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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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024236ef5e2fc939d90740d1bd7f977e
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1832
Subject
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Stories published in 1832
Document
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Text
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A SKETCH OF A BLUE STOCKING.
BY MISS SEDGWICK.
Mrs Laight, till the respectable age of fifty, devoted her time and talents to the ordinary occupations of those ladies of our country who are favored with a numerous progeny; that is, to minute care of her children, and thrifty management of her household concerns. She was the daughter of a President of one of our literary institutions, and had early imbibed a taste for literary pursuits, which was apparent in a slight tinge of pedantry, though she was prevented from indulging it by the pressure of domestic affairs. This taste revived with renewed force, when, by the death of her husband, and the control of an abundant income, she became mistress of her time and inclinations; and it received a fresh impetus from a visit to the place of her nativity, where, as she said, all her mental powers had been restored, by inhaling her native atmosphere, and reviving her intimacies with the literary associates of her youth. Among these, was a lady whom I shall take the liberty to call Mrs Rosewell. Her friendship was Mrs Laight’s highest ambition, and she returned to Lawrentum (the classic name she had recently bestowed on her place, situated in the centre of a compact village), flushed with the expectation of a visit from her distinguished friend. Nothing could have been much more appalling to the younger members of her family than the annunciation
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of the approaching honor—Mrs Laight’s daughters- she has half a dozen of them—are pretty, intelligent, sufficiently well instructed, and very charming girls, but they have not—not one of them (for their mother’s sake I grieve to say it), a literary bias; and the ardor with which her ruling passion had recently broken forth, had inspired them with a horror of blue-stockingism. Frank Laight, their eldest brother, a spirited young man, just returned from a successful voyage to South America, foresaw that his glad holiday at home was to be overclouded. His younger brothers perceived that a universal gêne was expected; and their imaginations presented it in the form of the sacrifice of their fishing and sporting pleasures with Frank. Anne Milnor, a lovely girl, a guest at Lawrentum, who was secretly cherishing a well-requited tenderness for Frank, timidly shrunk from the observation of a learned lady, whose opinion, as she anticipated, would confirm that which she feared, with too much reason, Mrs Laight had already conceived against her. All were malecontents, but the most anxious among them, and with most reason, was Leonard Clay. Mrs Rosewell was the friend of Professor Lowe; he was to attend her to Lawrentum, and the Professor was an admirer of Sarah Laight, a dangerous rival to Leonard; for, in addition to qualities that commended him to a young lady’s favor, the Professor had Latin, Greek, science, and erudition, appliances and means to win the mother.
The mind of the majority at Lawrentum was unfavorable to poor Mrs. Rosewell, but the majority did not rule there; and, happily for her, hospitality was the genius
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of the place, and the whole family were perfectly amiable and dutiful to their mother.
‘ Heaven preserve us ! Clay, are you reading a review? ’ asked Frank Laight, who found his friend in his mother’s library, poring over a tri-monthly publication, with a most doleful aspect.
‘I am trying to read it; crawling through it. Your mother says we must be prepared with some topics suitable to this Mrs Rosewell, and she has set me down here to a rigmarole article, written by the lady herself.’
‘ Pshaw ! my dear fellow, you are irretrievably lost, if you undertake to meet these literary Amazons on their own ground. The only way to manage them is to talk them down on subjects they know nothing about. Take them out of books, Leonard, and they are as ignorant as you and I are in them. I ’ll lay a wager, I ’ll run this blue aground with rodomontade about my voyage, before she has been a day in the house; and do you rattle away on fishing and sporting. I ’ll answer for it; you ’ll tree her. Hang it! it is too absurd to be afraid of a woman, just because she happens to be a mannish writer of reviews.’—Frank was interrupted by his mother’s entrance. She requested the young men to leave the library, as she had scarcely time to put it in proper trim for Mrs Rosewell’s reception.
Frank and Leonard found the young ladies just going out to walk, and joined them. ‘ Well, Anne,’ asked Frank of Miss Milnor, ‘ have you prepared high converse for this benign cerulean ?’
‘ Not I—I shall not open my lips before her.’ ‘ You are right, Anne,’ replied Frank, and then added, in a low tone of earnest compliment, ‘modesty is the
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prettiest device in the world for the seal of a young lady’s lips—speaking of lips, girls,’ he continued, raising his voice, ‘ what sort of a looking person do you take this Mrs Rosewell to be ? '
‘ Of course,’ replied Sarah Laight, ‘ she has what is called an intellectual fine face.’
‘ That is to say,’ retorted Frank, ‘rolling black eyes, or deep-set gray ones, a nose like the tower of Lebanon, and cheeks ploughed with lines of thought, and furrows of reflection; in short, a striking countenance. Thank Heaven, Leonard, we have bright, round, dimpled cheeks, to refresh and repose our eyes upon; but have a care, Sarah, don’t you see that horse is frightened by your parasol? put it down, child !’ A horse and chaise were rapidly passing. Sarah attempted, as hidden, to lower the parasol, but the wind, which was blowing freshly, took it up, and carried it under the horse’s feet. He sheared, reared, and floundered, and would inevitably have overturned the chaise if Leonard Clay had not adroitly seized the bridle. He succeeded in holding the horse while a lady jumped from the chaise, and then springing in himself, he received the reins from the willing hands of the unskilled driver, and succeeded in subduing the terrified animal before such exclamations as,
‘Oh ! Leonard, do n’t get into the chaise !’ ‘ Leonard ! Leonard!‘ ‘Mr Clay!’ ‘Let Leonard alone; he can manage the horse.’ ‘Heavens! Sarah, how pale you are!’ Before such exclamations had well parted from the lips of his companions, another moment passed, and the young ladies’ eyes were asking ‘who this stranger could be,’ that had so suddenly descended among them?
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A lady she was, whose manner had that beautiful combination of grace, refinement, unaffectedness, and gentility, that is best described by the comprehensive word ladylike. Her countenance was bright, lovely, and still retained its symmetry and much of its early beauty, though the bloom and roundness of youth had long been gone. The stranger’s dress, a circumstance that first strikes a female eye, was arranged with taste, and just up to the suitable and becoming point of fashion, a very critical matter, one of the nicest of all the fine arts of women. ‘ Who can she be? ’ was plainly spoken by the glances of our young friends, and answered immediately by the lady’s companion, who, with a confession, that requires both courage and magnanimity, of his incompetency to manage his horse, alighted from the chaise, and was recognised by Sarah Laight as Professor Lowe. The lady, of course—the lady, who, at first sight, had captivated the bright eyes and warm hearts of the young people, was no other than the dreaded blue-stocking, the ‘ benign cerulean,’ the veritable author, the perpetrator of full-sized volumes, and, as Frank Laight had called her, the writer of mannish review – our friend, Mrs Rosewell! For a moment her sunbeams broke through the clouds of prejudice, that had settled over the minds of the group, but they had been too long gathering to be so suddenly dispersed. Frank proposed to Miss Milnor to hasten home with him, to announce Mrs Rosewell’s arrival to his mother; and by this pretext, as he thought, and said, ‘got his neck out of the scrape for the present.’ He had, however, the grace to remark to Anne, the little resemblance Mrs
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Rosewell bore to the figure he had sketched, and to confess she had the sweetest blue eye he had ever seen, save one. Anne Milnor assented to his opinion, by putting in a blushing, smiling demurrer to the exception. Sarah Laight, never less propitious to the Professor than at this moment, when he had resigned the post of honor and of danger to Leonard Clay, clung to her sister’s arm; and Miss Laight, though on ordinary occasions a young lady of exemplary propriety, only replied in monosyllables to Mrs Rosewell’s efforts to sustain a conversation, so that she and the Professor were finally condemned to a stately walk, and a dull téte a téte, for a distance of half a mile to Lawrentum. Arrived there, the fervid and circumstanced reception of Mrs Laight was even more oppressive to her friend than the reserve of the young people. But Mrs Rosewell was a lady of resources, and she took refuge with the children. They had had their prejudices too, but the prejudices of childhood vanished before a genial influence, like the dews of a summer’s morning. In the first hour’s acquaintance, Mrs Rosewell had been conducted by the two little girls to the extremity of the garden, to try a new swing, hung for them by Leonard Clay. Hal had given her a ride on his new rocking-horse, and the little slattern, Bessie, had slunk away from her mother’s reproving eye, and in the most confiding manner, thrust her foot into Mrs Rosewell’s lap to get her shoe tied! Dinner was soon announced, and, as philosophers, philanthropists, savans, and blue-stockings, at a dinner table, fall or rise to the level of ordinary mortals, the admiration and awe of mother and children were forgotten
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in the common courtesies of the table, and when the suspended conversation began to revive, it flowed on naturally, in spite of Mrs Laight’s efforts (to borrow her own ambitious phrase) to season it with Attic salt. Frank Laight found himself quite unexpectedly involved, and interested, too, in giving Mrs Rosewell a sketch of the modes of living among the South Americans, which somehow ended in Mrs Rosewell’s asking Leonard Clay if he liked macaroni? Clay never happened to have heard the name. Macaroni sounded like Italian. He encountered Frank’s eye; he fancied that his ever-ready smile was archly hovering on his lips; he was not yet disabused of the notion that an author must always talk of books; and, resolving not to be ashamed of his ignorance, he said, manfully, ‘l have never seen the work, Madam; I do not read Italian.’ Frank Rosewell shouted; Sarah blushed to her fingers ends, and poor Clay would have been thoroughly chagrined, if Mrs Rosewell had not graciously and gracefully assumed all the disgrace of the mistake to her blue-stocking reputation. Afterwards, when the parties came to understand one another better, Clay’s blunder was the occasion of many a merry allusion among them.
When they rose from the table, Mrs Laight conducted her friend to the library. Her children, as soon as they were left to the free interchange of their impressions of their dreaded visitor, exclaimed ;—‘ How unaffected she is ! ’ ‘ How very agreeable ! ’ ‘ I entirely forgot that she was anything uncommon!’ ‘ Who would suspect she had ever published a book?’ ‘ Or ever read one! ’ These may sound like equivocal compliments, but so
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Mrs Rosewell did not esteem them; and any unpretending fellow-sufferer, who has been invested with the repulsive name of blue-stocking, would prefer them to fifty diplomas from as many learned societies.
Mrs Laight had put her library into complete order for her friend’s reception. Alas! what a labor lost it was ! Books of scholastic divinity and philosophy, over which her father, the Doctor, had withered and dried away, body and spirit, for forty years, had been brought forth from the quiet oblivion which they had shared with their old proprietor, and were ostentatiously arranged on shelves where they bore the same relative interest to the fresh, tempting, unbound, and dog-eared volumes of modern writers, that mummies do to a beautiful piece of living and glowing humanity. ‘This apartment,’ said Mrs Laight, looking around her with a serene smile of enviable self-complacency, ‘this apartment is yours; your sanctum sanctorum; your imperium in imperio, as my dear father would have said. Here are books, a mine of wealth; and here, my dear,’ opening a writing- desk, ‘ are materials for more books; pens in abundance ; ink and folio paper. By the way, do tell me what was your last work?’
‘ My last work; really; I do not remember!’ replied Mrs Rosewell, hesitating and half smiling.
‘ Not remember? that ’s impossible ! ’
‘Pardon me; I do; my last work was cutting out some vests for my boys.’
The good lady looked crest-fallen, and replied so meekly, that Mrs Rosewell was conscience-stricken.
‘ It is very natural, I know it is, my dear, that you should think my knowledge limited to such works as
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you have mentioned; but I assure you I have always had a literary taste, and if I had been a man I should have devoted myself to books; but women, at least most of us, are condemned to obscure, if not useless, lives.’
‘ My good friend, you do your lot injustice; your life, according to Napoleon’s estimate in his celebrated reply to Madame de Stael, has been illustrious.’
‘ How ? what do you mean ?’ asked Mrs Laight, eagerly, hoping for some new revelation on her past destiny.
‘ Why, have you not given twelve children to the state? ’ Poor Mrs Laight’s countenance fell; her friend proceeded; ‘I cannot think there is any great merit in number, but a mother, who has twelve such children as yours, may make a Cornelian boast of them, and ought to be hailed as a benefactress to her country.’
The mother (Mrs Laight was a true-hearted one), for a moment, prevailed over her ruling passion. ‘ They are good children,’ she said, ‘ all of them; kind, affectionate, and dutiful, and I ought to be satisfied with them; but it is a disappointment, that not one of them takes after me; that not one of them has the least literary turn. Sarah, indeed—Sarah has, I think, a latent talent. She writes a pretty letter; she has quite a knack at quotation, and, if she were to get into the right kind of society, her ambition might be roused. Once a reader, she might become a writer.’
‘Ah! these possibilities look well for my friend, the Professor.’
‘ How? ' exclaimed Mrs Laight, and after turning the key of the door and drawing close to her friend, she added, ‘ do you think the Professor is attached to Sarah ? ’
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‘Not precisely attached, but if he believed he might gain her affections, and your approbation, he would soon be irretrievably in love.’
‘My approbation!’ exclaimed the good lady, ‘he has it already; it is the very thing. To tell you the truth, I have long had a secret hope this might be. How delightful for us again to be connected with the college ! You have my consent to give the Professor a hint that he will meet with no opposition.’
‘None from you, I perceive; but has he nothing to fear in another quarter? We have heard alarming rumors of an attachment between young Clay and Sarah, and I fancied I perceived some indications that confirmed them.’
‘ Oh, that’s nothing; a mere childish predilection, which has kept alive by Frank’s intimacy with Leonard; Sarah knows my opinion of Leonard.’
‘ He is a very pleasing young man. Is there any objection to him?’
‘ Very pleasing! You cannot think so. Recollect his blunder about the macaroni! a specimen of his ignorance, my dear. He has not one particle of erudition. He was, to be sure, a great favorite with my husband, because he was a lad of integrity, intelligent about affairs, and successful in managing his own. The young people like him because he is good humored and amiable. But he is no reader; and as to writing, I do not believe he ever wrote a paragraph for a newspaper—in short, my dear friend, he has nothing of what you and I should call mind.’
The scale by which Mrs Rosewell graduated mind was different from her friend’s. She thought it was
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best demonstrated by the wise and successful conduct of life; and conceiving a good opinion of Clay, and guessing truly at the real position of affairs, she placed the subject in the most favorable light to the mother, and so adroitly used her influence, that she obtained Mrs Laight’s acquiescence in the propriety of giving a hint to the Professor (whose affections were too precious to put to hazard), to make a timely retreat.
This subject dismissed, and by Mrs Laight, with a sigh of disappointment, she, after a misty preface, introduced another topic, still nearer to her heart. The preface I omit. The topic was a manuscript production, which no eye had yet seen, ‘on the intellectual faculties, comprising a view of their essence—modus operandi (a scrap of Latin from her father of blessed memory)—of their sublimity and beauty, and of their use to society in general.’
Mrs Rosewell’s heart sunk within her, as she read the ominous title, and promised her friend that she would examine the closely written pages to which it was prefixed and would give her honest opinion as to their publication.
I promised my reader’s a sketch; and I do not mean to take them in for a story; a sketch of a blue-stocking, falsely so-called, and I have merely given a few circumstances, to illustrate the common impressions against those who are infairly branded with an odious name. The are shown off as lions by the little flutterers (willing to scorch their own wings in a blaze), when they would rather pass for a sheep, or any other ‘very gentle beast, and of a good conscience.’ I can at least answer for my friend, Mrs Rosewell. She has all the
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most lovely qualities of her sex. She has well done those humble duties that lie in the obscure recesses of domestic life. She has genius without eccentricity, knowledge without pedantry, and enthusiasm without extravagance. Her colloquial gifts are hardly surpassed, yet I never detected her in the vanity of talking to display them. Her manners are so gentle and feminine, that she seems rather to ask sufferance than to claim admiration. None are impassive to her influence. It resembles the fabled effect of the sun on Memnon’s statue, eliciting melody from the cold and silent. This is by no miracle, but by the steady application of her powers to their legitimate objects. She loves her fellow creatures, and takes a benevolent interest in whatever elevates or makes them happier. She looks on the bright side of characters, as well as of events. She finds good in everything. I have sometimes thought she gave undue encouragement to the vanity of others, but it must be confessed to be difficult to be raised to a sodden elevation, without causing dizziness.
Mrs. Rosewell is literary, and –a blue-stocking. I cannot deny it; if the most ardent devotion to knowledge and talent, even though they chance to be found in books; if a love of science; if an occasional communication to the public of the result of her studies and observations, constitutes a blue-stocking. But if being the most honored and beloved of wives; the most tender and capable of mothers; the most efficient and least bustling of housewives; the truest of friends, and the most attractive of women, can rescue her from this repulsive name, she deserves it no more than the veriest ignoramus in the
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land. If any doubt the truth of my portrait, I appeal to our friends of Lawrentum. In a visit of a month, she worked wonders there. She entered heartily into the views of the young people, and, what was more important, brought their mother to their point of sight. Sarah was permitted to plight her troth to Leonard Clay, and Frank, his to the pretty orphan, Anne Milnor, without one sigh from their mother over their unlettered destiny. She even confessed, that her girls had talents, though not a literary turn; and that her boys were clever, in their way, though they preferred fishing and sporting to books. She ceased to express her surprise (never I believe to feel it), that Mrs Rosewell loved better to ramble over the country, or romp with the children, than to immure herself in the library with the Doctor’s rare books. My friend’s greatest achievement, she deems it her chef d’ouvre, was inducing Mrs Laight to suppress her metaphysical essay, and that, too, without wounding her vanity, or materially abating her self-complacency. Mrs Rosewell‘s conquest over the junior members of the family, if not as surprising, was as complete. The girls confided to her their most romantic sentiments. Leonard Clay secretly begged her to prescribe a course of reading to him, that would qualify him to elicit Sarah’s latent talents; and Frank was detected in purchasing the books she had published, to beguile the tediousness of his next voyage.
I have not ventured to grace my portrait with those minute touches that would have identified it, but I doubt not that its verisimilitude will be acknowledged by those who are familiar with any of the circles of the cultivated, useful, and happy women of our country.
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
A Sketch of a Blue Stocking
Subject
The topic of the resource
Women writers, blue-stockings, stereotypes.
Description
An account of the resource
A famous woman writer visits a family and challenges their various assumptions about literary women and blue-stockings.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Sedgwick, Catharine Maria; Miss Sedgwick
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<em>The Token </em>(edited by S[amuel] G. Goodrich), 334-46.
Publisher
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Boston: Gray & Bowen
Date
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1832 [pub. 1831]
Contributor
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D. Gussman; L. Damon-Bach
Relation
A related resource
Also published in <em>Moral Tales, or A Selection of Interesting Stories, Volume 1</em>, (edited by S[amuel] G. Goodrich), New York: Nafish and Cornish, 1840, pp. 143-154, and in <em>Wielding the Pen: Writings on Authorship by American Women of the Nineteenth Century</em>, Ed. Anne E. Boyd, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2009, 28-35.
Language
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English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sketch
1832
blue stocking
courtship
Motherhood
The Token
women writers
writing
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https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/4347/archive/files/2c992cd708697cb0aad8d53860c3076d.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=quHtLy5AQCgJD7niTxQxpZyGmeyQ%7EWSb3T-1mTlbP3VL50xv4SYg3z7eWc1h8LZtsPUxKNJc1yGAuoRhv4AeH4r0tfxgAEemS33qogAP%7EFa7-lya-MNERzw7WY8s8ZhLHVPdJcw8ksx570L3fWf86EOMR9ixwCDeddz%7EQUeoZKFyybspbzttCq6Ky1NE2tZPCCuCcC2R2dxexjygW74Xd4LNdAh0dsIWG2M9dRX%7EHkxyziR-%7EdWNgkiHAAozcgqcwHFfEtO9dTf2nlMdCOlgRUjI6mbOUcTtwDclgDfTBSc%7EC28uN05C-D92ZpS4rWrLDwoagUna9nB6DHLRC%7ERPdQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
5a78eb87f0c1a2a8e42c9707af56d45e
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
1847
Document
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Text
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Nine Years Since
_____
By Miss Catharine M. Sedgwick.
______
Joy’s opening buds, affection’s glowing flowers
Once lightly sprang within her beaming track.
Oh life was beautiful in those lost hours.
MRS. FRANCIS KERMIT was loitering over her breakfast table—her young people dropping in one after another to take their morning meal—(my friend Mrs. Kermit’s ménage leans to rather too wide an indulgence;) last came Morgan Kermit, who was at home during a vacation in the Cambridge law-school, and his friend Charles Boyne, then his guest.
The young people were in the midst of a discussion of the opera which had enchanted them on the preceding evening, when the bell rang, and the servant announced “Miss Adelaide Rutherford.”
“Ask her to come down into the breakfast room, John,” said Mrs. Kermit.
“Oh, mamma, don’t,” uttered two young remonstrants of fifteen and seventeen. ‘Mamma,’ whose instinct it is to give a guest her best welcome, motioned to the servant to obey her order, and said, “The fire is not yet made in the drawing-room, Lizzie, and I really do not see why you should not all be pleased to see Miss Adelaide here.”
“Miss Adelaide! the very sound is enough,” said one of the girls, and in reply to Charles Boyne’s inquiry, “Is Miss Adelaide an ogress?” Ruth replied, shrugging her shoulders, “No, but an old maid, which is next door to it, you know.”
“Pardon me,” replied Charles Boyne, with something like a shade of disapprobation passing over his charming countenance; “I know no such thing; my dearest friend belongs to the category of old maids, so called, and for her sake, I rather dislike to hear that term of contempt used.”
The young ladies were, in sailor phrase, rather ‘taken aback’ by this sentiment from their favorite cavalier, and it evidently placed Miss Rutherford in a new light, for when she entered, Caroline thought she had a high bred air which she had never before observed; Lizzie was struck with the remarkable sweetness of her voice, and my young favorite Ruth Kermit—a noble creature is Ruth, but with the presumption and confidence too apt to mark our girls of fifteen—even Ruth, to whom it had not before occurred that beauty could outlive two or three and twenty, thought Miss Rutherford must have been handsome.
Miss Rutherford had come on some errand quickly done, and with a painful consciousness that the young people were constrained by her presence, she soon took her leave. Morgan Kermit, with a characteristic politeness, which gives me the agreeable assurance that the heart of courtesy has not passed away with the generation that is gone, attended Miss Adelaide to the door, and re-entered, saying, “Is this the lady, Ruth, that you say is next door to an ogress? I should like to see the young lady who promises to be as lovely at thirty as Miss Rutherford.”
“Thirty!” exclaimed Ruth.
“Not more than thirty, I imagine,” said Morgan; “is she, mother?”
“Yes, thirty-three or four—let me see—yes, thirty-three. She was just twenty-four nine years ago.”
“Thirty-three! Pretty old, mother.”
“That depends upon the point of sight, Caroline. To me, at forty-five, thirty-three appears quite young.”
“Oh, yes, mother,” exclaimed Ruth; “forty-five is young enough for you—I never think of your being old—but it is quite a different thing for an unmarried person. Now there is your old schoolmate—I suppose Miss Eleanor is not older than you are, but she seems to me as old as the hills. I call a woman of four or five and twenty, that is not married, an old maid!”
“How old are you, Caroline?”
“Twenty-two, mother.”
“Then in two years, my dear, you may sit yourself down in that limbo of desolation that old maids inhabit, according to your sister Ruth.” All eyes turned to Caroline’s brilliant face—to her lips still bright with the freshest dew of youth—and all laughed at the ridiculous picture suggested.
“I am glad to see even a soupcon of a blush on your cheek, Ruth,” said her brother. “There is a saying that hawks won’t pick out hawks’ een.
[208]
I do not think women verify it. They use that term of reproach, ‘old maids,’ for so it is in their estimation, very freely; one would think it were more natural to hedge about the unfortunate of their own sex (if it be a misfortune) with reverence.”
“Well, Morgan!” exclaimed Ruth.
“Well, Ruth, what surprises you?”
“Why, Morgan, you talk like an old man that has half a dozen old maid daughters.”
“On the contrary, I mean to talk like a young man who has half a dozen young maid sisters, perchance, may be” –
“Not old maid sisters—no, no, Morgan.”
“No, indeed, never!” seconded Ruth; and she whispered something to Caroline, hinting that her eldest sister, at least, was sure of escaping that destiny.
“Supposing,” continued Morgan__
“No, Morgan,” said Ruth, “don’t make any such supposition.”
“Please hear me out, Ruth; I have great hopes, if my mother comes to my aid—my mother and you Charles—that I shall root this vulgarity out of my family.”
“Oh, Mr. Boyne, is not Morgan too bad?”
“In his mode of expression, yes, Miss Ruth, but I agree with him in sentiment.”
“And I have great hopes that you will be converted, now,” said Mrs. Kermit, “that these two gallant champions have come forth in the cause of your elder sisters”—
“Oh, mamma, how can you call them our sisters—all the Miss Pattys, and Miss Judys, the Beckey do-goods, and Beckey do-nothings in the world—but go on, Morgan; mount your Rosinante, Mr. Boyne, and do better for—what did Mr. Boyne call them? Oh, the category!”
“I shall do no battle, Ruth,” replied her brother, “but marshal my forces after a good precedent, and set them in the front rank, while I, their humble auxiliary, stand behind them, sure you will not strike me through them. To begin then, there is Miss Sara Alston, sailing somewhere on what you would call the dead sea, between thirty and forty.”
“Mercy! Cousin Sara! I don’t call her an old maid.”
“No,” interrupted Mrs. Kermit; “but any impertinent young woman of fifteen, who had not the happiness to be Miss Alston’s cousin, would infallibly call her so. Go on, my son.”
“Miss Sara,” resumed Morgan, “(a very old maidish sound, Ruth!) cousin Sara I must call her, for thus she stands from the days of our childhood printed on my heart. Who is more beloved than our cousin Sara? The light of her own household, whence so many lights have been removed—like an oriental lamp, diffusing sweet odors as well as light. Is cousin Sara a gossip? She is profoundly ignorant of all her neighbors’ doings, except their good deeds. Is she exacting? She claims nothing but the privilege of doing self-sacrificing kindnesses, and rejecting all praise or notice for them. She makes no pretensions to accomplishments, but if any one needs an accurate and beautiful drawing, she produces it. She does not verge on blue-stockingism—but if an elegant and accurate translation is wanted by a friend to be incorporated in his article, cousin Sara does the work, and when it is printed, not even a dim smile betrays her right to the praise. As to the sweet charities of life, there is not an humble person within her reach that does not feel happier and safer for being near her. She works, like all the gentlier heavenly influences, without noise. See what a bed of roses, and sweet of all kinds she has made of the old garden. Cousin Sara might not produce an effect in a town drawing-room; though to me, the health lighting her clear eye and blooming on her cheek, and the quiet elegance of her dress and manner, are far more attractive than the glare of your so-called belles, Lizzie.”
“Come, Morgan,” said Ruth, “you have said quite enough about cousin Sara, though I do love her dearly, and never even thought of her being an old maid; but then she lives in the country, you know, where it does not signify what you are; I don’t think I should like to be cousin Sara in a party.”
“Perhaps not—for a party, you would prefer the gas-lights and suffocating heat to the pure outward air of a star-lit evening.”
Charles Boyne, either thinking Ruth was ‘cornered,’ or from an impulse of chivalry, came to her aid. “Morgan has made out one fair case, Miss Ruth,” he said; “but we all know that ‘one swallow don’t make a summer.’”
“Please, Mr. Charles Boyne,” resumed Morgan, “repeat what you said to me last evening of Miss Seaman, another old maid—verbatim, Charles.” Charles smiled, but remained silent. “Allow me then, young ladies, to quote my friend; he had been talking for half an hour with Miss Seaman, when I told him I would introduce him to the beautiful Miss Rolson for the next polka. He declined, and I afterward asked him how he could lose such a chance; he replied that he could dance the polka with beautiful young ladies any evening, but it was a rare chance to hear so charming a talker as Miss Seaman. So you see, my sweet sisters, that young beauties don’t always carry the day against old maids. Even you, Ruth, will allow that poor Miss Seaman must be called an old maid.”
[209]
“Oh, but, Morgan, when one gets as old as Miss Seaman one does not think whether she is a miss or mistress.”
“Besides, Morgan,” interrupted Caroline, “I should like to know where there is another miss or mistress like Miss Seaman? She has been everywhere; she knows everybody. If you are inclined to sadness, she is as consoling as the old prophets; and if you would be merry, she has a million merry stories to feed your humor; if you are dull, she can entertain you with the essence of the best French novel, or tell you anecdotes of the French courts. She knows Madame de Sevigné and Horace Walpole by heart, and can repeat half the old English poetry. One must live a long life-time to have such stories. It is not fair to put such a woman as Miss Seaman against us.”
“It is not, Caroline,” said her mother; “but I think you would have found her quite too powerful a rival at any other period of her life. She began with gifts, with a command of language, not a pomp of words, but always the best word rightly fitted in; fluency without loquacity, and grace without mannerism, and above all, with that almost divine instinct called tact, which taught her how and when to use her several gifts. I remember when we were young, some of us were beauties, some fortunes, &c. Anna Seaman, without fortune or beauty, almost the plainest woman among us, attracted all the charming, clever young men.”
“But had she lovers, mamma?” inquired Miss Ruth, who evidently thought life was not life without them.
“Lovers were not quite in her line, Miss Ruth; but if you mean opportunities of being married, she was not a person to proclaim them in the marketplace; but I doubt not she had them, for as you all know, Anna Seaman has a thousand loveable qualities.”
“Oh, yes, mamma, qualities that are charming in an old lady—but—“
“But love, I suppose, is quite independent of generosity, magnanimity, prompt kindness, social cheerfulness and the rarest, domestic efficiency—qualities that bind you all to Ann Seaman more than her genius.”
“Well, mamma, we give up Miss Anna; but it takes even more than ‘two swallows to make a Summer.’”
“Yes, my dear,” retorted Morgan; “and so we will have a flock of them, Miss Wilson!”
“Oh, Miss Wilson!” said Caroline; “that is not fair; she has a home of her own, and no one thinks of her being an old maid.”
“But she is nevertheless forty years old, and single. No lord to her household, no children, those birds of paradise, to embellish it.”
“No lord to her household!” exclaimed Lizzie. “To be sure she has no husband to lord it over her; but there is no house you young men like so well as Miss Wilson’s—”
“And—therefore, you young ladies like it?”
“For shame, Morgan—no, we like to go and see Miss Wilson for her own sake, she is so kind and agreeable, and as to the children, I am sure her sisters’ hundred children love her quite as well as they do their mothers.”
“Then I may count Miss Wilson as a third swallow, may I not?”
“Yes.”
“And her sister Esther, still very pretty and attractive, and with wit as keen and as polished as that of Beatrice?”
“Yes, yes, you may count Esther Wilson, though I think she is a little—acid, now and then.”
“Acid! Esther Wilson acid? I deny it; but if she were, are not those married dames, Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Ledson, vinegar and lemon-juice?”
“You must not forget,” said Charles Boyne, “our friend Emma Smith, a sort of Atlas in her family, holding its whole world on her head.”
“Oh, no,” replied Morgan, “I do not forget her; but I confine myself to my sisters’ own circle of friends—I am talking for their conversion. There are Susan Goddard and Emily Wheaton—a rest to the weary and sick—a balm in life, coming into the sick chamber like the light, pleasant to behold. And Mary Lewis, picking up the stitches that everybody else has dropped—doing neglected, omitted or forgotten duties for all her married friends.”
“Your flock is large enough to migrate, Morgan,” said Caroline; “you may stop there—you have not been to the law school in vain. You have made out a fair case with your ‘modern’ instances. Even Ruth, a few years hence, may look forward to the possibility of being one on the list of your old maids, without dismay.”
“Provided I am not called one.”
“It is the vulgar name,” said Mrs. Kermit, “with its old associations, Ruth, that your brother is contending against. There are women, I allow, who, partly owing to beginning with your ideas of an old maid, and remaining single, make the character true to its ideal. They are selfishly neat, prudish, sordid, mean, and of course, repulsive; but I have seen such married women—or they are gossiping, garrulous, flippant and ridiculous.”
“I think you might name some of your married friends that are all that, too, mother,” said Morgan.
“Certainly I could; but some of their qualities or all of them have been given by the male satirists to the ideal old maid. She has been set up in novels, comedies and farces, as a sort of target in which to fix the arrows of ridicule. Married wo-
[210]
men have joined in this cruel sport, and the world have been amused by it. So that a woman who courageously remains single rather than marry a man she does not love has not only to endure all the trials inseparable from the condition, but she must bear, even from her own sex, reproach and contumely. She may have been once disappointed and never trusted again. She may have nobly sacrificed the happiest destiny of woman to opposing circumstances; she may, when life was at its fairest, when promise was so near to fulfillment that no thought of failure could intervene, have lost all, and a little after, perhaps not more than nine years, a new generation has sprung up, and some flippant girl will say of her, she is an old maid, next door to an ogress, you know!”
“Oh, dear, mamma! That is not fair,” said Ruth; “I spoke quite thoughtlessly.”
“And it is to prevent your speaking thoughtlessly in future, Ruth,” said her brother, “that my mother and I are crusading.”
“And I am sure,” resumed Ruth, “I knew nothing of Miss Rutherford’s history. I did not know she had one. I never saw her till last week.”
“If you had then thought an ‘old maid’ worth considering, Ruth,” said her mother, “you might have inferred a history from Miss Rutherford’s sunken, melancholy eye, that for years wept, and did nothing but weep—from that marble paleness that has scarcely varied for the last nine years.”
“Nine years, mamma! There is something awful in that sound. Do tell us Miss Rutherford’s story.”
“Not now. If you can be curious to hear the story of an ‘old maid,’ I will tell it this evening; now the family machine must be wound up; John is waiting for orders for market; there are notes to be answered, accounts to be settled, &c., &c.”
Late in the evening, when all the family were gathered in, Ruth sat down on a footstool beside her mother, and said, “Mamma, my sisters and I have made up our minds either never to say ‘old maid’ again, or to pronounce the words with delicate reverence; and father, I am not sure but we shall devote ourselves to the excellent calling—except Caroline. Now are we worthy to hear Miss Rutherford’s story?”
“Scarcely, you saucy child; but as Mr. Boyne and Morgan are, I shall tell it. It will not keep you long.”
“Adelaide Rutherford was born on her father’s plantation, Bellefield, in South Carolina. Her mother was a Scotch woman and a beauty who, when not more than seventeen, was sent to Charleston as a governess. Mr. Rutherford fell in love with her, and overlooking her want of fortune and a vocation rather looked down upon, he married her. I believe he never forgave himself this imprudence, for fortune, and what he proudly called family, were his sine qua non in the marriage of his children. He had one daughter then; after an interval of several years, Adelaide was born and two younger brothers. Adelaide was the pet and plaything of her sister. This sister married when Adelaide was four years old, and removed to Georgia, where, left alone on a plantation by the rich husband her father had selected for her, she wore through a few miserable years and died. Adelaide was educated by her mother, and accomplished and thoroughly instructed as few women are. She appeared at eighteen in Charleston, the star of the Winter. That she had so little apparent pleasure in the admiration she excited, that she refused half a dozen offers, and one very brilliant one, was the wonder of her acquaintance, and the cause of serious and trying displeasure from her father, who was continually reproaching her with being spoiled by her mother’s ‘notions,’ which he stigmatized with words not repeatable.
“Why Adelaide was made happy by her return to Bellefield, why she, a girl of eighteen, was indifferent to admiration and deaf to lovers’ vows, was a riddle soon solved by her mother, by certain infallible signs that are revelations to a woman’s eye. At Bellefield, she again joined her brothers in their studies—she rode with them, walked with them, went with them on their sailing parties, and with a feminine delicacy of habit nurtured by southern education, had no dread or perception of discomfort or peril of any sort.”
“I guess there was somebody of the company beside the rampaging brothers,” suggested Ruth.
“Yes, Ruth, there was a tutor of the brothers, a graduate of Harvard and of the law-school, a Mr. Francis Izbel, who had overworked himself in his preparation for life, and was sent to the South by his physician to repair the waste by a year or two’s residence there. Like most of our young men, he had his living to get, and he thought himself fortunate in obtaining a place in Mr. Rutherford’s family as tutor to his boys, and a sufficient salary. I have seen him but once. He dined with us on his way to the South. He was a man, even once seen not to be forgotten; highly cultivated, with charming manners, erect, well-formed, and no alarming indication of ill health.”
“Oh, Mamma,” said Caroline, “I am sure I remember him; was there not a German gentleman dining with us the same day, who could not speak a word of English, and did not Mr. Izbel interpret for him?”
“Yes; but it is strange you remember it; it must have been sixteen years ago.”
“I was six years old. I do remember it. I remember his cutting some funny little figures in orange-peel for me.”
[211]
“Quite characteristic, I should think, for it seems he had the art of winning all hearts—excepting poor Adelaide’s father’s. The young people, continually thrown together, soon came to a mutual understanding, and were perfectly happy, till Adelaide, who at once made her mother her confidant, was alarmed by her mother’s firm conviction that her father’s consent could never be obtained. ‘But why,’ urged Adelaide; ‘it is true that Frank Izbel is not rich, neither am I—but he has a profession, and talents, and industry, and hope, and now he has health, and his family are people in good condition; what can my father ask more, when he knows that I love Frank and can love none other?’
“‘Frank is a teacher.’
“’ ‘Your father forgot that for a few short months.’ Mrs. Rutherford blushed painfully as she added, ‘he has remembered it ever since.’
“ ‘Oh, but, mamma, that’s an old-fashioned prejudice; kings have been teachers in these days – Louis Philippe for instance—papa will get over that, I am sure. Can he have any other objection?’
“ ‘Frank is a northern man.’
“ ‘Papa will forgive him that, I am sure he will.’
“ ‘I am as sure he will not, my dear child; but we must try our best by patience and prudence to compass our end; in all events, my child, you have my entire sympathy; you may hope for God’s blessing on an affection so well-founded—matrimony on any other ground is but a blight and misery.’ Her mother said this with an emphasis that pierced Adelaide’s heart.
”But I must not dwell on particulars—I know the story almost as if I had lived among them, from reading a journal kept jointly by the mother and daughter.
“Mr. Rutherford, as his wife foresaw put his veto on the engagement, and Francis Izbel withdrew from the family, but not till he and Adelaide had exchanged vows of eternal fidelity. High principled, truth itself, she communicated to her father her solemn engagement to her lover, and when his wrath had subsided, she told him she should remain in patient submission to his authority till she was twenty-one, and then she should consider herself equally bound to another duty. Three years passed—she was twenty-one and free. But circumstances had changed. Mr. Rutherford long before this had so involved his fortune by extravagance and gambling, that his estates and slaves were first mortgaged and then sold, and at the expiration of the three years, he was pennyless, crippled by gout and paralysis, and he and his sons were dependent on the income of a school established by his accomplished wife and daughter in Charleston. Poor old Mr. Rutherford! He had just sense and conscience enough left to abjure his old ideas of the vocation of a teacher.
Three more years passed; Adelaide would not leave her mother to struggle alone. Francis Izbel, who was making rapid headway in his profession, waited with what patience he could; at the end of this three years he would wait no longer, and it was settled that as Adelaide’s brothers were entering on the business of life, the family should be transferred to the North, and Adelaide’s parents should be members of her household.
“This was a period of strangely accumulating events in the Rutherford family. The father died suddenly, and his widow, by the death of a relative in Scotland, became heiress to a considerable property.
“Frank Izbel had gone to Charleston to superintend the removal. The marriage was to have taken place there, but it was delayed till their arrival in New York, in consequence of the father’s death. Some delay was occasioned by Adelaide’s resolve to redeem, bring to the North, and, of course, set free, a slave who had been mortgaged and sold with her father’s property. With this servant, one of her brothers, her mother and her lover, she embarked about the middle of June, in ’38, on board the Pulaski.”
“The Pulaski! Mother!” exclaimed Caroline. The rest of her auditors had no association with Pulaski, and Mrs. Kermit proceeded. “Never was Adelaide, at any period of her life, more attractive or so worthy of all admiration and love as now. Time had but matured the beauty of her dawn. The widened horizon of her knowledge was reflected in the expressive intelligence of her countenance. The angels of Hope and Memory shed their light there. Years of sweet patience, of cheerful resolution and self-sacrifice tell their beautiful history on the face. Adelaide’s last record in her journal before embarking was, ‘I am too happy; the past, the present and the future are full of happiness to me!’
“I think it was the second night of the Pulaski’s voyage when, owing to gross mismanagement, the boiler burst. The ladies had retired to their berths; Frank Izbel and Adelaide’s brother were sitting on the deck, and were uninjured. Izbel immediately rushed to the ladies’ cabin. Adelaide and her mother occupied one state-room. He bade them come with him, and without speaking they followed him to the bow of the boat, where he believed they should have the best chance of escape—at least, they should be together there and share the same fate. There he had told Adelaide’s brother to await him, but what he did or how he was lost, no one knew—nothing was known of him after Izbel parted from him. He was Adelaide’s youngest brother and dearly beloved by her. As soon as they reached the bow of the boat,
[212]
Adelaide exclaimed, ‘Oh, my God! I have forgotten Lilly!’ Lilly was the woman who had been her slave and the nurse of her childhood. She was now her freed-woman and devoted servant. She had sat by Adelaide, who had complained of pain her head that evening, and bathed her temples till she had herself fallen asleep.
“ ‘I will return for her—she shall share with us,’ said Izbel, and before Adelaide could speak he disappeared.
On minute after the boat broke up, the bow and stern were separated, and when Adelaide next saw Izbel, he stood with more than fifty others, nearly all women and children, on that part of the stern still floating. It was a moon-lit night, and she clearly distinguished him from the others; Lilly was kneeling beside him with her arms stretched out and her hands clasped. He stood immoveable, with his face turned toward the bow of the boat. It was a scene not to be described and never to be forgotten. Husbands were on one portion of the wreck, wives on another; fathers parted from their children, brothers from their sisters—all facing death. This was endured for one whole hour—an hour—it seemed eternity; then the stern sank amidst shrieks, and groans and prayers; some were kneeling; children were clinging to their mothers; sisters clasped tougher—and so they vanished forever from sight.
“Adelaide and her mother were left with those on the bow; poor Adelaide was nearly unconscious of all that passed for the next three days. I think there were some twenty with them. They lightened the wreck by throwing overboard every thing they could part with, erected what I think is called a jurymast and hoisted a sail. A rain storm came on, and a strong easterly wind, and for three days they were blown along the coast—they were then picked up by a schooner and carried into Wilmington, North Carolina, nearly famished and quite exhausted.
“Adelaide has since told me that her mental agony made her unconscious of physical suffering. She remained for weeks and months in a state approaching mental alienation. She was roused from this by a severe illness of her mother. Poor Mrs. Rutherford, either from having less vigor than Adelaide, or less heart-agony, had suffered more in her health, and her anxiety for Adelaide had worn out the little strength she had left. Adelaide’s filial piety again called forth her energies, and for the last nine years she has watched and tended her invalid mother, and devoted herself soul and body to works of Christian love. The paleness stricken on her cheek on that awful night has never varied, nor has her eye ever been relit with its former animation—but there are deep in her heart faith and resignation, and she lives patiently the life—of an old maid!”
“Of a saint, mother,” said Caroline.
“Indeed, a saint!” exclaimed my young friend Ruth, her fine eyes swimming in tears,” and the next time I see her, I shall down on my knees and say “Sweet saint, in thy orisons be all my sins remembered, especially that atrocious one against thee!’”
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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Nine Years Since
Subject
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Old maids; the wreck of the steamer ship Pulaski (1838).
Description
An account of the resource
A mother tells a story about her friend to help revise her daughters’ conception of the label “old maid.”
Creator
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Catharine M. Sedgwick
Source
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The Columbian Lady’s and Gentleman’s Magazine. [edited by John Inman and Robert A. West] Vol. VII (May 1847): 207-212.
Publisher
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New York: Ormsby and Hackett
Date
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May 1847
Contributor
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L. Damon Bach, M. Smith
Language
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English
Type
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Document
1847
blue stocking
Charleston
Christian love
filial piety
freed-woman
gambling
governess
Horace Walpole
Louis Philippe
Madame de Sevigne
married women
North
old maid
plantation
Rosinante
saint
self-sacrifice
ship wreck
slaves
South Carolina
teacher
The Columbian Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine
the Pulaski
-
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33b34a0b5f9689eac7295e3a24f3d665
Dublin Core
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1836
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A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Text
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UNCLE DAVID.
BY MISS SEDGWICK.
_____
[p. 17]
The return of Uncle David, after an absence of three years, was impatiently expected by two families of nephews and nieces—the Masons and the Cliffords—who resided in New York. He was a bachelor who, at the period of which I am speaking, had fulfilled more than half of life's allotted term, during the greater part of which he had been a rover—only returning among his friends often enough to keep their memory of him fresh, and to make the acquaintance of those new claimants to his favour with which the circle was from time to time enlarged.
He was what is called a queer man; perfectly independent in his modes of thinking and acting; shrewd, a little bit sarcastic, and strict in his antiquated notions of economy, propriety, deference to superiors, and all such old-fashioned
[p. 18]
things. But he was, withal, very warm hearted, and so fond of children, and so devoted to them, as to make himself a great favourite, in spite of that sin of strictness commonly considered by the young the greatest of all offences on the part of their elders. He was, besides, rich and generous, and although he never thought of administering to the pleasure of children through their appetites, or by providing expensive sources of amusement whose attraction lasted only while they were new—and therefore never showered upon them either bonbons or toys, he had his own very acceptable methods of making them exceedingly happy whenever he chose to do so.
For instance, he secured the lasting gratitude of George Mason, who had quite a taste for mineralogy, by fitting up and storing a cabinet of minerals—of Mary Clifford, by his sympathy in her love of drawing, which he manifested by providing her with every possible facility for cultivating her talent, and furnishing her, from time, to time, with beautiful prints and pictures. These at length accumulated to such a degree, that he said she must have a picture-room: which was accordingly fitted up, under his direction, with great taste.
Frank Clifford had a taste for whatever was curious; and to him his uncle brought, from all
[p. 19]
parts of the world, every variety of curiosity. Sarah Mason, on the contrary, was more interested in her own species than in any thing else —had quick feelings and a tender heart. Her he made his almoner; and in nothing did she take more pleasure than in dispensing his charities. When he was at home he very often employed her in this way; and never went away without leaving with her a fund, part of which was to be appropriated to specific purposes, and the rest to such objects of charity as she could discover and her mother should pronounce worthy.
And this reminds me to mention the great importance he attached to the inculcation, upon young persons, of a wise and proper use of money. Previous to his last departure from the country, he made to each of these four children whom I have named, a present of ten dollars— saying that he was like the man in the parable going into a far country—that he should not give to one ten talents, to another two, and to another one—but should give to each a small sum, that he might be able to test, by their mode of spending it, their idea of the value and uses of money. He wished them to spend it with- out advice,—in whatever manner they thought best; remembering that he expected they would turn it to some good account.
[p. 20]
All these children felt quite a weight of responsibility in regard to what they called their trust-money. George Mason resolved that he would not be in haste, but would wait and see what occasions might offer for its use. Sarah Mason seemed to feel less troubled than the rest, put her money in a place of safety, and said nothing more about it. Frank Clifford declared that he should take an early opportunity to dispose of his; for he had rather fail to please his uncle, than be bothering himself about such a paltry sum: while Mary was sure she should have no difficulty, as not a day passed in which she had not a dozen opportunities for spending money usefully, if she only had it to spend.
Not long after Uncle David's departure, Mary Clifford lost a little brother, and she did not hesitate to expend her ten dollars in a locket made to contain his hair. Frank was sent into the country to school—and, notwithstanding his previous intention of a hasty appropriation, determined to leave his at home, in Mary's care. His spending money exhausted, he fell into the habit of borrowing, as one little imaginary want after another arose, and at length sent for his ten dollars to discharge his debts—saying he did not know any better use money could be put to, than paying one's debts.
[p. 21]
Mary wrote an account of her brother's death to her uncle, and took the same opportunity to mention the purchase of the locket. Receiving Frank's application for his money before her letter was sent, she mentioned it, together with his accompanying observations, in a postscript. In process of time she received an answer. Her uncle expressed, very kindly, his sympathy in her affliction and sorrow for the loss sustained, he said, by himself in common with the rest,— for he always identified himself completely with each of the families. With regard to the locket he expressed himself thus—" It is certainly agreeable, and often very proper, to have such mementos of our de- parted friends; but considering, my dear Mary, that my very object in giving you those ten dollars, was to set your mind at work for the sake of finding out how you might do the greatest amount of good by so small a sum, I confess I am a little disappointed at the result. Men of business talk about dead capital—that is, money that yields no interest. Such is now your ten dollars. Do you think I regret this on account of the money itself? Far from it—but then it might have procured, either for yourself or some one of your fellow creatures, a lasting and substantial good—the best of all modes of preventing
[p. 22]
its becoming dead capital. As to Frank, I believe I must make the information you have given me in regard to him the subject of a special message, as the presidents say."
Accordingly, Frank received, by the same packet, a note from his uncle to the following effect:—
My Dear Frank—You may think it very strange that I should " make or meddle," as the phrase goes, with whatever disposal you may have chosen to make of the small sum with which I presented you on my departure. 'Tis true it was your own—that you had full liberty to do with it as you pleased—and were you not so well satisfied with yourself on the matter, I might let it pass. But I perceive, my dear fellow, that you are already beginning to delude yourself with false pretences, such as mankind are ever prone to, when duty clashes with inclination, and I wish to put you on your guard in this respect; because, to this very propensity at least one half of the sin, sorrow, and mortification, there are in the world, may be traced. It is certainly true that debts ought to be paid, but it is no less true that foolish and unnecessary debts ought not to be incurred; and your reasoning is very much like that of a merchant who should
[p. 23]
buy his own goods, and live extravagantly, in order to increase his business, or a lawyer, who should get into foolish quarrels, in order to give himself professional employment. Excuse me, ray dear Frank, and believe me,
Your truly affectionate uncle, David Mason.
"What a queer man Uncle David is!" said Mary Clifford, after reading his letter to her. "He was very fond of little David, his name- sake, too. I cannot conceive why he should object to my having that locket. In regard to Frank, however, I think he is quite right,"—and Frank thought so too.
Six months passed away, and neither George nor Sarah Mason had yet found a sufficient reason for parting with their trust-money. Sarah, in her capacity of almoner to her uncle, had become acquainted with many poor families in the city; but for these objects of charity she had a separate fund, which she did not feel authorised to increase by adding to it that which had been given her to spend upon her own responsibility.
There was employed in Mrs. Mason's family a dressmaker—Miss Walker—very lovely in her character, whose parents, old and infirm, depended upon her exertions for their support. During the
[p. 24]
winter after Uncle David's departure, they had a great deal of sickness, and died late in the spring. Miss Walker, exhausted in mind, body and estate, looked as if on the very borders of a decline.
Mrs. Mason's physician, having attended Miss Walker's parents, became extremely interested in her; and speaking of her to Mrs. Mason, said it was exceedingly desirable that she should leave off work entirely, and go into the country to recruit.
Mrs. Mason took the earliest opportunity to persuade her to do so; but she replied that it was out of the question, for she had not the means.
Sarah, having overheard the conversation, immediately conferred with George; and they agreed that if their mother thought their united fund sufficient, it should be appropriated to a journey for Miss Walker. Fortunately the latter had a friend, living in a healthy village at the distance of a hundred and fifty miles, with whom she might pass some time very pleasantly; and by way of removing her scruples to accepting the money, Mrs. Mason gave her its history.
The plan took effect, and Miss Walker, after spending two months away, returned quite renewed, happy, and fit for exertion. The Cliffords did not know of this investment
[p. 25]
made by George and Sarah, until Miss Walker told them of it. Her check glowed, and a tear stood in her eye as she spoke of it; and she finished by saying, "I do believe, Mrs. Clifford, that it was not more the journey itself, than the delightful feeling which such kindness and sympathy in those dear young hearts produced, that cured me." Mary, as she looked at her animated, happy countenance, remembered what her uncle had said about —looked at her locket, and for the first time regretted the purchase.
Uncle David returned; and after this long absence was hailed, if possible, with greater joy than ever. When he left home, Mary Clifford and Sarah Mason were both just about fourteen, and therefore the three years of his absence were precisely those of their life in which that most marked change from the girl to the young lady takes place.
The Masons and the Cliffords were brought up under very different influences. The Masons were made to respect themselves and others only for what is intrinsic and permanent; while the Cliffords were taught, indirectly, to place the highest value upon externals. The Masons were led to find their greatest happiness in useful improving occupation, and in devoting themselves to the happiness of others; the Cliffords to depend upon
[p. 26]
others, rather than upon themselves, for happiness, and to consider amusement as the chief end of man, or at least of woman.
Uncle David was struck with surprise and deep interest in seeing the change which had come over his two nieces. They were both good-looking, graceful, and lady-like; but there were intrinsic differences in them which became more marked as they advanced in life. Their uncle closely watched them both, and was not sparing in his criticisms whenever he thought there was occasion for them. Mary affected, a little, the blue stocking—that is, without any great taste for literature, or love of knowledge, she liked to have the credit of both. She always walked to school with a pile of books under her arm, and when sitting at home had always some book about her, to make it appear that they were her constant companions.
She used, too, occasionally to hint that the paleness of her countenance was owing to her intense application—although the fact was that Sarah surpassed her in scholarship, as much as in flesh and colour.
"Mary," said Uncle David, one day, "since you hang out your flag so constantly, why don't you prove to us your right to your colours? I have sometimes seen pictures with explanations
[p. 27]
appended—as, 'This is a cow—This is a bunch of roses;' your books are your inscription, which is I suppose intended to run thus: 'This is a literary, learned lady.' Now I think it should be with the lady, as with the true, fine picture, which explains itself. Miss Edgeworth it is, I think, who says that knowledge is like a deep stream, known not by the noise it makes but by the rich verdure and vegetation which it produces. Now if you really have a well improved, highly cultivated mind, let us perceive it in your conver- sation and conduct, but don't be for ever hanging out a sign."
Poor Mary used sometimes to be not very submissive to her uncle's reproofs, and declared that he was the only person in the world from whom she would endure them. His manner was not that of a grave censor, but of a regular tease, and teasing, though it may be just as severe as scolding, is generally much less offensive, perhaps because it is usually carried on in a jesting manner, and therefore the subjects of it have the apparent liberty of taking it in jest, if they choose.
Another of Mary's infirmities was an excessive sensitiveness upon the subject of gentility. The fear that she should not be strictly genteel, in every thing, was a constant source of annoyance, and led to the commission of many follies.
[p. 28]
One day Uncle David was walking in Broadway, with a niece on each arm. They were directly joined by a fashionable young man of their acquaintance who offered his arm, to Mary. Soon after, they met Miss Silsby, a charming young woman, who taught the girls drawing. Mary hardly seemed to recognise her, and passed on—while Sarah stopped, took her cordially by the hand, and had many kind enquiries to make as to what had happened to her in a period of some five or six weeks that she had just been absent from the city.
Uncle David was much attracted by Miss Silsby's appearance, and learned from Sarah the circumstances of her history, such as have been told of many a young person reduced, by misfortune, from affluence, to the necessity of earning her own livelihood.
Nothing connected with his nieces ever escaped his observing eye. He had perceived Mary's contemptible pride, and determined, if possible, to make her ashamed of it. "Mary," said he, a few days after, "what sort of a young lady is Miss Silsby; is she cultivated, and pleasing?"
"Yes; very."
"And she draws beautifully?"
"Yes."
"And her pupils are quite attached to her?"
[p. 29]
"Yes, they like her very much."
"Does she visit you?"
“No, sir."
"Why not?"
"Why it is not the custom, you know, to associate with one's teachers."
"Associate with one's teachers!—but you do constantly associate with them, else how could they teach you?"
"Oh ! that is not what I mean; I mean that you don't invite them to your house."
"But I am sure I have heard Sarah speak of Miss Silsby's visiting her."
"Oh, well—Sarah is different from the rest of the world, and does as she chooses."
"Then you don't do as you choose in excluding Miss Silsby from your visiting circle?"
"Oh, yes, I do—I feel and think differently and as the rest of the world do—not as Sarah does."
"Well, if you do not choose to admit Miss Silsby to your intercourse upon terms of equality, it must be on account of some superiority on your part. Are you better than she?”
"Oh ! no, not half so good."
"Are you better educated?"
"No."
"More accomplished?"
"No—not half so much so."
[p. 30]
"Are you of better parentage?"
"No."
"What then! your circumstances do not compel you to turn your talents to account in procuring you a livelihood?"
"Yes, sir"—Mary was compelled, though half reluctant, to reply.
"Then a person is more respectable who uses her talents not at all, or for show, or for amusement, than one who uses them for a useful and necessary purpose?"
"So the world has it."
"And accomplishments, which, while they are merely ornamental, command admiration and respect, the moment they are turned to useful account, become a source of degradation?"
"Oh ! uncle!"
"Make their possessor unfit for the society of elegant idlers—unworthy of being spoken to in Broadway—when a young lady has a fashionable beau in her train?”
Mary blushed.
"Oh, how I should like to see both my nieces superior to this ridiculous nonsense of the world, which makes people esteemed just in proportion to their total want of every useful aim and occupation in life; which holds them in honour, not for what God has endowed them with, but for
[p. 31]
what they or their friends for them have accumulated of this world's dross."
Not long after this conversation, Uncle David planned, for his nephews and nieces, including Frank and George, who were just now at home during a vacation, an excursion to West Point, and he requested Sarah that she would invite Miss Silsby to make one of the party. He then informed Mary of this last arrangement, saying, "I hope we shall not lose your company in consequence of it, my dear."
All the Masons and all the Cliffords, little and big, were of this joyous party; but Miss Silsby was evidently the nucleus of the whole. The little ones sought her, instinctively, as one ever ready to devote herself to their happiness. She could tell the best stories, sing the prettiest songs, and attend to them when every one else was too busy to notice them at all. Nor were the elder ones less dependent upon her. She was always ready for a ride, a walk, or a scramble— the most courageous, the most resolute, the most agile, and the most enthusiastic of the party. Her pencil was ever at hand to sketch a pretty scene which any one of the party was particularly desirous to retain fresh in his mind; she would rise early and sit up late, or vice versa, according to the humour of her companions; a pleasant
[p. 32]
joke called forth, on her part, that joyous peal of laughter, which rings so pleasantly upon the ear; and her sympathy was equally prompt and hearty when any occasion arose of trouble or sorrow.
Nor was this all: being extremely well versed in the history of our country, and especially of its most eventful period, the revolution, this circumstance of course added to her attractions as a companion at West Point, so famous in our revolutionary annals.
It was one afternoon when they were sitting in Kosciusko's garden, that Frank and George began to beg her for a story, saying they did not know why she might not indulge them, as well as the little children, in that way. She replied that she could not possibly draw upon her invention as in their case; but, if they liked, she would give them some history of Kosciusko's romantic and noble career.
They accepted the proposition most gladly, and she detailed the events of his life from its commencement to its close, in such a manner as awakened the deepest interest in every one of her audience, especially in the boys. "How much pleasanter and more interesting this garden seems now," said George; "I wonder I have never had more curiosity about Kosciusko." After this, the boys gave Miss Silsby no rest
[p. 33]
until they had obtained from her the whole story of Arnold's treason and Andre's capture and execution, and every historical fact associated with West Point. Uncle David was not always present when these stories were told, but the children did not fail to tell him of all their pleasures, and he said to Mary, "Why Miss Silsby is a literary lady too, it seems, although she never hangs out a sign, that I can perceive."
"Oh! do be still, uncle," said Mary.
Uncle David had never been a very great admirer of women. In fact, he had known very few, but he seemed to be particularly attracted by Miss Silsby. He planned many little excursions of pleasure from time to time, in which she was always included, and he hardly ever failed to offer Mary in explicit terms the alternative of remaining at home, if she objected to the ungentility of her companions; for "I think," said he, "by this time we must all, in your eyes, come under the same condemnation." Now and then, she had more than half a mind to take him at his word, but could not resist the attraction of a party of pleasure.
The period allotted for his visit at home passed delightfully away, and the time fixed for his departure was rapidly approaching. Loud and frequent were the lamentations poured out by the
[p. 34]
whole tribe of nephews and nieces, and all joined in an unanimous petition for what they called a reprieve. At length he told them that his future plans depended on what he should hear from a correspondent to whom he was shortly to write. They begged the letter might be sent without delay, and he gave his promise to that effect.
The following evening, there was an assembling of the two families in honour of Mary Clifford's birthday. Contrary to his usual custom Uncle David took his leave early in the evening. When all remonstrated, he told them that the correspondent of whom he had spoken was in the city, and he must have an interview; but would return, if possible, before they dispersed.
When he came in, late in the evening, he was immediately asked his decision.
"I shall not go," said he; "I am about to form a partnership in the city, and shall give up going abroad, at least for the present."
"Oh! rejoicing, rejoicing!" cried all the little ones.
"Dear uncle! how glad we are," said Sarah, throwing her arms around his neck, while all the rest closed around him, with looks and expressions of great pleasure.
"Bless your dear hearts," said he, "I did not know that I was of so much importance among
[p. 36]
you; but I shan't be contented, for all that, unless you like my partner as well as me."
"Your partner as well as you! that is a droll idea," several of them exclaimed.
"An ungenteel partner, too, Mary," he continued.
"O, uncle," said Mary, "now I suspect you. I know, I know."
"Know what, know what?" asked one and another, impatiently.
"Is it not so? uncle?"
"Is it not how, my child?"
"It is a matrimonial partnership you are going to form?"
"Ah-ha! uncle," said Sarah, "I might have known as much. I wonder that I could have been so stupid; children, Uncle David is going to be married, and I guess I know to whom."
"Well, I know who I had rather have for an aunt than any body else," cried little Julia Mason, "and that is Miss Silsby."
"And, God willing, you shall have her, my darling," cried Uncle David, embracing her, "for she has given her consent."
And then there was a clapping of hands, a jumping, and shouting among the little folks, and the most indubitable testimonies of sympathy and satisfaction on the part of the seniors of the
[p. 36]
company, saving Mary, who it must be confessed felt a little awkward.
"If you are only half glad, Mary," said her uncle, "it is all that I can possibly expect, and therefore I shall be quite satisfied."
"Well, I am at least that, and perhaps I may, in time, become entirely so," she replied, kissing him.
The wedding was, of course, a most important affair to the young folks. Indeed it would have been no wedding to Uncle David, without the presence and sympathy of his nephews and nieces.
On the morning of his wedding day he enclosed, to George and Sarah Mason $100 each, in an envelope, on which was written "we must celebrate our wedding with good works." To Frank Clifford he enclosed ten, saying, "If you have debts, my dear boy, pay them; if not, make what use of this little sum you please."
Frank was delighted to be able to say that he owed nothing, and never had incurred the most trifling debt, since his uncle's reproof and advice. Mary Clifford received, on the same occasion, a pretty ring. She felt the delicate reproof, but was, nevertheless, pleased with her gift.
George and Sarah regarded their gift almost as heaven-directed. Miss Walker, the dress-maker, had, for some time, been engaged to a very worthy young man, who, from no fault of his
[p. 37]
own, was as poor as herself. He had, at one time, amassed by his industry a sum sufficient to set himself up in his trade, and the marriage was to take place very soon; but a long and severe fit of illness involved him in expenses, by which his little capital was so much reduced as to be altogether insufficient for his purposes. The two hundred dollars made good the deficiency, and Miss Walker's marriage followed closely upon Uncle David's. Of course the pleasure of this charity, was one in which Uncle David felt peculiar sympathy just at this time.
Aunt Fanny, Uncle David's wife, became a greater favourite than ever, with all the nephews and nieces; and would not, for any thing, that their uncle should cease to have the same fond familiar intercourse with them as formerly. Her house was ever their chosen place of resort; her influence over them was highly valued by their parents, and delightful to themselves. She was charming in her own home, and occupied a commanding position in society.
Uncle David firmly believed himself the happiest man in the world. "What a pretty mistake I should have made," said he, after he had been married about a twelvemonth, "if I had weighed my wife only in the balance by which your genteel people measure merit; hey, Mary?"
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
Uncle David
Subject
The topic of the resource
Economics, gentility.
Description
An account of the resource
An uncle teaches his nieces and nephews lessons about economics, gentility, and falls in love with a worthy 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 Pearl; or Affection's Gift, 17-37.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Philadelphia: Thomas T. Ash & Henry F. Anners
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
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Document
1836
Benedict Arnold
blue stocking
Broadway
capital
charity
economics
investment
Major John André
Maria Edgeworth
marriage
nephew
New York City
niece
or Affection's Gift
Tadeusz Kościuszko
The Pearl
uncle
West Point