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Dublin Core
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Title
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1834
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Text
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" Is your trunk packed, Ella ? "
" Yes, mamma, — all to putting in my little box of treasures."
" Your treasures ! — What can they be ? "
Ella sat down in her mother's lap, and opening a painted wooden box, said, " In the first place, there are your's and father's profile — there is the guard-chain Sarah made for me — there are the garters Kate knit — there is the hair ring Anne made — and there is the lavendar Mary gave me off her own little bed. This little stone Willie picked up when he saw all the rest giving me something; ' Here, sissy, is my teepsake,' said he : dear Willie! though it be but a common pebble, it will be a precious stone to me. This little mite of a fan, mamma, you remember ?— I made it the week before James died, out of the wing of the last bird he ever shot."
" Yes, I remember," answered her mother, with a sigh.
" And there is a lock of the baby's hair," continued Ella; " forgive me, mother, for stealing it; it was almost hidden by her cap-lace. You will not miss it, and it will be such a comfort to me."
" You are welcome to it, my dear child; it is but a small return for all your patient care of Bessie."
" Oh, mamma, Bessie more than pays me every day. She knows my voice — she smiles whenever I play to her, and yesterday she cried for me."
" I am afraid I shall cry for you too, when you are gone, Ella. I am glad to see your little Bible among your treasures: but what are all these paper marks in it?"
" Those I put in to mark the places where you have marked the verses with your pencil, so that I may turn to them at a minute's warning."
Ella's mother had marked those passages that contain the plainest precepts — precepts that may be applied to the lives of the highest and the humblest -— that appear very simple, but that require such exertion, disinterestedness and self-sacrifice, that no life but that of our divine Master ever perfectly fulfilled them.
" I cannot tell you, my dear Ella," said Mrs Mayhew, " how glad I am that you are aware that to this book you must come for counsel and consolation. You say you wish to be able to find particular passages at a minute's warning; you are right—you are going where you may often want a present help in time of trouble."
Ella was soon after this conversation transferred to her new residence, unlike her home in all respects. Her father, Doctor Mayhew, was a physician, with a large family and very moderate income, with which he must support and educate a large family of children. Of course, frugality and industry, those prime virtues, were habitual with them. But their humble fortune did not prevent the Mayhews from associating on an equal footing with the best society in their town and county. Perhaps there may be some of our young city ladies, who are not yet aware that there are families and individuals throughout the country, as intelligent and refined as those in our cities.
Mrs Anderson, the cousin and friend of Ella's mother, — who had invited Ella to pass a year with her, and had generously offered to support her during that time, and furnish her the best instruction in New York, — was a fashionable lady of large fortune, with two grown up daughters, and half a dozen growing up boys and girls.
She announced the expected arrival of Ella to her children. They were at breakfast.
" Dear me! " exclaimed Miss Anderson, "I forgot you had such a cousin as Mrs Mayhew. I make it a rule, as Colonel Crane says, to forget all relations beyond the degree of brother and sister; indeed, the Colonel says, upon his honor, he does not know how many brothers and sisters he has."
"I am glad he is not my brother," said one of the younger children.
" What sort of a person is this Miss Ella Mayhew? " asked Miss Julia Anderson.
" A North American savage, as Colonel Crane says, you may be sure," replied her elder sister.
" Pardon me, Miss Anderson," said her mother, who found she must be the champion, as well as the patroness of her young friend — " Ella Mayhew is a clever, quiet little girl, not quite thirteen, who will in no way interfere with you. She is going to school, and will get her lessons in the nursery."
" Poor Ella Mayhew! " thought James Anderson, a good-natured boy, who had often attempted getting his lessons in the nursery.
"But why," pursued Miss Anderson, "does she not stay at home and go to school ? I thought New England was one great school, and all the men and women there school-masters, and school-mistresses."
" She is coming here to acquire some accomplishments she cannot get in the country."
" Absurd, mamma! What does a country doctor's daughter want of accomplishments?"
" She wants the means of assisting her parents in the education of their family, which she can get by qualifying herself to teach the expensive branches, called accomplishments."
" Oh ! then she is to be a regular schoolma'am apprentice, is
she?—I request, children," the young lady added, turning to the youngest persons at table, " that you don't call this Miss Ella cousin. She’ll be sure to begin with cousining you; for that is country fashion ; — and, mamma, I hope you mean Ella shall eat in the nursery — it is always disagreeable having these equivocal characters at the table."
" I shall do no such thing, Mary. I have not asked Ella here to mortify, or degrade her."
Miss Anderson would have replied, but they were interrupted by a ring at the door, a bustle in the entry — the door of the breakfast room was opened, and Ella appeared. Nothing can be much more appalling than the transfer from a retired, simple country home to a magnificent town-house — from familiar objects and loving looks, to strangeness, indifference, coldness — it may be, scorn.
Mrs. Anderson received Ella kindly. Her elder daughters merely bowed when she was presented to them. The children stared. James, and only James, advanced and greeted her cordially as " Cousin Ella." The tone would have fallen like music on Ella's heart, had she not followed the involuntary direction of James's eye, as he pronounced her name, and seen a very significant and a very disagreeable twist of Miss Anderson's mouth. After she had taken her breakfast, Ella was conducted by her aunt to the nursery, and told that a cot-bed should be placed there for her. — " You are used to children, Ella," she said, "and I hope, therefore, mine will not disturb you."
" Oh, no, ma'am," said Ella, hardly knowing what she said; for she perceived by the expressive countenance of “Mammy," the mistress of the nursery, that she was looked upon as a very unwelcome interloper in her premises. The nursery looked dreary to her, and her thoughts were in her own little quiet room at home.
Ella soon found that she was not only to sleep in the nursery, but to live there. For the first two days she took her work-box, or her book, and seated herself in the drawing-room, imagining that, like her mother's social, cheerful parlor, it was the family resort. The first day her cousins were " not at home," and they passed the morning, from ten to three, alone. The second morning, company was ushered in. The ladies received them, but took no notice of Ella, who sat by the window, plying her needle, and keeping her eye modestly fixed on her work. Once the ladies followed some particular friends into the entry. One lingered behind the rest, and Ella heard her ask in a tone, so loud that it was evident she did not care whether she were heard or not, " What, in the name of wonder, is that little sempstress perched up in your drawing-room for? "
Ella did not hear the reply ; but it was followed by a loud laugh. Her cousins retired to their own apartment. A servant soon after came in, and with a grin, asked " if Miss would please to go and sit in the nursery ? " adding, " Miss Julia bids me tell you, Miss, nobody comes in the drawing-room as is not called for." Poor Ella, stung by the insult, and mortified that she had even involuntarily intruded, retired to the nursery. But there, was no rest for her. Mammy was engaged in some deeply interesting chat with a visiter, and she said, rather pettishly, " I wish you would not come in here just now, Miss."
"Where shall I go?" asked Ella with a tremulous voice.
Mammy, who was really not an ill-natured woman, though she was fidgetty, and did not like to be interfered with, was struck with Ella's gentleness and her faltering tone ; and rising, she opened a door into a dressing-room. — " There," said she, " Miss Ella, is a nice, quiet place, that you may have almost any time to yourself."
"Oh, thank you—thank you," said Ella; and as soon as she was alone, she sat down, and overcome with homesickness, and a sense of loneliness, she wept bitterly for a few moments. Then suddenly wiping away her tears, she took her little Bible from its hiding-place in her basket, and opened it at one of her mother's marks. Her eyes fell on these words: " In whatsoever state you are, learn therewith to be content."— " The very words for me," thought she — and she kissed them, and kissed the delicate trace of her mother's pencil beside them. " It will be pretty hard work to be contented in this house," thought Ella; " but I can try. — Mamma has often told me one of the surest ways of driving away disagreeable thoughts was to keep busy, and to be doing for others, and not for yourself." So opening the door into the nursery, she said, " I don't mean to interrupt you, Mrs Hardy, but I heard you say you had two aprons to finish for the little girls today. If you will give me one of them, I will do it for you."
" That's real thoughtful, Miss Ella," replied Mammy, bustling about to get the work. " Do, Josephine, be still! Sam, put down that whip! Oh dear, I wish I ever could have a quiet minute! "
" Let the children come in with me," said Ella; " I can tell them a story while I am sewing. I often do so to our children at home." The children were immediately tranquillized and happy. Mammy enjoyed her comfortable hour's talk with her friend; and Ella was happiest of all; for the light she shed upon others was reflected upon herself. Some young persons in Ella's condition would have shed thousands of tears, and would have written home letters filled with grievances.
Instead of this, Ella concluded a letter, that night, to her mother, which she had chiefly filled with an account of her journey, thus : 'Aunt received me very kindly. They were at breakfast when I arrived; and as aunt did not expect me till the next day, they all appeared surprised. James shook hands with me, as if we had been old friends; he has just sent me up a delightful new book; is not this very kind of him? the children already begin to love me. I thought Mrs Hardy, aunt's nurse, rather a hard-favored cross concern at first; but she takes pains to make me as comfortable as possible. This is very important to me, as I sleep in the nursery. She has just emptied one of her drawers for my accommodation. I shall, as you charged me, dear mamma, do my best to give her, and all the family, as little trouble as possible."
Our readers will perceive there were no false statements in Ella's letter; only a suppression of whatever might give her mother pain, and a careful communication of every circumstance that could give her pleasure. If my young readers should be pleased with Ella's disinterestedness, we hope that, in similar circumstances, they will imitate her.
The little dressing-room, which Mrs Hardy had given Ella leave to occupy, communicated with the nursery by a door, the upper part of which, being glazed, lighted the small apartment.
Ella, on the morning after her expulsion from the drawing-room, was seated in her quiet asylum, when she heard her aunt and her daughter Caroline enter the nursery. There was a pane of the window broken. This compelled Ella to hear whatever was said.
" Mamma," asked Caroline, who was a year older than Ella, " what school is Ella to attend?"
" Madame C.'s, of course."
" Oh, mamma, you do not mean so," exclaimed Caroline.
" And oh, mamma, do let her go with us! " exclaimed the two
younger girls in a breath.
" Why not mean so, Miss Caroline? "
" Because it would be so ridiculous to send her to such a school as Madame C.'s."
"And why?"
" Because it would."
" Admirable reason; have you no better ? "
Caroline pouted and looked sulky: and then muttered something of having heard her mother say a hundred times that she liked Madame C.'s school, because there were none but genteel children there.
Truth compels us to pause for a moment to confess (and we are sorry for it,) that Mrs Anderson had the weakness of anxiously desiring to see her elder daughter distinguished in fashionable society; and of keeping the younger ones within the magic circle of what are called the genteel. And when her children often heard her say, " What a mixed party Mrs ___ had! "— " Why should you call on Miss___ , or Miss____, nobody visits them," — or "Children, do not ask those girls here; their parents are not in good society." When they heard her make those restrictions, instead of saying, " Miss ____ is a well-bred, charming girl ; I wish you would make her acquaintance" — or, if those children are, as you say, very intelligent and well behaved, I should like you to ask them here," — is it strange they should early get false ideas? and that these ideas should become principles of action?
I return to the conversation which poor Ella, much to her discomfort, was obliged to hear.
" Certainly you have heard me say so, Caroline; but there is no reason why Ella should not be genteel. As your cousin and friend, she will be on an equal footing with the other girls."
" That's the worst of it; if I could just say Ella was a country girl, that you had taken up out of charity, I should not mind it; but I am sure it will come out she is my cousin; and then the girls will laugh at me."
" I cannot help that; it is very important that Ella should have the best instruction. I have engaged a place for her at Madame C.'s ; so you must make the best of it."
Caroline actually burst into tears. At this moment Ella moved towards the door of the dressing-room. Her cheeks were flushed with pride and indignation. " I will ask to be sent home," she thought; " I will not stay here, to endure such mortifications! " She paused — the thought of her parents, and of their disappointment if she should lose the opportunity of improvement from which they had expected so much, arrested her. Then her heart yearned for her home, where she loved and was beloved. She thought of the humiliation she had endured, in one way and another, ever since she crossed Mrs Anderson's threshold ; and her hand was again on the door. " But Mrs Anderson has been very kind to me; to her, at least, I should be grateful; " and once more she slipped into her seat, and taking up her Bible, opened to the words, " Be patient in tribulation." There was her mother's mark against the passage; and it seemed to Ella that her mother had pointed her to the words. A tear fell on them. She wiped it off, and meekly raising her eyes to heaven, her heart replied, " I will try to be patient."
Perhaps some of my readers will think that Ella gave too big a name to her little trials. They were the severest she had ever felt. A hill appears as high to a child, as the Alps to a man. The next morning came, and Ella was to enter the school.
" I never can walk up Broadway beside that plaid cloak and dowdy hood," said Caroline Anderson to her sister.
"Never mind, Cary," said her sister; "it's useless speaking to mamma about it; for do you know she says she wishes she could persuade you to wear anything so suitable for the purpose, as Ella's school rigging. C'est un horreur! I pity you, my child, but you can easily cut her, as soon as you get into the street."
" After today, I can and will; but now she does not know the way to Madame C.'s."
" Oh, trust to' her finding it. She 's ' an exceeding clever little person,' as Col. Crane says." Caroline left her sister and joined Ella, whose sweet and somewhat sad countenance awakened her better feelings. " It would be cruel to leave her to go alone," thought Caroline.
Few girls of thirteen, (we hope none) have their hearts so hardened by worldliness that they can be cruel. Caroline roused her courage to what seemed to her a pitch of great generosity; and resolved that for this morning, at least, she would not flinch from the "plaid cloak and dowdy hood;" so she and Ella proceeded side by side up Broadway. Caroline found Ella very agreeable, and in the feeling that she had a delightful companion, had actually forgotten the cloak and hood, when she saw approaching her, though still at some distance, the very Col. Crane so often quoted by her sister. Now this Col. Crane belonged to a species, unknown, we trust, to our simple young readers. He was a travelled gentleman; and it would seem had gone about the world for no better purpose than to bring the coxcombries of other countries into his own. He declared that "existence without silver forks would be a burden to him;" and that "to eat an egg out of a glass instead of the shell was 'decidedly sauvage.' "And there were certain young ladies who listened to these sage aphorisms of the Colonel, and regulated their conduct by them. Caroline so often heard him quoted by her sisters, that, without knowing why exactly, he was the last person in the world whose eye she would have chosen to have encountered, while she was in company with the plaid cloak and hood. Therefore the moment she saw him, she muttered something of an errand for her sister; and turning into a cross street, she disappeared, leaving poor Ella at an utter loss whether to proceed, or turn back. The conversation she had overheard recurred to her ;and she very naturally concluded that Caroline had left her to avoid introducing her into the school. Ella felt the unkindness keenly; but she remembered that she had resolved to be patient. "I will not return," she thought; " it will only be giving Mrs Anderson trouble, and making her angry with Caroline; everybody must know where Madame C.'s school is ; and I can find out by inquiring. It will, to be sure, be forlorn enough going alone the first day; but then it will soon be over; and there will not be another first day." Certainly everybody in the city of New York did not know where even Madame C.'s celebrated school was; but fortunately Ella went into a French shop to inquire, and was very politely directed by a young woman, who was in the habit of serving Madame C. She found the house without further trouble; entered it, and hung up the offending cloak and hood in an ante-room filled with the young ladies' outer garments. What different feelings from Caroline's were called forth in her bosom by the sight of that hood! It was the last article her mother had made for her; and as she hung it on the nail, it seemed to speak to her of her mother, and of the dear familiar things at home. She was alone in the room, and she kissed it, brushed away a tear, and proceeded, with all the courage she could muster, to the school-room door. She opened it; and it must be confessed, that for one short moment she was appalled by the sight of two very large apartments communicating by open folding-doors, and filled with well dressed young ladies, arranged according to their ages and different pursuits. Some at a table with an Italian master; others at their desks with their drawing master; others who were awaiting their teachers, fixed their eyes on Ella. Madame C., a middle aged lady, with a countenance worn by care, but intelligent and benevolent, sat at the upper end of a long table; and fortunately at this moment her eye meeting Ella's, she beckoned to her. Ella, from being the eldest of her family, had been accustomed to act independently, much more than most young ladies of her age; and she now advanced and introduced herself with so much modesty and propriety, and communicated her parents' wishes in relation to her studies with so much clearness, that Madame C. was quite charmed with her. Assigning Ella a desk, and introducing her in the kindest manner to her teacher of music, she relieved her at once of half her uncomfortable feeling of strangeness. Of half, I say; for I believe to most girls the first day at school, is more or less a day of little miseries.
The young ladies, who are established at the school, get together in coteries or tete-d-tetes, and discuss the parentage, residence, appearance, and dress of the new comer; casting the while sidelong, inquiring, it may be quizzical glances at her, of which her burning cheeks betray that she is painfully conscious. I have often seen, and I have felt what I describe; and I have wondered that girls reared in civilized society, in well bred families, and girls with kind hearts, too, should receive a poor stranger cast among them, with almost as much inhumanity, as if they were Cornwall wreckers.
This purgatory, that every new scholar passes through, was made more painful to Ella by Caroline's carefully keeping aloof from her. Besides Caroline's false and foolish fear to explain to her fashionable friends her relationship to a raw country girl, she felt secretly ashamed of having deserted Ella in the street. The only certain relief in such a case, is to make what amends can be made for the fault; but Caroline had not magnanimity for this; and all the morning she kept close to her desk; avoided seeming to hear the remarks that were made about the stranger; and only now and then cast a stolen glance towards her.
The hour of recreation arrived; and the young ladies rushed from their tasks to the yard which was fitted up for calisthenic exercises. Some ran to the balancing boards; some jumped into the swings, and the air was filled with the loud laugh and the merry shout. All joined, I say, — but I should have said all but but poor Ella, — who sat alone in the porch, looking on, not ill-naturedly, but with a sad feeling of loneliness. At last one of the young ladies, if not more kind hearted, far more thoughtful than the rest, broke away from her companions, and with a sweet voice, that went to Ella's heart, and which she never forgot, was begging her to join in their sports, when they were startled by a sudden noise and a piercing shriek. Caroline had fallen from a wooden horse, and striking a glass, that had carelessly been left standing on the ground, received a deep cut on the cheek. She was stunned, and the blood gushed from the wound. The girls were terrified; no one knew what to do; no one but Ella; who was instantly at Caroline's side, raised her head and carefully closing the gaping wound, bound her handkerchief tight around it, saying while doing it in a low calm tone, " Caroline ! Caroline ! don't be frightened, Caroline!" In a few moments, Madame C. and a physician were on the ground. The physician, with Ella's aid, carried Caroline in, and laid her on the sofa; and after examining the wound said it must be immediately sewed up to prevent an ugly scar.
Caroline consented to the operation; for though she dreaded the Doctor's needle, she dreaded an ugly scar more. Madame C. was nervous at the sight of blood; and Ella, who had no inconvenient nerves, and who never seemed to remember herself when anything was to be done for another, held Caroline's head, and gently encouraged and soothed her, while the Doctor was performing the operation. That done, " I will hurry home and tell your mother all about you," said Ella; " and she will send the carriage for you."
" Oh no — no, Ella ! do not leave me — ask Madame to send a servant to tell mamma."
" I am afraid your mother will be very much alarmed, if we send a servant."
" But she will soon know just how it is." Ella still hesitated. "Well, go yourself, Ella ; but do come back in the carriage for me. — How she does think of everybody but herself," thought Caroline, as Ella tying on her cloak and hood, hastened away. Quiet was deemed best for Caroline; and she was left alone for the hour that intervened before the coach arrived with Ella. It was a blessed hour to Caroline. Her heart was softened, and the incidents of the morning impressed a lesson there, that was never effaced.
Not long after this she took up Ella's little Bible, and opening to the passage (one of the marked passages)
"Do good to those who despitefully use you," she wrote with her pencil on the margin, " Illustrations of Scripture — Ella Mayhew's first day at school." She showed what she had written to Ella. It was the first time she had ever alluded to her own contemptible conduct on that first day; for Caroline, like many others, had found it easier to repent a fault than to say she repented it. Ella took up her India rubber and effaced what Caroline had written ; then affectionately kissing her, she said, "All that I desire to remember of that first day, Cary, is, that it was the first day we began to love one another."
Now, my reader, whoever you may be, I fear you are thinking "there is nothing after all in this long story worth telling." Certainly it contains no striking incidents; but it may serve to show you that our happiness depends chiefly on the state of our own hearts; and farther, that in most circumstances we may improve the virtue, and consequently the happiness, of those around us. Do you think you would have been happy in Ella's condition? Would you not have thought, " I cannot, and will not, and ought not, to bear the insults and slights of these proud, rich people! Or, if you had borne them, would you not have suffered many an hour of homesickness and tears?—Would you not, — sure of their sympathy and love, — have poured out your heart in some letter to your father or mother ?— Not so Ella. Her trials did not end with her first day at school; for she was surrounded by the self-indulgent and selfish, but they became from week to week less and less. God had given her a very sweet temper, and a happy disposition. Her mind was enlightened and fortified by Christian principles. She was the eldest of a large family at home; she was in the habit of exertion for others, and of sacrificing her own inclinations; so that it was easy for her to bear and forbear. But after all, what seemed to me to help Ella along in her difficult position, more than anything else, was a way she had of finding some good point in every one; and by always addressing herself to good feelings instead of bad, she was sure to bring the best into exercise. Evil she sometimes met, but she overcame evil with good. She lost no opportunity of doing kindness; and this in so unostentatious and natural a way, that she did not seem herself to be aware she was doing a favor. Before she returned home, she was a favorite with every member of Mrs Anderson's family. " I never thought," said Miss Anderson, " that I should like Ella Mayhew so much; but, as Col. Crane says, ' she is a charming little person.' " Miss Julia, who, as it may be remembered, requested that Ella would not sit in the drawing-room — Miss Julia gave a musical soiree in honor of Ella's birthnight. — The boys said "who will mend our gloves?—who will sew up our balls ? — who will fix our kites ? — who can we always tease, and she never will be angry with us, when Ella is gone?" " Angry !" exclaimed one of the children ; " Ella is just like the angels; for mamma says they are never angry." " Oh, Miss Ella, come back to us," said Mammy ; " the luckiest day that ever happened to us was that which brought you among us ! " " Mamma," said Caroline, " do let me go home with Ella and pass the summer. If you will, I will try to be like her." —I venture, in conclusion, to borrow a sentence which contains the whole meaning of my story. " It is happy for us, when a being of noble sentiments, and beneficent life, enters our circle, becomes an object of interest to us, and by affectionate intercourse takes a strong hold on our hearts."
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
"Ella"
Subject
The topic of the resource
Children's fiction, Christian behavior, class difference.
Description
An account of the resource
A modest young woman from the country comes to live with her city cousins, and uses Biblical and parental precepts to adjust and thrive.
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>Juvenile Miscellany</em>, 3rd Series, V4, (edited by Mrs. D. L. [Lydia Maria] Child), Boston: Allen and Ticknor, 11-35.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
March and April, 1834.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
D. Gussman
Relation
A related resource
Also collected in <em>Stories for Young Persons</em>, 95-112, 1840.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Document
bible
children
Christianity
class
Country
education
Juvenile fiction
Juvenile Miscellany
New York City
virtue
-
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
1844
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Text
Any textual data included in the document.
A long period must elapse before the accumulation of human existences and the progress of society shall carry the New-England people forward to that philosophical indifference to individual character and history which characterizes an older civilization. They are as yet but an extended family circle. Even our huge railroad cars, which very nearly reduce humanity to floating particles, have not yet divested our travellers of their customary social charities and interests. I was struck with some illustrations of this truth during a day’s travel over the railroad that traverses Massachusetts. This road passes through the most populous part of our state after its magnificent passage over the hills of Berkshire, where a work of immense labour and beautiful art is brought into striking contrast with savage nature, and set off with the accessories of fir-covered hills, wild glens, and headlong mountain streams. Along this road some of the peculiarities of our stirring population are manifested. At each village there is a swarm of fresh passengers, and at each station a dispersion; and however brief their transit may be,
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there is some trifling intercommunication that discloses the condition and objects of the parties. In a similar situation in Europe, the individuals, each comprising in his own existence a world of interests, purposes, and hopes, would make their entrances and exits without exciting more sensation or inquiry than the luggage thrown into the baggage-car.
I like this social life; it is the beating of a healthy human heart that sends pulsations throughout the frame of society. It may occasionally license idle and inconvenient curiosity, but this is a trifling evil, and so considerably mitigated by the progress of civilization, that, since the death of the Dutchman who, according to the veracious chronicler of such matters, Diedrich Knickerbocker, was put to the question by a Yankee, we have never heard of its involving fatal consequences.
On the occasion to which I have alluded, a young friend and myself started from Pittsfield for Boston. In a few minutes we had glided from a neighbourhood where each house and tree has the familiar look of an old acquaintance. The passengers were all strangers to us, and we probably betrayed the stiffness and reserve incident to a new position; for one of those active-minded people, who assume to themselves the breaking down of all conventional fences, took pity on us, and, looking over my companion’s shoulder at a volume of Childe Harold which she was reading, ask-
[170]
ed her “if she were fond of poetry?” The sort of smile that accompanied her inaudible answer did not encourage him to proceed, and he broke ground with me by asking me “if I knew a young person in black who was sitting alone at the end of the car?” “I had never seen her before.” “So I expected, ma’am,” said he; “I don’t think there is any one in the car does know her, for I have asked several. The conductor says she came aboard at Albany. I asked her if she lived there. ‘No,’ she said. I asked her where she did live. She seemed to sigh, as it were, and said she had lived Far West. She is alone, and so bashful that I did not love to ask her many questions; maybe you will be able to find her out, ma’am.” As I looked again at the timid girl, and caught the expression of a face of most striking sweetness and modesty, I secretly wished I might.
But my friend’s lively interests did not all settle down on this pretty young creature. “You know that old gentleman, of course, ma’am?” he said, pointing to an elderly gentleman a little in advance and on one side of us, with a velvet cap on his head, and an eye, remarkable for its acuteness, riveted to the newspaper he was reading. I confessed I did not. “Why, is it possible! He is the ex-President, Mr. Adams!” I naturally manifested so much pleasure at this information, and gazed at the venerated statesman with such excited attention, that my new friend offered
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to introduce me to him! I rather impertinently asked if he were acquainted with him. “Not much,” he said; “I got into the car at Pittsfield only; but I have had some talk with him upon the petition question, and find him quite sociable.” I was saved the pain of refusing the proffered hospitality by a call for the Westfield passengers; and my new friend left us, regretting so much the sudden disruption of our acquaintance, that if we should ever meet again, it will probably be on the most intimate footing.
Mr. Adams was not left long in the quiet enjoyment of his newspaper; the rumor of the great presence had spread through all the passenger-cars, and a lady, attended by some dozen men and women, came from a forward car into ours, and, while her companions stood in the vacant space above the stove, made her way between furred cloaks and Macintoshes to Mr. Adams. “She could not lose so good an opportunity,” she said, “to express her admiration of his course in Congress; all her friends admired it; she read every one of his speeches, and she made her children read them, and her son John knew a great many passages by heart - her son’s name was John Quincy Adams!” All this was urbanely received, and as the lady turned to go to her place, her eyes fell on the little girl in black, who had moved her seat to a chair near us. “Oh, how do you do, my dear?” said she; “I did not know you
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had come on to-day: so, you did not find your friends in Albany?” “No, ma’am.” “Dear me! ‘twas a trial to you, was not it?” The girl made no answer, except by a slight quivering of her lips, and the good-natured woman proceeded to propose she should migrate into the next car with her. “The places are all full there, to be sure,” she said; “but I’ll ask Mr. Smith to take your place here; and it will be so much more sociable for you to be with those you are acquainted with.” It was quite evident the young person was not inclined to this mode of sociability. She made a pretext of some luggage she had by her for not wishing to quit her seat, and declined moving. I made a bold push, and arresting the stranger-lady for a moment, said, in a whisper, “You are acquainted with that young person?” “Oh, yes - that is, she rode in the car with us from Utica to Albany. I live in Utica; my father is one of the oldest inhabitants.” She was proceeding to give me the statistics of Utica, when I again recurred to the pretty stranger. “You have only, then, a three hours’ acquaintance with her?” “Not much more; she went into the hotel with me at Albany, and left me to look up some relations - on the father’s side, I think she said - I guess she is an orphan. Somehow I did not like to ask her direct; but orphans, you know, always have a peculiar look. Amanda-Anne asked her her name - Amanda-Anne is my daughter - she took such
[173[P 2]]
an interest in her, and so did Miss Gilchrist - Miss Gilchrist, of Bond-street -” “What is her name?” I asked. “Oh, yes, I was speaking of that; her name is Lizzy Dale. It is not a distinguished, sounding name - do you think it is, ma’am? however, my interest in her was the same: it must be a trial to travel alone so far.” “Far! do you know where she comes from?” “Not exactly; she told us she came down Lake Erie, so it must be to the west of that. Excuse me, ma’am, I seem to be in the conductor’s way here.” It was no seeming; our whispered confab was broken off; and the good lady returned to her car, much to the conductor’s relief.
We stopped an age, by railroad time, at Springfield - that is, some half hour. Some of the passengers went, post-haste, to steam down a dinner at the hotel; other flocked to a feeding-house close at hand; and Lizzy Dale, my friend, and myself, were left alone in the car. We begged her to partake our substantial sandwiches. She took the offer in kindness, not as an intrusion, thanked us very sweetly, but declined, saying she had no appetite, and taking a biscuit from the little basket she carried in her lap, she said she “ate only to get rid of a sensation of faintness.” We fell into conversation on the convenient neutral ground of strangers, the weather, the beauty of the country, &c. She expressed herself with a propriety and delicacy that indicated educa-
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tion, and increased my interest in her. My companion and myself referred to old friends in Springfield, and pointed out places familiar to us. Lizzy Dale sighed, and said, half to herself, “I wish I could see any place I have ever seen before.” I involuntarily looked at her, hoping for something farther from her. She turned away, went to a window on the opposite side, and put her handkerchief to her eyes. Just then there came a rattling up to the car an open barouche, bringing a gentleman to be forwarded to Boston, as it appeared, a grandfather, whose wife, and daughter-in-law with three or four lovely children, had come to see him off. It was evident they were not familiar with railroads, and this was a marked moment in the family history. “Is this a car, grandpa?” exclaimed one of the little girls, scrambling over the sofas and chairs; “it seems more like a house.” “Julia, my dear,” called out the mother, “keep close by the door; they won’t give us a minute’s time to get off.” “Oh, let the children enjoy themselves,” said the good grandpa; “you’ll have ample warning.” “My dear,” said his careful wife, “are you sure this is the safest car?” “I take it for granted it is,” he replied, half bowing to us, “for I see the ladies are here: I always trust to their looking out for the safe places.” “My dear husband, you should select one of the last passenger-cars, for I read all the railroad accidents, and they always es-
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cape; and you must sit about in the middle of the car, to avoid some danger, I forget what it is -” “And near a window, to avoid some other,” replied the husband, laughing; “I forget what that is - suffocation, probably; but I’ll keep a good look-out, rely on’t.”
“Oh, don’t look out! that is the most dangerous of all. You remember that dreadful accident?”
“Yes, I remember them all.”
“Ah! you may laugh now; but promise me one thing: you’ll be prepared for a collision - now pray don’t laugh again - I mean, be on your guard - keep it in mind.”
“I have pleasanter things, my dear, to keep in mind. Hal, take good care of the chickens while I am gone.”
“Yes, sir, I will; and I don’t mean to ask you to bring me anything, grandpa; but if you should see a drum - I don’t ask you to buy it, sir - but if you should happen to try it, and it makes a good thumping sound -”
“Then you would like it, Hal?”
“Yes, sir, I should.”
“Ah, Annie, come here,” said the grandfather to a little girl, apparently not more than three years old, who, with the instinctive sympathy of childhood, had crept onto the seat beside Lizzy Dale, and, putting her arm over her shoulder, was saying, “What are you so sorry for?” “Excuse the child, my dear,” he added, with a glance at Lizzy Dale’s blushing face that involuntarily expressed the same inquiry.
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There began to be some movement preparatory to the resumption of our journey, and, after many huggings and kissings, the family parted, and the wagon drove off, and as long as we could see them the little people were waving handkerchiefs and kissing hands to grandpa; and I did not wonder he was so cherished when I looked in his fresh, kindly face, which indicated that the goodly fruits the heart bears were all ripened, none decayed. He too, like the rest of us, was attracted by the little magnet, Lizzy Dale, and opening a basket, which he informed us his grandchildren had prepared for his refreshment, he discovered among fine pears and apples a single bunch of grapes. “Now that’s pretty,” said he; “The boy you saw here, my Hal, has picked the only bunch of grapes on his vine - the dog shall have his drum - take them, my dear,” to Lizzy: “you refuse the pears and apples; you can’t refuse these - they were put here on purpose for you.” Lizzy Dale took them; and I believe, if she had followed the bidding of her heart, she would have laid her head on his kind bosom and “cried it out,” so much was the solitary girl evidently touched by his fatherly tone and manner. But this was neither a time nor place for such demonstrations. The cars filled up, and a young woman, with a profusion of pink ribands on a blue silk bonnet, and flowers of all colours resting on plump cheeks that outbloomed them all, dashing earrings,
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and a painted brooch - an American imitation of Roman mosaic - dropped into a seat beside Lizzy Dale; first, however, carefully stowing away a bandbox and parasol, and arranging on her lap a basket, a reticule, and a pocket-handkerchief trimmed with broad Swiss lace. She was alone too, but so self-sufficient and self-protecting a person as to save us from painful sympathy. One could hardly look at her and Lizzy Dale, brought into this accidental juxtaposition, without thinking of the china and earthen jars of the fable. The earthen jar soon began sundry knocks in the guise of questions, such as, “Do you know that young gentleman in a frock-coat, with whiskers? Do you admire whiskers? Is not that tuft of hair what they call an imperial, or is it a mousetache? Do you know who that young lady is in a Leg’orn? Do you think Leg’orns, or Tuscans, or Rutland braid, will be fashionable next summer? Did you ever work in a factory? Do you like tending the looms, or spinning best? Oh, I didn’t understand you - you ain’t acquainted with either? Perhaps you prefer the paper business?” Getting very brief and negative answers to this torrent of questions, she changed to the narrative style, and proceeded to detail her own experience. She stated the relative advantages of a residence at North Adams, Chicopee, and Lowell; enumerated their several educational advantages and “society privileges,” and concluded
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with a digression on the profits of female factory labour, rather implying that hers was performed en amateur.
To this part of her discourse Lizzy Dale lent an attentive ear, and in return asked several questions. “Were there private boarding-houses where a young person might be retired when not at work? Could she name any widow, or elderly persons keeping such a boarding-house? Could a person quite unacquainted with that sort of labour soon learn it?” These questions, though uttered in a low and tremulous voice, were distinctly heard by our good grandpa. Hearing in some cases is wonderfully preserved by keeping the heart free from incrustation. He sat directly before Lizzy Dale, and after fidgeting on his seat, he turned to her and said, “My dear, my dear, factory business is a very good business: there’s no one respects our factory girls more than I do; they are an honour to the country. It is a very suitable business for those - for those it’s suitable to. But I would not advise you, my dear, to be thinking of it: excuse me, my dear, I speak to you as if you were my child - old folks, you know, take liberties.”
“Oh, sir, I am sure it’s no liberty, and you are very, very kind.” And from that moment the poor child looked less timid, less desolate; at least till we were entering the Boston depôt, when the factory girl said to her, “My cousin
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Ferdinand Pease will be at the depôt; I suppose there’ll be some one expecting you?”
“No one expects me,” she replied.
“Well, good-night,” said the factory lady, marching off with her bandbox to put herself in cousin Ferdinand’s field of vision. “The conductor will take care of you; he takes care of everybody that’s got nobody to take care of them.”
“That’s not your case, my dear,” said Lizzy’s friend. “We old people are not good for much, but we are the safest protectors for pretty young girls. I am going to get a carriage to take me to my lodgings, and you must let me set you down at your stopping-place.”
Lizzy Dale replied with many thanks, that she was afraid it was too far; that she was going to a boarding-house in Charlestown, kept by a lady her father had once known. “So much the better, my dear; I want a little ride after being shut up here, and we shall get better acquainted;” and off he ran, active as a boy, for the carriage. I imitated the good man so far as to give Lizzy Dale my card, and beg her to come and see me, and we went away to our different destinations.
I seized upon the next morning as unappropriated time to make a visit to a very old friend of my family, Miss Stuart, familiarly known to three generations as Miss Priscy, a name that always strikes a chord of cheer-
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ful and most pleasant vibrations. I had not seen her for many years, and in the mean while time and chance had done some of their unkindest work upon her, stripping her of her nearest kindred, diminishing her little fortune to a mere pittance, and maiming her by the incurable fracture of one of her limbs, besides heaping on her the common infirmities of age. I confess I wished the meeting over; I dreaded seeing her with her hopeful temper vanquished, and her pleasant stream of cheerfulness all dried away. She lived alone, in a boarding-house, the most desolate of all lives. The servant who opened the door said, if I were not a stranger Miss Priscy would thank me to walk up stairs, as it was troublesome for her to get up and down. “Here I am, a wreck,” she said, after the first salutations were over; “but I keep my flag flying, as my uncle, the old commodore, used to say he would, as long as there was a timber of his ship floating.” Miss Priscy has had her day of harmless vanities and innocent triumphs, and there are tokens that they still dwell pleasantly in her memory in the rose-coloured ribands on her cap, and the earrings she still wears when even our young beauties have discarded these barbaric ornaments. She spoke of her losses since we had last met, but without complaint or repining. “I find it difficult getting about,” she said, “but I have few friends left to go and see, and so that does not much matter.
[181 [Q]]
My little income has dwindled; but you know the poet says, ‘Man wants but little here below’ and I am sure woman wants less, especially a lone woman like me, who has no one to share it with. And then there is such a pleasure in making a little last; in having all your calculations come out right; in paying your debts as they come due - a luxury nowadays that seems left to poor people; and in having a little something over for those that want it more than you do. I sometimes feel like a monument written all over with the names of the departed - but they are the names of the good and loved; and one at threescore and ten must expect to be journeying on alone, and thankful if they can look up to the celestial city and see their people gathered there. But make the best of it, my dear; this loneliness is cold and sad.” A tear stole down the furrows of her cheek. I asked her if she had not a niece that could live with her. “You forget,” she said, “how time flies: the girls are all married long ago. No, I must rough it out alone as well as I can; but,” she added, as if to check my too sad sympathy, “I have not got into the ‘Dismal Swamp’ yet; I live among the living; come down stairs with me, and see my little parlour. This is not a boarding-house; I have my own rooms and a maid, and a privilege in the kitchen; so that I can keep my tea-table, and have something like a home, and house-keeping, and hos-
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pitality. Boarding-house life is too much on the community plan. I believe the association people reckon some sixteen hundred individuals to a perfect being; and to tell you the truth, I think a woman who passes her life in a boarding-house is about the sixteen hundredth part of the mistress of a well-ordered household.”
“You seem not to approve, my dear Miss Priscy, of this mode of living in community which is just going into operation in your neighbourhood, under such high auspices.”
“I don’t, my dear, I don’t. There’s no use in trying to be wiser than Providence. ‘God set the solitary in families,’ and I think it is the prettiest contrivance for happiness and virtue that ever was hit upon.” She hobbled down stairs slowly, her tongue going much faster than her feet, and opening the door into her little parlour, “Here,” she said, “is many a memorial of family life and love, which keep alive and fresh in my heart the sense of home - a solitary old woman as I am, I dwell in its atmosphere. There is the picture of my grandfather: how well I remember him in his judicial robes: there are no such men nowadays. This is the picture of my mother; she was the beauty of her time. As I remember her, she was not so young, nor quite so beautiful, but I think no one ever had so sweet a look.” Thanks to Him who “set the solitary in families,” thought I, that unequalled sweet
[183]
look belongs to most mothers. “This,” she said, pointing to one of Copley’s most brilliant portraits, “was my eldest sister Esther: she was painted in her bridal dress. That white brocade, with that single maiden-blush rose in her bosom - it would not seem quite the thing nowadays to wear a dress made like that, but then it was the custom, and custom is everything. There never was a lovelier woman to look at, or a modester: I believe she would have blushed at an immodest thought passing through another person’s mind.”
This rather ultra proof of modesty caused me to look more attentively at the beautiful face of the young bride, separate from her dress; which being painted in Copley’s most elaborate style, rather impaired the effect of a face of such exquisite delicacy that it might have been taken for that of an ideal vestal. I was struck with its resemblance to some face I had recently seen, but before I had time to arrest the floating image and verify the fancied resemblance, Miss Priscy passed on to another picture, and another, and another, illustrating each with some family trait or anecdote. “I am never alone in this room,” said she; “they are not pictures to me. I talk to them, and if they don’t answer me, I am sure they hear me.” She drew me to a corner of the room where stood a little round mahogany table covered with family relics. “Here,” said she, opening a rich old ebony
[184]
knife-case, inlaid with ivory, “here are the first silver forks that ever came into the Province of Massachusetts. Ah! there has been many a pleasant gathering round this table. I remember when first Esther made tea at it - my father called her the little Queen - there’s nothing to compare with her nowadays. Here is one more thing you must examine.” She drew to the window a high-backed chair, covered with a patch she had recently made of relics of the family brocades, and in the centre of the upright back, the family heraldry, emblazoned in silver embroidery. There is nothing that brings back the past to a woman’s memory more vividly than bits of gowns worn on family festivals or great social epochs; but just at the moment Miss Priscy was dilating on them, my attention was caught (we were standing at the window) by two figures crossing the street: the one was an elderly gentleman, holding by one hand, with a sort of Roger de Coverley courtesy, a young girl, and in the other a large paper parcel from which two drum-sticks peeped! My friend’s eyes followed the direction of mine. “Do you know those people?” she asked. “Yes - that is, I came to town in the car with them.” “Ah!” said she, and reverted to the chair, and my car acquaintances disappeared turning round the house which made the corner of the street. Presently there was a ringing of the door-bell, and a moment after
[185 [Q 2]
Miss Priscy’s maid brought in Lizzy Dale. Her face lighted up on seeing me, but after we had shaken hands and exchanged greetings, she looked more sad and embarrassed than I had seen her at any moment on the previous day. “I am sorry, my dear,” said Miss Priscy, “that I don’t recollect you, but you must not mind that; tell me your grandmother’s name, and I dare say I shall; I tell all the girls, I knew your grandmothers, girls; a generation (turning to me), like Jonah’s gourd, grows up in one day and perished the next, but I should know you, my child; your face comes over me somehow like an old song.”
“My name is Dale, ma’am - Lizzy Dale.”
“Dale! Dale! I have heard that name, but when or where I can’t remember. Dale!”
“You will remember my mother’s name, ma’am better. Esther Vassal, the second daughter of Miss Stuart’s sister, Esther Stuart.”
My old friend sunk down into the patch-chair, took both Lizzy’s hands, and “fell to perusing of her face” with deep and silent emotion. After a brief space, “Kiss me, my dear little girl,” she said; “I see through it all. Is she not the image of that picture!” Copley’s lovely bride.
“I thought so,” I said, “when first I saw it.”
“Did you, now? well how providential! You are not so handsome though, my dear;
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grandchildren never are so handsome as their grandparents. Take off your bonnet and shawl, my dear. You are mine for to-day, at any rate.”
I rose to go.
“Don’t you wish to stay and hear her story?” asked my friend.
“She will tell it better to you alone,” I replied.
“So she will - that’s natural; but come soon again, and I will tell you all about her.”
I whispered a congratulation to Lizzy upon having found so kind a relative, and came away, leaving Miss Priscy in the antique patch-chair, and Lizzy on a low ottoman at her feet, a picture ready for a painter’s hand.
In the evening I received the following note from Miss Stuart.
“My dear friend: - I feel how happy the woman in Scripture was when she found her lost piece of silver. I cannot sleep till I tell you about my found treasure. The story of my little angel (I must call her so to you), if it were written by Charles Dickens, would, bating that Lizzy is living, be as heart-breaking as Nelly’s. You must come and hear it. All that I can say at present is, that we lost sight of my sister Esther’s children, she dying in England, and leaving them young among her husband’s relations. One of her daughters married her music-master, one Dale, a worth-
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less man - this poor Lizzy did not tell me, though - and they came, when Lizzy was twelve years old, to New-Orleans; her mother died there, and from that time her father has been going with her from pillar to post, and finally he died in St. Louis, and left her with nothing under heaven but a harp and a piano.
“Some good people there turned them into money, and advising her to come to Boston and look up her mother’s relations, they forwarded her on, and hither she came, by stagecoaches, steamers, and rail-cars, without meeting with accident, insult, or impertinence - this beautiful, young, unprotected girl. It brought to my mind certain lines. You know I was fond of committing poetry in my youth.
‘So dear to Heaven is saintly chastity,
That when a soul is found sincerely so,
A thousand liveried angels lackey her?’
“Well, thanks to a kind Providence, she is here, and here she shall stay - my sofa-bed fits her as if it were made for her. It was of no use to me before, and I hate useless things. In fact, she seems to fit in everywhere. She will be eyes, feet, memory to me; how have I lived without her! She is so bright and happy to-night that I can hardly keep my eyes off from her. She is - almost - as handsome as her grandmother. Come and drink tea with us before you leave town, and see how happy we are - how grateful I am.
“Ever yours affectionately,
Priscy S - .
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“P.S. - I forgot to tell you that Lizzy’s father, who never gave her anything else, did give her a first-rate musical education; and that my kind friend Mrs. Lee, who has just been in here, has promised her the instruction of her little girls; so that, if I grow old and crusty, she will never have the pain of dependance on me:”
My friend is certainly a living proof that the Italian proverb is not always true:
“Il piu sapienti è il piu beato.”
“The wisest is the most blessed.”
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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 Day in a Railroad Car
Subject
The topic of the resource
New England, railroads, travel, women, orphans
Description
An account of the resource
The protagonist of the story encounters a peculiar young girl traveling alone by the name of Lizzy Dale when she takes a train car into Boston to see an old friend.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Sedgwick, Catharine M.
Author of "Hope Leslie," "Home", "Letters from Abroad," &c.
Source
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<em>Tales and Sketche</em>s, second series
Publisher
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Harper & Brothers
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1844
Contributor
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L. Damon-Bach
Language
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English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Document
boarding house
children
factory
family
grandparents
New-England
orphan
railroad
Tales and Sketches
-
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af7499cb8850fa0b9be2b4453c2a99f5
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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1847
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Text
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“Crescent Beach” By Miss Catharine M. Sedgwick [1847]
“Not upon us or ours the solemn angel
Hath evil wrought,
The funeral anthem is a glad evangel—
The good die not.” Whittier
In the summer of 183-, I passed a month at Crescent Beach. I find, on recurring to my note-book of that period, some passages that may now be published without offensive personality.
It was an unusually hot season, and the proximity of a delicious sea-shore to our great cities were never more enjoyed. Every day our citizens poured down from their streaming streets to bathe their wilted bodies and furrowed faces in the cool waves. There was a charming society that summer gathered at Crescent Beach—many an “immortal flower” among “human weeds.” There were beauties still pre-eminent, beauties returned unspoiled from the flatteries of foreign courts to fill the honored place of American matrons—their past a pleasant dream, their present a golden reality. There were the mothers and wives of statesmen holding the highest positions in the country, women whose intelligence, simplicity and kindly affability set in a bright aspect our democratic institutions. There were very pretty young women, content with the role of good mothers, surrounded by lovely children, bright wreaths of living flowers, chatting away the day good-humoredly over their worsted work and crochet needles. There were – and – who charmed away ennui with amateur music and heart-piercing ballads. There were, too, pretty young girls free from affection and coquetry, and intelligent young men, (Heaven be praised) exempt from conceit or coxcombry. There was the lawyer in his vacation—who can ever forget him! as he passed up and down the room, giving courteous, gentle word to old and young, and gladdening the evening social circle with wit and grace, in those silvery tones that have often made the “wonder mute” in our courts and halls of legislation. And there too was ----as bright and enjoying as he had been thirty years before, his merry laugh ringing on our ears and through our hearts like festal bells. God grant him more lustres, for to that soul of honor, that happy spirit which they will come crowned with “the respect that waits on age.”
There too was — bearing life’s burdens firmly and gracefully, while the freshness, sincerity and charm of youth were still upon her. Already she had bound up her golden sheaves of filial virtue, and, amidst the délassemens of a watering-place, was sowing seeds in young and loving hearts for future reapings.
There, too, were young mothers in retired rooms, keeping patient vigils over sick children, and sisters passing the live-long day in woodland paths and quiet walks along the sea-shore with their invalid brothers, having early waked from the “dream that life was beauty,” and found (without its casting a shadow over them) that “life is duty.”
There was chaff with the wheat. But, to all, the uses of this place seemed to be good. Dissipation and display were, by common consent, avoided. The beach walks in the glorious twilights, and the ocean, solemn as the presence of a divinity, had an elevating power over the lowest, the least susceptible.
I must proceed to relate a few circumstances that may not tend to prove this position, but rather to indicate that the inner rules the outer world.
The first day after my arrival, on going, in the evening, into the drawing-room,
“Who is that excessively pretty woman?” I inquired of an elderly gentleman.
“Which? all these young women are excessively pretty in my eyes!”
“She with a golden hue over her skin as if a sunbeam had lingered there.”
“Oh, that dark complexioned lively little French woman—Madame Joubert.”
“No, no, the one with the cap which the Graces seemed to have dropped on her head.”
“That little jewel? have you been here twelve hours without finding her out? That is Mrs. Louise Ryson, the subject of the curiosity, observation (inalveillance) and gossip of all the very good-natured ladies at Crescent Beach.”
“Mrs. Ryson,” I responded in a tone of some astonishment.
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“Yes, Mrs. Ryson, married a second time, and the mother of that peerless child I saw you talking with as I came from the breakfast-room.”
“Is it possible? The child must be seven years old.”
“She is at least that, and wiser than her years. She has convinced me that Dickens’ little Nell is not an ideal, and that angel-spirits are sometimes invested with mortal mould, and sent to wander here for a little while on some heavenly mission. I expect on some bright morning to see Juliet unfold her wings and mount upward."
I looked at my friend, who was not addicted to romantic moods or sentimental notions. I saw he was earnest. “It was written on her forehead,” he continued, “as the Turkish fatalist would say. It is not only royal physiognomies, like Napoleon’s and Charles I.’s, that have a doom inscribed on them by nature; I have marked it on persons of obscure condition, and seen it realized. Sit down here by me and look attentively at that child. Is there not something over that most lovely face like a shadow on an opening flower?”
He drew me to the window, and we sat down by it. The lady had just entered the drawing-room and sunk on the sofa. She seemed looking for some expected person; when the child, who evidently was not that person, appeared at a farther door, looked round, and bounded towards her. “Dear mamma,” she said, “may I stay by you?” “Yes, Juliet, til I go out—I am going to drive.” “Can’t I go with you, mamma?” “No, Juliet, there’s no room.”
“There used always to be room, mamma.” A gentleman at this moment looked in at the door. My friend touched my arm. Mrs. Ryson’s face lighted. She half rose and sat down again as if afraid of attracting observation; the gentleman advanced towards her, they exchanged a few words in a low voice, he went up to the piazza, and she rose to go to her room. “Then I can’t go with you, mamma,” said the child in a saddened voice. “No, why do you tease me, Juliet! why can’t you go and amuse yourself as the other children do; you are so odd.”
“So I am,” said the child, dejectedly following her mother; “for there is nobody to mate with me.” The mother soon after came to the piazza in a very handsome hat and mantilla; was handed into the carriage by the gentleman who addressed her in the drawing-room, and drove off. In the meanwhile I had learned from my friend, who was an established lounger at Crescent Beach, all that he knew of Mrs. Ryson’s history.
She had been bred at one of our fashionable boarding schools, and had learned there just as much as might be expected, to prepare her for the serious duties and stern requisitions of life. She married at seventeen a man she loved, at eighteen she was a mother and a widow, and at twenty-two she was again married to a respectable prosperous merchant, a man of sound head and sound heart. Louis Ryson was attracted by her beauty and grace; but when he assumed the responsibility of her happiness and the support and protection of her unportioned child and herself through life, he believed she had sense enough to perform well a woman’s pat, that is to say, that she would be a credible, affectionate and domestic wife. As Mrs. Ryson and her companion drove off, Robert Liston, the friend whom I have quoted above, a man of shrewdness and experience, said to me, “there is an intrinsic difficulty in the case of our young married women. I mean those who have been fashionably educated and associated, and who have not (a few have) mind enough to lay their own course. They have accomplishments and tastes that belong to the class born to the dolce far niente life, or if you will allow me an illustration familiar to the ruder days of my youth, they have the ruffle without the shirt. Your sex has by nature more sensitiveness and more refinement than ours. This is developed by your education. You get glimpses into the world of art, you learn the caning about painting and sculpture, and the names of at least of the operas, composers and singers. Now, too, as your gods are unknown gods to us,—for the most part cotton and corn dealers, or importers of dry good, or if we chance to belong to the learned professions, still operatives,—delving all day, with no time to give to the mere embellishments of life,—so our young women are left to be amused by foreign men, who have, as I said, the ruffle without the shirt, or by those few idle men of fortune among us, who like Mrs. Ryson’s admirer, Rupert Reed, have time to acquire certain foreign graces, and time and leisure to practice foreign follies and vices, one of the worst of them being to profit by the coquetries of pretty, weak and very assailable young women, like poor Mrs. Louis Ryson.” Our conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the daily coaches. “There is the owner of the property we were speaking of,” continued my friend Liston, pointing to one of the gentlemen alighting from the coach, a man of some eight and twenty, with a fair open countenance, but remarkably destitute of that nicety and delicatȇsse to which ladies give the indefinable name of an ‘air.’
“Is that Mrs. Ryson’s husband?” I asked.
Liston smiled at my tone and replied, “That is, and a good honest fellow too; a man respected in his counting-house, and in Wall-street, and kind and affectionate in his own household; but he has no gift at making tableaux of life. You see the sort of person he is.” Little Juliet, who ever since her mother drove off had been standing listlessly by the railing, gazing in the direction her mother had gone, came forward at the arrival of the
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coaches, to receive her step-father. He kissed her and asked ‘where was her mother?’ “She has gone to take a drive,” replied the child, in the manner that indicated she would rather not have had that answer to give.
“I am glad of it, it is a charming afternoon, but why did she not take you with her, Juliet?”
“There was not room.” It was evident to me that Juliet gave this answer because she had no art to give another. A painful blush overspread her face as she spoke. Ryson misinterpreted it. “Never mind, my dear,” he said, “you shall have a drive to-morrow, and here is something for you in the mean time,” and from a multitude of parcels, fresh fruit, fresh books, etc. with which he had loaded himself for his wife and her daughter, he took a huge one of candies. “Oh, papa, how kind you always are! Let me take some of your things to your room. Oh, here are mamma’s worsteds!”
“Yes, I went back for them, I had forgotten them in my hurry. No, dear, I’ll take them all in.” He turned as he was entering the door, and said, “Tell your mother, Juliet, when she comes, that I shall be in directly. I have promised a gentleman to play a game of billiards with him before tea.” Again he turned back and said, “There is a parcel of burnt almonds inside yours, for your mother. Don’t open that, Juliet, you know she particularly likes burnt almonds.”
“There is something very kindly in his voice,” said I to my friend, as Ryson passed in, “and an air of simplicity, frankness, and unconventionalism that particularly pleases me.”
“And are you not rather struck with his being remarkably unexacting, unjealous—the poor man never even asked with whom his wife had gone; he thinks no evil, and therefore fears none.”
“And perhaps has none to fear,” I replied, “the rust in our society is a good element.”
“And therefore,” said my friend, “should never be abused. Of all the birds of prey who hover over society and live by devouring the weak, the libertine is the most atrocious and most detestable. I have known Rupert Reed from his childhood. The rich inheritance that awaited him, instead of stimulating his parents to fit him for the great responsibility of using and dispensing, procured for him exemption from restraint. He had from nature a quick perception and strong will, but he grew up as ignorant as a clown, with the exception of some accomplishment in music. He had some taste for it, and it was the grace in request among the people he consorted with. At seventeen he came into possession of his immense fortune, and for three or four years he abandoned himself to a life of pleasure, so called. His constitution was then exhausted, and he ‘brought up,’ as they term it. He changed his field of action, he married a beautiful woman, and neglected her after six months; he became haut-ton, was exclusive in his habits; in the world, but not of it, he bestows his favors on those only who are distinguished for fashion, or beauty, or talent, r a certain caste. Now it is a brilliant actress, opera singer, or ballet-dancer; now a debutante in high life, and now the pretty wife of some confiding, working city merchant, whom accident has made the belle of a season at a watering-place. like poor Mrs. Ryson. He like eclat, and therefore he always marks as his prey such as are sparkling in sunshine.”
“But I am astonished that decent women should permit the advances of a man whose libertinism is so notorious as Rupert Reed’s!”
“My dear, innocent friend! I beg your pardon, and your sex’s, but when was reputed libertinism a bar to a man’s acceptance in society, provided he has a very large fortune, has an ultra and rather refined coxcombry, studies foreign conventional refinements, and bears a name (that potent supreme charm in our democratic society!) that has belonged to a fashionable dynasty for two or three generations. Besides, there is, it must be acknowledged, some charm peculiar to the individual. I am inclined to think it has something to do with animal magnetism. There are certain men and certain women too, whose attractions are inexplicable. This very Rupert Reed broke the heart and overclouded the destiny of a gifted young creature as far above him as the stars are above us. The facts came to me mysteriously, and I cannot communicate them. God help her! I never see his bloodless cheek without thinking that the curse I heard her father utter is eating ‘his life away!’”
I hope my readers will not conclude that my friend and I are merely cold and curious observers, analyzing and depicting our fellow-creatures as coolly as a naturalist does a fish. It does not become me to speak of myself; but of him I must say he has far more humanity than curiosity, far more of sorrow and pity than anger for human folly, and that excepting in his confidential communications with me, he maintained an apparent ignorance of the gossip in active circulation at Crescent Beach, in relation to poor little Mrs. Ryson and the reptile into whose web she was falling. I would forewarn my readers, too, against the trouble of looking on the map for Crescent Beach. It is only a name we have given to one of the sea-shores to which our citizens go down in herds during the hot summer months to refresh soul and body. Why not call things by their right names! Simply because we wish to invest with a slight veil of fiction circumstances which, having transpired some few years since, are already forgotten.
As I parted from my friend, Mrs. Clinly joined me. Mrs. Clinly is a star of magnitude, though declining from the ascendant, she has been a beauty;
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was younger once—is now a grandmother—and very young and very handsome for a grandmother. She still hovers round the precincts of the world she once shone upon, and by no very violent imagination might be supposed to be a spirit condemned to note and publish the follies in which she indulged, till they forsook her. She is called a very good-natured person, and so she is as far as an easy, careless deportment goes—a readiness to introduce a fashionable stranger, to do an acceptable office for a prominent actor on this scene—to impart a new fashion, or teach a new stitch. She has a quick recognition, and what seems a spontaneous smile for every passer-by, but when they have passed, listen, if you will, to her annotations—her treasured budget of private anecdotes—“They are pretty girls! but what a pity the men are shy of them!”
“Shy of them! I have observed no such thing!”
“Oh, they are, I assure you, on account of that old story about their mother; it is very wrong they should suffer for it, poor girls!”
“Lovely dress of Mrs. —’s. My husband says, he had rather look at her dresses than pay for them. I suppose he could afford it as well as poor Mr. ----.”
“Just observe” (behind her fan) “Mrs. Rollins and Mrs. Smith when they meet,”—the parties pass us, —“they did not even bow. Mrs. Smith has mentioned some little thing Mrs. Rollins said about Mrs. John Buller. How are you to-day, Mrs. Rollins?” she continued to that lady, who now approached us, and who I thought had, en passant, looked very much askance at Mrs. Smith.
“It’s a lovely day; did you bathe, Mrs. Rollins?”
“No; I haven’t been in my room all day. I detest living in public and going in herds that your people are so fond of!”
“Not in feeling. No, I assure you, I have lived too long abroad to identify myself with them. One gets one’s tastes so changed, that one can never be at ease here, I think. They talk of spies abroad—Lord bless me!—it seems you are all spies here! there is no freedom. You must do as everybody else does, and say what everybody else says. If you express an opinion that differs from others, on character, religion, or what not, it is repeated and garbled! If this were done in society comme il faut in Europe, the repeater would be sacrificed. Depend on it, mesdames,” she concluded, shrugging her shoulders, and darting a glance along the piazza, at the offending Mrs. Smith; “this tittle-tattle belongs to demi-civilization. I made some chance remark about that poor little Mrs. Ryson’s flirtation with Rupert Reed. I am sure I think none the worse of her—il faut l’amuser; but repeated, I am made to appear—what, you may imagine;” and she writhed a mouth that had once been pretty, into an expression of bitter resentment. At this moment, little Juliet came on the piazza, her face lightened, holding in one hand a bunch of fresh pond lilies (the exquisite lotus). “O! Your Mamma has returned from her drive; has she, my dear?” said Mrs. Clinly, who, if she had been Mrs. Ryson’s recording angel, or accusing sprit, could not have kept a more exact watch over her movements. “No,” replied Juliet, the passing ray of sunshine vanishing from her face; “do you think anything can have happened to mama, Mrs. Clinly?”
“Oh, no, my dear,” replied Mrs. Clinly, with a sly smile that expressed more than one should have thought in the presence of that innocent child. “Mr. Rupert Reed is a very safe driver for your mother—in one sense,” she added in a lowered voice, to Mrs. Rollins, who merely shrugged her shoulders, as if the insinuation were a very light matter. At his moment, Mrs. Duncan passed along, dispersing at the right hand and the left all the lilies she had not given to little Juliet. I have nothing special to tell of Mrs. Duncan, and yet I pause, as my memory goes back to that period as if a good angel were passing by me. I wish I had the power to describe her, and to make others feel, as I did then, the influence of her character. Mrs. Duncan was somewhere on that stage of pilgrimage of life between thirty and forty, when most women, if not worse by the experience of life have lost the freshness of their interest in it. Not so with dear Mrs. Duncan; she was as frank, fresh, confiding, and affectionate as a girl of sixteen, just—not from boarding school; no, there for the most part, there is a forcing process of world-experience, but—from a happy home. Mrs. Duncan reversed that ingenious chemical analysis that extracts poison from every earthly substance, and contrived to distil good from everybody and everything. It seemed to me that her sunny face, by a mysterious and improved daguerreotype, marked on her heart every line of beauty and form of loveliness, and left the rest—refuse to her. On her heart—Mrs. Clinly was stamped the kind, all-admiring person she would fain be; Mrs. Duncan was too unconventional to stand high with the aspirants to high fashion, of Crescent Beach. They spoke of her as a person laboring under some disqualification, as ‘poor Mrs. Duncan.’ Poor! She was one of those rich ones whose treasures are every hour accumulating where the moth of worldliness and the rust of selfishness do not corrupt. But as I
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was saying, Mrs. Duncan came floating towards us. She was a woman whose specific gravity would not have promised a floating motion, but no sylph moved lighter; it was buoyancy of a cheerful, unburdened spirit. She had a curly-headed boy in her arms, and two children running after her. She looked the type of loving charity. “You are such a favorite with the children, Mrs. Duncan,” said Mrs. Clinly. “I believe you keep them all in sugar-plums.”
“Any how, she has not given us sugar-plums to-day,” said one of the children, bristling. “We should not love some people, if they gave us all the sugar-plums in the world; should we, Jem?” added the boy. The children at Crescent Beach were franker than their parents.
“There’s your tea-bell; away with you, boys,” said Mrs. Duncan, who perceived their words were not sugar-plums to Mrs. Clinly. “It’s natural to me to love children,” she added, kissing them and pushing them off; “their noise never troubles me; there is a great difference in people about that; some mind it.”
“Oh, it is an intolerable nuisance!” exclaimed Mrs. Rollins. “There is no country, I believe, in the world, but this, where children are permitted en scene. But here, it is not men and women, but children, that are the actors on the world’s theatre. The drawing-room is a menagerie, and these young animals (whelps I won’t call them) are careering up and down, while the men and women are thrust to the wall.”
This was an evil we all had suffered under at Crescent Beach, and I believe all of us, excepting dear Mrs. Duncan, were ready to take up arms against this sea of children. “I don’t know how it is,” she said, “in other countries. I have never been there. My husband means to go as soon as he can arrange, but he has so many orphans under his care. It is not everybody you know, that is willing to be a guardian; it is always to fall on Mr. Duncan. Not but that it’s very pleasant; there are three girls who dine with us every Sunday, not at all connected either, who seem like our own children. But I hope the time will come when we can go. I may feel differently when I have seen as much of the world as Mrs. Rollins has. Now children don’t disturb me, they are so happy here. It’s their vacation you know, and they must have a little range.”
“But, dear Mrs. Duncan, their mothers are so shockingly negligent of them,” urged Mrs. Rollins.
“Are they?” replied Mrs. Duncan, with the accent of one does not accede, and will not contradict. “I have not observed that. There are no dangers for them here to run into, and they come here for their health and diversion, and they are so happy. It’s healthy to be happy; don’t you think so, Mrs. Rollins?”
“That may be,” replied Mrs. Rollins, “but I have no notion that we are to be sacrificed to make these little brats happy, or that they are any the happier for it. I tell you, Mrs. Duncan, if you and your husband ever achieve that voyage to Europe, you will see the benefit of discipline and subordination.”
She walked off with the air of one who as uttered an undeniable truth.
“She is a very peculiar woman,” said Mrs. Duncan, “but very agreeable—how much she has seen of the world!”
“Rather too much,” said I.
“Yes, she is very ill-natured,” said Mrs. Clinly.
“Of course she has her own views,” said Mrs. Duncan, “but I must think she is a good woman. She sits alone in her own room a great deal, and I don’t believe that any one who is not good likes to be alone.”
Mrs. Clinly made no reply but walked to the end of the piazza, to explore (as I, perhaps unjustly, believed) the road by which Mrs. Ryson was to return. “Mrs. Clinly and Mrs. Rollins do not seem like one another,” said Mrs. Duncan; “but I dare say they will in a few days, when they come to know one another better. I am not much accustomed to these public resorts, but it appears to me that one of the uses of coming to them is to do away prejudices. Now there are people here of such different religions; and poor Mrs. Rollins,--some of the ladies think she has no religion at all, because somebody overheard her say, one day, that she ‘believed Mr. Horatio Smith had gone to ---- (you know where), if there were such a place.’ Now, she reads her Bible every day, and of course she must believe there is the place she alluded to—“
“They are coming!” exclaimed Mrs. Clinly, returning to us and interrupting Mrs. Duncan’s charitable speculations.
“Who is coming?” asked Mrs. Duncan.
“Mrs. Ryson and her—”
Mrs. Duncan filled the hiatus according to her own honest impressions, and called out to Juliet, “Run, Juliet, love! there’s your mamma and papa!”
Juliet did not run, but remained drooping, like the beautiful lily she was picking to pieces.
“Dear child, don’t spoil that lily,” said Mrs. Duncan, “you know I gave them to you for your mamma’s hair.”
“I put mamma’s in water,” replied Juliet, “and this I kept for myself,” and raising her eyes, which I thought were filled with tears, though a dim smile flitted over her lips, “I think,” she added, “it feels pretty much as I do.”
“Why you dear little thing!” exclaimed Mrs. Duncan, “are you not well? have you a head-
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ache? Perhaps you have eaten something that does not agree with you.”
Juliet slid away from the kind lady, without replying, and joining her mother, who had alighted at the end of the piazza, and, her arm in Rupert Reed’s, was walking across it to the entrance door. Juliet said something in a low voice to her as they passed me. I did not hear her, but I was struck by Mrs. Ryson’s mounting color. I fancied Juliet had announced her father. Mrs. Ryson hastily withdrew her arm, and went to her own apartment.
At tea she appeared with her husband. They sat opposite to me. Mrs. Clinly on my right hand. “Our vis-à-vis does not look quite as animated and excited as we sometimes see her,” she whispered; and added, aloud, to her husband, “do you find Mrs. Ryson improving?”
“Not as I expected,” replied Mr. Ryson, “I have been laughing at her for getting the blues at Crescent Beach. To me, this is such a delightful change from the city, that I am half intoxicated with spirits.” And so it appeared, for he went on talking in a loud voice with the gentlemen around him, about the city-news, the arrival of the steamer, the rise of corn, etc., etc., while his pretty wife sat by him, languid and listless.
But a change had come over her, when two hours after I saw her in the drawing-room. She had added some pretty decorations to her dress, her color was heightened, and I saw that her husband felt a pleasurable and natural vanity, as, when leading her into the room, he heard her pointed out to some new comers as the prettiest woman in Crescent Beach. He walked up and down the room, his wife on one side, and Juliet on the other, a proud and happy man. “How do you like it here, my child,” he said.
“Not half so well as at home, papa.”
“You don’t? You are the girl for my money! But why, in the name of reason, do you not like it, Juliet? it seems to me you children have it all your own way.”
“I do not have it at all my own way,” said Juliet. “Before we came to Crescent Beach I was always with mamma, and mamma loved me better than any one, and now—”
“Hush, Juliet,” said her mother; “what nonsense are you talking. It was high time we should leave home, you were getting so selfish as to think I must be wholly devoted to you—body and soul.”
“Oh, my dear Juliet, you must not be selfish; there is nothing so disagreeable as selfishness!” said the loving step-father. Soon after, in the shuffling up of the company, I found myself on the sofa with the Rysons. Robert Liston, who had been one of a circle of waltzers, took a chair beside me. “Young America!” he exclaimed, with a deep, inward laugh, peculiar to himself. “There is,” he added, “something either very naïve, or frank, or daring, in some of our young ladies. I just heard Miss Lupton say to Ned Bristol, after whirling around with him in what we old-fashioned people should call a very close embrace, ‘Now, Mr. Bristol, why can’t you waltz like Rupert Reed. You come too near me! and you put your arm too far round!’ Waltzing may sanctify such remonstrances, but I fancy if Miss Lupton were to make these elegant remarks to a gentleman sitting by her, her father might feel bound to call him out. Oh, Lord! ‘what we are we know, but not what we shall be.’ I once thought the freedom of our young women guaranteed their purity.”
“You think differently now?”
“I would not trust to freedom alone. Those must be well broken animals that require neither reins nor blinders. And reins, surely, are of no use where such a mother as Mrs. Lupton holds them.”
“Anne, my love,” she said, as Bristol left her daughter to seek another partner “you are quite right, Bristol does not waltz comme il faut. Mr. Reed,” she said, “I am half mind to ask you to waltz with Anne; entre nous, I infinitely prefer she should waltz only with married men; and you waltz so—so differently from people in general.” Reed bowed to the compliment, and took out Miss Anne; and the chary mother has the pleasure of seeing her waltz with the most fashionable man in the room. I think little Juliet, who had nestled close to me, had, without understanding the purport of my friend’s remarks, a sort of feeling of his meaning, or perhaps it was the instinct give to the weakest creatures, by which they detect the presence of an enemy; for, soon after, when Rupert Reed asked her mother to waltz, the child said, impulsively, “Oh, don’t, mamma—don’t!”
“Juliet!” said her mother, in a tone of deep displeasure, and then turning to her husband, she added, “Mr. Ryson does not dance, and he is so seldom here, that much as I love waltzing I shall not waltz to-night.” There was a false tone in the voice—poor lady! her path had become a devious one.
“Oh, Mary!” said the good-natured husband, “waltz with Mr. Reed, by all means, if you like it. Live and let live, Mr. Reed, that’s my rule. I will go on the piazza, in the meantime, and smoke a cigar.” He went, and escaped many a whisper that might have enlightened him, as his wife went the giddy round with a glowing cheek and downcast eye.
The next evening just before sunset, I saw little Juliet sitting pensive and alone on the piazza, as I was crossing it to go down to the beach for my usual evening walk. I asked her to come with
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me, and she expressed her acquiescence by taking my hand and kissing it with a grace and gentleness that marked all she did. “This is a beautiful vesper-service, Juliet,” I said as we paced along over the compacted sands, from which the waves had just retreated. “Vesper-service! what does that mean?” She asked. I explained. She was silent for a few moments, while her fine hazel eye turned to the horizon, along with the black clouds lay like gigantic structures, castle and tower. The sky kindled around the sun, and he seemed to sink down into a field of fire that lit up these black masses, so that they shone like the temples of Peru, with their golden friezes, and incrustations of amethysts, rubies and sapphires. The heavens were tinged to the very zenith with gold, and red shading off to the faintest rose color; and the ocean, as far as we could see it, reflected the ruddy light.
I felt the child’s delicate little fingers pressing my hand more closely, she instinctively paused and gazed on the lines of surf, as the green arches rose, careering on, one after another, and threw off their bright crests. Juliet stood, as if entranced, and then turned her eyes to me, and would have spoken, but her habitual timidity overcame her impulse.
“What is it, Juliet,” I asked, “you were going to say something to me?”
“Yes,” she said, re-assured by my manner. “After you spoke of the vesper-service, I remembered my mother took me once to a vesper-service, and I was thinking how much better was the ocean than the organ; and it seems to me,” she added, turning her eager gaze to the feathery clouds, “as if there were millions of angels standing there, where the sun went down, and I can bear—almost, I mean—soft, low music coming from them, like a response to those deep ocean sounds. I have had some such thoughts before, when I walked here alone, but your speaking of the vesper-service made me understand them better!”
I said nothing. I would not encourage the imaginations of this child of seven years—I dared not repress them. I felt then—I feel now—that she may have held communion with the angel that stood before her Father’s face. I never saw anything human so angelic! We had already walked beyond the usual limit of the strollers on the beach, we paused again and looked oceanward, as those are wont to do who feel its mysterious charm. Troops of the little beach-bird, were chasing their prey, as the last refluent wave left it on the sand, where there was scarcely water enough to wet their claws, and yet enough to reflect the brilliant dyes of the sky, so that it looked as if they were running over a pearly pavement, and as the crested wave met them they spread their wings and mounted over them—‘skill triumphing over might!’ I thought. My little companion had another thought. “My cousin died last spring,” she said. “My cousin Sally Vore. I loved Sally dearly—these birds make me think of her—so she rose over all the waves that came against her.” The child’s voice trembled as she added, “I have nobody now, Sally is gone!”
“Nobody, my dear Juliet! your Mamma?”
“Oh yes, indeed, Mamma; but since we came here, Mamma—” her voice faltered, and she paused.
“Your Mamma is very much occupied here,” I said, “and so is every one. You will soon go home and then you will have your mamma all to yourself again; but it is time for us to turn, there is the evening star shining through that rosy haze—we are alone on the beach.” We turned around, and found we were not alone. Retracing our steps for a few moments we met Mrs. Ryson and Rupert Reed. They were neither of them habitual pedestrians, and were both evidently in that sort of absorption which makes one unmindful of time or space. Juliet sprang towards her mother. “Come home, mamma,” she said, “do come home, it’s late—come home with me.”
It was evident, that Mrs. Ryson felt a sudden revulsion in the tide of her feelings at the unexpected meeting with her child. She stood still for a half moment and looked around her like one that grasped the brink of a precipice, and then recovering herself she repulsed the little girl not ungently, and said, “Finish your walk with that lady, my dear; I shall finish up directly.” Juliet returned to my side, but she walked on silently and languidly, and often looking back. After a short time, she drew a long breath as if relieved from a pressure, and said, “Mamma has turned about—I do not like that Mr. Rupert Reed; do you?”
I answered heartily, “No, I do not.”
“And yet,” she resumed, “I should like him if it were not he—you are laughing at me—I mean if any one else did what he does I should like him. He has given mamma the loveliest case of perfumes, and a beautiful cross. I am sure it is he, for you know he is the only person mamma seems to know very well here; but perhaps I should not tell it—I have no one to talk to here, and I told you before I thought; and I am afraid mamma would not like it, for she has packed the things quite away at the bottom of her trunk!”
“O!” thought I, “are these things thrown into the scale with protestations and flatteries to buy a woman!—a wife!—a mother! My country-women! you have been marked for your purity, your conjugal virtue, your maternal devotion; you have been held worthy guardians of a holier temple than that kept by the ancient bestals—the temple of married love and purity. Be careful that you enter it with a full sense of its high
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duties, its inappreciable happiness, and infinite rewards. Keep your faith unsullied by a disloyal wish or thought, it will be the brightest jewel of your immortal crown. Let your virtues be as a circle of fire around you, that the serpent, in the form of a libertine, dare not approach. If he come adorned with foreign graces, accomplishments and refinements, he is still the reptile whose touch defiles. Do not admit him to your houses, nor tolerate him in your society! Resist the flood of foreign princesses and duchesses, who, when the glare of their position vanishes, are lower than the weak, tempted, and betrayed wretches of our streets, whom you would spurn from your thresholds.”
* * * * * *
A few days passed on; Mr. Ryson had gone to the South on business, and consequently his frequent runs to Crescent Beach were suspended. Mrs. Ryson seemed to lose all sense of observation of her absorption with her lover—as I am sorry to say Rupert Reed was called, by some of the ladies at Crescent Beach—who, if Mrs. Ryson had been on the brink of the grave with a fever, would not have spoken lightly of it; and yet the abyss yawning before her—and oh, how to be closed!—was infinitely worse, more hopeless than the grave. It was impossible to see her without feeling an interest in her fate. She was not yet five and twenty. Her face did not indicate strength of character, but had the positive beauty of perfect symmetry and coloring, and added to this a certain sweetness, affectionateness of innocence still hung about her, giving charm to the whole, like the fading light of the sinking sun. Besides, she was the mother of Juliet—this should have exorcised an evil spirit!
It was about ten o’clock Sunday morning, when I was walking with Mrs. Duncan on the piazza. Mrs. Duncan is the person in the world of whom if I had a favor to ask (without any claim but my want) I should have asked for it. So, I presume, thought Mrs. Ryson, for she came from her room and said, “I am obliged, Mrs. Duncan, to go suddenly to town to see a relative who is ill. I may be detained a day or two. Will you be kind enough to take charge of Juliet?”
“Oh, certainly, I shall be delighted, my husband and I both think she is the sweetest child we ever saw. I think it quite an honor to be entrusted with her. If I had had such a daughter, I should have been but a worshipper of idols; I could think of nothing else.”
Mrs. Ryson’s eyes were suddenly raised for the first time. They fell again, and a deadly paleness overspread her face. Mrs. Duncan did not seem to observe it. She was most unsuspicious of mortals. “How do you go to town,” she asked; “there is no coach on Sunday.”
“No, I am going in a private conveyance.”
“Alone! that’s not pleasant. Would you not like to have my husband go with you? He goes at any rate, to-morrow. I’ll run and speak to him.”
“No, no, don’t, I am not going alone. Mr. Reed—is—has offered to drive me—he is going to town on his way home.”
Mrs. Ryson turned away with a hasty farewell, and Mrs. Duncan called after her. “Where is Juliet, I want to tell the dear child how glad I am to have her for a little while.”
“She is bathing,” replied Mrs. Ryson, “She is not quite well; I thought she wanted it, and I persuaded her, much against her will.”
After she left us, “It’s a pity, it’s a pity she goes up with that man!” exclaimed Mrs. Duncan, in the voice of a sorrowing angel; “not that there is any real harm in it, but I fear some observations will be made. Everybody here is not charitable!” She touched my arm and pointed to the end of the piazza. There stood Rupert Reed’s equipage, his liveried servant, and Reed himself biting his nails with impatience.
I know not what I should have replied to Mrs. Duncan. Just at that moment our attention was attracted by an unusual noise at the beach. It was the bathing hour, and there were some commotion there—shrill screams mingled with the booming of the waves. In a moment the Beach-wagon, (the vehicle was so called that conveyed the bathers to and fro,) came driving up at most unusual speed, followed by people half dressed, or in bathing dresses. Something had happened, some cause of general consternation. The alarm spread, the people who were gathering in the drawing-room prepared for church, poured on to the piazza. At this moment, veiled, and shrinking from observation, Mrs. Ryson came through the front entrance. The wagon had reached the steps, and amidst exclamations of horror, the dead, drowned body of little Juliet was lifted out of it. The crowd parted, the mother saw her child, uttered a piercing shriek, and fainted on the floor!
Every measure was taken to restore life, but in vain. No one could tell how the accident had happened. Several ladies had seen Juliet go in; some had held her by the hand. The surf was not particularly strong, and no one had apprehended danger. No one had missed her til the man-bather saw her rising quite unconscious to the surface.
She had fulfilled her mission—she had saved her mother’s honor, and passed to immortality.
“O not when the death-prayer is said,
The life of life departs;
The body in the grave is laid,
Its beauty in our hearts.”
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
Crescent Beach
Subject
The topic of the resource
Adultery, Summer, Vacation, Beach
Description
An account of the resource
The narrator tells a story about her vacation on a beach, focusing on a little girl’s relationship with her young mother and the mother’s adultery.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Sedgwick, Catharine M.
Miss Catharine M. Sedgwick
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Sartain's Union Magazine [edited
by Caroline M. Kirkland] (November 1847): 212-19.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Sartain's Union Magazine
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1847
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Lucinda Damon-Bach; D. Gussman
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Document
Adultery
Beach
Charles Dickens
Charles I
children
Conjugal virtue
Death
drowning
Female education
Libertines
Libertinism
Little Nell
marriage
Napoleon
Peru
Ryson
Sartain's Union Magazine
Summer
swimming
Vacation
Vespers
Wall Street
waltzing
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/4347/archive/files/24f311a0b3ce94c2e57957b73c124f0c.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=bA7RbfZZrpPvnf%7EJyWzTz1mBvXJEWdTl%7EL%7ELTfroGLIKoUWSs5b%7E4uKd87TetJOk8Bh4dm9ejKnpr19ygnUtVjwGukBZrZ%7Ehp2dcHfgy2kHadnEFQMsi9PaQx08PN3fhlkUr%7EDISMBs58q%7Ej3CuNzB5iYILxqu6tK2val81W-02k%7EyBNo%7ECR27UYTQXbVC4RoXPuObOj6rYkSv6YXqMXWThVGGfFW2qkNthAzGGPVkInfgsciQAFVsEUVDOfaOKpQe1FixonXDt3FF3SERyIWB1a00jq-P8KqWC75qWIBHAq0SqdCa9C%7EZBjO63RBw2eWCcJxkrSWqZE4qSomkVHiQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
133cc4a86a167c272f5e6e0bea968c2c
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
1838
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Text
Any textual data included in the document.
OUR ROBINS.
__________
[p. 40]
At a short distance from the village of S—, on the top of a hill, and somewhat retired and sheltered from the roadside, lives a farmer by the name of Lyman. He is an industrious, intelligent, and honest man; and though he has but a small farm, and that lying on bleak stony hills, he has, by dint of working hard, applying his mind to his labour, and living frugally, met many losses and crosses without being cast down by them, and has always had a comfortable home for his children; and how comfortable is the home of even the humblest New-England farmer! with plenty to satisfy the physical wants of man, with plenty to give to the few wandering poor, and plenty wherewith to welcome to his board the friend that comes to his gate. And, added to this, he has books to read, a weekly newspaper, a school for his children, a church in which to worship, and kind neighbours to take part in his joy and gather about him in time of trouble. Such a man is sheltered from many of the wants and discontents of those that are richer than he, and secured from the wants and temptations of those that are poorer.
Late last winter Mr. Lyman’s daughter, Mrs. Bradly, returned from Ohio, a widow with three
[p. 41]
children. Mrs. Bradly and I were old friends. When we were young girls we went to the same district school, and we had always loved and respected one another. Neither she nor I thought it any reason why we should not, that she lived on a little farm, and in an old small house, and I in one of the best in the village; nor that she dressed in very common clothes, and that mine, being purchased in the city, were a little better and smarter than any bought in the country. It was not the bonnets and gowns we cared for, but the heads and hearts those bonnets and gowns covered.
The very morning after Mrs. Bradly’s arrival in S— her eldest son, Lyman, a boy ten years old, came to ask me to go and see his mother. “Mother,” he said, “was not very well, and wanted very much to see Miss S—.” So I went home with him. After walking half a mile along the road, I proposed getting over the fence and going, as we say in the country, “ ’cross lots.” So we got into the field, and pursued our way along the little noisy brook that, cutting Lyman’s farm in two, winds its way down the hill, sometimes taking a jump of five or six feet, then murmuring over the stones, or playing round the bare roots of the old trees, as a child fondles about its parent, and finally steals off among the flowers it nourishes, the brilliant cardinals and snow-white clematis, till it mingles with the river that winds through our meadows. I would advise my young friends to choose the fields for their walks. Nature has always something in store for those who love her and seek her favours. You will be sure to see more birds in the green fields than on the roadside. Secure from the boys who
[p. 42]
may be idling along the road, ready to let fly stones at them, they rest longer on the perch and feel more at home there. Then, as Lyman and I did, you will find many a familiar flower that, in these by-places, will look to you like the face of a friend; and you may chance to make a new acquaintance, and in that case you will take pleasure in picking it and carrying it home, and learning its name of some one wiser than you are. Most persons are curious to know the names of men and women whom they never saw before, and never may see again. This is idle curiosity; but often, in learning the common name of a flower or plant, we learn something of its character or use; “bitter-sweet,” “devil's cream-pitcher,” or “fever-bush,” for example.
“You like flowers, Lyman,” I said as he scrambled up a rock to reach some pink columbines that grew from its crevices.
“Oh, yes, indeed I do like them,” he said; “but I am getting these for mother; she loves flowers above all things—all such sorts of things,” he added, with a smile.
“I remember very well,” said I, “your mother loved them when she was a little girl, and she and I once attended together some lectures on botany; that is, the science that describes plants and explains their nature.”
“Oh, I know, ma’am,” said he, “mother remembers all about it, and she has taught me a great deal she learned then. When we lived out in Ohio, I used to find her a great many flowers she never saw before; but she could class them; she said, though they seemed like strangers, and she loved
[p.43]
best the little flowers she had known at home, and those we used to plant about the door, and mother said she took comfort in them in the darkest times.”
Dark times I knew my poor friend had had—much sickness, many deaths, many, many sorrows in her family; and I was thankful that she had continued to enjoy such a pleasure as flowers are to those that love them.
As we approached Mrs. Lyman’s, I looked for my friend, expecting she would come out to meet me, but I found she was not able to do so; and, when I saw her, I was struck with the thought that she would never living leave the house again. She was at first overcome at meeting me, but, after a few moments, she wiped away her tears and talked cheerfully. “I hoped,” she said, “my journey would have done me good, but I think it has been too much for me; I have so longed to get back to father’s house, and to look over these hills once more; and though I am weak and sick, words can’t tell how contented I feel; I sit in this chair and look out of this window, and feel as a hungry man sitting down to a full table. Look there,” she continued, pointing to a cherry-tree before the window, “do you see that robin? ever since I can remember, every year a robin has had a nest in that tree. I used to write to father and inquire about it when I was gone; and when he wrote to me, in the season of bird-nesting, he always said something about the robins; so that this morning, when I heard the robin’s note, it seemed to me like the voice of one of the family.”
[p. 44]
“Have you taught your children, Mary,” I asked, “to love birds as well as flowers?”
“I believe it is natural to them,” she replied; “but I suppose they take more notice of them from seeing how much I love them. I have not had much to give my children, for we have had great disappointments in the new countries, and have been what are called very poor folks; so I have been more anxious to give them what little knowledge I had, and to make them feel that God has given them a portion in the birds and the flowers, his good and beautiful creation.”
“Mother always says,” said Lyman; and there, seeming to remember that I was a stranger, he stopped. “What does mother always say?” I asked.
“She says we can enjoy looking out upon beautiful prospects, and smelling the flowers, and hearing the birds sing, just as much as if we could say ‘they are mine!’ ”
“Well, is it not just so!” said Mrs. Lyman; “has not our Father in heaven given his children a share in all his works? I often think, when I look out upon the beautiful sky, the clear moon, the stars, the sunset clouds, the dawning day; when I smell the fresh woods and the perfumed air; when I hear the birds sing, and my heart is glad, I think, after all, that there is not so much difference in the possessions of the rich and poor as some think; ‘God giveth to us all liberally, and withholdeth not.’ ”
“Ah!” thought I, “the Bible says truly, ‘as a man thinketh, so is he.’ Here is my friend, a widow and poor, and with a sickness that she well knows must end in death, and yet, instead of sorrow-
[p. 45]
ing and complaining, she is cheerful and enjoying those pleasures that all may enjoy if they will; for the kingdom of nature abounds with them. Mrs. Bradly was a disciple of Christ; this was the foundation of her peace; but, alas, all the disciples of Christ do not cultivate her wise, cheerful, and grateful spirit.”
I began with the story of the robin-family on the cherry-tree, and I must adhere to that. I went often to see my friend, and I usually found her in her favourite seat by the window. There she delighted to watch, with her children, the progress of the little lady-bird that was preparing for her young. She collected her materials for building, straw by straw and feather by feather; for, as I suppose all little people know, birds line their nests with some soft material, feathers, wool, shreds, or something of the sort that will feel smooth and comfortable to the little unfledged birds. Strange, is it not, that a bird should know how to build its nest and prepare for housekeeping! How, think you, did it learn? who teaches it? Some birds work quicker and more skilfully than others. A friend of mine who used to rear canaries in cages, and who observed their ways accurately, told me there was as much difference between them as between housewives. Some are neat and quick, and others slatternly and slow. Those who have not observed much are apt to fancy that all birds of one kind, for instance, that all hens are just alike; but each, like each child in a family, has a character of its own. One will be a quiet, patient little body, always giving up to its companions; and another for ever fretting, fluttering, and pecking. I know
[p. 46]
a little girl who names the fowls in her poultry yard according to their characters. A lordly fellow who has beaten all the other cocks in regular battle, who cares for nobody’s rights, and seems to think that all his companions were made to be subservient to him, she calls Napoleon. A pert, handsome little coxcomb, who spends all his time in dressing his feathers and strutting about the yard, is named Narcissus. Bessie is a young hen, who, though she seems very well to understand her own rights, is a general favourite in the poultry-yard. Other lively young fowls are named after favourite cousins, as Lizzy, Susy, &c. But the best loved of all is one called “Mother,” because she never seems to think of herself, but is always scratching for others; because, in short, she is, in this respect, like that best, kindest, and dearest of parents, the mother of our little mistress of the poultry-yard.
To return to the robin. She seemed to be of the quietest and gentlest, minding her own affairs, and never meddling with other people’s; never stopping to gossip with other birds, but always intent on her own work. In a few days the nest was done, and four eggs laid in it. The faithful mother seldom left her nest. Her mate, like a good husband, was almost always to be seen near her. Lyman would point him out to me as he perched on a bough close to his little lady, where he would sit and sing most sweetly; Lyman and I used to guess what his notes might mean. Lyman thought he might be relating what he saw when he was abroad upon the wing, his narrow escapes from the sportsman’s shot, and from the stones
[p. 47]
which the thoughtless boy sends, breaking a wing or a leg, just to show how he can hit. I thought he might be telling his little wife how much he loved her, and what good times they would have when their children came forth from the shells. It was all guesswork, but we could only guess about such matters, and I believe there is more thought in all the animal creation than we dream of.
Once, when he had been talking in this playful way, Lyman’s mother said, “God has ever set the solitary birds in families. They are just like you, children; better off and happier for having some one to watch over them and provide for them. Sometimes they lose both their parents, and then the poor little birds must perish; but it is not so with children; there are always some to take pity on orphan children, and, besides, they can make up, by their love to one another, for the love they have lost.”
I saw Lyman understood his mother; his eyes filled with tears, and, putting his face close to hers, he said, “Oh no, mother! they never can make it up; it may help them to bear it.”
When the young birds came out of their shells it was our pleasure to watch the parents feeding them. Sometimes the father-bird would bring food in his bill, and the mother would receive it and give it to her young. She seemed to think, like a good, energetic mother, that she ought not to sit idle and let her husband do all the providing, and she would go forth and bring food for the young ones, and then a pretty sight it was to see them stretch up their litte necks to receive it.
Our eyes were one day fixed on the little fam-
[p. 48]
ily. Both parents were perched on the tree. Two young men from the village, who had been out sporting, were passing along the road. “I’ll bet you a dollar, Tom,” said one of them, “I’ll put a shot into that robin’s head.” “Done!” said the other; and done it was for our poor little mother. Bang went the gun, and down to the ground, gasping and dying, fell the bird. My poor friend shut her eyes and groaned; the children burst out into cries and lamentations; and, I must confess, I shed some tears—I could not help it. We ran out and picked up the dead bird, and lamented over it. The young man stopped, and said he was very sorry; that if he had known we cared about the bird he would not have shot it; he did not want it; he only shot to try his skill. I asked him if he could not as well have tried his skill by shooting at a mark. “Certainly!” he answered, and laughed, and walked on. Now I do not think this young man was a monster, or any such thing, but I do think that, if he had known as much of the habits and history of birds as Lyman did, he would not have shot this robin at the season when it is known they are employed in rearing their young, and are enjoying a happiness so like what human beings feel; nor, if he had looked upon a bird as a member of God’s great family, would he have shot it, at any season, just to show his skill in hitting a mark. We have no right to abate innocent enjoyment nor inflict unnecessary and useless pain.*
[p. 49]
The father-bird, in his first fright, darted away, but he soon returned and flew round and round the tree, uttering cries which we understood as if they had been words; and then he would flutter over the nest, and the little motherless birds stretched up their necks and answered with feeble, mournful sounds. It was not long that he stayed vainly lamenting. The wisdom God had given him taught hint that he must not stand still and suffer, for there is always something to do; a lesson that some human beings are slow to learn. So off he flew in search of food; and from that moment, as Lyman told me, he was father and mother to the little ones; he not only fed them, but brooded over them just as the mother had done; a busy, busy life he had of it. “Is it not strange,” said Lyman to me, “that any one can begrudge a bird their small portion of food? They are all summer singing for us, and I am sure it is little to pay them to give them what they want to eat I believe, as mother says, God has provided for them as well as for us, and mother says she often thinks they discern it better, for they do just what God means them to do.” It was easy to see that Lyman had been taught to consider the birds, and therefore he loved them.
Our attention was, for some days, taken off the birds. The very night after the robin’s death my friend, in a fit of coughing, burst a bloodvessel. Lyman came for me early the next morning. She died before evening. I shall not now describe the sorrow and the loss of the poor children. If any
[p. 50]
one who reads this has lost a good mother, he will know, better than I can tell, what a grief it is; and, if his mother be still living, I pray him to be faithful, as Lyman was, so that he may feel as Lyman did when he said, “Oh, I could not bear it if I had not done all I could for mother!”
The day after the funeral I went to see the children. As I was crossing the field and walking beside the little brook I have mentioned, I saw Sam Sibley loitering along. Sam is an idle boy, and, like all idle boys I ever knew, mischievous. Sam was not liked in the village; and, if you will observe, you will see that those children who are in the habit of pulling off flies’ wings, throwing stones at birds, beating dogs, and kicking horses, are never loved; such children cannot be, for those that are cruel to animals will not care for the feelings of their companions.
At a short distance from the brook there was a rocky mound, and shrubbery growing around it, and an old oak-tree in front of it. The upper limbs of the oak were quite dead. Sam had his hand full of pebbles, and, as he loitered along, he threw them in every direction at the birds that lighted on the trees and fences. Luckily for the birds, Sam was a poor marksman, as he was poor in every-thing else; so they were unhurt till, at length, he hit one perched on the dead oak. As Sam’s stone whistled through the air, Lyman started from behind the rocks, crying, “Oh, don’t—it’s our robin!” He was too late; our robin fell at his feet; he took it up and burst into tears. He did not reproach Sam; he was too sorry to be angry. As I went up to him he said, in a low voice, “Everything I
[p. 51]
love dies!” I did not reply, I could not. “How sweetly,” resumed Lyman, “he sung only last night after we came home from the burying-ground, and this morning the first sound Mary and I heard was his note; but he will never sing again!”
Sam had come up to us. I saw he was ashamed, and I believe he was sorry too; for, as he turned away, I heard him say to himself, “By George! I’ll never fling another stone at a bird so long as I live.”
It must have done something towards curing his bad habits to see the useless pain he had caused to the bird and the bird’s friend; and the lesson sank much deeper than if Lyman had spoken one angry or reproachful word, for now he felt really sorry for Lyman. One good feeling makes way for another.
To our great joy, the robin soon exhibited some signs of animation; and, on examination, I perceived he had received no other injury than the breaking of a leg. A similar misfortune had once happened to a Canary-bird of mine, and I had seen a surgeon set its leg; so, in imitation of the doctor, I set to work and splinted it, and then despatched Lyman for an empty cage in our garret. We moved the little family from the tree to the cage. The father-bird, even with the young ones, felt strange and unhappy for some time. It was a very different thing living in this pent-up place from enjoying the sweet liberty of hill and valley, and he did not know our good reason for thus afflicting him any better than we sometimes do of our troubles when we impatiently fret and grieve. In a short time he became more contented. The family said
[p. 52]
he knew Lyman’s footstep, and would reply to his whistle; sure am I Lyman deserved his love and gratitude, for he was the faithful minister of Providence to the helpless little family. They never wanted food nor drink. When, at the end of a very few weeks, he found them all able to take care of themselves, he opened the door of the cage and said, “Go, little birds, and be happy, for that is what God made you for.”
The birds could speak no word of praise or thanks; but happiest are those who find their best reward, not in the praise they receive, but the good they do.
* Lord Byron somewhere says, that he was so much moved by seeing the change from life to death in a bird he had shot, that he could never shoot another. I may lay myself open to the inculcation of a mawkish and unnecessary tenderness, but I believe a respect to the rights and happiness of the defenceless always does a good work upon the heart.
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
Our Robins
Subject
The topic of the resource
Death and dying; the natural world.
Description
An account of the resource
The narrator spends time with her dying friend and the friend's young son, sharing a love of flowers and birds, and reflecting on the habits of robins and their similarities to human beings.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Sedgwick, Catharine Maria
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
A Love-Token for Children: Designed for Sunday-School Libraries, 40- 52.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
New York: Harper & Brothers
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1838
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Robin L. Cadwallader, L. Damon-Bach, D. Gussman
Relation
A related resource
Reprinted in the Southern Literary Messenger [edited by T.H. White] (May 1838): 318-21. Collected in Stories for Children [edited by Robin L. Cadwallader], RMTK Books, 2016, 25-46.
Language
A language of the resource
English
1838
A Love Token for Children
Animal Cruelty
bible
botany
children
Christ
Death
flowers
God
housekeeping
Lord Byron
Mothers
Napoleon
Narcissus
orphans
robins
shooting
-
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1f3337d28b37d64bd8a5fe27ef712f9d
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
1827
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Text
Any textual data included in the document.
SATURDAY NIGHT.
_________
[p. 146]
Ellen and Charles, two good and happy children, had just been undressed, and were jumping into bed, when their mother came into the room where they were. “Oh, come, mother,” they both cried in the same breath, “and lie down by us, and tell us a story.”
“Lie my side,” said Ellen.
“Oh no, lie my side,” said Charles.
“I cannot do both,” said their mother.
“Then come between us,” said Ellen; “that is the fairest way.”
“Yes, that is the fairest way,” said Charles; and both the children moved, and left a good place for their mother between them.
“Do, mother,” said Ellen, “tell us a fairy story—you know I delight in fairies—now dancing over the flowers, without even bending their slender stems; and now hiding away in acorn cups. Oh! I wish I had lived in fairy-land. I should so have liked to have had a magic lamp, or a ring for a talisman, that would have pinched my finger when I did wrong.”
“Pooh, Ellen!” exclaimed Charles, “you know there is no such place in reality, as fairy-land—is there mother?”
“I know that, as well as you do, Charles; but
[p. 147]
then there is no harm in talking of it, as if there were. That you call one of the pleasures of the imagination—don’t you mother?”
Ellen’s mother smiled, and said, “yes my dear; but when you are wishing for such a fairy gift as the wonderful ring you spoke of, do not forget that God has given you some thing much more wonderful, to you when you do right, and when you do wrong.”
“You mean my conscience, mother,” said Ellen; for her mother had so often spoken to her of conscience, that she very well knew what she meant.
“Now Ellen,” said Charles, is a beseeching tone, “don’t interrupt mother again; and do, mother tell me a story of a lion or a panther, or a faithful dog. A faithful dog, like that you read about in your Natural History, Ellen, is worth a sea full of fairies.”
“Fairies live in the green wood, Charles, and not in the sea,” said Ellen, a little hurt at Charles’ contempt for her favourites.
“To-night I shall not tell you about either beasts, or fairies,” said their mother.
“Oh it is Saturday night!” exclaimed Ellen; “I had forgotten that. A Bible story then—I am sure I think the story about Joseph, or that about Isaac, or the Prodigal Son, or Lazarus and his sisters, as interesting as a fairy story.”
“They are a hundred times more interesting,” said Charles.
Ellen’s mother was glad to find that the true and instructive histories to find that the true and instructive histories from the good book interested her children as much as those stories were contrived to delight them. “My dear chil-
[p. 148]
ren,” she said “I shall not tell you a story from the Bible, to-night; but relate an anecdote (which, you know, means a short story,) of some little children of our acquaintance. “There are two children, who have a great and kind Friend, who is always taking care of them, whether they are awake, or asleep.”
“I suppose you mean their mother,” said little Charley, who was always impatient to get at the story.
“No, my love. This Friend gave them their father and their mother.”
“Oh you mean God!” whispered Ellen.
Her mother did not reply to her, but proceeded—“This bountiful Friend has given to them, the most beautiful and wonderful gems in the world; worth as Charles would say, a whole sea full of diamonds.”
“Gems, what are gems, mother?” asked Charles.
“Precious jewels, my dear. Those I am speaking of are very small, but so curiously formed, that as soon as the casket which contains them is opened, there is immediately painted on them a beautiful picture of all the objects towards which they are turned. If a landscape, like that you see every morning from your chamber window, there appear on the gems those beautiful mountains, that rise one above and beyond another; the mist that curls up their sides, as if, Ellen, to hide troops of your tiny fairies behind its silvery curtain; the bright lake which glitters in the depth of the valley, and which you call the mountain mirror, Ellen; the large orchards, with their trees, gracefully
[p. 149]
bending with their ruddy and golden fruit; the neat house opposite us, with its pretty curtain of vines hanging over the door, and rose bushes clustering about the windows.”
“What, mother!” exclaimed Charles, “all these things painted on a little gem?”
“Yes, Charles, all. The high mountain, and the rose-bushes, every leaf and bud of them; and then, if the gems are turned towards the inside of the house, the landscape disappears, and all the furniture is painted on them, and the perfect pictures of their friends: not such pictures, as you see done by painters, looking grave and motionless; but smiling, speaking, and moving.”
“Oh, mother, mother!” exclaims Ellen, this is a fairy story after all.”
“Are there, in reality, any such gems?” asked Charles; who did not like that the story should turn out a fairy story.
“There are, my dear Charles;” and the same Friend, who gave the children these gems, has given to them, many other gifts, as wonderful. He has given to them an instrument, by which they can hear the music of the birds, the voices of their friends, and all other sounds; and another, by which, they enjoy the delicious perfume of the flowers; the fragrance you so often spoke of, Ellen, when the fruit-trees were in blossom; and the locust trees in flower, and the clover in bloom.”
“Oh what a generous Friend that must be,” said Charles, “to give such valuable presents, and so many of them! Are there any more, mother?”
“Yes, Charles, more than I could describe to you, if I were to talk till to-morrow morning;
[p. 150]
there is a very curious instrument, by which, they can find out the taste of every thing that is to be eaten; and another, that by just stretching out their fingers, they can tell whether a thing is smooth or rough, hard or soft.”
“Why, I can tell that with my fingers!” exclaimed Charles.
“Yes, my dear,” said his mother, “and cannot you taste, by putting food in your mouth? And is there not an instrument set in your head, by which, you can hear?”
“My ear, mother?” asked Charles.
“Yes, my child, your ear.”
And do you mean the eyes, by those wonderful gems?” asked Ellen.
“Yes.”
But, I am sure there is no painting in the eyes.”
“Yes, Ellen, every object you behold, is painted upon the part of the eye, called the retina; but that you cannot understand now; and you must let me go on with my anecdote of the two children. When they arose in the morning, they found that their Friend had taken such good care of them, when they slept, that they felt no pain; that their limbs were all active; and they could every moment receive pleasure from the precious gems, and instruments I have mentioned. They, both looked out of the window, and exclaimed “What a beautiful morning!” The little girl turned her gems towards her multiflora, now full of roses, and glistening with dew-drops, and she clapped her hands, and asked her brother, if he ever saw anything so beautiful; and he turned his gems to a
[p. 151]
pair of humming-birds, that were fluttering over the honeysuckle, and thrusting their tiny pumps into the necks of the flowers, and as their bright images shone on his gems, he shouted, “Did you ever see anything so handsome?”
“You mean, mother,” said Charles, “that he looked at the humming birds, when you say he turned his gems?”
“Yes, my dear; and when he heard the pleasant humming they make with their wings, it was by the instrument set in the head, which you call the ear. There was not a moment of the day, but the children enjoyed some good thing, their Friend had given to them. They learned their lessons, by using the memories He had given to them; the books they read, delighted them, because their Friend had given to them minds by which they understood them. They loved their parents, and relations, and companions, because their Friend had given them affections.”
“It seems to me,” interrupted Charley, “that Friend gave them every thing. It must be God, you mean, mother; for I know he gives us every thing we have.”
“Yes, my dear Charley; and I am sorry to say, these two children neglected their Friend. They had often been told by their mother never to get in bed without first kneeling and thanking him for all his gifts; but they did not think of him. They used and enjoyed the gifts, but they sometimes forgot the Giver.”
Ellen laid her head on her mother’s bosom. “Mother,” she said, “you mean us.”
“My dear Ellen,” replied her mother, “your
[p. 152]
conscience is like the ring, in the fairy tale. Yes, I did mean you and Charles. I was sorry, when I came into the room, to-night, to see you getting into bed, without saying your prayers. God has given you a voice, to speak my children. Your dog, Stumah, Charles, cannot speak, to thank God for anything he receives, but you can.”
“And I will,” said the good little boy; ashamed that he had been ungrateful and thoughtless. “Come, Ellen; we’ll jump up, and say our prayers; and,” he added, in a whisper; “we’ll speak for Stumah, too.”*
* This reply of the child is true.
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
Saturday Night
Subject
The topic of the resource
Teaching children to appreciate the gifts of the five senses and God.
Description
An account of the resource
A mother tells her children a bedtime story about a mysterious Friend who gives children precious gifts, and teaches a lesson about gratitude and prayer.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Sedgwick, Catharine Maria
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Stories for Young Persons, 146-52.
Publisher
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Harper & Brothers
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1840
Contributor
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Heather Harman, Nicole Wheatley, D, Gussman
Relation
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Originally published "by Stockbridge S." in the Juvenile Miscellany, [edited by Lydia M. Child] (January 1827): 31-39. Collected in A Short Essay to Do Good, 18-24, 1828
Language
A language of the resource
English
1827
1840
bible
children
Dogs
fairies
God
Joseph
Juvenile Miscellany
Lazarus
Mothers
Stories for Young Persons
the five senses
the Prodigal Son
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/4347/archive/files/27544a80f6aa685116ad7bd2a7a806f0.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=hUrsJSF8J5GpGqEvHOKiiXhgM0MeL72Fckl2xMSo3cKxt9wrouAYwt85YIgJh7miNRqLFH038ew7N-41CS9Apolk2qliXuacfX-OpsUGhyXXOcxEdVHAD1c5v0YFPZJKDhS4B%7EF8u3Lch8KQOiYLBDZfA-LT04WBxjGZFpaDZ7ptp7NH%7E-bjnUAFZROB88NY3C58Jg6g9ERkJ96sW0Zp5lCzmb1T6jwG5R7JHeCVXzKw4KtEsgTQzoxeZdF39emrU9Qdesnds0Wn-zUWQWXoZngb6vUgtRpm6gIN2TVyk7fZBLlrDembq6qp2jnj5IqPN14jIt6Rv5L%7Eh%7EYN4PkMLA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
c741cdc6bdbc9b7e616932a31ecb3897
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
1840
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Text
Any textual data included in the document.
SKEPTICISM.
_____
"Mother," said little Frank D____, with an unusually anxious expression on his smooth round face, "I wish you would tell me what is the meaning of skeptical. I heard father say last evening, he wished Uncle Henry was not so skeptical; he thought it was a great misfortune. I know skeptic means one who does not believe in the Christian religion; but I know uncle does, so it can't be anything like that: so what does it mean, mother?”
"In the first place, my dear Frank, you are not quite accurate in your definition of a skeptic; you have fallen into a common error. Skepticism merely means doubt, and not actual unbelief. Persons are called skeptics who really disbelieve the Christian religion, and those are often called unbelievers who have not quite arrived at that unhappy point, but are in the distressing state of doubt—skepticism."
"Oh, then, I guess I know what father meant, because Uncle Henry never believes anything. Yesterday, when I told him I had been up every morning this winter before seven, he said, 'Are you sure of that, my boy?' 'Yes, sir,' said I, 'for I always look at the clock the moment I am dressed.' Then he turned right round to father, and asked him how many times he supposed I had been up this winter before eight o'clock; and father told
[p. 92]
him he might rely on my statement, for I was an accurate boy. And then, when Susan came in, he turned right round to her, and asked her if I was an early riser! And so he always does; he asks half a dozen people, and finally don't believe any more than when he began. I think father was quite right; it is a misfortune to be so skeptical."
"It is so, Frank; and I believe it is better to be sometimes deluded, sometimes deceived, and often disappointed, than to be always doubting. Faith in God is the first and greatest blessing and support in life; next to this is faith in man. By this I mean, my dear boy, faith in man's capacity to do and to suffer; reliance on the possible attainments of our fellow-creatures; trust in their truth, goodness, and affection. But, my dear Frank, I'm going on a little ahead of your understanding and years; so I will come back, and tell you there is a kind of skepticism to which young people and children are very much addicted."
"Pray, mother, what is that?" "Do you remember that last fall, when your cousin Anne was staying with us, your father and I tried to convince her that her low spirits, and constant headaches, and cold feet and hands, and constant shivering, were owing to her neglect of exercise?"
"Oh yes, I remember how you used to talk to her, and how she used to sit there in the rocking-chair in the corner with a shawl on, and her feet up on the stove, and never stir out with the rest of the girls."
“No; she said she did not believe in exercise; so she went on all winter till she got a severe ill--
[p. 93]
ness, and that cured her of her skepticism; now she believes, and takes regular exercise, and is perfectly well."
"Well, she got pretty well punished for her skepticism, mother."
"Yes, Frank; and you may rest assured that all such skepticism will be punished sooner or later."
"Do you remember, when John was at home from college how he used to lie on the divan all day and read? He was told over and over again that he was injuring his eyes. He was skeptical, and went on reading in the same way. Now he is obliged to give up study because his eyes are weak."
"Oh, mother, how could he do so?"
"How could he, Frank? I think I know a little boy whom his mother has found nailed down to his Arabian Nights till the daylight was quite gone; and when he was pretty sharply reproved, he would answer, ‘I don't believe it hurts my eyes at all.'"
"Oh, mother, I'll not do so again; I'll not be skeptical."
"How often have your father and I told Lawton West, that, unless he pays more regard to accuracy and truth, we can place no confidence in him? He says that of all things on earth he desires our confidence, and yet he is just as careless of the truth as ever. Is not Lawton skeptical?"
“I don't see that, mother; Lawton keeps on lying for ever; but I don't see how it is because he is skeptical."
"If, Frank, he believed what we say—if he actually realized as we do when we heartily believe
[p. 94]
that we could never place confidence in him, he would make an effort to reform. How do you think it is with Sarah? I tell her over and over again that she makes me most uncomfortable by her disorderly habits. She says, ‘Oh, aunt, I would not make you uncomfortable for the world;' and the next hour her shawl is on the floor, and her bonnet and gloves nowhere to be found. I tell Eliza, that if she eats candies and sweetmeats she will injure her teeth. She says directly she don't believe they hurt the teeth. Miss Smith complained to me the other day that she had a constant headache. I begged her to leave off drinking coffee. 'Oh, she did not believe,' she said, 'that coffee hurt her.' Mrs. Allen told me her little girl was getting very pale and thin. I advised her not to keep her so many hours in school. 'Oh,' she replied, ' I don't believe Mary will ever hurt herself with study.'"
"Seems to me, mother, everybody that you know is skeptical.”
"The truth is, my dear boy, persons are not disposed to believe when their belief must be followed by a change of conduct—by the conquest of an obstinate fault, a bad habit, or a strong appetite. Those are best and happiest who are most ready to believe in those who have more wisdom and experience than themselves, and who will act in conformity to their belief. First faith, and then works, Frank."
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
Skepticism
Subject
The topic of the resource
Skepticism vs. unbelief, faith vs. works.
Description
An account of the resource
A young boy has a conversation with his mother in order to understand the meaning of skepticism.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Sedgwick, Catharine Maria [by the author of "The Linwoods," "Poor Rich Man," "Love Token," "Live & Let Live," &c.]
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Stories for Young Persons, pp. 91-94.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
New York: Harper & Brothers
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1840
Contributor
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D. Gussman
Relation
A related resource
Collected in Stories for Young Persons, 1840, pp. 91-94, reprinted 1841, 1842, 1846, 1855, 1860; reprinted 184? By the author of "The Linwoods," "Poor Rich Man," "Love Token," "Live and Let Live," &c. London: W. Smith.
Sedgwick, Catharine Maria, 1789-1867, and Cairns Collection of American Women Writers. Stories for Young Persons ... New York: Harper & Brothers, 1840. HathiTrust Digital Library https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/007092366 Accessed 11 July 2019.
Format
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Document
Language
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English
1840
children
exercise
eyesight
Faith
juvenile literature
Mothers
reading
skepticism
sons
Stories for Young Persons
unbelief
-
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99810612bd8d9d535ea784f91a18bdec
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
1848
Subject
The topic of the resource
Stories published in 1848.
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Text
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STRAGGLING EXTRACTS,
FROM A JOURNAL KEPT IN SWITZERLAND.
_____
BY MISS CATHERINE M SEDGWICK
_____
[p. 115]
MONDAY morning, June 1st, 1840. We left Lausanne this morning, and ascending the high hill on the route to Berne by voiturier’s pace, we had time for many a loving, lingering look at Lake Leman, no longer the “clear, placid Leman” of our dreams, of poetry of Rousseau and Byron; but enriched with the best realities of life. The friendship of the wise and good has made its borders a home to us—has consecrated it, so that it is no longer strange and foreign, but a part of the “holy land” of the heart; where that Temple stands which binds what is most precious on earth to that which is most ardently hoped for in heaven. A farewell seemed sent back to us from the lovely water. Shall I ever forget these last looks of the Lake? the rocks of Meíllerie? the Pain de Sucre? the Dent du Midi? I went within the walls of the cemetery on the declivity of the hill, to visit John Kemble’s grave. A gentleman was standing beside it. In my haste (the carriage was awaiting me) I did not at first notice him. As I turned to pluck a leaf from the cedar which overhung the spot, my eye met his; and with unusual frankness (he was obviously an Englishman) he said, courteously touching his hat: “We owe this homage to our countryman, and I am glad to see it rendered.”
“The name is a great one,” I replied, without thinking it necessary to vitiate my homage in his eyes, by saying that I was an American? or to
[p. 116]
tell him that the Kemble name had a more potent charm for me than that with which genius had prodigally endowed it.*
*[author’s note]: Campbell says, in his valedictory address to John Kemble:--
His was the spell o’er hearts
Which only acting lends;
The youngest of the sister arts,
Where all their beauty blends.
When I returned to the carriage, my companions eagerly asked me if I had observed the gentleman, who, from the distance at which they had seen him, struck them as having an air of unusual elegance.—“Yes, I had observed and spoken with him.”
********, who never fails to express her thorough prejudice, then said:--“He is not an Englishman.”
“Yes, he is English, and a military man.”
“Ah! Then he has been over the world, and perhaps in America, and learned something of manners and humanities!”
“With the latter,” I said, “I fancied Heaven had endowed him, for he has a very charming face.”
Both ***** and **** wished they had gone with me; a charming human countenance would be a pleasant variety from the only face they had seen to admire for a long while—the face of the country.
At a little village where we stopped to lunch, we went to the parish church to see Queen Bertha’s tomb, and her worm-eaten saddle.
Her remains were found in a subterranean part of the same church, and re-interred with an inscription, setting forth this Burgundian lady as an endower of monasteries, a constructor of roads, and a protector of the poor. She was a princess comme il y en a peu at present, in more than the doing of these magnificent acts, as appears from her saddle, on which she rode astride, with her bust above an iron ring that encircles her; and she spun as she rode—“not like you romantic girls,” as I said to my companions, “warp and woof of poetry and romance, but veritable thread of flax!”
FREYBURG.
Glad were we again to hail the picturesque gate of this old town. We left the carriage and walked in. The bourgeoisie were sitting around the old linden tree; a still strong and fresh memorial of enthusiastic patriotism. After the celebrated battle of Morat,
“Morat and Marathon, twin names shall stand,”
where a few Swiss gained a brilliant victory over a large Burgundian force, a young soldier of Freyburg, one of the “unbought champions,” left the patriot victors, and with a branch of a linden-tree in his hand, he ran all the way to his native city, which he entered crying “Victory!” and sank down dead from exhaustion. The linden-branch was planted on the spot. The tree flourished; and now there are tongues in its massive trunk and luxuriant branches, which are tenderly supported on a species of scaffolding.
We rose early, and went on to the terrace of the Zeringer Hoff, which hangs over the deep abyss, worn by the Sarine; from here you see the beautiful suspension-bridge, which spans the gulf some hundreds of feet above the Sarine’s bed, and the little thread of a foot-bridge higher up in the gorge. It looked so very wiry and sharp in the misty distance, so faintly traced on the sky, that a faithful follower of the Prophet might have taken it for a vision of that bridge which carries few safe over. The great tower of the cathedral, and the towers on the declivities of the hills, look as they did in the dreary days of last autumn; but now it is summer, and there is beauty and gladness every where; in the little gardens niched on the hillside; in the laburnums and roses almost dipping in the water: they are smiles of immortal youth about images of age and decay. As we re-entered the hotel, I met the stranger of the cemetery. My companions passed on; but I took the privilege of my age, and in reply to a courteous recognition, spoke to him of our mutual experience during the past day’s travel. He, too, had stopped to see Queen Bertha’s riding equipment; that being one of the regular way-side lions. He spoke of the spindle; he liked that symbol of her sex’s destiny. It might be well for princesses to enlarge their horizon; it might even be necessary; but for women in private life, he liked a literal adherence to the domestic life for which they were made.
“If they were made for that alone,” I ventured to say.
“Perhaps,” he said, “you would admit apostolic authority; and St. Paul, I believe, is of my opinion.”
“There is a wide scope in St. Paul’s writings,” I replied, “and I thought he was of too generous a spirit to hold all women within one narrow pen of household duties.”
A second summons to breakfast, broke of the speculation upon which we had rather awkwardly fallen. When I reported it to my companions, ***** said, it was just like an Englishman—if he spoke at all, to say something disagreeable—no wonder that Madame de Stäel said an Englishman had two left hands; --who but an Anglo-Saxon would have pounced upon such a topic to a party of ladies?
The road from Freyburg to Berne lies through a country much like the richest and most beautiful
[p. 117]
parts of our own Berkshire—Berkshire without the Alps—Hamlet, the character of Hamlet omitted. The hills, even, have a loftier station than ours; and instead of our shabby fences, wherever there are divisions there are hedges.
Their cottages are the prettiest of all rural architecture, with their projecting roofs and galleries. Their farming utensils, ladders, rakes, etc., hanging under their shadow; the neat piles of wood husbanded under the same shelter; and the bee-hives close under the windows--a fitting emblem of this intelligent and producing people. The rosy, stout Bernese dames, and their chubby children, both in their prettiest of all costumes, give to the landscape a living beauty. The cheerful rural life here is a contrast to Italy, where there seems to be no rural habitancy. There, for the most part, the dwellings of the working people are crowded into narrow, stifling lanes; the few straggling habitations in the open country look like jails with their iron croisées. In the canton of Berne, I am often reminded of my own country;--if not an equality of condition, there are no contrasts—no frightful distances between man and man. There is a general diffusion of comfort—no grand seigneurs—no beggars. The cultivation and products, too, remind me of home. The grasses, the beautiful turf, the apples, cherries, willows, limes (the finest I have ever seen), and the elms. The gardens resemble our gardens at this season—the same dominance of utility and small tribute to beauty—a narrow hem of peonies, seringas, moss-pinks and yellow-lilies, round ample beds of lettuce, beets, etc.
We entered Berne at noon on market day, which occurs every Tuesday, and the concourse is greatest on the first Tuesday of the month; so we are fortunate in our day. The streets are crowded; the people are selling and bartering every species of movable property, from fat cattle, horses, etc., to light domestic manufactures, which the women carry about; some on wooden frames, while others have tapes, cords, and chains tucked into their apron-strings. There is a sprinkling of fresh, pretty little peasant girls, with natural flowers, curiously woven together, for sale. We jostled our way through the crowded streets; heeding every thing, but quite unheeded ourselves: not quite; for again we met the English traveller, and exchanged salutations. The peasants are better dressed than I have ever seen any rural population. Their clothes are of strong materials and enduring colors; and the white chemise-sleeves and waist, purely white, give to the whole appearance the paramount of charm and cleanliness. We are at the Faucon, excelling among the excellent Swiss inns. My English friend (friend! but acquaintance ripens apace in these foreign lands), sat next to me ; on ***** saying, that of all working women in the world, she would rather be a Bernese peasant, he said to me in a low voice, that the fly-cap would not be unbecoming to the young lady, with her light form and spiritual eye; but he thought it grotesque appendage to fat old women, or solid young matrons; they certainly are a most unaerial people.
THUN.
Here we are at the Bellevue—an inn in the midst of a garden tastefully laid out, and embellished with flowering shrubs. The river Aar is running away below us as if the Lake of Thun, of which it is the outlet, had been its prison. The little town of Thun is on our right, with chateau, church, and towers crowning the hill it covers; behind us is a precipitous green hill with a walk half way up to heaven, where a summer house is pitched to look out over this beautiful scenery, which seems like some exquisite picture become, by miracle, a reality. There is the lake, stretching for fifteen miles at the feet of these giant hills; and for mountains, the Stockhorn, the Neisen, and the Blumlis, whose eternal snows, cut into sharp angles, give the most startling effects of light and shadow—their existence here is blessing enough.
It is strange to see summer and winter side by side—inflexible winter, with the richest blossoming of summer. Man seems to live contentedly here on the patrimony God has given him—there is no commerce, no manufactures. The parent divides his agricultural property equally among his children; and from the very comfortable aspect of their homes, there would seem to be enough for their moderate wants. The valleys are thick set with corn, and the uplands devoted to pasturage. The woodlands belong to the commune, and the division is made by proper officers. The warmest slopes are covered with vines; and wine is so cheap, that each person has a bottle at dinner without an extra charge.
LAUTERBRUNNEN.
As we came into the little green steamer that was to carry us over the lake this morning, I again met our English traveller; and we shook hands as if we were old friends. He did not see fit to communicate his name, but he had ascertained ours on the register of the Faucon, and he soon began talking of New-York, where he had once been, and of Dr. H------’s and Mr. H------’s families, whose hospitable doors are always open to foreigners of any pretension. Even *****, with her cherished aversion of all Englishmen, admits that he is very pleasing—or, as she words it, very un-English. He has a shade of sadness over his fine face, that only passes for a moment
[p. 118]
when he is in very animated conversation. It is thrown there, I feel sure, from some settled sorrow. I told him he had lost a great deal by not arriving earlier at Thun. He said, civilly, that he was aware he was a loser, inasmuch as he had lost our society; but as to Thun, he was familiar with it—he had passed the happiest days of his life there, and he did not care to go there again. “And there,” he added, as we were passing a lovely villa which had once been a convent of the Chartreux, “there I lived one beautiful summer.” Some painful recollection smote him—he turned suddenly from me, and paced up and down the deck; and then, as if determined to master his sensations, he returned to my side, and directed my eye to the cascades leaping down the precipices, and then the beetling rock over the cave of St. Beatus, which he said he had once visited. “We penetrated several hundred feet,” he said, “and found some relics of human habitancy, but no traces of the dragon whom the saint is said to have ejected from his holy habitation. I wonder if it is only by living the life of a hermit that one can master a dragon?” He spoke in a tone so deep and expressive, that I involuntarily looked at him as if he were betraying a monomania.
I think he perceived the impression he had made; for, resuming his usual manner, he directed my attention to a straggling village far above St. Beatus’s cave, whose only access is a winding footpath.
“A rugged, difficult ascent,” I said.
“No, not very difficult,” he replied, “to youth and enterprise. I once made it with a young woman about the age, I imagine, of your young friends.”
“An Englishwoman?” I spoke involuntarily, for I have seen too many English to put a premeditated question.
“I beg your pardon,” he answered, “Swiss. We passed a week at the house of the pastor--an Oberlin—who so kindly led his flock in this stern and scanty pasture, that I learned from him to look with contempt upon the egotism of the old anchorite of the cave.”
With the enchantment of the scenery, and the interest of my new friend, the moments flew, and I left the steamer with regret for the carriage that our courier procured us at New-Haus. There was one vacant seat in the carriage; and, knowing that my acquaintance was bound for this place, I asked him to occupy it, feeling it to be but a common way-side humanity. At first he accepted it cordially; but then some difficulty about arranging his baggage occurring (for an Englishman can do nothing extempore), he declined, and we drove off ; my young women exclaiming, “How could you?” “What on earth will he think of us--he is an Englishman?” &c., &c. To all which I replied by asserting a calm confidence in our own dignity, and my assurance of that degree of education and refinement in my acquaintance, that it could not be compromised by a two hours’ drive with him.
I then excited their curiosity by items of his conversation which they had not heard, and by interpolating a few sighs, and even a tear which I was secretly sure he had repressed, I gave sufficient ground for their imagination to expatiate on. ***** was sure ‘he had a story, God bless him!”--and that was some comfort; and after a while we talked ourselves into an egotistic half-belief that he had followed us up into these high temples. **** and ***** of course reverently imputed to me the attraction; but I very well knew an elderly lady was a trifling make-weight when there were two charming young ones in the scale. However, as it fell out, we might have saved ourselves the trouble of our reciprocal concessions.
As we wound up the green valley towards Lauterbrunnen, we passed the castle of Unsprunnen. It is an old ruined tower, with a flanking turret, which has a pretty tradition attached to it of feud and love, the scaling of castle-walls, and carrying off of an only daughter, and, after years of bloody strife, a reconciliation by means of the child-robber appearing within the castle-wall, and presenting his young boy to the old father. The ruin, however, derives its chief interest from it being the locale of Byron’s Manfred--a fitting genius loci in the face of the magnificent Jungfrau. The valley narrowed as we advanced along the margin of the wild Lutschine, rather a torrent than a stream. The grandeur of this valley surpasses any thing we have seen yet. The valley itself is 2450 feet above the level of the sea. The height of the walls of rock that enclose it I do not know ; but, towering above all the rest, is the Junfrau, 14,000 feet high. Valley this can scarcely be called—there is a little life-giving earth at the base of these everlasting rocks. Its name, Lauterbrunnen, signifies “nothing but fountains”--and more than a hundred streams, leaping over the rocks, or trickling down them, may be counted from our inn-window—the Staubbach, (literally dust-fall,) the most beautiful among them. Byron has so accurately described it, that, in spite of it having become a hack quotation of the guide-books, I again transcribe it:
“It is not noon. The sunbow’s rays still arch
The torrent with the sunny hues of heaven,
And roll the sheeted silver’s waving column
O’er the crag’s headlong perpendicular,
And fling its lines of foaming light along,
And to and fro, like the pale courser’s tail,
The giant steed to be bestrode by Death,
As told in the Apocalypse.”
[p. 119]
After all, as Byron concludes in his still better prose description, it is “something wonderful and indescribable.”
The weather is misty this afternoon; and Héry, a charming Swiss guide, (for whom, for our journey through the Oberland, we have exchanged our Italian Gil Blas courier,) advises deferring the passage of the Wengern Alp till to-morrow; so we have been walking up this wondrous valley. ‘Dust-fall’ is a wretched name for the Staubbach, unless there be diamond dust. The height is so immense whence it falls, that it is broken into the smallest drops before it reaches the ground. Each little fall has an individual life and charm: *****’s quick fancy saw in them the types of the most lovely classic impersonations: “Cupid and the Dolphin,” the “flying Mercury,” &c., and it was just as she was expressing, with a rather Delphic obscurity, her idea, that we were joined by our English friend. He seemed much amused with what he called the extravagance of her imagination. But the light of his reason was in vain offered to its shadowy region. She ‘saw forms he could not see, and there was the end on’t.’
As we were crossing a bright meadow to look at the Lutschine where it issues from the great glacier of the Jungfrau, our curiosity led us to ask admittance into a wretched little Swiss cottage, that we might see its interior. On the table were lying a large Bible and hymn-book. I opened their clasps and found a paper and type worthy a noble’s library. ‘Heir-looms are these,’ I thought; and said to Héry, “Such books are rare, I fancy, in your country.” “I beg your pardon,” he replied; “almost every dwelling has them.”
These poor people are right: these are the records of their birth-right—the charters of their freedom—the title-deeds of their inheritance—and they should be written in fair type, and kept with reverent hands.
I observed the woman who opened the door to us, give a sort of reconnoitring glance at our English friend—and then made an exclamation. She said something, to which he replied with few words and manifest emotion. *****, who begins to partake my interest in the stranger, asked Héry if he heard the words: “Partly,” he said; “the woman said, ‘You are the same gentleman who was here seven years ago, with the lady with eyes never to be forgotten?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘She is dead, then? God’s love be with her!’ ‘No.’ ‘No! And you parted? I thought death only could have parted you!’ ” He turned abruptly away, and it was a quarter of an hour before he rejoined us. I showed him a bunch of very beautiful forget-me-nots I had just gathered, glittering with rain-drops. He took out a pocket-book, and, opening a paper very elaborately folded, showed me a little knot of the same flowers, dried and faded, but the lovely blue still distinct among the pale green leaves. “They were picked here,” he said, “seven years since. Could one have dreamed these frail things would outlast a love that should have been eternal?” And then, as if he involuntarily betrayed himself, he hurried them back into his pocket-book, and did not rejoin me till after we came back to the inn—where we are now, awaiting our tea, and speculating upon the few threads we have extricated from the tangled skein of this new acquaintance.
One additional word, and I have done writing journal for this day.
Enter Héry with a card ; ***** seizes it and reads—“‘Lieutenant-colonel’ –yes it is, ‘ Lieutenant-colonel G----,’ printed; and then in pencil—‘begs to be permitted to take his tea with Miss S-----.’”
I have sent a cordial reply, while my young ladies are discussing the card.
“G-----,” says *****, “is not that the family name of the Earl of -----?”
“Yes; but you know you do not regard earls.”
“No; but one may respect an earl’s younger brother, who has attained the rank of lieutenant-colonel before he is thirty.”
“Perhaps, the earl bought the commission for him,” I suggested.
“No! no! I do not believe it: he looks as if he had earned it.”
I am pleased to find, that my prepossessions are gaining confirmation.
This has been an agitated, eventful evening. How far were we from anticipating the result of our detention at this inn! If we never see the passage of the Wengern Alp, we shall be consoled. The lieutenant-colonel came to our tea-table, which much resembled our own liberal evening meal at home. After we were seated round the table, our pretty buxom waiter brought in half-foot of honey-comb, from whose full cells the packed honey was oozing. This delicious preserve is a stable commodity of a Swiss table; and I have not yet seen a charge made for it—a proof of its abundance. The colonel seemed a little embarrassed at first coming among us, but was quite at his ease after taking an opportunity to say to me in a low voice, that I must have thought it very odd of him to make the communication he did to me—one hardly knew how it was—certainly, there were moments when one was hardly master of one’s self—when accumulated feeling--
[p. 120]
suffering, perhaps—at a look of sympathy, burst all barriers;--he hoped I would forget it.
The conversation then took a general turn. Colonel G-----, as well as ourselves, had visited Italy; and the discussion between him and *****, on various works of art, (her opinions are always her own, and not derived from any authority or reputation,) was animated. On many points they agreed; on some widely differed; but agreeing or not, every subject was converted to enjoyment by intelligence and sympathy. It is curious to see, how rapidly acquaintance ripens with people of congenial spirit who meet as travellers far from their home. All barriers are thrown down—all conventionalities forgotten; and we become almost as wise as little children in this matter.
The evening was wearing away: it was nearly ten o’clock, when our landlady burst into the room, and addressing Colonel G----- said : “If you are a doctor, as they tell me, for the love of God, follow me!”
“I am no doctor,” replied the colonel: “but what is the matter?”
“Oh! There is a mother and her only child; and the child dying; and the mother going out of her senses!”
“Is there no doctor nor medicine in your village?”
“Not a dust of it. The doctor is at Interlaken, and the key turned on the medicine.”
“I am no physician,” said the colonel, turning to me; “but my profession has made it my duty often to look after the sick; and I will never travel without a small medicine-chest. If you will be kind enough to ascertain if I can be of any service, I shall be most happy.”
I followed our hostess, who, without any ceremony, conducted me up stairs and into the distressed mother’s room. Ceremony would, indeed, have been out of place. There, writhing on a bed, lay a little girl of five or six; she was not in convulsions: they would have mercifully relieved her consciousness. Never did I witness more mortal agony. The mother was wringing her hands, kissing the child, rubbing her and exclaiming, “My God! my god! can no help be found?”
I ordered a hot bath and fomentations; and begged our hostess to bring the doctor immediately in; hoping by giving Colonel G---- this title, to give some comfort to the poor mother.
“Oh! Claire, my child, you will soon be better,” she cried; and then burying her head on the pillow, she sobbed frantically, “my all!--my all!”
Colonel G---- entered, and instantly became as white as marble. He stood for a moment as transfixed; then beckoning to me, he left the room: I followed him.
“These are my wife and child,” he said ; “what is to be done?--what can I do?”
I believe I was inspired by the exigency of the case, to give prudent counsel.
“Act,” I said, “as if they were not your wife and child; the little girl must be relieved at once, if at all; her mother is evidently incapable of doing or suggesting any thing. You must use all the resources you have; you must be calm and self-possessed.
“I will—God help me ! I will,” he said; and we both returned to the bedside of the child. Fortunately, the mother was so completely absorbed, her eye so riveted to the child, that she never once looked at the supposed doctor. He administered a powerful opiate. The warm bath was brought; and after getting considerable relief from that, we applied the fomentations. All this time Colonel G---- was perfectly calm; and except from his frightful paleness, and a slight tremulousness that pervaded his frame, one would not have suspected any thing unusual. He spoke in a whisper, and only to me. I think it was not more than half an hour, though it seemed much longer, when the remedies began to take effect; and in a short time the little girl’s limbs became relaxed and quiet; and a sweet tranquility was diffused over her beautiful features.
“Oh dear mamma!” she said, “I am so much better! I am almost well! what a good doctor!”
The mother now for the first time, lifted her eyes to the good doctor. The blood rushed to her cheek, and then utterly forsook it. She attempted to speak; but the words died on her lips, and she fainted.
In the exigency, Colonel G---- did, indeed, use all his faculties admirably. The little girl screamed; he first quieted her ; telling her, her mother would be well again directly; that she had been frightened with her suffering, and she was very tired ; and if she wished to have her well, she must keep quite quiet herself. “This lady,” he said, “will stay with you, while I lay your mother on a sofa in the next room; and give her something that will make her well again very soon.”
He took the mother in his arms, and carried her into the adjoining parlor. The little girl, with the ready confidence of childhood, took my hand; and turning her cheek to it, said : “He is a good doctor;” and adding twice or thrice drowsily—“poor mamma!—dear mamma!” The opiate took effect; and she fell into a sweet sleep.
I soon was informed by the stir in the next room, that the lady had revived. I heard voices softened by tears ; then calmer, more assured tones; and after a while, Colonel G---- came into the room. His face was radiant. He gently, and again and again, kissed his child; thanked me with a fervor beyond all measure; saying, that
[p. 121]
he was the happiest man living; and that he would explain everything to me in the morning. He asked me if I would pass the night beside the little girl, as his wife was in such a condition of alternate nervous excitement and exhaustion, that he dared not leave her, or permit her to resume her part beside her child.
Of course I am most happy to do him this small service. So, having bid the girls good night, and having abstained from exciting my curiosity, and abating their night’s sleep, by any allusion to the extraordinary developments in this apartment, I have put on my dressing-gown, and have set down to my journal to record circumstances that have murdered my sleep for this night. The morning came in its due course; but, alas! no sun, and “no hope of the Wengern Alp!” as I heard Héry say, in reply to the eager inquiries of the young ladies, when he tapped at their door. We have an appointment to keep—we must go down to Grindelwald to day.
“To Grindelwald, by the high-road!” exclaims ****; I had rather pass the Wengern Alp blind-fold, than not pass it.”
“As well blindfold Mademoiselle,” replies Héry, “as while the Mittag-horn, the Breit-horn, and Gross-horn, are themselves blindfolded with clouds.”
“But what has become of the Colonel?” asked ****; and thought I, “Is he so taken up with his patients, that he has forgotten us?”
I confess, I was very unwilling to go off, without knowing more of his story; but I did not choose to press on the confidence which he might have reasons for withholding ; or at any rate, chose to withhold. He had early sent a message to me, to say, that the mother was much refreshed, and would resume her place by the child.
Our carriage was ordered—was at the door; and nothing from the colonel; and I was just writing him a civil farewell-note, when he rushed into the room, saying, “Is it possible you were going, without giving me an opportunity of thanking you—of speaking to you alone?” he added, turning to my companions, “though whatever I have to say to Miss S----, she can at her discretion communicate to you if you have any interest in the subject.”
The girls immediately withdrew; with interest quite enough to justify the communication which I had the pleasure of making to their astonished ears on the way to Grindelwald.
It seems that Colonel G----, some seven years ago,--then a very young, and a very impetuous young man, as he says,--was passing a few weeks in Zurich, when he fell distractedly in love with Miss V----. She was the only child of the widow of a rich banker; beautiful, and gifted with high qualities of mind and heart; but somewhat perverted and spoiled by the alternate doting and despotism of her mother, “a fierce old woman,” he called her; to whom I might remember his alluding, when he spoke of the dragon ejected by St. Beatus. He married Miss V----; the mother being delighted with the idea of a noble English alliance, and professing to have no concern at his having but a few poor hundreds per annum. She accompanied the new-married pair to England. There she was received by his proud family without any disguise of their estimate of the infinite distance between them. Her coarse passions were provoked. She imparted a degree of her jealousy and resentment to her daughter; and after one year, and before the birth of his child, they separated; and the mother and daughter returned to Switzerland.
“We were both,” he said, “the victims of our ignorance of life. We did not understand the true proportions of things—that the less must be sacrificed to the greater. We were both irritable and passionate; totally unfit to manage the most complicated and delicate relation of life—that in which unity and individuality are so marvellously blended, that not a fibre of one can be touched, without jarring and endangering the peaceful existence of the other. We parted,” he said; “and till yesterday, I never saw my lovely child. I had determined never to claim her ;--thank God, I felt a mother’s rights too deeply, ever to have thought of separating them. My wife had the expectation of immense wealth; I was poor, and too proud to sue for reconciliation. I have been five years in India, where my wife supposed me still to be. There I have earned some honor; and now, possessing an income suited to my military rank, I came to Switzerland, in the hope of regaining the domestic happiness I so recklessly threw away. I dreaded the mother. I came here to nerve myself, in the scenes where I passed the first week of my then blissful married life. Madame V---- died ten days since; and hither my wife,--led by divine inspiration, I think—came also.—You know the rest.”
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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Straggling Excerpts from a Journal Kept in Switzerland
Subject
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Travel in Switzerland, troubled marriage.
Description
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The narrator, "Miss S.", describes her travels in Switzerland with two young female companions, and their encounter with a mysterious English gentleman with a troubled past.
Creator
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Sedgwick, Catharine M.
Source
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Sartain's Union Magazine, Volume II (January-June 1848): 115-121.
Publisher
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[edited by Caroline M. Kirkland]
Date
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1848
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Kaley McDowell; D. Gussman
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Reprinted as "The English Colonel and His Wife" by Miss Catharine M. Sedgwick in The Gem of the Season: A Souvenir for 1851, 58-80. New York: Leavitt and Company, 1851 [pub. 1850].
Language
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English
Type
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Document
"Manfred"
1848
Alps
aristocracy
Battle of Morat
bible
Caroline M. Kirkland
children
class difference
doctors
Englishmen
forget-me-nots
Hamlet
John Kemble
Lord Byron
Madame de Stael
marriage
married women's property
medicine
mother's rights
Nature
Queen Bertha's tomb
rural life
Sartain's Union Magazine
St. Beatus
St. Paul
Swiss peasants
Switzerland
Thomas Campbell
tourism
Travel
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/4347/archive/files/5a30f17c7459dd1585be0f67a06a1fe3.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=J2r-r7DPCDRCcIf3fdsbZszLx6btPlzG2ncZ%7EAQgWlKMfHca4keI13qqQB3%7EuMfqXtXgbhDv9smajF5ZbCneE6tos4LRDY6NN2PihARnBRujlY7JfysRHesDuQf1uAdVYZhXGnScJ7zZ2gD6VojqL1qBUj-BK8DY3WSa-1dTS15bAuM0SYMVMSP0w5gzT99YQ-eiE5rZcTQKmeUftJlXya8ZPA0jG8%7E7RmYj6GjvuqU%7EmSoiflmyOSUpMOJzpixjvMGsWezgAlCU0E1NOHDdt-R40Ic3oaY1omMFO0jjX9xFhVHNe9HB3uTbEL-aBoCbEO95sdus3sF88va6uhFXgQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
5683eeec3f26f961abff8968281db8c6
Dublin Core
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Title
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1846
Subject
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Stories published in 1846.
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Text
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The Little Mendicants
We have all our pet charities. Our next door neighbor, Mrs. Devon, is one of the board of managers of three charitable societies, and she fulfills her duty critically to all. They are, I believe, the only societies in the city that do not include within the circuit of their charities one of that great pauper class—the Irish. One of them is for the relief of respectable indigent females. “Not one of these, is ever, by any chance,” Mrs. Devon says, “an Irish woman.” Another is for the orphan colored children. Of course there is no danger of any drop of Mrs. Devon’s rains of charity falling here on these unjust ones; the other I do not now remember, but I am sure it includes none of these aliens from Mrs. Devon’s household of faith. I dropped in last week to pay our neighbor a morning visit. I saw she was rather excited, and after some general observations, she asked me, rather abruptly, if I “approved of giving to street-beggars?”
“Oh no, certainly not,” I said, very boldly, hoping, in my secret heart, she would not go into particulars.
“Oh, oh!” she said; “I thought perhaps you did.”
“Oh no, Mrs. Devon,” and I repeated, very glibly, all the stock sayings of political economists which I had gathered from books and lectures against alms-giving. Mrs. Devon heard me through, and then rather let down my vanity by saying,
“I don’t get my principles from books or men. I don’t think they know anything about such matters. I have my own principles, and I have seen enough of the bad effects of giving out at the door, never to do it. There is a drove of Irish go up this street, and we shall never get rid of them till all the neighborhood agree uniformly to refuse them—they are a wretched set of people.”
“Very wretched,” I said modestly.
“Yes, and very undeserving,” resumed Mrs. Devon, “and so dirty, and so stout, and healthy.”
“There is one poor woman,” I ventured to say, “who has been in the habit all winter of going up our street, who is any thing but stout and healthy.”
“Oh yes, I know,” replied Mrs. Devon in the tone of a retort; “I have observed her; she always has a boy and girl with her that ought to be in the house of refuge; yes, she skulks behind our steps while your cook fills her boy’s basket.”
Thus caught in the fact by my sharp-sighted neighbor, I had to confess that this woman’s little girl was a pet of our children, and that being younger than the youngest among them, when she dropped down into the area of a biting Winter’s morning, they felt the contrast so strongly between her condition and their’s, sitting, as they were, warmly clad and well served round their smoking breakfast, that it was difficult to restrain their compassion by any general laws, and that they even went so far sometimes as to smuggle a well-buttered hot cake from their plates into her basket.
“But do you know,” asked Mrs. Devon, apparently quite shocked, “what a liar she is? She had the hardihood to tell me—and she is fatter than any of my children ever were—that she never had eaten but twice in her life!”
I fear Mrs. Devon perceived the smile lurking at the corners of my mouth as I confessed the children had told me that that was little Mag Mahoney’s standing statement. A joke is perennial with children; no use wears it out, and the truth is that this daily repetition of this little romance of Mag is infinitely diverting to our young people; and when their elders have sometimes had the grace to rebuke them for encouraging her to repeat it, they say, “Oh she is so young and so pretty, and fat and droll,” and they tell her to say it—it is not her fault!
“Well!” said Mrs. Devon, her manner and tone conveying much more than her words. “I did not imagine you knew she told this lie; she never had the opportunity to tell it more than once at my door! It’s no wonder the Irish are such finished liars when they begin so early; they lie, and they steal, and they are horrid wretches.”
Truth is one of the cardinal virtues that seems particularly adverse to the imaginative constitution of the Irish. On that head I could not gainsay my neighbor, but I ventured modestly to suggest that I had found them particularly honest!
“Honest!” echoed Mrs. Devon; “Why it was but yesterday morning that these same Mahoneys came up the street, and you know the mother always keeps ahead of the children. That is one of their contrivances, so that people may think that [pg 181]
_____
these little brutes are driven forth by want alone. They don’t take me in! My waiter had a chamber candlestick in his hand, not silver, but the best of Sheffield-plate. I have had the pair ever since I kept house. The door-bell rung and he set it down on the table in the lower entry. Our area-door happened to be open. David saw the little Mahoneys at your window, but he did not see the mother anywhere, and when he went down stairs the candlestick was gone, and I make no doubt that, while your children were giving out their hot cakes to her’s, the mother slipped in and took my candlestick.”
Mrs. Devon’s manner made me feel for the moment as if our poor children were confederates of the Mahoneys, and impressing my sympathy almost in a tone of contrition, I begged to see the mate of the stolen candlestick, and offered to go myself to the Mahoney’s little cabin and attempt to recover the stolen goods. This softened Mrs. Devon. She evidently looked upon it as a concession on my part to the truth. The candlestick was produced, a little the worse for use, as thirty years’ wear, even on Sheffield-plate, and with the best of housewifery, will show. However, the value of the article had nothing to do with the sin of the theft, and such was my faith in the Mahoneys, and such, I must confess, the friendly relations of our family with them, that I felt confident of being able to recover the candlestick if they had stolen it; and in truth I thought the evidence was rather against them. In the course of the morning I went to the Mahoneys—I had been there before. They live in a little isolated cabin on a vacant lot far up the Sixth Avenue. It was a soft morning in February. The door stood ajar and around it ducks and hens were picking up crumbs that argued an abundant income from the alms-basket. Adjoining the house there was a pen of broken boards, where another pensioner on the little mendicants’ foragings was thriving and grunting. I said the door was ajar; I lingered there for a moment to observe and listen. Alas, we involuntarily cast the poor beyond the pale of our good-breeding! There were two rooms within the house, one just large enough to contain a bed, the other some twelve feet square where all the family offices and observances were performed: and, surely, the household gods never looked down on a scene of greater confusion and filth, good-humor blended with affection, and flowers growing out of this dunghill and nourished by the light and dews and favor of Heaven. The floor apparently had never known water, except it had been spilled there; coals collected from the siftings in the street were deposited in a scattering heap by a battered smoking stove; and some kindlings in dangerous proximity, were on the other side of it. The mother sat by the table, on the only available chair in the room. A board was put across two others, and thus furnished a seat for our friends Ned and Mag who, with a little half-clothed urchin between them, occupied it much in the classic position of the ancients; another child, half-way in its life-journey, between Mag and the ‘the baby’ was under the table playing with a full litter of pups! Animal life throve at the Mahoneys’ out-door and in. No wonder the little mendicants were early and late at rich men’s doors to supply all the hungry mouths at home—children, pigs, fowls, dogs and all! Among the consumers I have not included a canary that hung over the table, and stimulated by the clatter of the children, sang as sweetly as if he had been in the loveliest bower of his own sunny land. While I still occupied my post of observation, Ned shook up and shook out, for the feathers floated in every direction, a caseless pillow and put it behind his mother’s back.
“There mammy,” he said, “rest your bones agen it, it will cure the ache of them.”
“God bless ye, Neddy, it does help a bit.”
“Och, mammy, dear, and so it will, and yees will be well again quite entirely if yees will be after eating like Maggy and me. Hold the dish here a bit, Mag. Mag brought a deep earthen dish with a piece notched out of the edge here and there, and Ned, with the half of a broken plate, scooped from a stewing caldron an indescribable mess far transcending in variety Meg Merrilies’s De’ils broth. It was made of motley contents of the alms baskets. Fish, flesh and fowl, puddings tarts and pies, all mixed together, and all together making not an unsavory salmagundi, judging from the steam that reached my olfactory nerves.
“There, mammy, there,” said Ned, fishing up a whole egg, eat that first just. William Hall’s cook in the Fifth avenue gave it to me for you; the Almighty bless her white hairs; she said it was good for you, and Pat McGruff says if you eat plenty of them they’ll make your lungs grow again!”
“Och!” he exclaimed, giving the mess another stir,” here’s a bit o’ plum pudding that Miss—(naming our youngest) gave me; the blessed virgin watch over her, the little darlant! Just be after eating it, mammy; it will make your stomach feel so good, and full, (another stir) and faith! Here’s the turkey’s wing the little lady with the big black eyes gave Maggy from her own plate—the Saints love her! The one that’s always after making Mag say she’s ate but twice in her life, (our mischievous Nell.) Eat it mammy, dear, it will put strength into your legs again!”
“Na, Neddy—na; they get waker and waker every day. I’m after thinking they’ll never take me out with you agin.”
“Now, mammy, dear, there’s nobody would dare say that to me but just yees-self; we’ll have many a fair run together yet. Eat, mammy, eat, Pat Mc- [pg 182]
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Gruff says plenty of good food will cure every thing in life, and its plenty ye’ll have, and the pig and the pups too, while there’s Mag and I to collect for yees all!”
I made my entrée at this point, and I believe a smile was lurking on my lips, for Mrs. Mahoney looked as if she thought I had the feeling of having detected her, and Ned snatched up the dish from impulse to hide it, and over it went, on the puppies and child under the table, who with their snatching and lickings soon disposed of more than their fair share of the fodder.
“Sure” said poor Mrs. Mahony, apologetically, “and it is not ivry day we’ve such plinty.”
“And it’s the doctor’s orders from the infirmary,” interposed Ned. He paused.
“That your mother should have plenty to eat Ned?”
“That’s just it, indeed,” said the ready fellow, re-assured by my manner, and when I went on to say that I was only sorry poor Mrs. Mahony’s appetite was not as good as her food, she said, “indeed, ma’am, it is not often were having such a dinner as this; it matters not for me, but the children and the pups, (I keep them for the poor fatherless childer, just for a little diversion like,) and the geese and the hens, (it’s the eggs brings us a few shillings, ) and the pigs, (was not it the pigs was all my poor husband left to his fatherless children?) all would starve together but for yees and the like of ye, madam; but indeed and indeed theres days when we look starvation in the face.”
I saw that Mrs. Mahony felt it necessary to convince me that the sumptuous repast I had witnessed was accidental; and I was mortified, as I have often been, to perceive that the poor regard the rich as looking on their accidental plenty, their genial hours, their few social festivities, with a jealous and condemning eye. Though I am well aware that it was very inexcusable in Mrs. Mahony to permit her children to beg for the subsistence of her family and the support of her live stock, and although I know it is a vice to indulge in charities whereby children are tempted to an idle and corrupting mode of life, yet I must confess that this dirty little Ned, with his strong filial devotion triumphing over all the deteriorations of his condition—the anxious, loving mother—laughing little Mag, feeding the baby and fondling it, and the boy playing with the pups—he enjoying existence much as they did in its freedom from thought and pain—altogether made me for the moment forget my stern principles in my sympathy with the scene; and when I heard these little mendicants throwing back blessings on all who had blessed them, I felt that there is no unmitigated evil—that on the darkest channels of human life, light falls from Heaven. That is a truth but not a truth to make us idle or inactive for if through all the natural evils of life and the accumulated wrongs of our social condition, a providential care is visible, surely man should become an earthly providence to the outcast children.
But I have forgotten my errand to Mrs. Mahoney, which, though I aimed at as much delicacy as the nature of the case permitted, was rather discordant with my previous manifestations. Mrs. Mahoney stoutly denied knowing any thing of my neighbor’s candlestick, and so fervently thanked the Almighty that in her lowest poverty, even when her husband laid starving with cold and dying at home, she had never touched what was not her own, and so solemnly appealed to Him who was soon to judge her, that I was convinced of her innocence and made her quite easy by the appearance that I was so.
From that time she rapidly declined, and though she was supplied with what my little friend Ned called genteel food, gruel, broth, &c., her appetite never returned.
When she died, the expenses of the funeral were provided for by a few friends of the children, and I went with one of them to witness the ceremonies of the occasion. The house was filled and surrounded by Mrs. Mahoney’s Catholic friends. They made way for us to enter the door. The fowls were picking up the crumbs around the step just as on the first day I as there; the dogs were thrust outside, and were amusing some idle boys; the little canary, as if in sympathy with the subdued tone within, was mute on his perch. The coffin containing the body was in the inner-room, and the door-way being filled up, I did not at first see it. The three younger children, including Maggy, were sitting on the laps of different friends—Maggy recognizing each new comer with a cordial nod, and the little ones sufficiently entertained with looking round and devouring huge bits of cake. My eye sought in vain my little friend Ned; the wave receded from the door-way, and I saw the end of the coffin and a crucifix standing on it; that most thrilling symbol, around which the thoughts of desertion and sympathy—of sin and pardon—of death and eternal life cluster—the symbol that brings down the monarch to the level of the poor, that raises the poor above all earthly thrones. Beside the crucifix was a lighted candle, the token I believe to the pious Catholic of the undying spirit. I heard loud sobs, and felt sure they must proceed from poor little Ned. I pressed toward the door, and there I recognized him, or rather a pair of unwashed legs and ragged shoes that I knew belonged to him. His head was plunged into the coffin where he was laying his cheek to his mother’s, kissing her and with the passion of his race vehemently lamenting her. Poor Ned’s legs were too much for my friend’s or mine; we exchanged smiles that soon however gave place to the [pg 183]
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more seeming tribute of tears, for the boy’s wailings were heart-breaking.
“It’s not I that will be after living in the world without you, mammy!” he said. “Who now will be always the same to me whether I’m bad or good? Ah, mammy, you never spoke the cross word to me, and ye’ll niver spake again, mammy, niver, niver!”
I lifted the child out of the coffin and tried to comfort him; after awhile I succeeded, for poor Ned’s grief was like the grief of other children, proverbially transient as April clouds. The hearse did not come at the promised time, and my friend and I, after waiting a full half hour, came away. I looked about for Ned to say a parting word to him, but he was no where to be seen. As we left the door we perceived, some fifty yards in advance of us, a gathering of men and boys. As we advanced the circle broke to allow us to pass on the pavement, and we beheld in the air the identical legs that were protruded from the coffin, and Ned’s body, pinning to the pavement a boy half as large again as himself, whom he was belaboring with lusty blows and crying between them.
“I’ll teach you to call my mammy a thief! She, a thief, my mammy that never stole from an inemy, let alone a friend! My mammy a thief! She’s gone to the good God, and if you spake the word again, its I will send ye howling tother place!”
“Ned!” said I, and put my hand gently on him. The boy jumped as if he were electrified and sprang to my side.
“Sure ma’am, and I could not help it,” he said, in answer to my remonstrance upon his ill-timed resentment. “The devil a bit would I be after fighting when my mammy was a burying; it was just to convince ‘em my mammy never touched that dirty candlestick.”
A suspicion flashed across my mind. “What candlestick, Ned?” I asked.
“Sure, ma’am,” answered Ned drawing close to me and lowering his voice, “ye be’s such a friend to us, I’ll tell ye the truth. It was that woman that lives next to you, with the black flashing eyes—it was she called my mother a thief, and Tim Potts that goes of dirty errands for her waiter got the story there. She might have had her candlestick to this day, but she was after shutting the door in my mammy’s face when she was that wake-like her legs trimbled under her, and just for a bad compliment I took her dirty candlestick and threw it to the pigs, and ye may see for yourself, ma’am, they champed it out of shape, and it was all unbeknownst to my mammy; and would you wish me to hear her, lying dead there, called a thief for the dirty thing?”
Before I could reply the hearse appearing in sight brought a fresh shower from Ned’s eyes, and I deferred examining the candlestick and enlightening Ned’s conscience to a future opportunity, and returned to my home meditating on the singular characteristics commingled in the Irish race.
Since every wind that blows brings to our shores a fresh swarm of these people, who are to form so potent an element in our future national character, it behoves us to study them well, and make the best we can of them. And a rich study they are, with their gusty passions and unwavering faith, their susceptibility to kindness and their inveterate prejudices, their utter incapacity for verbal truth and the overruling truth of their affections, their quick and savage resentments and their fervid gratitude, their barbarous ignorance and their brilliant imaginativeness, their bee-like diligence and their brutish filth, their eager acquisitiveness and their impulsive generosity. These opposing qualities, with the richness and confusion of their ideas and their anomalous expression, make them an exquisite compound of poetry, inconsequence, wit and blunder. [pg 184]
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
The Little Mendicants
Subject
The topic of the resource
Charity, Irish, Death, Prejudice
Description
An account of the resource
The narrator recounts a time in which her neighbor, Mrs. Devon, describes her charitable attention to local Irish Immigrants. While Mrs. Devon's charity is lauded, suspicion arises over the honesty of those she is serving. Questions form over the health of a particular Irish woman and her children. Mrs. Devon later discovers that some of her belongings are missing. Mrs. Devon and the narrator investigate the situation, and discover the truth and some underlying prejudices.
Creator
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Sedgwick, Catherine M., Miss C. M. Sedgwick
Source
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Columbian Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine [edited by John Inman and Robert A. West] (April 1846): 181-84.
Publisher
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Columbian Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1846
Contributor
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LDB, S. Riggins
Language
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English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Document
charity
children
Columbian Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine
Death
Honesty
Immigrants
Irish
Mrs. Devon
prejudice
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/4347/archive/files/60e6f901dfbb5f035b1b3f93096759be.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=H5KN-XzWfjT3IneITqkzDA0BuVhYyQMJub8ElXeallofpJir3MMh3K%7E0P61IGn3ivaCxS5L2NcPjzoYbqgeoRSqQLabkkWY4702l46b8dcnHCxNgGsMrSazv4LL19ISKfOzo5V2WEIkH8u3orHCTg9dP1tsWJjC5KDu9KImMlQBngpiEBq6fZMh%7E2tQvezzdRdClQZtuRIZTvgks9T4SFtzjfHxhUv5PV7XRNX6--k2hykwdHQ2nJB%7Ecr52k5KbEBcQX6xo26zAf4iDRArpqrXvYi4mODNEO6juotoOSaYMK4yB5EdSf2bkgIUP6onGDKv04A7LlUxX0vfkFXRCZhQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
21b621b0c03c8ae7dc510953e2d7bf4c
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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1837
Document
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Text
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WHO, AND WHAT, HAS NOT FAILED.
By Miss C. M. Sedgwick.
[p. 199]
To the Editors of the Metropolitan:
GENTLEMEN:—I was, a few evenings since, at a friend's house, Mr. J's. He is one of the severe sufferers by these disastrous times. Some few weeks ago he believed himself worth half a million. Loss has accumulated upon loss here, and, last week, the return of his bills upon a bankrupt house in England completed the wreck of his fortune. At the time of his failure his daughter, my lovely friend Helen, was on the point of marriage with a young lawyer, who by dint of talent and industry, has earned an education, and who during the last year, the first of his professional career, has been in the receipt of some ten or twelve hundred dollars. This, of course, was a very inadequate income for a lady accustomed to an establishment scarcely surpassed in luxury by any in our city.
But this mattered not to Helen, or Helen's father. He “chose” he said, “that his daughter should marry poor men, he had enough for them all.” And he was actually in treaty for a fine house for Helen, and had decided on the amount of a most liberal portion to be settled on her, when the blow came which deprived him of the ability to give her a shilling. Circumstances added mortification to disappointment. Miss J. had left her “at home” cards at the houses of her friends. The wedding dresses and the wedding presents were made. The bridal veil and wedding ring were bought, and the wedding cake was actually in the house. At this crisis it was that I had gone, my face full of condolence, if it did any justice to my heart, which was full of simpathy, to pass the evening at her father's. I did not find Helen at home but there were several persons there, casual visiters, friends of the family, like myself. Apprehension, sadness, or dismay sat on every countenance. The conversation naturally turned upon the all absorbing topic of the day. Each one had his melancholy tale to relate, for each one had had his hopes. One told of one failure, and one of another—one gave a list of disasters abroad, and another produced an actual record of bankruptcies at home. It was prophesied that all who had not failed would fail.
“There is nothing left to fail,” exclaimed Mr. J. striking his hands with vehement impatience, “the banks have failed, and the government has failed—every body, and every thing has failed !” “Not every thing, my dear father,” exclaimed Helen, who just then entered with her lover, her face radiant with an expression that indicated that her happiness was secured from failure by bond and mortgage, “not everything, sir—the moon has not failed!” This happy turn of my friend gave an impulse to my mind, and set me to observing who and what had not failed. I give you the result of my observations in the hope that it may lead others to look beyond the shadow of this eclipse. While returning home I echoed my friends words, “indeed the moon has not failed!” She, with her glorious train of stars, was looking down serenely on our troubled city, bearing a message of love to the disquieted spirit, an assurance that there is a better joy awaiting those “who have ceased to rejoice because their wealth is great, and because their hand has gotten much.”—On my way I met a friend returning from the theatre—“Did Ellen Tree succeed?” I asked. “Did Ellen Tree ever fail,” he replied. “No-all the world may fail; but Ellen Tree, sweet Ellen Tree, cannot fail!”
I entered my home, my old deaf friend Mrs. S., was sitting alone reading so intently, that she did not observe me. Her book touched the fountains of feeling. She wiped her spectacles, and once or twice laughed aloud. Ah! thought I, books have not failed. These exhaustless magazines of happiness, these silent ministers to the soul, these welcome and successful missionaries to all parts of the civilized world, have not, and cannot fail!”
As I went to my room I met our faithful nurse, going her accustomed round to take a last look of the sleeping children. “Kindness and fidelity in domestic service have not failed,” thought I, as I looked at their impersonation in this excellent woman; “nor has their sweetest reward failed,” I farther thought, when one of the little girls, her slumbers for a moment broken, murmured, kissing her nurse, “Oh is it you, Mammy,” and then she fell into the arms of sleep, the “sweet restorer,” who never fails to innocent healthful children.
Morning, and the sun, who always meets his engagements, came, and clouds, which, in this spring-time seldom ſail, appeared, and poured down their nourishing stores threatening to disappoint my project of a stroll to Hoboken with a party of children who were watching the Heavens, as nothing else is now watched but the money market.—The morning passed, dinner came, and the desert and the baby, the youngest of the six, and the pet of them all.—She looked as bright as Guido's Aurora, as she made her grand entree into her brother's arms, attended by her train of sisters. At sight of her the clouds of care, that in these careful times accumulate, vanished from her father's brow. Her mother greeted her with the chorus of a favorite nursery song, to which she replied by clapping her feet, and then amidst the acclamations of her loving audience, she played her part—“almost standing alone,” “almost saying mama”—sitting in the centre of the table, and rolling an orange to each, and replying to the caresses of all with a grace and significance never in the world seen—except from the youngest of every happy home. “Riches may take to themselves wings,” thought I, “and fly away, but the love of parents, of brothers and sisters, the beauty and joy of infancy, the riches which Heaven has ordained and watches over, never fail.
The clouds passed off and we went to Hoboken. The grass, freshened by the recent shower, seemed greening under our feet. The birds were on the wing singing a te Deum for the return of spring. The buds were bursting into leaves, the dog-wood was just unfolding its white blossoms, and the violet opening its blue eye. “Nature has not failed,” thought I. “Oh that the worn, disappointed, heart-sick denizens of yon city would come forth, and enjoy a possession common to all, which wealth cannot buy, nor poverty sell, chartered by Heaven, and independent of this bank-note world!”
On our return I met in the boat my friends Mr. and Mrs. F. They have shared the disasters of the times, without having provoked them by speculation or extravagance, and now were about to leave their beautiful house in Square for an humble country lodging. They were both cheerful, she rather more so than usual; and when I remarked this she said, “I have reason for it. I now know what we can and what we can't lose; and the balance is, beyond estimation, in our favor. This is no place or time for sentiment,” she glanced her eyes fondly from her husband to her little boy who held her hand, “ or I would tell you what of most precious I have not lost; but even here I may say, that though my husband's business has failed, his integrity, ability, industry, and enterprise have not failed.” “Neither,” thought I, “does the fidelity of a true-hearted wife, her tenderness, fortitude, and elevatedness, put her to what trial you will, ever fail!
The next day was Sunday. In the evening, our pastor preached upon the times, and from the text “who shall separate us from the love of God;” and I believe not an individual left the church without a sense of the littleness of those temporal possessions that are liable to fail, and a deep gratitude for those eternal and illimitable riches that are offered to our grasp. When I came home I found the following note from Helen J.
“My dear friend, my father has at last consented that I shall not participate the general bankruptcy, so, pray come to-morrow, the day originally appointed for my wedding, and witness my non-failure.—Thanks to my mother I have been so instructed in domestic economy, that I may indulge in the luxury of marrying the man I love, though he have not above a thousand dollars a year; and as I hold true love, capacity, industry, and frugality to be a sufficient security, I do fear that we shall fail in our conjugal partnership.”
A Parisian belle, during the cholera panic painted over her door, “no cholera to be spoken of here !” I would go a little farther, and during the panic, not only proscribe the agitating topic; but suggest others which, if duly considered, would relieve the pressure to which even the good and manly are too passively yielding.
New-York, May, 1837.
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
Who, and What, Has Not Failed
Subject
The topic of the resource
The Panic of 1837
Description
An account of the resource
The narrator reflects on responses to the US financial crisis of 1837, focusing on a family whose daughter is about to be married, and offers an alternative to panic and despair.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Sedgwick, Catharine Maria.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
New-Yorker, June 17, 1837, p. 199.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1837
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
"L' Aurora"
1837
bankruptcy
books
children
cholera
Ellen Tree
fidelity
financial crisis
Guido Reni
Hoboken
kindness
Love
marriage
Nature
New York
New-Yorker
Panic of 1837
Paris
servants
speculation
The Metropolitan