep again. This she knew, as a matter of principle and discretion, would not be right; and, while she never said to Ellen, in so many words, “My heart is set on your marrying Fletcher, and I am sure his is, even more than mine,” she did not suspect she was conveying this meaning in every look, word, and motion. And even now, when the pillars of her “castle in the air,” were tumbling about her head, she had no apprehension that Ellen would be crushed by them. They were to meet now for the first time, with the most painful feeling to loving and trusting friends, that
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their hearts must be hidden with impenetrable screens; but, such was the transparency of dear Mrs. Dunbar’s heart, that, put what she would before it, the disguise melted away is the clear light, — to tell the truth, Ellen’s was little better; her safety was in the dim sight of the eye to be eluded.
She washed away her tears, called up all the resolution she could master, and repaired to Mrs. Dunbar’s apartment, whom she hoped she might find by this time in bed, and get off with her “good-night kiss”; but, instead of this, she was pacing up and down the room, not a pin removed.
“Dear aunt, not in bed yet?”
“No, my dear child, — I did not feel like sleeping the first night, you know, of Fletcher’s being here; — it’s natural to have a good many wakeful thoughts of past times, and so forth.” While saying this she had turned her back, and was busying herself at the bureau, the tone of her voice, and the frequent use of her handkerchief, conveying the state of her feelings as precisely to Ellen, as her streaming eyes would, had she shown them.
“Now you are at the bureau, aunt, please to take out your crimson shawl,” said Ellen, luckily hitting on an external object to engage their
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attention. Mrs. Dunbar fumbled at the drawers long enough to give herself time to clear her voice and dry her eyes, and then, throwing the shawl in to Ellen’s lap, she said, “You are welcome to that, and every thing else I have in the world, God knows, my dear child; but I don’t wish you to go to Mrs. Reave’s to-morrow evening, — I don’t think you will enjoy yourself.”
“It’s no very rare thing, at a party, not to enjoy one’s self, aunt. I shall certainly have the pleasure of obliging Fletcher.”
“That’s true, Ellen; — but then it was not like him to ask you, when he saw it was so disagreeable to you. I don’t see why he should set his heart upon this foolish Ivanhoeing.”
“But you see why he does, aunt.” Ellen spoke with a smile, melancholy, in spite of her efforts.
“Yes, I do, I do!” cried Mrs. Dunbar, her tears gushing forth afresh; “I see that Fletcher has the most unexpected, incomprehensible, unreasonable, unfortunate, strange, dreadful, wonderful, and amazing interest in Matilda Preston. I had never so much as thought of it, — it’s insanity, Ellen, — he is as blind as a beetle.”
“It is a blindness, aunt, that is not likely to be cured by the presence of Matilda Preston.”
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“That’s just what I feel, Ellen. Men are always carried away with beauty. I thought Fletcher was an exception; but he is not, or he would tell the gold from the glittering.”
“But, aunt, you do Matilda and Fletcher injustice. She has fine qualities; and, if what you now expect should happen, you will look on Matilda with very different eyes.”
“Never, Ellen, never in the world, —she will always seem to stand between men and —I mean, — I mean, — I can’t tell you, Ellen, what I mean. But this I will say, come what will, no one can ever take your place to me, —you are the child of my heart, — you have grown up at my side — I can never love another daughter; — whomever you marry, Ellen, wherever you go, your home shall be my home.”
“No, no, aunt,” said Ellen, hiding her tearful face on the bosom of her faithful friend, “I shall never marry, — never.” And before Mrs. Dunbar could reply, she gave her good-night kiss and left the room.
“Is it possible she could have understood me?” exclaimed Mrs. Dunbar. After a little reflection she quieted her apprehensions with the thought that she had a hundred times before spoken just as plainly, and Ellen had not suspected what she meant. She was like the child, who, shutting his own eyes, fancies no one can see him.
When Ellen left Mrs. Dunbar’s room, she went mechanically down stairs to perform her last household duty, which was to see that the doors were secured. On the floor, at the street-door, she perceived a note; and, on taking it up, saw it was addressed to a Miss Little, Miss Preston’s dress-maker, who lived opposite the Dunbars’ dress-maker, who lived opposite the Dunbars’. It had been accidentally dropped by Miss Preston’s careless servant. It was unsealed, and Ellen, taking it for granted it related to something about the costume for the Reeves party, and that it might be important to have no delay in getting it into the hands of the artiste, rang the bell for the servant, intending to send it, though the hour was unseasonable. Diana, Mrs. Dunbar’s crippled old cook, called out from the kitchen stairs to Miss Ellen, that “Daniel had just gone up to bed.” Daniel, like his pagan mate, Diana, had lived out, and overstayed his lease of threescore and ten with kind Mrs. Dunbar; and Ellen, hesitating to call him down, ventured to open the note, to see if it were a matter of any importance. It contained only the following three lines:
“Pray, Miss Littell, if you have any dealings
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with Mrs. D.’s family, do not mention that you informed me of the arrival of her son.
“M. P —.”
“I thought so!” exclaimed Ellen, involuntarily. “What is it, Ellen? What did you think?”
asked Fletcher, who, unheard by her, had just come into the open door for something he had left behind.
“Oh, nothing, — nothing at all,” said she. He playfully attempted to wrest the note from her hand, till, seeing she anxiously retained it, he desisted, and she returned to her own apartment, where she breathed freely for the first time for many hours, and where she spent a long, sleepless night in expelling from her mind her shattered hopes, and forming her plans for the future.
“Ought I not,” she said, in her self-examination, “to have obeyed the first impulse of my heart, and when Fletcher appealed to me, to have told him frankly my opinion of Matilda.” After much meditation the response of her conscience was a full acquittal. She had done all that the circumstances of the case and her relations to the parties allowed, in withholding her ‘God speed’ till Fletcher’s ripened judgment should authorize his decision. She reflected, that Matilda’s char-
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acter had seemed to her to have the same radical faults six years before, that it had now, and that, in spite of them, Fletcher loved her then. Perhaps she judged those faults too strictly. Perhaps her judgment was tinged by her self-love; for she was conscious, that, in the points so offensive to her, she was constitutionally the opposite of Matilda Preston. She looked again at Matilda’s discrepant notes of that evening, and charitably allowed, that she had at first felt too much displeasure at what struck her as absolutely false, but what, after all, might be an innocent stratagem to get up a dramatic scene, and perhaps to shelter emotions at a first meeting with Fletcher. “But oh, Matilda, why always a stratagem? Why never let the appearance answer to the reality? Why never trust yourself to simple truth?” Because Matilda was afraid, that truth would not serve her so well as she could manage for herself. We have no doubt our friends, the Phrenologists, would, with a very fair intellectual development, have found a great predominance of the organs of self-esteem, love of approbation, and cautiousness on Matilda’s head. She had an intense love of admiration, not merely of her personal charms, for her preëminent beauty was settled by universal suffrage, and she
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had no anxiety about it; but she would be thought, in all the circle of her acquaintance, to be the most capable of disinterested friendship and of self-sacrificing love; her tastes were in favor of all the virtues, — she really wished to be amiable and excellent; but the virtues have their price, and they will not abate one jot or tittle; — that price is self-abasement, self-forgetfulness, and generosity. “Hard it is to climb their steeps;” and they can only be achieved by painful and persevering efforts. At the first real trial appearances vanish like vapor, — there is no cheating in the long run in the matter of goodness.
With all Matilda’s fine taste, with her susceptibility to opinion, and her eager desire of praise, she was no favorite. Her intense selfishness would penetrate all disguises, — her consciousness of herself was always apparent, — there was never a spontaneous action, word, or look. In all this she was the very opposite of Ellen, who, most strictly watchful of the inner world, let the outer take care of itself. This gave a freedom and simplicity to her manners, and a straightforwardness to all her dealings, that inspired confidence. Matilda, in the midst of her most brilliant career, had, whenever silent, an expres-
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sion of care and dissatisfaction, — a rigidity and contraction of the upper lip, (often criticized as the only imperfection of her beauty,) that betrayed the puerile anxieties in which she was involved, the web she was perpetually weaving or raveling. There is no such tell-tale as the human countenance, or rather, we should say (with more reverence) God has set his seal of truth upon it, and no artifice has ever yet obscured the Divine impression. Ellen Fitzhugh’s lovely face was the mirror of truth, cheerfulness, and affection.
“There is no use,” thought Ellen, as she pursued the meditations in which we left her, “in trying to conceal my feelings, — I cannot, — I never did in my life, — I must just set to work and overcome them. Dear Mrs. Dunbar, all those sweet fancies that you and I have been so busily weaving, the last six years, must be sacrificed at once and for ever; and I must just learn to think of Fletcher, as I did when a little girl,— as a dear, kind brother; — that should be, — it
shall be, enough.” This resolution was made with many showers of tears, and sanctified with many prayers, ejaculated from the depths of her heart; and, once made, she set about, with most characteristic promptness, contriving the means for carrying it into execution.
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“In the first place,” thought she, “I must have something extraordinary to occupy me, or I shall be constantly, and oh how painfully, watching Fletcher’s every look and action; in spite of myself, I shall be hoping and fearing. This must not be, for I know how it must all end! It occurred to her, that it was nearly as important to divert Mrs. Dunbar’s attention as her own, and a lucky thought came into her head. Mrs. Dunbar’s physician had been urging her, for some weeks, to have a little wen removed, that was growing in a dangerous neighbourhood to her eye. Mrs. Dunbar was timid and procrastinating; but, with Fletcher’s aid, Ellen felt sure of persuading her this was the very best time for the operation. Then she determined at once to put in execution a project she had conceived, of teaching a poor, young blind girl, a pensioner of Mrs. Dunbar’s, music. Ellen was an accomplished musician; and she certainly was not over sanguine in believing, that the prospect of qualifying a drooping, dependent creature to earn an independent existence, would make sunshine for some hours of every day.
With these, and other similar plans in her head, which were necessarily deferred till after the Reeves ball, Ellen appeared the next morn-
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ing with a light and strong heart, and a correspondent face, voice, and manner. Oh, if rightly put to the test, what unthought of powers there are in those who every day yield themselves the passive victims to uncontrollable circumstances;
“powers
That touch each other to the quick, in modes
Which the gross world no sense hath to perceive,
No soul to dream of.”
Ellen talked over with Fletcher, with real interest and unaffected cheerfulness, the arrangements for the evening. If she had put into action all of Talleyrand’s diplomacy, she could not so thoroughly have convinced him, that his surmise of the preceding evening was unwarranted. Half of Mrs. Dunbar’s griefs were removed by the conviction, that her favorite did not share them!
We could fill a volume with the details of the ball, and the circumstances of the following six weeks, and all the developments of character and feeling which came from them; but we must cut down our history to the dimensions of its Procrustes’ bed. We must say for our favorite Ellen, that, bating a few inches of stature, she did honor to the character she reluctantly assumed. Her usually sparkling eyes were languid from the sleeplessness of the preceding night, and
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her color, which, in heated rooms, was apt to be uncomfortably high, was abated and fluctuating, and her dress, so happily arranged and judiciously modified, that the Saxon beauty, for once, fairly divided the suffrages with the brilliant Rebecca. But with the mere externals ended all resemblance to the truth of the characters. The Palmer, the Christian devotee, had nor eye, nor ear, but for the proscribed Jewess; and Rebecca was all delight at finding, beneath the broad brim of cockle-shells, and the Slavonian, the contour and air of a very elegant young man, who, she felt assured, had returned no less her ardent lover than the boy she had parted with six years before. She managed her prepared surprise so awkwardly, that Ellen wondered at Fletcher’s blindness. He was indeed blind! As to poor Garston, he was so enchanted with himself in the Templar’s costume, that he never once dreamed how near he was to a more portentous overthrow than that of his prototype on the field of Ashby de la Zouch.
We must pass over the next six weeks with merely saying, that Ellen executed her plans, — that Mrs. Dunbar found, in the complete success of a dreaded operation, a very considerable counteraction to what she still maintained was by far
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the greatest grief of her life. But it was plain, that even in no selfish grief could her benevolent feelings be merged. She was exceedingly excited with Ellen’s marvellous success with her musical pupil, and she had the most eager pleasure, every day, in the result of a subscription Ellen had set on foot for the yet unpublished book of a poor author, or, rather, a very poor man, and good author. We must confess, that Ellen had her hours of conflict, agitation, and despondency, when life was a burden; but even then, though the eclipse seemed total to her, she saw light beyond the shadow. Is there ever total darkness to the good?
Fletcher made her his confidante. This was a pretty severe trial; but she tried to feel, and did feel, in some measure, the sympathy he expected; and she was prepared by degrees for the final communication, that he and Matilda had plighted faith. In spite of her resolutions and efforts she turned excessively pale, and tried in vain to command her voice to speak; but this did not surprise Fletcher. All deep emotions are serious. He had never himself been more so than at this moment of the attainment of the dearest, the long-cherished wish of his heart. One hour before he had felt a pang that he in vain tried to
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forget, when, while their mutual vows were still warm on their lips, Matilda had left him in haste, lest she should not be the first at the opening of a newly-arrived case of French millinery! He painfully contrasted this with Ellen’s emotion, — with his own; and a thought arose through the mists of his mind, repressed as soon as perceived, that there were more points of sympathy between him and Ellen Fitzhugh, than he had found with Matilda.
As to poor Mrs. Dunbar, whom Ellen trusted she had quite prepared for the crisis, she took to her bed, upon the first intimation of it, with a head-ache that lasted, unintermitted, as never had head-ache, or heart-ache, with her before, for three days. In vain Matilda came to ask her blessing. Mrs. Dunbar was unaffectedly too ill to receive her. “With God’s help and time,” said the good lady to Ellen, “I will do my duty to Fletcher’s wife; but as to seeing Matilda Preston now, that‘s quite impossible, — and as to ever loving her as a child, as I do you, my own dear Ellen, that‘s not to be looked for.—’ The wind bloweth where it listeth.’” Mrs. Dunbar was no philosopher; — her instincts alone had led her to the discovery of the great truth, that our volitions have no power over our affections.
Ellen, now that all was decided, kept her eye
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resolutely on the bright side. “I am very sorry, aunt,” she said, “you did not feel equal to seeing Matilda this morning; I have seen her more brilliant, but never one half so interesting. Love has given an exaltation to all her feelings, — has breathed a soul into her face. There was a gentleness and a deference in her manners to Fletcher, that is quite new to her. She feels his superiority, and it may work wonders on her character.”
“Do you think so, Ellen?—well,—for Fletcher’s sake, — God bless him! — I’ll hope for the best. I am not an observing person, Ellen; but I have often remarked, that love, like showers from Heaven, is reviving to the thinnest soil, and every thing is fresh, and sweet, and beautiful for a little while; but the flowers soon fade, — the grass withers, — nature will take a natural course.”
“But, aunt,” replied Ellen, with a smile, “may not grace subdue nature?”
“No, my dear, no; it may help nature on in its own way, but not change it. I am sure I have tried my best for the last six weeks to put down nature; but it is too strong for me, Ellen.” Mrs. Dunbar wiped away a flood of tears, and then went on. “Ellen, I have been thinking this was a good time, while we are all
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so wretched,—I mean, while I am,—to speak to Fletcher about looking over that private desk of his father’s. Will you take it to him, dear? You know I have never looked into it. Before strangers come into the family, it is best to have papers that concern no one but us, disposed of. You need not say that to Fletcher; but I can trust you, dearest child, to say nothing to him that appears unfriendly to Matilda; — just give him the desk and key.”
Ellen did so; and, at the first leisure moment, Fletcher sat down to its examination. He found nothing of particular interest till he came to a file of letters, marked, “Correspondence with Selden Fitzhugh.” Before transcribing the only two letters of interest to the reader, it is necessary to premise, that the elder Dunbar and Fitzhugh had been intimate from their childhood, and that, after their marriage, the closest friendship united their families. A letter from Fletcher’s father to his friend, which seemed to have been written soon after his failure, ran thus:
“Dear Fitzhugh,
“My ruin is total. The labors, the enterprises, the successes of twenty years, are wrecked, — nothing remains. I am the victim, in part, of the
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folly of others, in part, I confess it with shame, of my own grasping. I had competence, I desired riches, and thus it has ended. But the worst is to come, my dear friend. I have made shipwreck of your little fortune, as well as of my own hopes. I have been obliged to give up all my property to satisfy my indorsers, according to the received notion, that debts to them are debts of honor, and I have not wherewith to pay a penny of the thirty thousand dollars you trusted to me without bond, mortgage, or security of any sort. This is the requital of your generous, but too rash friendship!
“Fitzhugh, I am a heart-broken man. My hope and energy are gone. If it were not so, I might promise you a day of restitution, —I should expect it myself; but all before me is dark and dreary. Even now I feel as if a fever were drying up the fountains of life. Forgive me, — pity me, my dear friend; I curse my own folly. You will not curse me, but, believe me, I would coin my heart’s blood to make you restitution.
“Your miserable friend,
“F. Dunbar.”
The following answer to Mr. Dunbar’s letter
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was dated at Mr. Fitzhugh’s country residence; and written a week later than his.
“Dear Dunbar,
“I am truly sorry for your misfortunes; but, my dear fellow, take heart of grace. If you have made a total shipwreck, as you say, why so has many a good fellow before you. The storm will pass, — you can fit out again; only don’t carry quite so much sail, and take out a clearance for some other port than El Dorado. As to my money, believe me, on my honor, after the first surprise and shock were over, the loss has not given me a moment’s uneasiness. I would not have put the money at risk for myself, or you, if I had not secured an adequate provision for my good wife, and eight dear little girls, and Ellen into the bargain, if ever she comes home to us. Our wants are moderate, and our supplies sufficient; and, believe me, a few thousand dollars to be added to the inheritance of each of my girls would not make one of our bright hours brighter. They will never hear of the loss, for I have taken care they should not count upon money that I had subjected to the chances of mercantile life. I have been thus particular to tranquillize you, my dear friend. If finally you
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retrieve your circumstances, you will pay the debt, and all will be well; — and, if you never pay it, — why it will be just as well.
“Ever faithfully yours,
“SELDEN FITZHUGH.”
“God bless and reward you, noble, dear friend,” was an indorsement on the back of this letter, dated two days before Mr. Dunbar’s death, and written by himself, evidently with a weak and tremulous hand.
Fletcher had read and re-read the letters, and had sat for an half hour meditating on their contents, when Matilda, who had called, on an appointment with Ellen, opened the door, and, seeing him deep in occupation, was retreating, when he said, “Pray come in, Matilda, you are the person I most wished to see.”
“That, I trust, is not very singular! But what is the matter, Fletcher? Are you making your will?”
“I am thinking over the disposition of my worldly effects,” he replied, with a very faint smile. “Will you read these letters, Matilda?”
“Yes; but, for Heaven’s sake, don’t look of solemn; I should think they were from the dead to the living.”
[245]
“They are,—read them, and tell me what you think of them.”
Matilda read his father’s, while Fletcher perused her countenance with a far deeper interest than she evinced. “I see nothing very particular in this,” she said. “Your poor father seems to have taken his failure sadly to heart. I never heard before that Mr. Fitzhugh lost by him. But the Fitzhughs are very well off for the country, and I suppose it did not matter much. Ellen was probably adopted by your mother as an offset.”
“No; my mother never knew any thing of the business.”
“No! Oh, I forgot,—Ellen has lived here all her life. But why are you so sad, dear Fletcher,—there is no use in fretting over past troubles?”
“You have read but one of the letters, Matilda,” said Fletcher, coldly, without noticing her last reply!
“So I see; but I was thinking so much more of you than of the letters!” She read Mr. Fitzhugh’s. Fletcher’s eye was riveted to her face; there was no change of color, no moistening of the eye, the return messages of a kindred spirit to a generous action. “How well he took it!”
[246]
she said in her ordinary tone of voice. “I have often hear your mother say, that Ellen was just like her father, making the best of everything,— ‘from evil still educing good.’” Matilda saw that Fletcher expected something more from her; but what, exactly, she could not divine. “Mr. Fitzhugh’s letter must have been a balm to your father’s wounded spirit, just as that sad time,” she added, and paused again. A servant entered and filled the awkward interval with some good reason why Miss Ellen would not keep her appointment.
“I am not sorry,” said Matilda, when the door closed, “for now, dear Fletcher, you will go with me.”
“No, Matilda, I cannot.”
“But you will,” she urged, laying her hand persuasively on his shoulder, and with a look that would have seemed to defy denial. “Come, come away, Fletcher, from these musty papers,—you will be devoured with blue devils; come, I must go, and I will not go without you.”
“You must excuse me.”
“You are unkind, Fletcher,” said Matilda, and her starting tears showed that she could feel keenly. Her pride would not brook any further entreaty, and she abruptly left the room, not doubting, however, that she should be intercepted, or
[247]
immediately followed by her penitent lover. But she reached her own home unmolested, and retired to her own apartment, hurt and offended, and resolved, when Fletcher should come to his senses, to be unrelenting. There was ring after ring at the street-door, and visiter after visiter was announced; but the only one she cared for came not, and to every one else she was denied. At last the servant brought a note from Fletcher. “There must be something more than one note,” thought Matilda, as she broke it open. The current of her feelings was somewhat changed as she read what follows:
“My Dearest Matilda,
“Forgive me, I pray you. I have seemed unreasonable and sullen to you, and I have done you in my heart more wrong than I have expressed. That heart is wholly yours, and no feeling it harbors shall ever be hidden from you. The truth was, that I expected the letters would have called forth more feeling than they did. I ought to have rejected (and have since), that our feelings depend much on our humors,—that your mind was preoccupied,—and that, having no particular interest in the parties, you could not participate the strong and painful sympathy
[248]
that then thrilled every nerve in my frame. I was wrong, and again, on my knees, I beg you to forgive me! I have bound myself to tell the whole truth; and must confess, that I expected still more,— that I expected you would anticipate the conclusions which of course were instinctive with me; but I should have remembered, my dear Matilda, that women, having no business habits or notions, the duty devolving on me at this moment would not have occurred to you. That duty plainly is, to pay my father’s debt to the Fitzhughs. There is no legal obligation, but a moral obligation, and an added debt of gratitude, that no human law could make more binding, or could invalidate. If I had a family dependent on me, there might be a question; but, situated as I am, there can be none. The debt, with its accumulation of interest, will swallow up nine tenths of the property I have acquired; but, with the remnant, with rare experience for three and twenty, with business talents, and a fair reputation, I shall soon go forward again. That event, which is to be the crowning joy of my life, must be deferred for two years. This is no small trial of my philosophy,—of my religion (for I will use the right word); but, with this bright reward ever in view, no labors, no difficulties will daunt my
[249]
spirit. Dearest, dearest Matilda, forgive me for having for a moment doubted you. It was the first time. I believe, as I believe in all truth, it will be the last.”
The following brief note, in pencil, was returned by the servant:
“Come see me at nine, this evening. I shall be alone and disengaged then, and not till then. In the mean time, make no disclosures of your inventions to your mother, to Ellen, or to any one.”
The interval was one of reposeful confidence to Fletcher, and of that celestial joy that springs from an ability, and an immovable resolution, to perform a right action at a great personal sacrifice. We claim for him no great merit in yielding the money. Any right-minded young man full of health and hope, and conscious capacity, might have done this without a pang; but Fletcher was a passionate lover, and he had to encounter the miserable uncertainties of a hope deferred.
Let us see how the interval was passed by Matilda. After much agitating self-deliberation,
[250]
she called her mother to her counsel. Mrs. Preston was the prototype of her daughter, save that what was but in the gristle with the daughter, had hardened into bone with the mother, and save that Matilda, from having had an education very much superior to Mrs. Preston’s, had certain standards and theories of virtue in her mind’s eye, that had never entered the mother’s field of vision. Matilda, too, from having been all her short life in fashionable society, did not estimate it as so high a rate as her mother, who has paid for every inch of ground she had gained there.
Matilda related her last interview with Fletcher, and showed his note. “Do you believe,” said Mrs. Preston, after reading it, “that Fletcher Dunbar will be so absurd as to adhere to this plan?”
“I am sure he will. He is perfectly inflexible when he makes up his mind to what he thinks a duty, however ridiculous it may appear to others.”
“Of course, my dear, you are absolved from your engagement.”
“If I choose to be.”
“If I choose! My dear Matilda, you know how much it was against my wishes that you should form this engagement,—that you should
[251]
give up the most brilliant match in the city for what, at the very best, would be merely a genteel establishment. But the idea of your going into the shade at once, giving up everything, and living, perhaps, at lodgings, or setting up your housekeeping with two servants that you must look after all day, and spend your evenings making your husband’s shirts, by a single astral lamp, ride in an omnibus (you might ride in that splendid carriage), and treat yourself, perhaps, to one silk gown a year,—and all for what? To humor the notions of a young man, who is in no respect superior to Garston, except that he is rather taller, and has a straighter nose, and darker, larger eyes, not much larger either!”
Mrs. Preston had struck a wrong note. Matilda shrunk back from the path her other was opening, as the images of her two lovers passed before her.
“Oh, mamma,” she exclaimed, “there is a horrid difference between them; and if I only could persuade Fletcher to abandon this notion”—
“Well, my dear, in my opinion, if he loves you, he will;— if he does not, why then you lose nothing and gain everything. Luckily your engagement is a secret, as yet, and you have
[252]
taken no irretrievable step. Garston was here this morning,—a look could bring him back to you.”
“But, mamma, to give up what I have been so long dreaming of?” “Yes, and whatever young girl dreams of, and wakes up betimes to pretty dull realities. How should you like, for instance, to wash the breakfast things, and stir up a pudding,—to wash and dress your children, and make a bowl of gruel for your dear mamma-in-law?”
“Oh detestable!” Matilda pondered for a few moments, and then said, “I really think, if Fletcher loves me, he will sacrifice his feelings to me. I am sure he owes it to me, after the sacrifice I made to him;—I have certainly proved myself disinterested, but I do not like to be treated as if I could be set aside, and wait for the working of any fancy that comes up. I will tell him so,—I am resolved. He must take the responsibility of deciding it.”
The evening came, and, when the clock struck nine, Fletcher entered Miss Preston’s drawing room, his fine countenance beaming with the serenity and trustfulness of his heart; but Matilda’s first look sent a thrill through it, that was like the snapping of the chords of a musical instrument at the moment it is felt to be in perfect
[253]
tune. She advanced towards him, and gave him her hand as usual, and she smiled; but it was a mere muscular movement, the expression was anything but a smile. Her beautiful face had all the rigidity that a fixed and painful purpose could give to it; but it was a purpose that depended on a contingent, and to that contingent the smile and the responding pressure of her hand were addressed.
Her eyes were red and swollen, and, for the first time, her dress was not elaborately arranged.
She spoke first, “You do not love me, Fletcher!”
“Not love you, Matilda! God only knows how tenderly I love you.”
“No, Fletcher, you do not love me,—the truth has broken upon me with irresistible proof.”
“What do you mean, Matilda? What have you heard? Surely it is not—it cannot be”—
“It is, Fletcher. Your note has nullified our engagement. I have judged you by my own heart. I have questioned, examined that, and I am sure that no fancied duty,—no absolute duty could have forced me,—much less persuaded me at its first intimidation, to expose the happiness that was just within our grasp to the hazards of time.”
Fletcher poured out protestations and prayers,
[254]
and concluded with assuring Matilda, that, “if she would share with him, at the present moment, his acted fortune, if she would at once risk the uncertainties that he must encounter, he should be a happier and prouder man than all the wealth in the world could make him.”
Matilda burst into tears. “It is not right,—it is not generous,” she said, “to put what you consider a test to me. It is none. You must acquit me of any groveling care for money. You have but to look six weeks backward to remember, that the first fortune in the city was waiting my acceptance, and fashion, and brilliant family connexions. I sacrificed all, without a shadow of regret, to you, and now I am thought very lightly of in comparison with a fancied duty.”
“A fancied duty? Good Heaven!”
“A real duty, then; but so questionable, that nine men out of ten would pronounce it no duty at all. It is not the money. I care as little for that as you can; but it is the terrible truth you have forced on me,—you do not love me.”
“Matilda, you wrong yourself,—you wrong me.”
“Prove it to me then, Fletcher. Let our relations be what they were yesterday,—burn those letters, and forget them.”
[255]
“Never!” cried Fletcher, indignantly, “so help me God,—never.”
“Then the tie that bound us is sundered,—our engagement is dissolved.”
“Amen!” said Fletcher, and he rushed from the house,—his mind confused and maddened with broken hopes, disappointed affection, and dissolving delusions.
There is one painful but sure cure for love. The slow-coming, resisted, but irresistible conviction of the unworthiness of the person beloved.
* * * * *
A little more than two years had passed away, when one bright morning, at the hour of ceremonies visiting, a superb carriage, looking more like a ducal equipage than one befitting a wealthy citizen of a republic, drew up a Mrs. Dunbar’s door. The gilded harness was emblazoned with heraldic devices, and a coat of arms was embroidered in gold on the hammer-cloth, and painted on the pannels. The coachman and footman in fresh and tasteful liveries, were in the dickey, and the proprietor of the equipage (in appearance a very inferior part of it) was seated on the box with a friend. Within the
[256]
coach was a lady, magnificently dressed in the latest fashion. She seemed
“A perfect woman, nobly planned
To warn, to comfort, and command;”
but she had thwarted the plan,—she had extinguished the “angel light,” — she had herself closed the gates of Paradise, and voluntarily circumscribed her vision to this world. She had foregone the higher element for which she was destined; but the wings she had folded for ever betrayed by their fluttering her disquietude with the way she had chosen. The face that, turned heavenward would have reflected Heaven, was fixed earthward, and the dark spirits of Discontent and Disappointment brooded over it.
There is a baser traffic going on in this world of ours, than that which the poet has immortalized in his history of Faust, carried on under the forms of law, and with the holy seal and superscription of marriage.
The lady alighted from the coach and was on the door-step awaiting her husband. He did not move, the footman had rung the bell, and Mrs. Dunbar’s servant stood awaiting the entrée.
“Are you not going in with me, Ned?” she asked.
“Not I,—I hate bridal visits.”
[257]
“Oh, come with me, I entreat you,” she said, earnestly.
“It’s a bore! I can’t. Bob and I will drive round the square, and take you up as we return.”
The lady looked vexed and embarrassed; but there seemed no alternative.
“Is there much company in the drawing-room, Daniel?” she asked.
“None, ma’am. Miss Ellen, that is, Mrs. Dunbar, the bride,—Miss Ellen that was,—don’t see company in a regular way, as it were.”
“No? I heard she did. I’ll leave my card now.”
While she was taking it from her card-case the door opened, and Fletcher Dunbar, with a manner the most frank and unembarrassed, advanced, and offered her his hand. “Pray, Mrs. Garston,” he said, “do not turn us off with a card; we are at home, and, like all happy people, most happy to hear congratulations.”
Matilda Garston had not been under Mrs. Dunbar’s roof since the memorable morning, when she found Fletcher at his father’s desk. How changed was life now to all parties! Fletcher had awakened from the dream of boyhood to a reality of trustful love, to which his “ripened judgement” had set its seal.
[258]
Ellen, who had resigned her hope of reigning in Fletcher’s heart, was not its elected and enthroned queen. She looked like the embodied spirit of home, and domestic love and happiness. The two young women contrasted like the types of spiritual and material world.
Our good friend, Mrs. Dunbar, was at the acme of felicity. It would have been in vain for her to try to express the overflowing of her heart, and try she did not. It sparkled and ran over like a brimming glass of champagne.
“I am truly glad to see you here again, Matilda,—Mrs. Garston, I mean,” she said; “I really am, my dear. And now we have met, old friends together, I will tell you, that I never had one hard thought, no, not one, at your breaking off with Fletcher. It was providential all round. Fine pictures should have fine frames;—you, my dear, just fit the one you are set in, and our little Ellen was made to be worn, like a miniature, close to the heart. I used to be a believer in first love, now I think ‘second thoughts best.’ ”
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Title
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Second Thoughts Best
Subject
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Courtship, marriage, love, duty.
Description
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An engagement is jeopardized by the couple's conflicting values and attitudes towards love and duty.
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Sedgwick, Catharine M. [By Miss Sedgwick]
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The Token, edited by Samuel G. Goodrich, pp. 201-258.
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Boston: Otis, Broaders, & Company
Date
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1840 [pub. 1839]
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L. Damon-Bach with Asa Anderson, Deanna Depaz, Megan Hennessey, Emily Moss, Kevin White, and Dr. Jenifer Elmore with Adriana Duebel, Ariana Fernandez, Lauren Sumner, and Julianna Weiss
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Volume reissued as The Moss Rose, New York: 1846; and as The Honeysuckle, New York: 1848. Story reprinted in New-Yorker (31 August and 14 September 1839, pp: 386 and 406, and in The Rural Repository, 28 September 1839, pp 57-60 and 12 October 1839, pp. 65-69.
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Document
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English
"Address to Kilchurn Castle Upon Loch Awe"
"Faust"
"Principles and Prudence in Politics: The Friend"
"She Was a Phantom of Delight"
"The Seasons: A Hymn"
1839
1840
2 Corinthians 1:22
All's Well That Ends Well
Apollo
Ashby de la Zouch
bankruptcy
belle
Charles Maurice de Tallyrand
courtship
Death
Democrat
duty
El Dorado
engagement
Ephesians 1:13
factionalism
Isaiah 40:8
Ivanhoe
James Thomson (1700-1748)
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letters
loco-foco
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marriage
Measure for Measure
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Paradise Lost
party politics
phrenology
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Samuel G. Goodrich
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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sultan
tableau vivant
The Token
Tories
Whigs
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William Wordsworth
-
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8242f257b768f73e7d3313d043431303
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1853
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Text
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SLAVERY IN NEW ENGLAND.
BY MISS SEDGEWICK.
[p. 417]
SLAVERY IN NEW ENGLAND.
BY MISS SEDGEWICK.
Before the American Revolution, slavery extended throughout the United States. In New England it was on a very limited scale. There were household slaves in Boston, who drove the coaches, cooked the dinners, and shared the luxuries of rich houses; and a few were distributed among the most wealthy of the rural population. They were not numerous enough to make the condition a great evil or embarrassment, but quite enough to show its incompatibility with the demonstration of the truth, on which our declaration of Independence is based, that "all men are born equal," and have "an inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
The slaves in Massachusetts were treated with almost parental kindness. They were incorporated into the family, and each puritan household being a sort of religious structure, the relative duties of master and servant were clearly defined. No doubt the severest and longest task fell to the slave, but in the household of the farmer or artisan, the master and the mistress shared it, and when it was finished, the white and the black, like the feudal chief and his household servant, sat down to the same table, and shared the same viands. No doubt there were hard masters and cruel mistresses, and so there are cruel fathers and exacting mothers: unrestrained power is not a fit human trust. We know an old man, who, fifty years ago, when strict domestic discipline was a cardinal virtue, and "spare the rod and spoil the child" was written on the lintel, was in the unvarying habit, "after prayers" on a Monday morning, of setting his children, boys and girls, nine in number, in a row, and beginning with the eldest, a lad of eighteen, he inflicted an hebdomadal prospective chastisement down the whole line, to the little urchin of three years. And the tradition goes, that the possible transgressions of the week were never underrated—that these were supererogatory stripes for possible sins, or chance misdemeanors!
But this was a picturesque exception from the prevailing mildness of the parental government, and so were the cruelties exercised upon her slaves by a certain Madame A----, who lived in Sheffield, a border-town in the western part of Massachusetts, exceptional from the general course of patriarchal government. This Madame A---- belonged to the provincial gentry, and did not live long enough for the democratic wave to rise to her high-water mark. Her husband, as was, and is, not uncommon in New England, combined the duties of the soldier and the magistrate, and honourably discharged both. He won laurels in "the French war," (the war waged in the Northern British provinces), and wore them meekly. The plan of Providence to prevent monstrous discrepancies, by mating the tall with the short, the fat with the lean, the sour with the sweet, &c., was illustrated by General A---- and his help-meet. He was the gentlest, most benign of men;
[p. 418]
she, a shrew untameable. He was an 'Allworthy,' or 'my Uncle Toby.' He had pity, tolerance, and forgiveness for every human error. There was no such word as error in Madame A---- 's vocabulary. Every departure from her rule of rectitude was criminal. She was the type of punishment. Her justice was without scales as well as blind, so that she never weighed ignorance against error, nor temptation against sin. He was the kindest of masters to his slaves; she, the most despotic of mistresses. Happily for the servile household, those were the days of the fixed supremacy of man. No question of the equality of the sexes had impaired woman's contentment, or provoked man's fear or ridicule. The current of his authority had run undisturbed since first the river Pison flowed out of Eden. No "woman's rights' conventions" had dared to doubt the primitive law and curse, "thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee:" so that, as we intimated, the servants of Madame A----, suffering under her despotism, had always a right of appeal to a higher tribunal. Whatever petty tyrannies the magnanimous General might quietly submit to in his own person, he never acquiesced in oppression of his people. Among them was a remarkable woman of unmixed African race. Her name was Elizabeth Freeman, transmuted to "Betty," and afterwards contracted by lisping lips from Mammy Bet, to Mum-Bett, by which name she was best known.
It has since been luminously translated in a French notice, into Chut Babet.
This woman,* who was said by a competent judge to have "no superiors and few equals," was the property, "the chattel" of General A---- . She had a sister in servitude with her, a sickly timid creature, over whom she watched as the lioness does over her cubs. On one occasion, when Madame A was making the patrol of her kitchen, she discovered a wheaten cake, made by Lizzy the sister, for herself, from the scrapings of the great oaken bowl in which the family batch had been kneaded. Enraged at the "thief," as she branded her, she seized a large iron shovel red hot from clearing the oven, and raised it over the terrified girl. Bet interposed her brawny arm, and took the blow. It cut quite across the arm to the bone, "but," she would say afterwards in concluding the story of the frightful scar she earned to her grave, "Madam never again laid her hand on Lizzy. I had a bad arm all winter, but Madam had the worst of it. I never covered the wound, and when people said to me, before Madam,—' Why, Betty! what ails your arm?' I only answered—' ask missis!" Which was the slave and which was the real mistress?
[p. 419]
She had another characteristic story of the days of her servitude; and she retained so vivid an impression of its circumstances, that when she related them in her old age, the blood of her hearers would curdle in their veins.
"It was in May," she would say, "just at the time of the apple blossoms; I was wetting the bleaching linen, when a smallish girl came in to the gate, and up the lane, and straight to me, and said, without raising her eyes, 'where is your master? I must speak with him.' 1 told her that my master was absent, that he would come home before night. 'Then I must stay,' she said, 'for I must speak with him.' I set down my watering pot, and told her to come with me into the house. I saw it was no common case. Gals in trouble were often coming to master." ('Girls in trouble,' is a definite rustic phrase, indicating but one species of trouble). "But," she continued, " I never saw one look like this. The blood seemed to have stopped in her veins; her face and neck were all in blotches of red and white. She had bitten her lip through; her voice was hoarse and husky, and her eyelids seemed to settle down as if she could never raise them again. I showed her into a bedroom next the kitchen, and shut the door, hoping Madam would not mistrust it, for she never overlooked anybody's wrongdoing but her own, and she had a partic'lar hatred of gals that had met with a misfortin; she could not abide them. She saw me bring the gal in—it was just her luck—she always saw everything. I heard her coming and I threw open the bedroom door; for seeing I could no way hide the poor child—she was not over fifteen—I determined to stand by her. When Madam had got half across the kitchen, in full sight of the child, she turned to me, and her eyes flashing like a cat's in the dark, she asked me, 'what that baggage wanted?' 'To speak to master.' 'What does she want to say to your master?' 'I don't know, ma'am.' 'I know,' she said—and there was no foul thing she didn't call the child; and when she had got to the end of her bad words, she ordered her to walk out of the house. Then the gal raised her eyes for the first time; she had not seemed to hear a word before. She did not speak—she did not sigh—nor sob—nor groan—but a sharp sound seemed to come right out of her heart; it was heart-breaking to hear it.
"' Sit still, child,' I said. At that Madam's temper rose like a thunder-storm. She said the house was hers, and again ordered the gal out of it. 'Sit still, child,' says I again. 'She shall go,' says madam. 'No, missis, she shan't,' says I. 'If the gal has a complaint to make, she has a right to see the judge; that's lawful, and stands to reason beside.' Madam knew when I set my foot down, I kept it down; so after blazing out, she walked away."
One should have known this remarkable woman, the native majesty of her deportment, the intelligence of her indomitable, irresistible will, to understand the calmness of the stranger-girl under her protection, and her sure victory over her hurricane of a mistress.
"When dinner-time came," she continued, " I offered the child
[p. 420]
a part of mine; I had no right to take madam's food and give it to her, and I didn't; but, poor little creature, she could no more eat than if she were a dead corpse; she tried when I begged her, but she could not. Master came home at evening." (It might have been noticed of Mum-Bett, that, to the end of her life, when referring to the days of her servitude, she spoke of General A---- as "my master," and tenderly, " my old master!" but always of her mistress as "Madam.") "I got speech of master as he was getting off his horse. I told him that there was a poor afflicted gal—a child, one might call her—had been waiting all day to speak to him. He bid me bring her in, after supper. I knew Madam would berate her to master, but that did not signify with him. When he sent word he was ready, 1 took a lighted candle in each hand, and told the child to follow me. She did not seem frightened; she was just as she was in the morning, 'cept that the red blotches had gone, and she was all one dreadful waxy white.
"We went to the study. Master was sitting in his high-backed chair, before his desk. Master could not scare her, he looked so pitiful. I sets down the candles, walked back to the wall, and stood there; I knew master had no objections,—master and 1 un- derstood one another. 'Come hither,' says master. The gal walked up to the desk. 'What is your name?'—' Tamor Graham.'—' Take off your bonnet, Tamor.' She took it off. Her hair was brown—a pretty brown, and curly, but all a tangle. Master looked at her." When Mum-Bett got to the point of her story, (every word, as she often repeated it, is "cut in" my memory), the tears started from her eyes, and she quietly wiped them away with the back of her hand. She was not given to tears. They were not her demonstration. "If ever there was a pitiful look," she continued, " it was that look of master's. I can see it yet. 'Now hold up your hand, Tamor,' he said,' and swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God!' She did. 'Sit down now, child,' he said, and drew a chair himself. She kind of fell into the chair, and clasped her hands tight together."
We cannot, and it is not needful for our purpose that we should, go into the particulars of the wretched girl's story. It was steeped in horrors; in homely rustic life, a repetition of the crime of the Cenci tragedy. The girl had knit her soul to her task, and she went unfalteringly through it.
"Once," said Mum-Bett, "my master stopped her, and said, 'Do you know, child, that if your father is committed, and convicted, on your oath, he must die for the crime?' 'Yes, sir, I know it!" 'You say he has pursued you again and again; why did you not complain before?' 'I escaped, sir,—and for my mother's sake—and my little brother's—poor boy !' and then she burst out like a child, and cried, and cried, and wrung her hands."
After the examination, General A---- gave the girl into Mum-Bett's hands, with orders that every thing should be done for her security and comfort. The father was apprehended—his child was confronted with him. "He was an awful-looking man,"
[p. 421]
Mum-Bett said, "He had short grey hair, but not close cropped, and when I led Tamor in, it rose, and every hair stood stiff and upright on his head. I've seen awful sights in my day, but nothing near to that."
Much corroborative testimony was obtained. There was then no court for capital trials in Berkshire, the county of General A---- 's residence. The culprit was transferred to Hampshire to be tried. While Tamor remained at the General's she received a message, requesting her to come to a sequestered lane at twilight, to meet her mother. Nothing suspecting, she went, and was seized and carried off, by two men, agents of her father, who hoped to escape by abducting the witness. A posse of militia was called out, and she was found in durance, in a hut in the depth of a wood. The mother and child did meet once, and but once. They locked their arms around each other. The mother shrieked—the girl was silent—livid, and when they were parted, more dead than alive.
The father was condemned. The daughter, at her earnest instance, was sent off to a distant province where it was understood she died not long after.
Mum-Bett's character was composed of few but strong elements. Action was the law of her nature, and conscious of superiority to all around her, she felt servitude intolerable. It was not the work—work was play to her. Her power of execution was marvellous. Nor was it awe of her kind master, or fear of her despotic mistress, but it was the galling of the harness, the irresistible longing for liberty. I have heard her say, with an emphatic shake of the head peculiar to her: "Any time, any time while I was a slave, if one minute's freedom had been offered to me, and I had been told I must die at the end of that minute, I would have taken it—just to stand one minute on God's airth a free woman—I would."
It was soon after the close of the revolutionary war, that she chanced at the village "meeting house," in Sheffield, to hear the Declaration of Independence read. She went the next day to the office of Mr. Theodore Sedgewick, then in the beginning of his honourable political and legal career. "Sir," said she, "I heard that paper read yesterday, that says, "all men are born equal, and that every man has a right to freedom. I am not a dumb critter; won't the law give me my freedom?" I can imagine her upright form, as she stood dilating with her fresh hope based on the declaration of an intrinsic, inalienable right. Such a resolve as hers is like God's messengers—wind, snow, and hail— irresistible.
Her application was made to one who had generosity as well as intelligence to meet it. Mr. Sedgewick immediately instituted a suit in behalf of the extraordinary plaintiff; a decree was obtained in her favour. It was the first practical construction in Massachusetts of the declaration which had been to the black race a constitutional abstraction, and on this decision was based the freedom of the few slaves remaining in Massachusetts.
Mum-Bett immediately transferred herself to the service of her
[p. 422]
champion, if service that could be called, which was quite as much rule as service. She was in truth a sort of nurse—gouvernante in his house—an anomalous office in our land.
The children under her government regarded it, as the Jews did theirs, as a theocracy; and if a divine right were founded upon such ability and fidelity as hers, there would be no revolutions. Wider abuses make rebels. Soon after the close of the war, there was some resistance to the administration of the newly organised State Government in Massachusetts. Instead of the exemption from taxation which the ignorant had expected, a heavy imposition was necessarily laid upon them, and instead of the licence they had hoped from liberty, they found themselves fenced in by legal restraints. The Jack Cades banded together; dishonest men misled honest ones; the government was embarrassed; the courts were interrupted; and disorder prevailed throughout the western counties. A man named Shay was the leader; the rising has been dignified as Shay's war. There were some skirmishing, and one or two encounters called battles; but with the exception of a few wounds and three or four deaths, it was a bloodless contest—chiefly mischievous for the fright it gave the women, and the licensed forays of the dishonest and idle, who joined the insurgents. Those who had fancied that equality of rights and privileges would make equality of condition; that the mountains and mole-hills of gentle descent, education, and fortune would all sink before the proclamation of a republic, to one level, were grievously disappointed; and the old war was waged that began with the revolt in Heaven, and has been continued down to our day of socialism. The gentlemen were called the "ruffled shirts;" they were made prisoners whereever the insurgents could lay hands upon them; their houses were invaded, and their moveable property unceremoniously seized by those whose might made their right.
Mr. Sedgewick was a member of the state legislature, and absent from his home on duty, at Boston. His family were transferred to a place free from danger or annoyance; all his family, with the exception of the servants, and one young invalid child, Mum-Bett's pet. Leave her castle she would not, and her particular treasure she felt able to defend. She adopted a rather feminine mode of defence. She drew her bars and bolts, hung over the kitchen fire a large kettle of beer, and sounded her trump of defiance, the declaration that she would scald to death the first invader.
The insurgents knew she would keep her word, and on that occasion they preserved their distance.
The fear of personal molestation having subsided, the family returned to their home. They were not, however, secure from levies by the honest insurgents, and thefts by the dishonest. For them all, Mum-Bett had an aristocratic contempt. She did not recognise their "new-made honour," but accoutered and decked as they were in epaulets and ivy boughs, they were, to her, " Nick Bottom the weaver, Robin Starveling the tailor, Tom Snout the tinker," &c.
[p. 423]
The captain of a company, with two or three subalterns, came to Mr. Sedgwick's with the intent to capture Jenny Gray, a beautiful young mare, esteemed too spirited for any hand but the master of the family, and "gentle as a dog in his hand," Mum-Bett would say. So a cowardly serving man obeyed the order to bring Jenny Gray from the stable, and saddle and bridle her. Mum- Bett stood at the open house-door, keenly observing the procedure. The captain, with much difficulty, for the animal was snorting and restive, mounted; but whether from an instinct of repulsion, or from some magnetic sign from Mum-Bett (I suspect the latter), she reared and plunged, and threw her unskilled rider on the turf behind her. Again the Captain mounted, and again was thrown; the third time he essayed with like default, then having got some hard bruises, he stood off, and hesitated. While he did so, Mum-Bett started out, unbuckled the saddle, threw it one side, and leading Jenny Gray to a gate that opened into a wide field skirting a wooded, unfenced, upland, she slipped off the bridle, clapped Jenny on the side, and whistled her off, and off she went, careering beyond the hope of Captain Smith, the joiner.
Alas! Jenny Gray was not always so fortunate! One dark night she disappeared from the stable, and the last that was seen of her, she was galloping away into the State of New York, bearing one of the Shay leaders from the pursuit of justice.
On another occasion, when a party of marauders were making their domiciliary visits to the houses of the few gentry in the village, they entered Mr. Sedgwick's, and demanded the key of the cellar. In those days, the distance now traversed in a few hours was a week's journey. The supplies of to-morrow, now sent from New York on the order of to-day, were then laid in semi-annually, and Mr. S.'s cellar was furnished for six months' unstinted hospitality. Mum-Bett led the party, embodying the dignity of the family in her own commanding manner. She adroitly directed their attention first to a store of bottled brown stout. One of the men knocking off the neck of a bottle, took a draught, and pithily expressed his abhorrence of the 'bitter stuff.' 'How should you like what gentlemen like?' she asked in a tone of derision bitterer than the brown stout. 'Is there nothing better here?' they asked. 'Gentlemen want nothing better,' she answered with contempt, and they, partly disappointed, but more crestfallen, turned back and left uutasted, liquor which they would have been as ready as Caliban to swear was 'not earthly,' was 'celestial liquor.' She managed her defensive warfare to the end with equal adroitness. She had secreted the watches and few trinkets of the ladies, and small articles of plate, in a large oaken chest containing her own wardrobe; no contemptible store either. Bett had a regal love of the solid and the splendid wear, and to the last of her long life went on accumulating chintzes and silks.
When, after tramping through the house, they came to Bett's locked chest and demanded the key, she lifted up her hands, and laughed in scorn. "Ah! Sam Cooper," she said, "you and your fellows are no
[p. 424]
better than I thought you. You call me 'wench' and 'nigger,' and you are not above rummaging my chest. You will have to break it open to do it!" Sam Cooper, a quondam broom-pedlar (to whom Bett had pointed out, in their progress, his worthless brooms rotting in the cellar) was the leader of the party. "He turned," she said, " and slunk away like a whipped cur as he was!"
We have marked a few striking points along the course of her life, but its whole course was like a noble river, that makes rich and glad the dwellers on its borders.
She was a guardian to the childhood, a friend to the maturity, a staff to the old age of those she served. More than once, by a courageous assumption of responsibility, by resisting the absurd medical usages of the time, in denying cold water and fresh air to burning fevers, she saved precious lives.
The time came for leaving even the shadow of service, and she retired to a freehold of her own, which she had purchased with her savings. These had been rather freely used by her only child, and her grandchildren, who, like most of their race, were addicted to festive joys.
In the last act of the drama of life, when conscience upheaves the barren or the bloated past, and poor humanity quails, she met death, not as the dreaded tyrant, but as the angel-messenger of God. Some of the "orthodox" pious felt a technical yet sincere concern for her. Even her worth required the passport of " Church Membership." The clergyman of the village visited her with the rigors of the old creed, and presenting the terrors of the law, said," Are you not afraid to meet your God?" "No, Sir,'' she replied, calmly and emphatically—" No, Sir. I have tried to do my duty, and I am not afeard!" She had passed from the slavery of spiritual conventionalism into the liberty of the children of God.
She lies now in the village burial ground, in the midst of those she loved and blessed; of those who loved and honoured her. The first ray of the sun, that as it rose over the beautiful hills of Berkshire, was welcomed by her vigilant eye, now greets her grave; its last beam falls on the marble inscribed with the following true words:—
"ELIZABETH FREEMAN,
(known by the name of Mum-Bett),
died Dec. 28th, 1829.
Her supposed age was 85 years.
She was born a slave and remained a slave for nearly thirty years. She could neither read nor write; yet in her own sphere she had no superior nor equal. She neither wasted time nor property. She never violated a truth, nor failed to perform a duty. In every situation of domestic trial she was the most efficient helper and the tenderest friend. Good mother, farewell!"
----------------------
* Our readers may have seen some account of this woman by Miss Martineau, I believe, in her "Society in America;" but as that account was but partial, and by a stranger, I have thought that one more extended, without exaggeration or colouring, in every particular true, might be acceptable at a time when "Uncle Tom's Cabin" has excited curiosity as to the individual character of the African race. It was said, perhaps truly, by that distinguished man, Charles Follen, that if you could establish the equality of the slave with the master in a single instance, you had answered the argument for slavery furnished by the inferiority of the African race.
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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Slavery in New England
Subject
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Elizabeth Freeman (Mum-Bett), Northern slavery
Description
An account of the resource
Sedgwick tells the story of Elizabeth Freeman ("Mum-Bett"), a slave in Massachusetts, who sought and won her freedom after hearing a reading of the Declaration of Independence, with the help of Theodore Sedgwick. She also recounts many of Freeman's heroic acts on behalf of others, including her sister, an abused village girl, and the Sedgwick family for whom she worked as a paid servant.
Creator
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Sedgwick, Catharine Maria.
Source
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Bentley's Miscellany, vol. 34, 1853, pp. 417-24.
Date
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1853
Contributor
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D. Gussman
Language
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English
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Document
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"'Mumbett' (manuscript draft) by Catharine Maria Sedgwick, 1853" from the Catharine Maria Sedgwick Papers. Massachusetts Historical Society Collections Online, <a href="http://www.masshist.org/database/547">http://www.masshist.org/database/547</a>. Accessed 11 April 2018.<br /><br />"'Slavery in New England' by Catharine Maria Sedgwick [annotated student weblog]." Stockton University (2006), <a href="http://loki.stockton.edu/~kinsellt/projects/sedgwick/SlaveryinNewEngland.html">http://loki.stockton.edu/%7Ekinsellt/projects/sedgwick/SlaveryinNewEngland.html. </a>Accessed 10 April 2018.
1853
A Midsummer Night's Dream
anti-slavery
Beatrice Cenci
Bentley's Miscellany
Berkshires
Caliban
Charles Follen
child abuse
Church Membership
Declaration of Independence
Eden
Elizabeth Freeman
freedom
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Martineau
incest
Jack Cade
Massachusetts
Mum-Bett
Mumbet
Nick Bottom
servant
Shakespeare
Shay's Rebellion
Sheffield
slavery
Society in America
The Tempest
Theodore Sedgwick
Uncle Toby
Uncle Tom's Cabin
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47eac4d2e188a6c2c969113dc31829e9
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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1840
Document
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Text
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THE BEAUTY OF SONINBERG. (A LETTER from WIESBADEN.)
_____
By Miss Catharine M. Sedgwick, Author of ‘Hope Leslie,’ &c.
_____
MY DEAR J ----: You have often laughed at me for my ‘knack,' as you call it, of picking up stories by the way-side. Certainly my sympathies are not more diffusive than yours, but I am a more patient listener. You have but to listen to get those little personal revelations every one is ready to make, if you but touch the electric chord aright that binds you to your humble fellow-beings.
In going from Brussels to Waterloo a few weeks since, I took a seat on the box beside the coachman—a frank true-hearted looking youth—for the advantage of gaining answers to the questions that are constantly occurring to the traveller in a scene so full of novelty as is every part of the Old World to an American eye. Before he set us down again in Brussels, he had told me a history of personal hopes, projects and disappointments, that with a little skilful spinning would have furnished warp and wool for an octavo volume, with an appendix of ancestral anecdotes that he had better have effaced from the family archives. This will be a pretty good proof to you that I have not foregone my habits in crossing the ocean, but here at Wiesbaden I am cut off from their indulgence by my ignorance of the language. That does not, however, quite isolate me, for by a lavish use of half a dozen words that are common to the English and German, and by gracious tones and a decent kindness in return for the devotedness of the ‘Mädchen’ who attends us, I am so far in favor that I am sure she would confide to me her ‘petite belle histoire’ if she has any. ‘If!’ shame on that hypothetical ‘if!’ No one could hear the gentle tone of my good friend Cristine's voice, or see how easily the unbidden tear comes to her eye,* (her only eye, for in common with a large portion of her country-people she sees but with one,) without being sure that Cristine, though now in the depths of shady forty, might tell as ‘ower true tale’ of her losses. However, the period for the egotism of love is long past, and Cristine, instead of damming up her feelings to fret and wear inwardly, permits them to flow out in all kindly sympathies.
I just saw her in a position to illustrate this gracious disposition. She was standing on the platform of the well before the Duke of Nassau's new palace. She had filled her tub with water, and with the aid of a friend (these people by a sort of general social compact always interchange this kind office) had placed it on her head. My attention was arrested by seeing Cristine, who is no dawdler—no loiterer—stopping to listen to this friend, and as I came near enough to see her friend's face, I thought I too would have stood with the tub of water on my head, or up to my throat in the fountain, if necessary, to listen to the earnest speech of this peasant girl who had one of the sweetest faces I ever saw—and her whole heart was in it. I think she cannot be more than nineteen, but I will ask Cristine, and perhaps she will tell me some particulars of the girl's history, for Cristine, like all sympathizers, likes to tell as well as to hear. If I were a painter, I would paint them just as I saw them, the well and all. The girl in the peasant's dress, the dark blue woollen full petticoat fluted from top to bottom as neatly as a French frill, the close boddice, and the snow-white chemise sleeves. Her hair was (as is every creature’s of woman-kind’ in Germany) long,
[p. 235]
thick, and neatly combed and braided. But that of this gifted girl is longer and thicker than I have often seen, and of a rich full brown, darker than the national hue. She had, in common with other peasant-girls, a black silk cap covering just the back of the head, made of ribbon and with half a dozen streamers, or rather ends, for they only hang over the back of the neck. Cristine's friend's cap had a trifle of embroidery, and was garnished with beads; indeed I remarked in her whole dress an attention to becomingness that indicated a village beauty—a dressing for the world's eye, or, I should rather think, from a certain symptomatic ‘careless desolation’ in her manner, that the eye, for which she employed the limited art of the toilette, was all the world to her. She stood with her hand on Cristine's shoulder. I hardly knew which countenance I liked the best. The peasant-girl was evidently absorbed in some precious interest of her own at stake, while Cristine's honest kindly face expressed that entire unconsciousness of self and sympathy with another, that I fancy must characterize an angel's. I stood rivetted, gazing at them till Cristine caught my eye; and as I, unluckily, reminded her of the waiting mistress and home, and her diverse forgotten household duties, she murmured over and over again “Ja—ja—ja—wohl”, (“Yes—yes—yes—sure) and hastened homeward; and her friend too left the well.
This stone-well is to me the most interesting of the locales of this pretty town of Wiesbaden; an aqueduct brings to it from the Taunus Hills (a distance of a league and a half) an abundant supply of pure, soft and wholesome water. There is a stone column in the centre, surmounted by a lion grasping the arms of Nassau. The water rises within this column, and pours through ever-flowing pipes into a large reservoir. This is surrounded by a rudely carved curb, and a platform. Standing on this platform and leaning against the curb, you may see the maidens of Wiesbaden at all hours of the day, gossipping while their tubs are filling. Innocent gossip it is I am sure, from their sweet, low-toned voices and perennial good humor. Why is it, dear J--, that a well is linked with our poetic associations? Is it because it recalls home, and the thought of home unseals the fountain of poetry in the soul? Or is it because a well is a common feature in these Oriental stories that first awakened the poetic powers of our imaginations? The scene of the first love- story we probably ever read, the sacred story of Isaac and Rebecca's courtship, is, you know, at a well. Whether the well owes its immaterial beauty to all these sources I cannot say, but I never see one—whether it be like our own most rustic structures, composed of a single curb-pole and old oaken bucket, or like that which we went to see among the Carisbrook lions, or like that beautiful one of stone I saw the other day (still in perfection) among the ruins of Marksburg, or like this of Nassau–with- out seeing for the moment much more than the eye can see, and hearing more than the ear can hear. I listened for an instant, and then quickened my steps after Cristine.
By the way, I wonder no one has ever thought to drill young ladies into a graceful gait, by making them walk with burdens on their heads. I do not see but the German ladies go shooling and shambling along much in the fashion of other ladies, while the peasant-girls with large market-baskets piled with vegetables, or tubs of water containing three or four pails full, walk with a true, light step, and a quiet grace that a fine lady might envy, but could scarcely equal. I overtook Cristine, before she reached our door steps. I communicated my desire to know her friend's story, and she was willing enough gratify it, but I could comprehend but one word—and that word one which every woman would understand as, Falstaff knew the heir apparent, ‘by instinct’—“Liebehaber”—“Ah! a lover in the case, Cristine. Then I understand why the spoke so eagerly and you listened so patiently. # # #
I have just returned from a walk to the Weeping Oak. Its name indicates its peculiarity. It stands a little off the high road to Schwalbach, in advance of a wood of dwarf pines, and seems a fit type of the monarch of a fallen dynasty. The bark and boughs have the characteristic ruggedness and nodosity of the oak; and there is something touching in the drooping of the magnificent old limbs. It affects you like seeing an old man in sorrow and tears, and if you were ever inclined to believe the fanciful theory that gives to every tree a spirit, I am sure the old oak would persuade you to this faith.
I set off alone, and passing the Koch-brunnen, where these boiling waters are forever steaming up from their great cauldron, I turned into the Acacia walk, and out of it as soon as I could; for there is something in this long formal walk between pretensionary little trees, that are so trimmed as to look like barber's poles with a bushy wig on top, that is particularly disagreeable to me. At the foot of the Geisberg is a station for asses. Here these miserable animals, whose sad destiny in this world, it seems to me, must have some unforeseen compensation, stand all day awaiting the pleasure of the Wiesbaden visiters. I wish I could sketch them for you, with their grotesque calico housings, and their attendants, men and boys, in their dark blue blouses, lounging round them. Even these ass-drivers, the lowest class of hacks, importunate by profession, here partake the national good manners, and never importune you. If a look expresses a wish for them, they spring to your service, but they do not beset you with offers. So, thinking me probably no wiser than I should be for walking when I might ride, they let me pass, unmolested, up the Geisberg ascent.
The name of Wiesbaden—meadow-baths—describes its position. It is a little interval in the lap of the hills, and the Geisberg is one of the prettiest of the elevations that surround it. In our country, where, if we would have a rural walk, we must scramble over fences, and think ourselves fortunate if we can find a foot-path skirting a ploughed field, we can have no idea of the facilities an old country furnishes for this blessed recreation. Here there are no enclosures, no fences or hedges, and however devious your taste may be, you are sure of finding a path to wander whither you will.
I turned from the high road and wound round a plantation attached to an agricultural school. Orchards were on the slopes below me, and bits of rich green in the valley, while on the opposite hills the many colored crops were spread out much like pattern silks in the shop window. From the town rose up the vapor that is always steaming up from the boiling springs; and as I mounted higher, my eyes caught the spires of Mayence, and the gleaming Rhine, and away went my thoughts with it to the sea, and over the sea, and I had forgotten Wiesbaden and all that belong to it, till I found myself again on the high road, and not alone there. A sturdy young man passed me with the pack on his back which denotes the pedestrian traveler. He seemed wholly occupied with his own emotions, and though after passing me he often turned, stopped and looked back, he was evidently unconscious of my presence. His eyes saw only what his heart was full of, and, as he frequently passed his hand over his eyes as if to clear his vision, I came to the natural conclusion that he was leaving his home—that seeming to me, just now, the saddest circumstance of life. The traveller was attended by a little terrier dog, who seemed to me not quite to have made up his mind whether he would attend his master or not, for every now and then he turned and retraced his steps toward Wiesbaden, with his nose to the ground and his tail down, stopping and looking first toward the traveller and then toward his home, as if he were not sure which was the right way to pursue, having a divided love, or a divided duty, which is as bad. I pitied him. Presently he sprang up on a hillock by the read-side, cocked up his ears, then wagged his tail, vehemently, barked and darted into the wood. The traveller stopped, looked after him and shook his head, as much as to say–Well! you have made up your mind at last, poor fellow!". But presently he appeared again, issuing from a foot-way which, cutting through the pine wood on our left, entered the high road between me and the traveller. The dog was followed by the peasant girl I had seen at the well. An exclamation of surprise burst from the young man. I was too far off to hear what they said, and if I had heard I could not have understood. But their action was in a universal language. I saw she had followed for a last farewell, and that farewell seemed impossible. They walked on together, her hand upon his shoulder and his arm around her waist. The poor little dog seemed frantic with joy. He had now everything he desired in life. He ran first on one side, then on the other, barking, wagging his tail, jumping first on to his master then on to his mistress, till, neither noticing him, he ran along side looking wistfully in their faces as if saying, “Now you are together, what in the world can you be sorry for?” At that moment, I doubt not, they could have envied the dog's nature and thought it a happiness to look neither before nor behind them.
I followed slowly after them till they reached the oak—the weeping oak I mentioned to you. There they stopped, and as they stood leaning against the old trunk, and in the deep shadow of its drooping branches, I thought how much stronger, firmer, more resisting is the true love of two pure hearts than even this old tree that has stood here for centuries. That will perish at last; true love never. It was a broad stretch of imagination to suppose the love of these young people of this
[p. 236]
high nature, but never mind; I honestly give you my thoughts as they came, and if you had seen these humble lovers, you would not have wondered that they embodied my abstraction of true love.
I saw this was to be the parting place. I was near enough to hear the girl's sobs, and I turned away, ashamed to be an unpermitted though an unseen spectator. I walked very slowly, and for five minutes, (it seemed to me half an hour,) I did not look again. When I did look the lover was gone, and the girl was sitting on the little embankment formed by a trench that has been dug round the oak. Her face was buried in her lap, and one arm was round the little dog, whose paws were on her knees and his head lying disconsolately against her.
I came straight home, unconscious by what way, and the moment I reached my own room, I rang the bell for Cristine, and keeping K---- by me for an interpreter, I told what I had just seen.
“Poor Grettel; poor Grettel!” she ejaculated as I proceeded; “God help her!” and when I finished she wiped away the shower of tears that had poured over her face, and smiling, said, “Never mind, Grettel has done right, and das ist besser!” ‘That is better,’ is a favorite phrase of Cristine's, and she always employs it when she wishes to express to me her entire satisfaction.
I will not set down all the particulars of my rather circumlutory conversation with Cristine, since I can very briefly tell the few circumstances explanatory of the love-scene I witnessed. It seems that Grettel lives at Soninberg, a most picturesque old village about two miles from here, close nestled under the ruins of the old castle of that name. She is the only child of her mother, a poor blind old woman, a widow who has no support comfort or solace under Heaven but Grettel.—Grettel is the Beauty of Soninberg, but as Cristine assured me, so discreet is her conduct that the old people say it is just as well her mother should be blind, for Grettel wants no eye to watch her. And she bears her honors so meekly that the prettiest girls of Soninberg are content Grettel should be first.
“But what will Grettel care for that,” said Cristine, “now Johanne is gone'.”
This Johanne, it seems, is a worthy youth who has served his apprenticeship with Leising, (our host,) a master builder here. He is a steady youth and a good workman, and having completed his term of service, including the itinerary year which is a part of every German artisan's education*[*] he was just about to set up for himself, when an unexpected course of duty and worldly advantage opened upon him, and overset all his castles in the air, beside the happy humble home which he fancied he had founded upon a rock, when Grettel promised to be its mistress.
Johanne, it seems has an uncle who went many years ago to America, and who is now a wealthy man in New-York.—He has written to Johanne that if he will come to America with his three young and orphan brothers, he will pay their passage, and take charge of their education and establishment there. For himself, Johanne said, he would not have given the offer a second thought—but the little boys! he stood in the place of a father to them, and he had no right to refuse.
“Oh! why,” he asked, “should their uncle, who had forgotten them so many years, just now remember them?”—The ‘why’ is easily told. He had lost his only son, and was too far advanced in life to hope to repair the loss.
The next thing to be done, after Johanne had made up his own mind, Cristine said, was to pursuade Grettel to go with him. “Johanne knew this would not be right, but men wereso used to having every thing their own way, that to pleasure themselves they were ready to pull down the walls God had set up.”
“Surely, surely,” Grettel said, “God would never forgive her if she forsook her old blind mother; and if in His mercy He should forgive her, she would never forgive herself!”
Johanne urged that her mother was very old—that she could live but a little while-and he must live a life-time without Grettel; that the neighbors could be kind to the old woman; that she would have a florin a month from the poor's box, beside many a casual gift when she was known to be quite alone; that his first earnings should be sent to her succor. He even went so far as to get the consent of a kind-hearted dame that the old woman should be removed to her house. Some of the neighbors, too, feeling it to be a very hard case for the lovers, joined their entreaties to Johanne's, and promised Grettel they would do all in their power for her mother. But as Cristine again and again assured me, the good child never ſaltered, and “das ist besser,” said the honest creature.
“Never, never will I bring tears from her blind eyes,” said Grettel. “God gave me to her, and till he separates us, I will not leave her.”
No arguments, no entreaties made her waver. The generous girl would not even permit her mother to know the sacrifice she was making, and when the old woman remarked that Grettel's step was heavy and her voice sickly, and begged her to take some odious nostrum, Grettel swallowed it and said nothing. “And then, when Johanne saw how good she was, he loved her better than ever, and before he went away, he said she had done right, and he did not deserve her. And for my part,” concluded Cristine, “if any man on earth gets Grettel, I think it will be more than he deserves.” By the way, our friend Cristine has contracted rather an humble opinion of the deserts of mankind; and, as often happens with ancient maidens, her charities for them contract as her sympathies with her own sex expand.
It is, as Cristine says, “a hard case.” Grettel has but obeyed the strong law of nature in setting her affections on one who, according to that law, should supersede father, mother and home, and when I think on the ease, social dignity and competence that reward the children of toil in our happy land, and see what a life of privation and hardship she must endure in this mouldering village of Soninberg, the sacrifice appears to me much greater than she knows it to be. However, she is, after all, rather to be envied than pitied. Strait and narrow is the way of self-denial, and she has entered therein—and obscure and unknown as she is, she will be one of ‘the few’ who, having resolutely chosen her duty for her law, will be rewarded with more than all the glory of this world; or even than all its love, which is a good deal more seducing.
----------
Our detention at Wiesbaden, dear J–, gives us an opportunity of seeing the strange chances of human life exemplified in the story of our poor friend of Soninberg. It is ten days since the parting at the Old Oak. When Cristine came into our room this morning, she looked haggard and sorrowful, and instead of her usual cheerful “Gutten Morgen,” she muttered something about “God's time and our time never coming together;" and before this first of Cristine's murmurings at Providence was interpreted to me, the cause of it was fully explained by her telling us that Grettel's mother was dead.
“If her poor dark life had ended but ten days ago,” Cristine said, “all would have been well enough, but now Johanne was on the sea, and who could reach him there? But it is I only, ladies, that am wicked enough to think of all this: Grettel grieving only that her mother has gone from her and thinks but of that. Grettel let the old woman believe that Johanne had gone to Frankfort to work at his trade, and was a comfort to her to think that he was just waiting to earn money enough to come back and marry Grettel. Oh! It made my heart beat as though it would come out of me when the old woman, in her last strength, rose up from her pillow and said, “Grettel, give my love and my blessing to Johanne; he is a good boy, and you will be a happy wife, and God send you as good a child for your old age as you have been to me—light to my heart when all other light was gone—God be thanked I have had you to the last—to the last.’—She sank back and did not speak again, and poor Grettel fell on her knees and said, “God be praised that I am here!’ And so I try to say to,” added Cristine in conclusion, “but indeed had it pleased God so, it would seem to work better round that the old body should have died ten days ago. But it's too late now, and so it does not signify; and poor Grettel must go on as I have done, working for others and caring for others—it's a lonesome life, ladies.”
Christine sighed deeply. It was a moment when the harness of life was galling, and though I felt how truly the poet’s words applied to her,
“With cheerful heart, and purpose pure,
So—our onward way is sure,’
I shall take a happier moment to enforce their consoling moral.
[p. 237]
I have elsewhere, my dear J----, described to you the various rural “Gast-hauser,' (guest-houses,) eating-gardens, and multiplied walks, provided about this place for the recreation of the Wiesbaden visitors. If you would lose yourself in a romantic solitude, you have but to go up the lovely valley of the New-Thal, to the forest of the New-Berg, where, in the green arched walks you will meet no one, not even such as should be found
‘In their assigned and native dwelling-place.’
Or you may mount to the old Roman water-tower, and see all these hills with their wavy outlines sloping down to Wiesbaden, and hung with vines and grain of every color, and in the distance the Rhine (its very name giving charm to the scene) for many a mile. Or if you have a town taste, and like the ‘sweet security of streets,’ you may promenade up and down the long walks in William street, where from the broad shadows of the double row of sycamores you may look out on the sunny pavement, the hotels, museum, &c., opposite to you, and the traveling post-equipages that are entering and leaving Wiesbaden, and to which it must take a long time to accustom an American eye, so that the horses without blinders, looking round as if they were on the point of speaking to you, the frightful distance between the wheel-horses and leaders, and the mystery of the safe guiding of the immense machine that comes lumbering on after him by the one postillion, shall cease to be a matter of curiosity.
Or if you like to hide yourself while you hear the din of the world all around you, you can go to the dark walks behind the colonnade. Or if you prefer ‘happy human faces,’ where there seems nothing but the spirit God has given them to make them happy, stray up the Acacia walk. There on the wooden seats you will see groups of the Bourgeois—men, women and children—looking as if they had not an anxiety or care on earth. But probably you, like myself and most of the world here, would prefer, day after day, and evening after evening, to all other resorts, the garden of the Cur-Saal. This garden, or rather pleasure-ground, occupies the whole interval between the hills from the centre of Wiesbaden to the village of Soninberg. The valley gradually narrows for two miles, and finally closes at the rocks on which the old castle of Soninberg was erected. The garden is a part of the Duke's private domain, and is kept in ducal order. You enter on each side of the Cur-saal, a public building about 300 feet long, where there are splendid apartments devoted to gambling all day and all night, excepting two or three times a week, when the roulette tables give place to music and dancing. Passing through a wood of catalpas, (unless you prefer going through the Cur-saal, and seeing the gentlemen and ladies standing round the table, losing and winning gold with apparent unconcern) you find a plot of ground behind the Cur-saal, occupied by tables and chairs, and coteries of Germans and English, regaling on Rhenish wines, coffee, cake and ices. I turned my back on all this, as usual, last evening, and took the way to Soninberg, skirting along the piece of artificial water—a clear large mirror to reflect the fine-dressed gentlemen and ladies and the far better dressed flowers that are flourishing round its brim. These gentlemen and ladies, by the by, seem to me to be travestied by a stately pair of white swans and a family of ducks that live on this water; the swans pompously sailing back and forth without an object in life, apparently, but to show off their beautiful forms and dress; and the ducks whirling and turning, and gabbling, and feeding—always feeding. But I am ashamed of an ill-natured thought here, where every living thing contributes to the cheerfulness of the scene.
Flowers, and choice ones too, are in profusion; for besides the rich fringe of geraniums, roses, pinks, myrtles and other precious plants around the edge of the water, you are constantly passing plots of heart's ease, astres, hydrangeas, strips of roses, and plantations of splendid dahlias. The walks are as intricate and multiplied as the space admits. As the valley narrows they diminish in number, and finally end in one which follows the windings of a little brook, too wide for you or me to leap, dear J----, but which H----, or any other active boy would think it no feat to jump over. It is this little brook, murmuring with a voice as soft and low as a German woman's, that gives the peculiar charm to this walk to Soninberg. The scenery is tame enough; indeed you see nothing but the garden, and the hills that slope to it. But the water is natural; it has a familiar home look and sound; and the tree (willows, locusts and poplars) and the clematis that hangs over them, and the clusters of bright red berries, all seem to have grown there at their own will and pleasure. For more than two miles, you follow the windings of the stream, and then as you approach the ruins of Soninberg, the valley has come to an end, and you mount the side of the hill.
Soninberg was one of the fortified castles of the Middle Ages. It must have occupied an important position, commanding the only pass from the upper to the lower valley.—The remains are still extensive. Arches and fragments of wall are standing at many hundred yards' distance from the Keep, and other masses of masonry in good preservation on the height. You can hardly imagine anything more picturesque in its way than this old village of Soninberg, with its little angular rookeries of rough beams and plaster all huddled together under the protecting shadow of the castle, like a brood of frightened chickens under the wing of their mother. Some of these little dwellings are niched in an angle of the old wall; others in part built of its fragments. Here a street runs under a narrow stone arch of the old fortification; there it passes the simplest of all rustic bridges over the very little stream that gladdens the garden, and here it ends against the mouldering chapel of the castle.
These abodes of extremest poverty have at this moment a beauty and luxury that our gentlemen with their hot house graperies might envy. Between the lower and upper windows there is a grape vine in a regular festoon, and pendent from it just now (for it is a most fortunate season for the vine growers) bunches of grapes so full and beautiful that they could never seem ‘sour grapes,’ even to those who could not get them! A rich drapery,’ is it not, for these poor cottages? and some counterbalance for the luxuries of space and pure air which the poorest of our country poor enjoy. But I have forgotten in the village, that I am drawing near to the ruins, and am admonished by the rose color on the evening clouds that there is no time to loiter.
I passed through the great arched way where I suppose the port-cullis was, and ascending a steep acclivity by the side of a wall overgrown with wild plants, I went round the tower and through the labyrinthine walk, which has been formed by the Duke's order I suppose, of hawthorn and clematis, and which is a very simple and excusable bit of pretty petitesse amid these grand old ruins. I smiled at seeing here and there a table arranged with a circular seat. I do not believe the Germans could be tempted to go where there was not a table on which to set a bottle of their precious Rhenish, and half a dozen social glasses. After rambling around till I was tired, I seated myself at a projecting point, a good look-off; but instead of looking off I looked up, and directly above, seated on the ground and leaning her head against a broken wall, I saw my pretty peasant girl, Grettel. She had come here to think her own thoughts, I suppose, drawn by the mysterious sympathies of Nature that even the most uncultivated feel at some moments of their lives. And here, soothed by their maternal influence, she had fallen asleep. Her knitting-work, the ‘idlesse’ of every German woman, had dropped from her hand and lay on her lap. The delicate white flowers of a clematis that fringed the broken wall, shaded her cheek, and to complete the picture (for with the rose-colored clouds above mentioned it was a picture that might have tempted Cole's Heaven-loving pencil) the little terrier-dog was sleeping at her feet. Suddenly he awoke, raised his head, and cocked up his ears. His manner quickened my senses, and I fancied I heard a quick footstep behind a wall which intervened between me and the path. Grettel was still sleeping. A smile played on her lips. I thought she had forgotten her sorrows and was dreaming of Johanne, and I would have muzzled the little dog if I could, when he sprang up, barked and bounded off. Grettel awoke, and to a reality better than any bliss of dreams, for at the next instant I saw her in Johanne's arms.
We leave Wilsbaden to-morrow, but not till the last act in this drama of my peasant girl is played out. I have just seen Cristine in her gala dress, and with a truly fête-day face, prepared to go to Grettel's wedding, and to-morrow the happy pair set off for their home in the New World.
It seems that the good school-master of Soninberg, who, if he did not think with Helóise that letters were invented for the love-stricken maiden, was eager to make them subserve her use—at the moment of the death of Grettel's mother, wrote to Johanne at Hamburg. It had so happened that Johanne, ‘by the good will of Providence,’ as Cristine says, had failed in getting there at the time he intended, and was awaiting the sailing of an American ship. The letter reached him, and in Cristine's favorite phrase, ‘das ist besser;’ that is to say, all has ended as well as if Cristine's kind and loving heart had arranged the catastrophe.
__________
[Sedgwick’s notes]
* One is painfully struck on first going to the Continent with the prevalence of diseases of the eye among the lower classes. In an infant Charity School I visited at Wiesbaden, I think out of a hundred at least ten had diseased eyes. The women live out of doors, their babies in their laps or on the ground beside them. Bonnets are not worn by females of the lower orders of any age; there is therefore no protection for the eyes.
* [*] There is a law throughout Germany, requiring the artisan, when he has finished his apprenticeship to travel a year from city to city (visiting, if he pleases, Paris and London,) in order to improve himself in his art. When he arrives in a German town, he goes to the
herberg, a tavern kept for artisans, and there, after reporting himself to the police, finds employment. This is an admirable provision tending to facilitate the diffusion of the arts, and the enlargement of the artist's knowledge out of his art.
Dublin Core
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Title
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The Beauty of Soninberg. A Letter from Wiesbaden.
Subject
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Germany, travel, love and devotion.
Description
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The narrator writes a letter describing her travels in Germany, and recounts a love story about a beautiful young woman in the town of Soninberg.
Creator
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Sedgwick, Catharine Maria. [Miss Catharine M. Sedgwick, Author of 'Hope Leslie' &c.]
Source
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The Evergreen (May 1840), pp. 234-37.
Publisher
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New York: J. Winchester
Date
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1840
Contributor
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D. Gussman
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Document
Language
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English
"God Soul and World"
1840
aqueduct
artisans
As You Like It
beauty
blindness
Carisbrook lions
Dogs
donkeys
Duke of Nassau
eye-disease
Falstaff
filial piety
Frankfurt
Geisberg
Germany
Goethe
Héloïse
Isaac
Kursaal Gardens
letters
Marksburg
Mothers
New York
old maid
Old World
peasants
Rebecca
Rhine
Schwalbach
servant
Shakespeare
Soninberg
Taunus Hills
The Evergreen
Thomas Cole
tourism
Travel
wells
Wiesbaden