Macbeth is a great moral and religious lesson.
Its application is as wide as Christendom, and I
think may be justly regarded as an exposition of
Christianity. It is applicable to all men, and is not
by any means limited to kings or usurpers. Nearly
every one has some strong desire, or passion, or
plan. The “golden round” for which men, nowadays,
file their minds, put rancors in the vessels of
their peace, and give their eternal jewel to the common
enemy of man, is not a crown, but it is not
wanting. On a large or a small scale, the principle is
the same. Whoever undertakes, by immoral, unlawful
means, to effect a favorite object—whoever
lives without habits of frequently appealing to God—whoever
listens for an instant to the delusive promises
of passion—is liable to be drawn on, like him,
far beyond their intention, and involved at length in
sin and ruin. The Scottish usurper—the individual,
is dead. But the class, to which he belonged, survives.
Macbeths are to be met with every day in
the world—men who listen to the promises of the
fiends, who build up a hope of safety and impunity
upon as hollow a foundation as the charm of not being
born of a woman—or of not being destroyed till
the advancing against them of a forest. Many a man—many
a woman—many a young girl becomes thus
entangled from forgetting their Maker and clinging to
the “weird sisters” of the world, till shame, vice and
despair overwhelm them.
Read aright, this tragedy is a mighty lesson to the
young. They are starting in life inexperienced,
thoughtless, and ready to believe the brilliant promises
of every wandering and dangerous hope.
They are ready also to “jump the life to come,”
if they can secure impunity in their present career.
Let them read Macbeth with care, and get from its
wondrous page a terrific glimpse of the world. Let
them look on poor, weak, deluded human nature
when trusting in itself. Let them see the highest
earthly rank, when unblessed by Heaven—the
haughtiest, loftiest, steadiest mind, when turned from
God to follow, with its own rash steps, the mazes of
life. Let them, while they are pure and innocent,
remain so. Let them keep the quiet conscience of
the gentlewoman, even if, to do so, they are obliged
to remain in her lowly position. Let them never,
for “the dignity of the body,” poison the quiet of the
soul. Let them tread the darkest, weariest paths of
common life, rather than file their minds with any
delusive and hollow hope of worldly advantage. Put
no rancors in the vessel of your peace, whatever be
the temptation. Cling to him whose promises alone
are fulfilled. Commit no act, great or small, which
can prey on your imagination and poison the good
which may be in store for you. Put no “damned
spot” upon your hand. Once there, it is ineffacable
by all the washing of the ocean—by all the perfumes
of Arabia; and however great may appear the
temptation, keep the eternal jewel, Innocence, from
“the common enemy of man.”
I have said, in a former paragraph, that Macbeth
had been guilty before, in deeds as well as thoughts.
Let any one read the scene between him and the two
murderers and he will feel at once the conviction
that Macbeth himself has been guilty of those oppressive
cruelties which he there lays upon Banquo.
“know
That it was he, in the times past, which held you
So under fortune; which you thought had been
Our innocent self: this I made good to you
In our last conference, past in probation with you;
How you were borne in hand; how crost,” etc.
And again,
“are you so gospell’d
To pray for this good man, and for his issue,
Whose heavy hand hath bowed you to the grave,
And beggared yours forever?”
What dark tale of oppression is connected with
these vague disclosures we cannot tell; but the character
of Banquo acquits him of having been the
tyrant. These men have been, in some way or other,
so trampled on that they are both rendered desperate,
and Macbeth, who knows it so well, and whom, it
seems, they had always considered the cause of their
misfortunes, is most likely so in reality.
As to what I have said at the commencement of
these papers respecting the want of a just appreciation
of the poet on the part of his commentators—take
Dr. Johnson, for example, on Macbeth. He begins
with a defence of the introduction of supernatural
machinery into the tragedy. This proves distrust
of Shakspeare, as the transcendent genius he is now
annually becoming in the estimation of every one.
Hear the learned essayist descanting upon the dramatist
as if he knew more of the art than the master.
It is like the old Hungarian officer’s celebrated critique
on Napoleon’s manœuvres.
“In order,” says Johnson, “to make a true estimate
of the abilities and merit of a writer, it is
always necessary to examine the genius of his age
and the opinions of his cotemporaries. A poet who
should now make the whole action of his tragedy
depend upon enchantment and produce the chief
events by the assistance of supernatural agents,
would be censured as transgressing the bounds of
probability, be banished from the theatre to the nursery,
and condemned to write fairy tales instead of
tragedies.”
In other words, had Shakspeare written Macbeth
in the time of Dr. Johnson, that play would be considered
unworthy to be performed, except before an
audience of children, and the critic would advise the
mistaken young author to adopt a profession in
which he might hope for more success, than in
literature. I can fancy some wiseacre in a London
weekly, with the smartness and knack at severity
which daily practice confers, taking to pieces “the
tragedy of Macbeth, by a Mr. William Shakspeare,
said to be a subordinate at Astley’s”—and serving the
ambitious young gentleman up such a dressing for
his witches, ghosts and murders, as would be enough
to extinguish a better educated and more promising
litterateur; showing how impossible it must be for
witches to mingle in human affairs, in this enlightened
age of hebdomadals, and banishing to the nursery a
blunderer unworthy to cater for such sensible critics.
The denunciation, however, would embrace other
literary works besides the puerile attempt of Mr.
Shakspeare. Manfred, Cain, the Faust, and other
trifles of the same description, in which the poet has
made the action of his tragedy depend upon enchantment.
Virgil or Homer might be equally censured.
It is quite true that the witches may not be considered
probable characters, but how can any one
overlook their fearful and magnificent meaning allegorically?
Johnson goes on, however, in his defence.
“But a survey of the notions that prevailed at the
time when this play was written, will prove that
Shakspeare was in no danger of such censures,
since he only turned the system that was then universally
admitted to his advantage, and was far
from overburthening the credulity of his audience.”
The doctor then goes on to a learned and interesting
dissertation on the gross darkness of ignorance—on
the credulity of the common people—on the diabolical
opposition supposed to have been offered to
the Christians in the crusades—quotes Olympidorus,
St. Chrysostom, and a law of King James I. against
conjurors, and shows much sagacious wisdom and
learning, which have about as much to do with the
real living beauty of Macbeth as they have with the
Temple of Jerusalem.
“Upon this general infatuation,” continues the
doctor, “Shakspeare might be easily allowed to
found a play, especially as he has followed, with
great exactness, such histories as were then thought
to be true: nor can it be doubted that the scenes of
enchantment, however they may now be ridiculed,
were both by himself and his audience thought
awful and affecting.”
No one can doubt the moral greatness of Dr.
Johnson, but it was not of a kind which enabled
him to enter fully into the living principle of beauty
which inspires the Shakspeare plays.
He speaks of Macbeth with a sort of indifference
which betrays his blindness to its highest merits.
He praises the propriety of its fiction, and the solemnity,
grandeur and variety of its actions. He adds,
“but it has no nice discrimination of character.
The events are too great to admit the influence of
particular dispositions, etc. The danger of ambition
is well described; and I know not whether it may not
be said in defence of some parts which now seem
improbable, that, in Shakspeare’s time, it was necessary
to warn credulity against vain and illusive
predictions.”
And in our own time, what leads every criminal
astray, but some “vain and illusive prediction,” not
uttered by three weird sisters, by an armed head, or
the “apparition of a child crowned, with a tree in
his hand,” but by the temptations of the world and
the treacherous passions of the human heart? What
was it which told Napoleon—
“Be lion-mettled, proud; and take no care,
Who chafes, who frets, and where conspirers are?”
Who told Robespierre—
“Be bloody, bold and resolute, laugh to scorn,
The power of man,” etc.?
It was not the spectres, in the witches’ case—nor
the express conditions added.
“Macbeth shall never vanquished be, until
Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill
Shall come against him.”
Or,
“None of woman born shall harm Macbeth.”
But who can doubt that the principle of evil, had
held forth, before both their minds, some illusive
hope which led them to ruin?
As another instance of the careless errors committed
by the commentators, and Johnson among the
rest, take the following. The note occurs in Cawthorn’s
(successor to Bell) edition, London, 1801, and
although without Johnson’s name, is found between
two notes of his, (p. 41,) and is, I believe, from his
pen.
The passage referred to is in the second act of
the Tempest, where the King of Naples, after the
shipwreck, is wandering about the island with some
of his suite. The reader will remember that the
storm raised by Prospero overtakes them as the King
Alonso is coming to Naples from Tunis, where he
had been to marry his daughter Claribel. Great regret
has been expressed that this marriage should
have ever been thought of, since it is the cause of their
present misfortune. The king himself is sorry and
the rest are some of them angry and satirical.
Sebastian says,
“ ’Twas a sweet marriage, and we prosper well in our
return.”
The match is thought absurd by most of them,
and when, in answer to Antonio’s question, “Who’s
the next heir to Naples?” Sebastian replies, “Claribel,”
Antonio rejoins the following passage;
“She that is Queen of Tunis; she that dwells
Ten leagues beyond man’s life; she that from Naples
Can have no note, unless the sun were post,
(The man in the moon’s too slow) till new born urchins
Be rough and razorable,”
On this there is the following note:
“Shakspeare’s great ignorance of geography is
not more conspicuous in any instance than in this,
where he supposes Tunis and Naples to have been
at such an immeasurable distance from each other.”
It does not seem to me that the passage warrants
the supposition of such an opinion on the part of
Shakspeare. It is obviously a mere hyperbole in
jest. It is not credible that such a writer could be
so ignorant, and where other evidences of it appear
in the course of his works, it is more rational (when
they cannot be explained away as in the present instance)
to ascribe them to typographical confusion,
or the liberties of ignorant copyists, &c.
To the passage complained of, Sebastian himself
answers,
“What stuff is this? How say you?
’Tis true, my brother’s daughter’s Queen of Tunis;
So is she heir of Naples; ’twixt which regions
There is some space.”
———
BY MRS. LOIS B. ADAMS.
———
Pressed with the weight of morning dews,
Its slender stalk the rose was bending,
And red and white in changing hues
Upon its cheek were sweetly blending:
But underneath the leaflets bright,
By blushing beauty hid from sight,
Enamored with its fragrance rare,
The canker worm was feasting there.
O! thou who in thy youthful days
Ambition’s wreaths art proudly twining,
And fondly hoping worldly praise
Will cheer thine after years declining,
Beware, lest every tempting rose
That in Ambition’s pathway grows,
Conceal beneath its semblance fair
The lurking canker of despair.
And thou who in thine early morn
For sin the paths of truth art leaving,
Remember, though no pointed thorn
May pierce the garland thou art weaving,
Yet every bud whence flowrets bloom
Shall its own living sweets entomb;
For deep the canker worm of care
Is feasting on its vitals there.
Thou too, the beautiful and bright,
At Pleasure’s shrine devoutly kneeling,
Dost thou not see the fatal blight
Across thy roseate chaplet stealing?
Time hath not touched with fingers cold
Those glossy leaves of beauty’s mould,
And yet each bud and blossom gay
Is marked for slow but sure decay.
O! ye who sigh for flowers that bloom
In one eternal spring of gladness,
Where beauty finds no darkened tomb,
And joy hath never dreamed of sadness;
Elysian fields are yours to roam
Where groves of fadeless pleasures bloom
O! linger not where sorrow’s tears
May blight the cherished hopes of years.
THAT DROPPED ON DECK DURING A STORM AT SEA.
———
BY WILLIAM FALCONER.
———
Spent are thy wings, poor wanderer on the deep,
Minion of spring, frail wrestler with the breeze,
Led by young hope o’er ever-spreading seas
Where the wing’d storms their prowling vigils keep,
Mayhap ’twas thou that built thy clayey nest
Last springtide at my lattice arched with flowers—
Thy tiny wing that beat the morning hours
And woke my fair girl from her dewy rest.
But no! for ’mid a thousand, were I blind,
Methinks I’d know that bird, by instinct rare;
Yet fear not, heaven’s dark brow looks now more kind.
Repose—then flutter through the brightening air,
But when thou meet’st the sharers of my heart
Thy benefactor’s grief by mystic spell impart!
———
BY MRS. EMMA C. EMBURY, AUTHOR OF “CONSTANCE LATIMER,” ETC.
———
“Pause, heedless mortal, and reflect—this day,
This very hour—nay, yesterday, mayhap,
Thou mayst have done what cannot be recalled,
And steeped thy future years in darkest night.
Some trivial act or word, now quite forgot,
May have impelled the iron wheels of fate,
Which onward roll to crush thee in their course.”
One of the most beautiful of the many lovely villages
which lie within the foldings of the Connecticut
river is Elmsdale. Occupying a small peninsula,
round which the stream winds so closely that at the
first view it seems entirely separated from the main
land, and lying aside from the highroad which traverses
the valley of the Connecticut, Elmsdale is one
of the most quiet and sequestered spots to be found
in New England. Like most places which offer no
inducement to the spirit of speculation, the village is
inhabited chiefly by the descendants of those who
had first settled there. The old men have been companions
in boyhood, and have sported in the same
fields which now echo to the merry shouts of their
grandchildren. The most of them still cultivate the
farms which belonged to their forefathers, and even
the adventurous few, who have been tempted to go
out into the world beyond, usually return to finish
their days on their native soil.
The arrival of a stranger in a retired village is
always a subject of curiosity and interest, but in a
place like Elmsdale, where every body knew his
neighbor, such an unusual event excited special attention.
When, therefore, it was known throughout
the hamlet that a strange lady had come to pass the
summer with old farmer Moody, all the gossips
were on the alert to find out who she could be. But
they derived little satisfaction from their skilful questioning
of the farmer; all he knew was soon told.
The lady was travelling for health, and having been
pleased with the situation of his comfortable abode,
had applied to be received as a boarder during the
summer months, offering to pay liberally in advance.
Her evident ill-health, her gentle manners, and the
temptation of her ready gold prevailed on the thrifty
farmer to assent, and the stranger took possession of
a neat chamber in his pleasant cottage.
Close to the bank of the river, on a little eminence
commanding a view of the country around Elmsdale,
stood a singularly constructed stone building which
had long been unoccupied and deserted. Its original
owner and projector was a man of singular habits,
whose eccentricity had been universally regarded as
a species of harmless insanity. Rich and childless,
he had erected this mansion according to his own
ideas of gothic architecture, and nothing could be
more grotesque than its whole appearance. It soon
obtained the appellation of Hopeton’s Folly, and
though he whose name it bore had long since occupied
a narrower house in the silent land, and the property
had passed into other hands, the deserted mansion
was still known by the same title. Great was
the surprise of the villagers when it was known that
the strange lady had become the purchaser of Hopeton’s
Folly, and that in future she would reside permanently
in Elmsdale. Curiosity was newly awakened,
and every body was desirous to know something
about one who seemed so unprotected and solitary.
But there was a quiet dignity in her manners
which rebuked and disconcerted impertinent inquiry,
while all efforts to draw some information from her
single attendant—an elderly sedate woman, who
seemed to hold a middle rank between companion
and servant—were equally unsuccessful.
“Has Mrs. Norwood been long a widow?” asked
a pertinacious newsmonger, who kept the only
thread and needle shop in the place, and therefore
had a fine opportunity of gratifying her gossipping
propensities.
“It is now nearly two years since she lost her
husband,” was the reply of the discreet servant, who
was busily employed in selecting some tape and pins.
“Only two years, and she has already laid aside
her mourning!” exclaimed the shopkeeper; “but I
suppose that is an English fashion.”
The woman made no reply, and, consequently, the
next day, all the village was given to understand
that Mrs. Norwood’s help had told Miss Debby Tattle
that Mrs. Norwood was a very rich widow who
had just arrived from England. This was all that
Miss Debby’s ingenuity could make out of the scanty
materials which she had been able to obtain, and
with this meagre account people were obliged to be
satisfied.
Mrs. Norwood was one of those quiet, gentle beings
who, though little calculated to excite a sudden
prepossession, always awakened a deep and lasting
interest. Her age might have been about eight and
twenty, but the ravages of illness, and, perhaps, the
touch of a still more cruel destroyer, had given a
melancholy expression to her countenance, and a
degree of gravity to her manners which made her
seem much older. Her features, still classically beautiful,
were attenuated and sharpened, her complexion
was pale almost to ghastliness, and her thin, flexible
lips were perfectly colorless. But she possessed
one charm which neither time nor disease could
spoil. Her eyes—those dark, soft, lustrous eyes,
with their veined and fringed lids, beautiful alike
when the full orbs were veiled beneath their shadowy
lashes, or when their beaming light turned full upon
an object of regard—were the most distinguishing
trait in Mrs. Norwood’s countenance. No one
dreamed of calling her beautiful, but all noticed the
grace of her tall and slightly bending figure, her
courteous and ladylike manners, her low, sweet
voice, and the touching air of melancholy which
seemed to characterize her every movement.
Under the direction of its new mistress, Hopeton’s
Folly was now fitted up with a degree of neatness
and comfort which it had seemed scarcely capable of
assuming. Furniture, plain but costly, was brought
from a distant town, the grounds were laid out with
a view to elegance rather than mere usefulness, and,
in short, money and good taste soon converted the
desolate spot into a little paradise of beauty. The
neighbors, who, with the kindness which generally
prevails in every place where fashion has not destroyed
social feeling, had been ready to afford Mrs.
Norwood every assistance in the completion of her
plans, became now equally ready to share her hospitality,
and, for a time, the newly arranged mansion
was always full of well-disposed but ill-judging
visiters. But Mrs. Norwood’s health was soon made
the plea for discountenancing all such attentions on
the part of the village gossips. Always courteous
and hospitable, she yet declined all visitations to the
frequent “hot water conventions” or “tea drinkings”
which constituted the chief amusement of the place,
while she managed to keep alive the good feelings
of her new associates by many acts of unostentatious
charity. Simple in her daily habits, benevolent in
her impulses, yet retiring and reserved in her manners,
Mrs. Norwood made her faithful old servant
the almoner of her bounties, while the poor, the sick
and the sorrowful were never refused admission to
her presence. Her regular attendance on the public
duties of religion, in the only church which Elmsdale
could then boast, had tended to establish her character
for respectability in a community so eminently
moral and pious; and when it was known that the
pastor, whose rigid ideas of propriety were no secret,
had become a frequent visiter at Hopeton’s Folly, no
doubt remained as to Mrs. Norwood’s virtues and
claims upon general sympathy.
Mr. Allston, who for some ten years had presided
over the single church in a place which had fortunately
escaped the curse of sectarianism, was a
man as remarkable in character as he was peculiar
in habit. A close and unwearied student, ascetic in
his daily life, and an enthusiast in his profession, he
was almost idolized by his people, who regarded him
as a being of the most saint-like character. Indeed,
if self-denial could afford a title to canonization, he
was fully competent to sustain the claim; but such is
the inconsistency of human judgment, that Mr. Allston
owed his high reputation to a belief in his stoical
indifference to earthly temptations, and much of his
influence would have been diminished if it had been
suspected that resistance to evil ever cost him a single
effort. The truth was that nature had made Allston
a voluptuary, but religion had transformed him
into an ascetic. He had set out in life with an eager
thirst after all its pleasures, but he had been stayed
in the very outset of his career by the reproaches of
an awakened conscience. Violent in all his impulses,
and ever in extremes, he had devoted himself to the
gospel ministry because the keen goadings of repentance
urged him to offer the greatest sacrifice in
his power as atonement for past sins. But he had
experienced all the trials which await those who,
when gathering the manna from heaven, still remember
the savory fleshpots of Egypt. His life was a perpetual
conflict between passion and principle, and
though his earthly nature rarely obtained the mastery,
yet the necessity for such unwearied watchfulness had
given a peculiar tone of severity to his manners.
Like many persons of similar zeal, Allston had committed
the error of confounding the affections with
the passions of human nature, and believing all
earthly ties to be but fetters on the wings of the soul,
he carefully avoided all temptation to assume such
bonds. His religion was one of fear rather than
of love, and forgetting that He who placed man in a
world of beauty and delight has said, “I will have
mercy and not sacrifice,” he made existence only a
protracted scene of self-devotion and privation. A
superstitious dread of yielding even to the most innocent
impulses had induced him to suppress every
feeling of his ardent and excitable nature. He had
turned from the face of beauty and the voice of love
with the same dread as would have induced him to
eschew the temptation of the gaming-table and the
wine-cup, and his thirtieth summer found him still a
solitary student by the fireside of his widowed mother.
His fine talents as a preacher, his powers of
persuasion, his thrilling eloquence, aided by the example
of his own habits of life, had produced a great
effect in the community where he had been called to
minister in holy things. The church was in a most
flourishing condition; numbers had been united to it,
and the influence of the pastor over the minds of all,
but especially those of the young, was almost unbounded.
Is it strange, therefore, that spiritual pride
should have grown up in the heart of the isolated
student, and twined its parasitic foliage around many
a hardy plant of grace and goodness? Is it to be
wondered at if Charles Allston at length indulged
the fancy that he had been set apart as one chosen
for a high and holy work—that he was destined to be
one of the “vessels of honor,” of whom St. Paul
has spoken—and that nothing now could sully the
spotless garments in which his self-denial had
clothed him.
Mrs. Allston had been among the first to welcome
the sick stranger to Elmsdale, and, pleased with the
gentle grace which characterized her manners, had
lavished upon her every kindness. Mrs. Norwood
was grateful for her attentions, and seemed happy to
find a friend whose mature age and experience could
afford her counsel and sympathy. This feeling of
childlike dependence, on the one hand, and matronly
affection on the other, was growing up between them,
and served to establish a closer intimacy than at first
might have appeared natural to persons so entirely
unlike in character. Mrs. Allston was a woman of
unpretending good sense, and plain education, whose
rustic habits and utter indifference to etiquette made
her appear very different from the languid invalid
whose elegant manners and refined language marked
her cultivation rather than her strength of mind.
But “accident,” and “the strong necessity of loving,”
may often account for friendships as well as loves,
and this world would be a sad desert of lonely
hearts if we could only attach ourselves to our own
counterparts. No one could know Mrs. Norwood
intimately, without being irresistibly attracted towards
a character of such singular sensitiveness and
amiability. She seemed like one in whom the elements
of strength had been slowly and gradually
evolved by circumstances, for, though her disposition
was by nature yielding and dependent, yet her habits
of thought and action were full of decision and firmness.
Gentle and feminine in her feelings, reserved
and quiet in her demeanor, she appeared to a careless
observer merely as the dignified and discreet,
because unprotected woman. But one who looked
beneath the calm surface, might have found a deep
strong under-current of feeling. Heart-sickness, rather
than bodily disease, had been at work with her,
and the blight which had passed over her young
beauty, was but a type of that which had checked
the growth of her warm affections.
Whatever might have been Mrs. Norwood’s feelings
when she first took possession of her new
abode, she certainly seemed both healthier and happier
after a year’s sojourn in Elmsdale. A faint
color returned to her thin cheek, a smile, bright and
transient as an April sunbeam, often lit up her fine
face, her features lost much of their sharpness of
outline, and gradually, almost imperceptibly, the
feeble, drooping invalid was transformed by the
renovating touch of health into the lovely and elegant
woman. Yet the same pensiveness characterized
her usual manner—the same reluctance to
mingle in society was evident in her daily intercourse
with her neighbors, and to a stranger she
might still seem to be mourning over the memory of
a buried affection. But Mrs. Allston and her son
alone knew better. They alone knew that affection
had been crushed in its very bud by unkindness and
neglect—they alone believed that the widow had
found death one of the best of friends, when he relieved
her from the intolerable bondage of domestic
tyranny. Not that Mrs. Norwood had ever confided
to them her former history; for the slightest question
which had reference to the past always seemed to
give her exquisite pain, but a casual remark, a
trifling hint, a passing allusion, uttered in the confidence
of friendship, had led them to form such
conclusions.
Allston had at first regarded the stranger merely
as another member added to his flock—another soul
for which he must hereafter be responsible. But a
closer acquaintance with her awakened a much
stronger interest in his mind. He fancied that her
character bore a wonderful resemblance to his own.
He thought he beheld in her the same secret control
over strong emotions, the same silent devotion to
deep-felt duties, the same earnest enthusiasm in religion,
the same abstraction from worldly pleasures,
as had long been the leading traits in his character.
He believed that the difference of sex and her early
sorrow might account for the diversities which existed
between them, and actuated by the belief that
he was an instrument in the hands of a higher
Power, who had destined him for some great and
glorious work, he persuaded himself that Providence
had placed her in his path and pointed her out to
him, by a mysterious sympathy, as his companion
and fellow-laborer in his future duties. Had he not
been blinded by the self-reliance which had taken
the place of his wonted watchfulness, the very
strength of his feelings would have led him to distrust
their propriety. But habit had rendered all his
ordinary practice of self-denial so easy to him that
he fancied himself quite superior to mere earthly
temptation, and therefore he was disposed to regard
his present excitement, rather as a manifestation of
the will of Heaven than as an impulse of natural
affection. It cost him much thought and many
severe conflicts with his doubts and his zeal ere he
could decide upon the course he should pursue.
Determined not to listen to the voice of passion but
to be governed entirely by a sense of duty, he condemned
himself to a rigorous fast of three days in
the firm belief that he should receive some expression
of the Divine Will. In the deep sleep of exhaustion
which fell upon him during the third night,
Mrs. Norwood appeared before him in a dream,
wearing shining garments and smiling with an expression
of perfect beatitude. This was enough for
the wild enthusiast. From that moment he placed
no restraint upon the promptings of his heart, but
considering her as one peculiarly marked out for the
same high destiny as himself, he poured out all the
fulness of his long hoarded affections at her feet.
Lonely, desolate and sorrowful, Mrs. Norwood
was almost bewildered by the sudden light which
seemed to break in upon her when she thus found
herself the object of true tenderness. She had long
admired the genius of Mr. Allston, and her romantic
temperament peculiarly fitted her to appreciate the
peculiarities of his enthusiastic zeal. She had looked
up to him as one as far above her in his unworldly
sanctity, as in his gifted intellect, and thus to find
herself the chosen of a heart which had heretofore
rejected earth’s sweetest gifts of tenderness, was
most unlooked-for happiness. She soon learned to
love him with a depth and fervor which surprised
even herself, yet she had suffered so much in early
life that the presence of hope was now welcomed
with tearful distrust. She dreaded rather than anticipated
the future, and while listening to the wrapt
eloquence of her lover, who seemed to spiritualize
the impassioned language of affection, she could not
but tremble to think what a blank life would be if
this new-found bliss were suddenly extinguished.
The peculiar tone of Allston’s mind was never more
distinctly displayed than in his courtship. Of love
he never spoke, but he dwelt on the high and mystical
dreams which had charmed his solitude, he pictured
passion under the garb of pure devotion, and
attired human affections in the robes of immaculate
purity until he had completely bewildered himself in
the mazes of his own labyrinth of fancies. At length
the decisive moment came, and, in a manner equally
characteristic and unusual, Allston asked Mrs. Norwood
to become his wife. He was scarcely prepared
for her excessive agitation, and still less for her indefinite
reply.
“It shall be for you to decide, Mr. Allston,” said
the gentle widow, as she struggled with her tears,
“I will not pretend to have misunderstood your feelings
towards me, nor will I attempt to conceal the
fact that to your proffered affection I owe the first
gleam of happiness which has visited my weary
heart since the days of childhood. But I have deceived
you, and I cannot accept your hand while you
remain ignorant of the events of my early life. Some
months since, I wrote what I cannot bring my lips
to utter, and you will find in this manuscript all you
ought to know. Judge not too hardly of my concealment—my
only error has been silence on a subject
with which the world had naught to do, and this I
trust your heart will not visit with too severe a
punishment.”
Allston took the papers, and silent and dismayed
hurried to the seclusion of his study. Dreading some
evil, though he knew not what shape it might
assume, he broke the seal and read as follows:
“Left an orphan at a very early age, my first recollections
are those of school life. My parents,
who were residents though not natives of the island
of Jamaica, sent me to England for my education,
and, dying soon after my departure, I became the
ward of my mother’s cousin, a gay and dissipated
bachelor, whose house offered not a proper home to
a young girl. I was the heiress to great wealth, but
was, at the same time, a homeless and desolate
child, who might well have envied the privileges of
domestic affection which are enjoyed by the offspring
of poverty. My wealth procured me respect and
consideration among my teachers and a few interested
school-fellows, while it purchased for me exemption
from much of the discipline of the school,
as well as from many of the studies which I wished
to avoid. I was, therefore, little likely to profit by
the advantages of my position in life, while its disadvantages
were in my case greatly multiplied. I
was a wayward, wilful, warm-hearted child, full of
impulsive affections, but irritable in temper, and,
though perfectly docile to the law of kindness, utterly
beyond the subjugation of severity. Frank and confiding
in my disposition, I was easily led to place
confidence in those who treated me with a semblance
of affection, and the sense of loneliness which oppressed
my heart, even in childhood, led me rather
to seek for the friendship of those by whom I was
surrounded, while the romance, which shows itself
in a greater or less degree in the developing character
of every school girl, assumed in me the form of a
morbid desire to inspire affection in those whom
Providence had placed around me, to fill the places
of parents, and brothers and sisters to my desolate
life.
“I was in my fifteenth year, full of exaggerated
sensibility, and just beginning to model my dreams
of future happiness after the standard afforded by
my favorite novels, when a circumstance, apparently
of trivial moment, occurred to shadow my whole
life with sorrow. The only accomplishment in
which I made any decided progress was that of
drawing, and in this I had early exhibited both taste
and skill. Our drawing-master, an old and wily
Italian, requested permission to introduce his nephew,
who could materially aid him in instructing us to
sketch from nature; and, as it involved our school-mistress
in no additional expense, she readily assented.
Our new teacher was accordingly introduced
to us under the name of Signior Baldini, but
it needed scarcely one look to make us doubt his relationship
to the old man, for his florid complexion,
blond hair, and blue eyes bore little resemblance
to the dark countenance and classical features of the
fine Italian face. Those of us who were novel
readers immediately fancied that we could detect
beneath this humble disguise some noble heir or
enamored youth who sought to obtain access to a
ladye-love immured within the walls of our school.
Our young and glowing hearts, full of passions
which had been prematurely developed by the mischievous
tenor of our stolen reading, and ready to
welcome any thing which might give occupation to
their restlessness, were quickly excited in favor of
the new comer. Our sketching from nature required
us to take many walks in the vicinity, and, though
we were never unaccompanied by one of the female
teachers, yet a thousand opportunities for forming
an imprudent intimacy occurred during these excursions.
I soon found, however, that the attentions of
Signior Baldini were especially directed to me, and
the vanity of my sex, as well as my own excited
fancy, led me to encourage rather than repulse his
proffered advances. I cannot recall all the details
of the vile conspiracy to which I fell a victim. Imagine
a child of fifteen summers subjected to the arts
of a man more than twice her age—a man who had
studied human nature in its worst forms, and therefore
well knew how to take advantage of its slightest
tendency to errors—a man whose talents enabled him
to conceal the heart of a demon beneath the features
of a demigod. Imagine the effect of these arts upon
a sensitive and romantic girl, a lonely and orphaned
creature who was yearning for the voice of affection,
and weaving many a beautiful fancy of future happiness,
to be found only in reciprocal affection, and
you will anticipate the result.
“A well invented story of high birth, unmerited
misfortunes, and a long cherished passion for me,
awakened my sympathy, and I soon imagined that
nothing could repay my lover’s tenderness but the
bestowal of my hand and fortune. I fancied myself
deeply and devotedly attached to one who had submitted
to the degradation of disguise for my sake,
and, on the day when I attained my sixteenth year,
I eloped with my lover, who now dropped his
assumed title and adopted his true name of Wallingford.
As my guardian was at that time in Paris, we
met with no molestation, and were privately married
in London, where we had decided to take up
our abode. I afterwards learned that those of my
teachers who had been parties to the plot were well
paid for their services, while the only real sufferer
was the principal of the establishment, who had been
kept in total ignorance of the scheme, and whose
dignified sense of propriety was shocked at having
such a stigma affixed to her school. When my
guardian returned he read me a lecture on my imprudence,
and tried to satisfy his conscience for past
neglect, by refusing to allow me more than a mere
maintenance until I should attain my majority. To
this, however, I refused submission, and the matter
was finally compromised in a manner quite satisfactory
to both parties. Mr. Wallingford immediately
engaged elegant lodgings, and we commenced living
in a style better suited to my future fortune than to
my actual income.
“My heart sickens when I look back to the weary
years which succeeded my imprudent marriage. As
time matured my judgment I was pained by the discovery
of many weaknesses and faults in my husband,
to which I would willingly have remained
blind. Yet the discovery of these did not impair the
simple, child-like affection with which I regarded
the only being on earth to whom I was bound by any
ties. I clung to him as the only one in the wide
world whom I was permitted to love, and it required
but little effort on his part to have strengthened my
girlish fondness into the lasting fervor of womanly
tenderness. While yet I remained in my minority
Mr. Wallingford treated me with some show of consideration.
Fitful gleams of kindness, transient
visitings of former fondness, glimpses of the better
nature which had been so perverted by evil habits,
and endearments still bestowed in moments of persuasion,
linked my heart to the ideal which I had
enshrined in his image. But no sooner was I put in
possession of my fortune than he threw off the mask
entirely. I was too much in his power to render any
further concealment necessary, and he now appeared
before me in all the true deformity of his character.
Dissipated in his habits, coarse in his feelings, low
in his pursuits and pleasures, he had only sought me
for the wealth which could minister to his depravity.
“I will not pain you by a detail of the petty
tyranny to which I was now subjected. My impetuous
temper was at first aroused, but, alas! it was
soon subdued by frightful severity. Indifference,
neglect, intemperance, infidelity, nay, even personal
ill treatment, which left the discolored badge of
slavery upon my flesh for days and weeks, were now
my only portion. Broken in health and in spirit, I
prayed for death to release me from my sufferings,
and I verily believe my husband sought to aid my
wishes by his cruel conduct. But the crushed worm
was at length compelled to turn upon the foot which
trampled it. I was driven from my home—a home
which my wealth had furnished with all the appliances
of taste and elegance—and placed in a farm-house
at some distance from London, while a vile
woman, whose name was but another word for pollution,
ruled over my house. To increase the horrors
of my situation, I learned that Wallingford was
taking measures to prove me insane, and thus rid
himself of my presence while he secured the
guardianship of my person and property. This last
injury aroused all the latent strength of my nature.
Hitherto I had been like a child brought up in servitude
and crouching beneath the master’s blow, but I
was now suddenly transformed into the indignant and
energetic woman.
“Alone and unaided I determined to appeal to the
laws of the land for redress, and prudence directed me
to men as wise as they were virtuous, who readily undertook
my cause. Wallingford was startled at my
sudden rebellion, but he was never unprepared for
deeds of evil. My servants were suborned, papers
were forged, falsehoods were blazoned abroad, all the
idle gossip which had floated for its passing moment
on the breath of scandal like the winged seed of
some noxious plant on the summer breeze, was carefully
treasured, and every thing that power could
effect was tried to make me appear degraded in
character and imbecile in mind. The circumstances
attending my marriage—my first fatal error, committed
at the suggestion and under the influence of
him who now adduced it as proof of my weakness—was
one of the evidences of my unworthiness, while
the utterings of a goaded spirit and the wild anguish
of a breaking heart were repeated as the language of
insanity. But for once justice and equity triumphed
over the quibbles of the law. The decree of the
highest court in the realm released me from my
heavy bondage. A conditional divorce which allowed
me full power to marry again, but restrained my
husband from such a privilege, in consequence of
his well-attested cruelty and ill treatment, was the
result of our protracted and painful lawsuit. My
fortune, sadly wasted and diminished, was placed in
the hands of trustees for my sole benefit, and I immediately
settled upon Wallingford a sum sufficient to
place him far above want, upon the sole condition
that he never intruded himself into my presence.
“After these arrangements were completed I determined
to put the ocean between me and my persecutor.
On my twenty-sixth birthday—just ten years
from the day which saw me a bride—I landed in
America. Alas! how changed were all my prospects,
how altered all my feelings! I was still in
the prime of life, but hope and joy and all the sweet
influences of affection were lost to me forever, and
after wandering from place to place I finally took up
my abode in Elmsdale, rather from a sense of utter
weariness than from any anticipation of peace. I
little knew that Providence had prepared for me so
sweet a rest after all my sufferings. I little knew
that peace and hope, aye, and even happiness, were
yet in store for me. Resigning a name to which I
had no longer any claim, I resumed my family name
of Norwood, and sought to appear in society as the
widowed rather than as the divorced wife. I have
thus avoided painful remarks and impertinent questionings,
while I was enabled to secure for myself
a quiet retreat from the turmoil of the world. Perhaps
to you, Charles Allston, I ought to have been
more frank, but surely you cannot blame me for
shrinking from the disclosure of such bitter and degrading
memories. You have now learned all my
early history—you have seen my error and you have
traced its punishment—let me now unfold the page
which can reveal the present.
“A fancy, light as the gossamer which the wind
drives on its wing, first led to my marriage. I was
a child in heart and mind and person, when I became
the victim of arts which might have misled a wiser
head and a less susceptible heart. Left to myself I
should probably have forgotten my first love fancy
even as one of the thousand dreams which haunt the
brain of youth. But if, after my marriage, I had experienced
kindness and tenderness from my husband,
the feeling would have deepened into earnest and
life-long affection, instead of curdling into hatred and
contempt within my bosom. The love of my girlhood
was blighted even as a flower which blossoms
out of time, and loneliness has hitherto been my lot
through life. Will you deem me too bold, my friend,
if I tell you that from you I have learned my first
lesson in womanly duty? Till I knew you I dreamed
not of the power of a fervent and true passion—till I
beheld you I believed my heart was cold and dead to
all such gentle impulses. You have taught me that
happiness may yet be found even for me. In loving
you I am but doing homage to virtue and wisdom
and piety—in bowing down before your image I
am but worshipping the noblest attributes of human
nature enshrined within your heart. I dared not
pour out the fullness of my joy until I had told you
my sad tale, but now that you know all—now that
no shadow of distrust can fall upon the sunshine of
the future, come to me, and assure me with your
own dear voice that my troubled dream is now forever
past, and that the dawn of happiness is breaking
upon my weary heart!”
To comprehend the full effect of this letter on
Charles Allston, the peculiarity of his character—his
strict ideas of duty—his devotion to his holy calling—his
shrinking dread of any thing which could, by
any possibility, tend to diminish his influence over
the consciences of his flock—and his long cherished
dread of self-indulgence—must ever be borne in
mind. He had loved Eleanor Norwood with a fervor
startling even to himself, and according to his usual
distrustful habits of thought, he had feared lest the
very intensity of his feelings was a proof of their
sinfulness. Accustomed to consider every thing as
wrong which was peculiarly gratifying to himself—measuring
by the amount of every enjoyment the
extent of its wickedness—restraining the most innocent
impulses because he conceived heaven could
only be won by continual sacrifices—he had shrunk
in fear and trembling at his own temerity when his
overmastering passion led him to pour forth his feelings
to the object of his love. He had retired to his
apartment in a state of pitiable agitation, and while
he awaited Mrs. Norwood’s reply with hope, he yet
half repented of his proffered suit, lest there should
have been too much of the leaven of mere earthly
tenderness in the bosom which had vowed to forsake
all its idols. This letter therefore produced a terrible
revulsion in his feelings. His rigid sense of duty,
and his adherence to divine rather than human laws,
compelled him to behold in Eleanor Norwood only
the wife of another. Vile and unworthy as Wallingford
might be, he was to Allston’s view still the
husband, and though the tie might be loosened by
the hand of man it could only be entirely severed by
the will of God. All the sternness of that long practised
asceticism, which had given Allston such a
twofold character, was called forth by the thought
of the sin he had so nearly committed. The wild
enthusiasm of his nature led him to regard Mrs.
Norwood as a temptress sent to try the strength of his
self-denying piety. He remembered the tale of the
hermit, who for forty years abode in the wilderness,
sinless in thought and in deed, while he kept his eye
ever fixed upon the cross; but the moment of wavering
came—the holy eremite turned his gaze for one
single instant from the symbol, and Satan, who had
long watched in vain, obtained the mastery over him
whose life-long piety had not availed against a moment’s
weakness. Allston shuddered as his busy
fancy suggested the parallel between the monkish
legend and his own present feelings. The thought
of the disgrace which would attend him who, while
reproving sin in others, could be accused of cherishing
it in his own household—of the judgment which
would fall upon him who should dare to minister to
the people in holy things, while he bore the marks
of a deadly leprosy within his own bosom—until at
length the spiritual pride, which was in truth his
besetting sin, subdued all lighter emotions.
That evening Mrs. Norwood sat in her quiet room,
with the light of a shaded lamp falling upon the gentle
beauty of a face now lighted up with hope, and
which, but for the restless and hurried glance which
was occasionally turned upon the quaintly fashioned
clock, might have seemed the picture of placid happiness.
A soft glow flushed her cheek, her eyes
were full of radiance, and, as she raised her head in
the attitude of a listener, a smile of almost childlike
joyousness parted her flexible lips. A step resounded
on the gravel walk without. Her first impulse led
her to spring forward to welcome the expected visitant,
but womanly pride checked her in mid career,
and she yet stood in half uncertainty when the door
opened to admit a servant who handed her a small
parcel. Her cheek grew ashy pale as she broke the
seal. A paper dropped from the envelop—it was
her own letter to Allston; and she sank into a chair
as she unfolded the note which accompanied it.
Written in Allston’s hand, yet so blotted, and traced
in such irregular characters, that the agitation of the
writer might well be divined, were these words:
“I will not express the agony of mind with which
I have perused the enclosed papers. I have been
tried almost beyond my strength, but I have been
mercifully spared the commission of a crime at
which my soul shudders. I will not upbraid you,
madam, for your cruel concealment; your own conscience
will be your accuser, and it will not fail to
remind you that your deception has nearly hurled
me from an eminence which it has been the labor of
my life to reach. But you have been only an instrument
in the hands of a higher power. I fancied
myself superior to temptation, and God has sent you
to teach me the necessity of closer watchfulness over
my still frail nature. Eleanor Norwood, I have loved
you as I never loved earthly creature before, but
sooner would I suffer the keenest pangs of that chronic
heartbreak, to which the martyrdom of the pile
and fagot is but pastime, than take to my arms the
wife of a living husband. You have made me wretched
but you cannot make me criminal. Henceforth we
meet no more on earth, for I have vowed to tear your
image from my heart, though, even now, every fibre
bleeds at the rude sundering of such close knit ties.
Receive my forgiveness and my farewell.”
When Mrs. Norwood’s faithful old servant entered
the room, about an hour after the receipt of this letter,
she found her mistress lying senseless on the floor.
Suspecting something like the truth, the woman prudently
gathered up the papers from view, and then
summoned assistance. Mrs. Norwood was carried
to her apartment and medical aid was immediately
procured. The physician pronounced her to be suffering
from strong nervous excitement, and, after
giving her a sleeping draught, prescribed perfect
quiet for the next few days. But ere morning she was
in a state of delirium, and fears were entertained for
her intellect if not for her life. Several days passed
in great uncertainty, but at length hope revived and
Mrs. Norwood once more awoke to consciousness.
Feeble as an infant, however, she required great
care to raise her from the brink of the grave, and
the springs of life, so sadly shattered by long continued
sorrow, were now in danger of being broken
by a single stroke. Disease seemed undetermined
in its final attack, and at length assumed the form
under which it most frequently assists the insidious
labors of secret sorrow. A hectic cough now racked
her feeble frame, and it was evident that consumption
would soon claim another victim. Just at this
time a letter, sealed with black, was forwarded to
Mrs. Norwood’s address, and after being withheld
from her several weeks, by advice of her physician,
was finally given to her because all hope of prolonging
her life was at an end. The perusal of this letter
seemed rather to soothe than to excite the sinking
invalid. “It comes too late,” was her only exclamation
as she deposited it in a little cabinet which
stood beside her bed, and from that moment she
made no allusion to its contents.
It was remarked in the village that Mr. Allston
had become excessively severe in his denunciations
of error, while his habits had become more rigid
and reserved than ever. His former persuasive eloquence
had given place to violent and bitter revilings
of sin, while those who applied to him for religious
consolation were terrified rather than attracted by
the threatenings of the fiery zealot. Once only did
he seem moved by gentler feelings. An aged clergyman,
who occasionally visited him from a distant
town, was summoned to the bedside of Mrs. Norwood,
and when he returned to Mr. Allston’s study
he feelingly described the bodily pangs and angelic
patience of the gentle sufferer. The frame of the
stern man shook as he listened, and tears—such tears
as sear rather than relieve the heart—fell from his
eyes. It was one of the last struggles of human
feeling in the breast of one who vainly fancied himself
marked out for a higher than human destiny—one
more was yet to come, and then earth held no
claim upon his heart.
It was not long delayed, for the time soon arrived
when the bell tolled for her whose sorrowful life and
early death had been the penalty of a single error.
Allston stood beside the coffin and saw within its
deep shadow the pale and stony features of the being
whom he had loved; and even while his heart smote
him as the shortener of her brief and melancholy
span of life, he yet nerved himself with the high,
stern resolve of one who suffers in the cause of duty.
With that cold brow beneath his gaze, he poured
forth, from the depths of an agonized heart, a prayer
whose solemn eloquence thrilled every listener like
a voice from the grave. No sound escaped his lips
as the clods of the valley fell rattling on the coffin-lid
which shrouded the heart so sorely tried in life,
but, in the deep midnight, groans and bitter cries,
which rived his stern bosom, were heard issuing from
the pastor’s lonely closet.
Mrs. Norwood’s old servant inherited the property
in Elmsdale, and one of her first duties was to place
in Mr. Allston’s hands the cabinet which she said
her mistress had requested might be given him after
her death. It contained only Mrs. Norwood’s letter
and her lover’s reply, together with a third, in an
unknown hand, bearing a black seal. This last was
dated some months earlier than the others, and contained
the tidings of Mr. Wallingford’s death. He
had fallen a victim to his own misdeeds in Italy, and
at the moment when Allston had considered himself
the subject of a temptation intended to try his strength,
the divorced wife was in reality free from every
shadow of a tie.
Why had she not disclosed these tidings to her
scrupulous lover? Ask rather why she who had
twice suffered from man’s wayward nature, and who
had escaped from the vices of one only to perish by
the too rigid virtues of another, should place trust in
any earthly affection? Sick of life, hopeless of future
peace, sinking under a fatal disease, she had taken a
lesson from the inferior creation:
“mute
The camel labors with the heaviest load,
And the wolf dies in silence.”
———
BY EPES SARGENT.
———
“O, manners! that this age should bring forth such creatures! that nature should be at leisure to make them!”
Ben Jonson.
I became acquainted with Count Tousky Wousky
in Paris somewhere in the year 1836. For some
reason or other, which I did not at first understand,
he devoted himself chiefly to the society of strangers,
and, of all strangers, most affected the company of
Americans. At that time there were several fair
daughters of the Pilgrims in the gay metropolis, a
few Knickerbockers, and at least one descendant of
the Huguenot race in the person of Miss P . . . . . of
Charleston. In this circle Tousky Wousky aspired
to figure. He was a tall, handsome fellow, who had
seen perhaps eight and twenty summers, with fine
long and dark locks, to say nothing of the most
unexceptionable whiskers and imperial. He smiled
enchantingly, and the glimpses of his ivory-white
teeth between their cushions of well-dyed bristles
were quite “killing.” Altogether he was a most personable
individual—waltzed charmingly—attitudinized
beyond any dancer at the opera-house—and,
though he said nothing except in a sort of mute
challenge to man and woman to “look and admire,”
he carried away more captive hearts than any man
of his day.
In French society the count was very generally
eschewed. Having no apparent means of livelihood,
and being well understood to carry as little in his
pocket if possible as in his head, the young men
about town were somewhat shy of him, and he was
considered not much better than a professed gambler.
This would of course never have been known, had
it not been that his familiarity was such with the
few Americans of wealth who visited Paris during
the winter of 1836, that he had made fourteen distinct
matrimonial proposals. So susceptible was he,
that he fell desperately in love with no less than
fourteen of the sex in the same season—compassed
fourteen courtships by his languishing and silent
adoration—was fourteen times on his knees to fourteen
fair creatures varying in age from fourteen to
forty—fourteen times was referred to Monsieur, mon
père, or to Monsieur, mon frère—had his character
submitted to fourteen inquisitions, and was fourteen
times politely informed that “his addresses must be
discontinued.”
I left Paris, and thought nothing more of Count
Tousky Wousky till I was walking some months
afterward in Broadway. My friend Lieutenant
P . . . . of the army, whom Commodore Elliot will
probably recollect, if he recollects having been in
the Mediterranean, was my guide-book and index on
the occasion, for having been absent some years,
the faces of my townsmen and townswomen were
quite strange to me.
“P . . . .,” said I; “indicate the individual we
have just passed. I have seen him a thousand
times, but for the life of me I cannot recollect
where or when.”
“That!” exclaimed P . . . .; “I should know from
your question, that you were just off the salt water.
But how very odd! That man is Count Tousky
Wousky. How the deuce did it happen that you,
who were so long in Paris, did not know Tousky
Wousky?”
“Tousky Wousky!” I rejoined. “That’s his name
sure enough—but what is Tousky Wousky doing
here?”
“That’s neither your business nor mine. He is
the handsomest man on the pavé, and has the entire
run of the city, from the eight shilling balls at Tammany
to the most brilliant routes in Bond street or
Waverley Place.”
“Quite a range, P . . . . But does he patronize
Tammany?”
“To be sure he does; and why not? It’s all one
to him; and he has got the idea that there is good
picking in the Bowery. He has heard of butchers’
families, where good ribs were to be had, and is not
sure that he might not get pretty well suited at some
wealthy tailor’s. In short, he is in search of a rich
wife, and he is not over particular who or what she
may be as long as she can plank the pewter.”
“That is to say, P . . . ., he is a penniless adventurer,
who cannot find a wife in his own country,
and proposes to confer the honor on us. Is that the
arrangement?”
“You are not far out of the way in your guess.”
“But how is the individual received?”
“O, with open arms, to be sure. He gave out on
his passage, that he was coming to this country to
marry a fortune; that he should do it in about six
months, and return to Paris.”
“How excessively condescending! And what
credentials did he bring with him?”
“O, he carries his credentials on his face. The
only necessary passports now to society are whiskers—moustache—imperial!
They are the open
sesame to the hearts of the ladies.”
“But what says papa?”
“I understand there was a general meeting of all
our millionaires, and that they voted him forthwith
the freedom of the city, and suggested that he should
do the country the honor to marry some one of their
daughters.”
“And what said the count?”
“Why, the count said that he would quarter on
’em a while before pitching his tent; that he would
dine about with the old prigs, and drink their good
wine, and that as soon as he became well assured in
regard to the respective fortunes of the young ladies,
he would just fling his handkerchief at one of them,
and she is expected to drop forthwith into his arms.”
Not long after this conversation, it was my lot to
meet Tousky Wousky on several occasions in society.
It seemed to be the prevailing belief among
those upon whom he condescended to shed the light
of his smiles, that he was the sole remaining representative
of a noble and ancient family, and that he
was visiting the United States solely in pursuit of
relaxation from arduous military duties in Algiers.
Such was his own story, and such was the story
which his defenders believed.
I must plead guilty to never having been able to
discover the peculiar charm of the count’s manners
and appearance. I had heard much of the air noble,
which was said to be his distinguishing trait, but
could see nothing but the air puppyish, if I may so
characterize a manner of supreme indifference to
the comfort and convenience of those around him.
In a ball-room, I have seen him extend himself at
full length upon a sofa, after a quadrille, and fan
himself with his perfumed handkerchief, while dozens
of ladies were near in want of a seat. At other
times he would place himself astride of a chair,
with his face to the back, and his long legs protruded
so as to endanger the necks of those, who might venture
to step over them. These little liberties were
regarded merely as the elegant abandon of one accustomed
to the first society of Europe; and instances
were cited of a similar aristocratic disregard of
conventional decency among certain English noblemen,
who had visited the country.
But what seemed to certify the count’s claims to
nobility was the erudition he displayed in all that
related to gastronomy. Did you ever notice the air
of sagacity with which a chicken sips water, cocking
her head after every bill full, and apparently passing
judgment upon its quality? Of such an act would
Tousky Wousky remind you when he took soup.
Occasionally his criticisms would be given with a
vivacity and esprit, which would excite general surprise.
He could tell at a glance the name of the
most recondite Parisian pâté. His decisions in regard
to entremets, hors d’œuvres, and vol au vents
were unimpeachable; and he would discourse upon
sole en matelotte Normande with tears in his eyes.
There was something earnest and affecting in the
count’s manner when he touched upon these topics;
whereas when questioned concerning events having
relation to his military career, his answers were
confused, imperfect and unsatisfactory.
After some months of investigation and hesitation,
Tousky Wousky fixed his eyes upon the daughter of
a retired tailor of the name of Remnant. Mature
deliberation and inquiry convinced him that she was
the most eligible of the candidates that had yet been
presented to his notice. Old Remnant had commenced
life as a journeyman—sat cross-legged upon
the counter from his fourteenth to his twenty-first
year—then opened a sort of slop-shop somewhere in
Maiden Lane—married his master’s only daughter—succeeded
to his business and wealth—and accumulated
a large fortune.
Heaven forbid that I should breathe a flippant
word against a vocation, in which I have encountered
more than one ornament to humanity—men, in
whom the Christian virtues of patience and forbearance
were signally developed; of whose capacities
for long suffering I could relate the most affecting
instances. But I blame Remnant, not for having
been a tailor, but for his foolish ambition in after
life to sink all memorials of the shop, and launch
into fashionable life. We all remember the story of
the English member of Parliament, who, on being
twitted by some sprig of nobility with having been
bred a tailor, retorted, “if the gentleman himself
had been so bred he would have been a tailor still.”
The reply was as just as it was spirited, and showed
a noble pride on the part of the speaker, in comparing
his past with his present position. Remnant
began by discontinuing his annual tribute to the
Tailors’ Charitable Fund. Then he neglected to
attend their annual ball at Tammany; and finally he
cut his old associates in trade when he met them in
Broadway—visited Europe, returned, built an elegant
house—and set up a carriage with a liveried
driver and footman. In all these procedures I have
reason to believe that he was mainly influenced by his
wife, whose fashionable furor was inextinguishable.
Through his endorsements for certain “genteel”
speculators, Remnant contrived to get introduced
with his family into what they believed to be the
“fashionable circles.” The daughter, Sophia Ann,
was a pretty, good-natured, frank, and unpretending
girl, who, having received a fair education, bore her
part extremely well in gay life, and betrayed few
symptoms of the character of her parentage. Rumor
whispered that she entertained a secret penchant for
young Allen, a clerk in Flash, Fleetwood & Co.'s,
establishment in Broadway. It was noticed that she
always made her purchases at that shop, and frequently
she remained much longer in conversation
than was absolutely necessary for the closing of her
bargains. Where was the propriety too of negotiating
for a pair of gloves or a skein of silk in so
very low and mysterious a tone of voice? It was
suspicious, to say the least of it.
The ecstasy of Mrs. Remnant when Tousky
Wousky condescended to ask an introduction to herself
and daughter was beyond all reasonable bounds;
and when, the next morning, he honored them with
a call, it was as if she and all her family had received
a brevet of nobility.
“Who knows, Sophia Ann,” said she after the
count had taken his departure, “who knows but the
count has been struck with your appearance, and intends
making proposals?”
“And if he does, mamma,” replied Sophy, “you
may be very sure he will propose in vain, so far as
I am concerned. A vulgar, coarse, ill-mannered fop!
Did you notice the crumbs of bread upon his odious
moustaches?”
“A very good proof of his gentility, my dear. It
shows that he has just breakfasted. I am amazed at
your language, Sophia Ann.”
“Indeed I thoroughly detest the fellow. I hope
you will not invite him to the house.”
“Indeed and indeed I shall, Miss Pert. I see the
drift of your objections. You have taken a fancy to
that low-bred fellow, Allen, and would disgrace your
family by an unequal match. But let me advise you
to beware how you encourage any such presumption.
Your father is as determined as I am to cut you off
with a shilling should you ever marry without our
consent.”
Here Sophia rose, and, with her handkerchief to
her eyes, left the room, while Mrs. Remnant sat
down and penned a note to Tousky Wousky, asking
the honor of his company at dinner the next day.
In less than two weeks after the count’s introduction
he proposed for Sophia Ann. The mother was
as propitious as could have been desired, and the
father, who was swayed in all things by the superior
energy of his wife, acquiesced on this occasion.
Tousky Wousky supposed that all the essential preliminaries
were now settled, and that it only remained
to fix a day for the marriage ceremony. He had
omitted, however, one little form. He had not yet
asked the young lady herself whether she had any
objection to becoming his bride. Dire was his dismay
when, on popping the question, she rejected
him point blank, without hesitation, reservation or
equivocation. He twirled his moustaches, and
showed his teeth in what was meant for a smile
irresistible. Strange to say, Sophia Ann did not
rush into his arms. He knelt and rolled up his eyes
after the most approved Parisian fashion. The obdurate,
intractable girl laughed in his face. He rose
and attempted to clasp her waist and kiss her. Sophia
upset a heavy piano-stool upon his shins, and,
with a face burning with indignant blushes, left the
room.
Tousky Wousky was completely nonplussed. The
idea of being rejected by a “native,” one, too, who
had never visited Paris, had not entered into his calculations.
He looked in the glass—surveyed his incomparable
whiskers, and glanced at his blameless
legs.
“Sacrè! The girl must be crazy!” muttered
Tousky Wousky, as he finished his examination of
his person.
He laid his case immediately before the parents of
the refractory young lady; alluded very pointedly to
the numerous countesses and baronesses who were
perishing for him in France, Germany, and Italy—swore
that he had never known what love was till
he had met Sophia Ann—and concluded by avowing
the romantic determination to depart instantly for
Niagara, jump into a skiff just above the rapids,
loosen it from the shore, and, with folded arms, glide
down over the cataract into the “peaceful arms of
oblivion.”
The parents of Sophia Ann were much shocked
at this tragic menace; and the mother declared that
the cruel girl should be brought to her senses—it
wasn’t probable she would ever have such another
chance of becoming a countess—and marry Tousky
Wousky she should! And off the old lady started
to enforce her commands in person. Sophia Ann
was not to be found. The fact was, she had just discovered
that she was in want of a quantity of muslin,
and knowing of no place in the city where she could
procure it of a quality more to her satisfaction, she
hastened to the store of Flash, Fleetwood & Co., and
had a long consultation with the handsome clerk.
“Never mind, Sophy dear,” said Allen, after he
had heard the story of her persecutions, “I have a
plan for unmasking him. Do not suppose that I have
been idle since you told me of your mother’s designs.”
And Sophy tripped home and listened very resignedly
to a long lecture from her mother, upon the
impropriety of young ladies presuming to decide for
themselves upon matrimonial questions.
One of the consequences of Allen’s plan ensued
the very day after these events.
Tousky Wousky was parading Broadway in all
his magnificence. The African king, whose principal
escape from nudity consisted in a gold-edged
chapeau bras, never moved among his fellows with
a more complacent feeling of superiority than Tousky
Wousky experienced as he strutted across Chambers
street toward the Astor House. His forehead was contracted
in a superb and scornful frown—his whiskers
and moustaches looked black as night—and his half-closed
eyes seemed as if they deemed it an act of
condescension on their part to open upon the works
of the Creator. Tousky Wousky swung his cane,
and looked neither to the right nor to the left, except
when he bowed to some envied female acquaintance.
As for that highly respectable portion of the human
race, the males, the count rarely condescended to
recognize their existence. He passed them by with
supreme indifference. Had he known how many
consultations there had been as to the propriety of
knocking him down, perhaps he would have amended
his conduct in this respect.
On the occasion, at which my narrative had now
arrived, the count was interrupted in his promenade
by an individual, gaily but not fastidiously dressed,
who accosted him in the most familiar manner.
“Well met, Philippe!” cried the stranger, holding
out his hand.
“You are mistaken in the person, sir,” said Tousky
Wousky, drawing himself up, and attempting to look
magnificently dignified.
“None of your nonsense, Philippe,” returned the
stranger; “don’t you remember your old fellow-artist,
Alphonse? Of course you do. Come—”
“Out of the way, fellow, or I will demolish you
with my cane.”
“Be civil, Philippe, and acknowledge me, or I
will pull off your whiskers here in Broadway.”
This threat seemed to operate forcibly upon the
count, for, extending his hand and striking an attitude,
he exclaimed, “Alphonse! why how the devil
did you get here?”
“Hush! don’t call me Alphonse. I am Count
Deflamzi.”
“The deuce you are! Why, I am a count, too.”
“So I supposed. How do you get on?”
“Brilliantly—and you? When did you arrive?”
“By the last Cunard steamer. Is it possible you
haven’t seen me announced in the newspapers?”
“I never read them. I consider newspapers a bore.”
“Ha! I understand. Beau Shatterly thought the
same of parish registers—‘a d—d impertinent invention!’
So they are—as thus; Beware of imposition:
A scoundrel calling himself Count Tousky Wousky,
but whose real name is—”
“Hush! Are you mad?”
“Ah! Philippe! Philippe! The chief cook at
Vevay’s always used to say you would come to the
gallows—eh?”
As he revived the recollection of this pleasant
vaticination, Count Deflamzi poked the end of his
cane at one of Tousky Wousky’s ribs, in a manner
which partook more of the familiar than the dignified.
Poor Tousky Wousky bent his body to escape the
blow, while he looked the picture of despair—the
more so as at that moment old Remnant’s carriage
drew up near the curb-stone, and Sophy’s mother put
her head out of the window to speak to her intended
son-in-law.
“Good-bye, Alphonse; I will see you again soon,”
said Tousky Wousky, endeavoring to shake off his
unwelcome friend, and darting towards the carriage.
Deflamzi followed him, and after permitting him to
greet Mrs. Remnant, and receive from her some intelligence
in regard to Sophia Ann, he pulled Tousky
Wousky by the skirt, and said; “My dear fellow,
this is really embarrassing. Why don’t you introduce
me to the lady?”
“Ahem! Blast the—Oh, yes—certainly—Mrs.
Remnant, Count Deflamzi—Count Deflamzi, Mrs.
Remnant.”
“Glad to see you, old lady,” said Deflamzi; and
then, at a loss for a remark to show his quality, he
added—“What a devilish vulgar country this is of
yours!”
“An eccentric devil!” whispered Tousky Wousky
in Mrs. Remnant’s ear; “who has a plenty of money
and thinks he has a right to abuse every thing and
every body.”
“I am most happy, count, to make your acquaintance,”
said Mrs. Remnant, quite overlooking the
puppy’s impertinence in her delight at being seen
conversing with a couple of counts in Broadway.
“The pleasure of meeting Mrs. Remnant to-day
is as unexpected as it is gratifying,” said Deflamzi.
“I had intended asking my old friend Rufsky Fusky
here, long since to introduce me, but—”
“Rufsky Fusky!”
“A nick-name, by which he used to call me when
we were boys,” said poor Tousky Wousky hastily,
and then, in an aside, he muttered to Deflamzi;
“Curse you, Alphonse! I wish you would call me
by my right name.”
“What is it?”
“Tousky Wousky.”
“Ah, yes! pardon me,” said Deflamzi; and then,
turning to the old lady in the coach, he continued;
“as I was saying, Madam, I had intended asking my
old friend, Whisky Frisky, to introduce me before,
but the good fortune of—”
“Whisky Frisky!”
“You see he will have his joke, Madam,” said
Tousky Wousky, making a painful effort to smile.
“Ha, yes! A wag, I see. Well, I like pleasantry.”
“What I was about to say,” resumed Deflamzi,
“simply was, that the felicitous accident which has
made me acquainted with Mrs. Remnant, enables me
to extend in person an invitation, which I had intended
sending through our excellent friend Rowdy
Powdy. Shall I have the honor of seeing you and
your charming daughter, with Mr. Remnant of course,
at a small dinner party, which I give at the Globe
to-morrow to our distinguished friend here, Count
Hoaxy Folksy?”
Mrs. Remnant was too much fluttered and flattered
by this mark of respect to pay any attention to Deflamzi’s
eccentric perversions of his friend’s name.
She eagerly accepted the invitation; and Deflamzi
took his leave of her and Tousky Wousky, with a
significant hint to the latter, that if he did not come
too he should be exposed.
“Dinner will be on the table at six. Au revoir!”
said Deflamzi, bowing grotesquely, and strutting
down Broadway.
“How vastly genteel!” thought Mrs. Remnant.
The next day, at the appointed hour, a select party,
consisting of the two counts, the Remnant family,
Mr. Allen, and half a dozen fashionable young men,
whom Tousky Wousky remembered to have seen
frequently in society, met in one of Blancard’s pleasant
parlors. Mrs. Remnant was a little puzzled at
encountering Allen; but, remembering that Deflamzi
was an “eccentric devil,” she concluded it was all
right. The good lady was placed at one end of the
table, and Deflamzi took his seat at the other. Tousky
Wousky and Sophia Ann sat opposite to each other,
near the centre. Soup was handed round in the
midst of an animated conversation, in which Deflamzi,
however, did not join. His manner toward
all but Tousky Wousky seemed singularly constrained
and respectful.
As the soup was being passed round, a keen eye
might have detected a piece of legerdemain practised
by one of the waiters, in serving Tousky Wousky.
Instead of giving him the plate, which Deflamzi had
filled from the tureen, another was placed before him,
which seemed to have been whisked in a mysterious
manner from a side-table, unnoticed of course by the
unsuspecting count.
The minute Tousky Wousky tasted his soup, he
dropped his spoon with a face expressive of the
deepest disgust.
“What is the matter, count?” asked Sophia Ann,
while a mischievous twinkle was swimming in her
dark eyes.
“Is it possible you can relish that soup?” inquired
Tousky Wousky, regarding her with amazement as
she swallowed spoonful after spoonful.
“It is very good, is it not?” said Sophy, looking
the very picture of sweet simplicity.
Tousky Wousky took another spoonful, then suddenly
seized a tumbler of iced water to drown the
recollection of the nauseous compound. Turning to
Deflamzi, he said, “What do you call this—stuff, my
dear count?”
“It is Soup à la Julien to be sure, and very good.”
“Soup à la Julien!” exclaimed Tousky Wousky,
“I should call it soup à la swill-pail. I never tasted
anything half so bad. Here, garçon! take this plate
away, and tell the cook I shall have him indicted for
an attempt to poison.”
“Oui, monsieur.”
The dinner was a good dinner, and Tousky Wousky
was suffered to finish the remainder of it in peace.
Just before the dessert was introduced, Count Deflamzi
was called out by a servant, and begging to
be excused for a few minutes, quitted the apartment.
He had not been gone long when the same servant
re-entered and informed Tousky Wousky, that the
cook, to whom he had sent the message touching the
soup, desired to speak with him.
“Show him in! show him in!” exclaimed several
voices. “Ten to one, he means to challenge you,
Tousky Wousky, for abusing his soup. Ha! ha! ha!”
Tousky Wousky began to look pale, but tried to
laugh it off, and said, “Nonsense! I can’t see the
fellow now. Tell him to call on me at my hotel.”
“That won’t do. Show him in, garçon, show him
in!” cried Tom Cawley, who was Allen’s principal
ally in the plot.
Here the cook burst into the room. He had on a
white cap and a white apron. A white apron was
thrown over his shoulder, and his hands were white
with flour.
“Alphonse!” exclaimed Tousky Wousky, starting
up with dismay, as he gazed on the once familiar
apparition.
“Count Deflamzi!” ejaculated Mrs. Remnant.
“This is indeed eccentric.”
“No more Count Deflamzi, madame, than this is
Count Tousky, but plain Alphonse Fricandeau, gastronomical
artist, or in vulgar language, cook, from
Paris.”
“What! isn’t he a count?”
“No, madame; he is a cook!”
“A cook! my salts, Mr. Remnant! Quick, you
stupid man!”
“I appeal to the company,” said Tousky Wousky,
recovering himself, “Madame, this is a conspiracy.
I can produce letters from the first noblemen in
London—”
“The company shall soon be satisfied on that
point,” said Monsieur Fricandeau. “Eugene, request
the attendance of Lord Morvale.”
At the sound of this name, Tousky Wousky sank
into his chair quite unmanned. Lord Morvale soon
entered, and after bowing to the rest of the company,
turned to Tousky Wousky, and said, “At your old
tricks, Philippe! Rogue! Have I found you at last?”
“Count Tousky Wousky a rogue! What does it
all mean?” asked old Mr. Remnant, who could not
well comprehend what was going on.
Lord Morvale turned to the company, and said,
“This fellow, ladies and gentlemen, who calls himself
Count Tousky Wousky, was for two years chief
cook in my establishment, and I will do him the justice
to say that his talents in that vocation are truly
respectable. But it seems that he had a soul above
pans and pâtés, and one day I found that he had
broken open my desk, taken from it some money and
letters, and decamped. I afterwards met him in
Paris, but he was so skilfully disguised that I did not
recognize him; and it was not till Monsieur Fricandeau
apprised me that Count Tousky Wousky was
my old cook in a new character, that I suspected the
fact.”
This revelation was listened to without surprise by
all except Mr. and Mrs. Remnant. No better proof
of its truth was needed than Tousky Wousky’s abject
appearance. Tom Cawley took Lord Morvale aside
and whispered a few words in his ear, after which
his Lordship came forward, and addressed Mr. and
Mrs. Remnant as follows; “Any legal process against
this fellow would from recent events be calculated
to make public certain domestic occurrences in your
family, the discussion of which might prove annoying.
I will, therefore, consent to refrain from molesting
him so you will consent to secure your daughter’s
happiness by giving her to the man of her choice,
and one who appears to be every way worthy of her
preference. I allude to Mr. Allen, and I take this
opportunity of inviting myself to his wedding.”
The idea of having a live lord present at the nuptials
of her daughter, amply consoled Mrs. Remnant
for the loss of Tousky Wousky as a son-in-law. It
was not long before her visions were fulfilled. Lord
Morvale gave away the bride; and a proud day it
was for the race of the Remnants when that memorable
event took place.
As for Count Tousky Wousky, I take this opportunity
of cautioning the public against him. He is
still prowling about the country under assumed
names, and intends figuring at our principal watering
places before the summer is over. He is quite
confident that he will ultimately succeed in picking
up a Yankee heiress, and I should not be surprised
any day to hear of the fulfilment of his designs. The
recent example of Captain S—— has inspired him
with new hopes.
It is Tousky Wousky’s intention to visit Portland
while the warm weather lasts. To my certain knowledge
he carries letters from his near kinsman, General
Count Bratish Eliovitch, to my gifted and open-hearted
friend, John Neal. Before Mr. Neal lends
him his pocket-book and his protection, I beg that he
will peruse a letter in regard to the character of the
count’s endorser, from our minister at Paris, Mr.
Cass, to Mr. Fairfield, Governor of Maine.
———
BY S. G. GOODRICH.
———
There is a smile which beams with light,
When all around is flush and fair,
Yet turns to scorn when Sorrow’s night
Wraps its lorn victim in despair.
That smile is like the illusive ray
The false, fictitious diamond gives;
Reflecting back the beams of day;
In borrowed light it only lives.
That smile is like the rifled rose,
That on a syren’s breast doth shine;
Oh! who would weep to part with those
Whose smiles are such as this of thine!
And these are friends who call one “dear,”
When Fortune favors all one’s wishes;
Yet when the goddess changes—sneer,
And pick one’s character to pieces.
Poor moths that round the taper wheel—
Addled in light—in darkness fled—
Too poor to crush—too false to feel—
Beneath our scorn—to memory dead!
Yet they may teach a lesson stern—
In the deep caverns of the mind,
To build our castle home, and spurn
The heartless things we leave behind.
Unwept the false, unwept the fair—
To fashion, folly, falsehood, tied—
With truth and love, we now may share
The bliss that flattery denied.
Lady, farewell! no more we meet,
My cream, my strawberries, all are banished;
Thy flatteries too are fled, thy sweet,
Fond speeches with my ices vanished.
Forgive me if I mourn thee not,
For at a price I know thee willing;
Such souls as thine, fair dame, are bought,
Like cakes and custards, by the shilling.
’Tis thus with thee, ’tis thus with all,
That throng gay Fashion’s trickish mart;
Each has his price, and, great or small,
Cash is the measure of the heart.
Seest thou yon proud and peerless belle,
That saunters through the gay cotillion,
With eyes that speak of heaven? Well—
She’s just knocked down at half a million.
There is the purchaser—a poor,
Mean, craven thing—whose merit lies
In this, his father left him store
Of stocks; and he hath bought those eyes!
Yon maiden, whirling in the waltz—
A salamander that doth live
Unscathed in fire—hath too her faults,
But yet her price is—what you’ll give.
And this is Fashion’s magic ring
So envied, sought—where yet the heart,
Stript of its guises, is a thing
That makes poor, simple Virtue start.
So false within, without so fair.
’Twas here, sweet dame, that first I met thee,
’Tis meet that I should leave thee where
Thou art at home—and thus, forget thee!
———
BY THE HON. MRS. NORTON.
———
When poor in all but troth and love,
I clasped thee to this beating heart
And vowed for wealth and fame to rove,
That we might meet no more to part.
Years have gone by—long weary years—
Of toil to win the comfort now,
Of ardent hopes—of sick’ning fears—
And Wealth is mine! but where art thou?
Fame’s dazzling dream for thy dear sake
Rose brighter than before to me;
I clung to all I deem’d could make
This burning heart more worthy thee!
Years have gone by—the laurel droops
In mock’ry o’er my cheerless brow;
A conquer’d world before me stoops,
And Fame is mine! but where art thou?
In life’s first hours, despised and lone,
I wander’d through the busy crowd,
But now that life’s best hopes are gone,
They greet with smiles and murmurs loud.
Oh! for thy voice—that happy voice—
To breathe its joyous welcome now!
Wealth, Fame, and all that should rejoice,
To me are vain, for where art thou?
———
BY ANN S. STEPHENS.
———
It was a deceitful thing, but my day of trouble
dawned with a promise of uncommon enjoyment. It
was our weekly holiday, and I looked from my bed-chamber
window—merry as a bird, and peculiarly
alive to the beauties of a bright June morning.
The sky was warm, blue and cloudless, the flowers
full of sweetness and lying with the dew upon them
in its utmost abundance. The birds were all brimful
of melody and the very gravel walk looked cool
and clean with a shower that had swept over it
during the night.
The sun was just up and we were ready with our
bonnets on—my school-mate and I—for Colonel M.
had promised us a ride and his phaeton was at the
door.
“Come—come, are you ready,” exclaimed Maria,
bounding into my room with her hat on one side—for
she had been taking a run after her mamma’s dog,
Pink, in the garden, and Pink had led her a race
through a raspberry thicket which made a change of
slippers necessary, and had displaced her bonnet as
I have said.
“Come, Sophy, come, Tom has driven to the door—papa
is in the hall and the horses are as restless as
two wild eagles—nonsense, don’t take that great red
shawl, the morning is beautiful—Come—”
Before Maria finished speaking she had run down
stairs, through the hall, and stood on the door step
looking back impatiently for myself and her father,
who was very tranquilly drawing on his gloves as he
chatted to his wife through a door of the parlor where
she still lingered by the breakfast table.
There is no enjoyment like riding, whether on
horseback or in a carriage, providing your equipage
be in good taste, your companions agreeable and the
day fine. We were fortunate in all these. There
was not a lighter or more beautiful phaeton in New
Haven than that of Colonel M., and his horses—you
never saw such animals in harness!—their jetty coats,
arched necks and gazelle-like eyes were the very
perfection of brute beauty. Never were creatures
more perfectly trained. The play of their delicate
hoofs was like the dancing of a fine girl, and they
obeyed the slightest motion of the rein to a marvel.
As to my companions, they were unexceptionable,
as the old ladies say; Maria was a lovely creature,
not decidedly handsome, but good and delicate, with
an eye like a wet violet. Her father was just the
kind of man to give consequence to a brace of happy
girls in their teens—not young enough to be mistaken
for a brother or lover, nor old enough to check our
mirth with wise saws and sharp reprimands—he was
a careless, good-hearted man, as the world goes, in
the prime of his good looks, with his black hair just
beginning to be threaded with silver and the calm
dignity of a gentleman fitting him like a garment.
He always preferred the society of persons younger
than himself, and encouraged us in an outbreak of
mirth or mischief which made him one of the most
pleasant protectors in the world, though, if the truth
must be told, a serenade or so by two very interesting
students of the Sophomore class, who played the guitar
and flute with exceeding sweetness, and who had
tortured those instruments a full hour the previous
night, while looking unutterable things at our chamber
windows, had just given us a first idea that gray
hairs might be dispensed with, and the companion of
a ride quite as agreeable. Nay, we had that very
morning, before Pink deluded Maria into the garden,
consulted about the possibility of dislodging the colonel
from his seat in the phaeton in favor of the flute
amateur, for my friend very thoughtfully observed
that she was certain the interesting youth would be
delighted to drive us out—if we could find the carriage,
for, poor fellows, they never had much credit
at the livery stables—but Colonel M. had something
of Lady Gay Spanker’s disposition, he liked to “keep
the ribbons,” and Maria, with all her boldness, had
not courage to desire him to resign them to younger
hands. I must say that the colonel—though her
father—was a noble looking figure in an open carriage.
There was not a better dressed man about
town—his black coat, of the finest cloth, satin vest
and plaited ruffles, were the perfection of good taste,
and his driving would have made the aforesaid Lady
Gay half crazy with envy; he would have scorned a
horse that could not take his ten miles an hour, and
without a quickened breath, too. Colonel M. had
his imperfections and was a little overbearing and
aristocratic in his habits, but he was a kind man
and loved his wife, child, and horses—or rather his
horses, child and wife, with a degree of affection
which overbalanced a thousand such faults; he was
proud of his house, of his gardens and hot-houses,
but prouder of his stables, and would have been inclined
to fox hunting if such a thing had ever been
heard of in dear old Connecticut. He was very kind
also to a certain wayward, idle, teasing young school
girl, who shall be nameless, but who has many a
pleasant and grateful memory connected with his
residence.
I had forgotten—we were seated and the horses
pawing the ground, impatient to be off. Black Tom,
who had been patting their necks, withdrew his hold
on the bits and away we went. It was like riding in
a railroad car, so swiftly the splendid animals cleared
the ground, with the sun glistening on their black
coats and over the silver studded harness as they
dashed onward. It was indeed a glorious morning,
and to ride through the streets of New Haven at sunrise
is like dashing through the gravel walks of a
garden, for there is scarcely a dwelling which is not
surrounded by a little wilderness of trees and shrubbery.
The breath of a thousand flowering thickets
was abroad, the sun lay twinkling amid their foliage,
and the dewy grass with the shadows sleeping upon
it looked so cool and silent, one longed to take a volume
of Wordsworth and dream away the morning
there—we dashed forward to the college grounds, by
the Tontine and into Elm street, where we drove at
a foot pace to enjoy the shade of the tall elms where
they interlace, canopying the whole street with the
stirring foliage, and weaving a magnificent arch
through which the sunshine came flickering with
broken and unsteady light. How deliciously cool
it was with the dew still bathing the bright leaves
and the long branches waving like green banners
over us!
The colleges, too, with their extensive common
formed a beautiful picture, the noble buildings threw
their deep shadows on the grass, while here and
there a group of young men—poets and statesmen of
the future—were grouped picturesquely beneath the
old trees—some chatting and laughing merrily, with
neglected books lying at their feet, and others sitting
apart poring over some open volume, while the pure
breath of morning came and softly turned the leaves
for them. As we drove by a party sitting beneath a
tree close by the paling, Maria stole her hand round
to mine, and with a nod toward the group and a
roguish dimple in her cheek, gave me to understand
that our serenaders were of the party. They saw us,
and instantly there was a sly flourishing of white
cambric handkerchiefs and—it was not our fault, we
tried to look the other way—a superlative waste of
kisses wafted toward us from hands which had discoursed
such sweet music beneath our windows the
night before. When we looked back on turning the
corner—for of course we were anxious that the young
gentlemen should not be too demonstrative—they had
moved to another side of the tree and stood leaning
against it in very graceful attitudes, gazing after our
phaeton from the shadows of their Leghorn hats.
The hats were lifted, the white cambric began
to flutter again—our horses sprang forward,
and on we dashed over the Hotchkisstown road.
We stopped at that gem of a village, a pretty cluster
of houses nestled under the shelving cliffs of East
Rock. We clambered up the mountain, searched
over its broken and picturesque features, and gazed
down on the Arcadian scenery below with a delight
which I can never forget; the town lying amid its
forest of trees, the glittering Sound, the line of Long
Island stretching along the horizon, and the green
meadows and pretty village at our feet, lay within
our glance, and human eye never dwelt upon a scene
more lovely.
It was late in the morning when we drove through
the town again—our horses in a foam—our cheeks
glowing with exercise and our laps full of wild blossoms.
“Oh, mamma, we have had a delightful drive,”
exclaimed Maria, as she sprang upon the door step,
scattering a shower of wild lilies over the pavement
in her haste to leave the phaeton. “Take care, Sophia,
take care, or you will tread on my flowers,”
and with this careless speech she ran up the steps
happy and cheerful as a summer bird. I was about
to follow her when Mrs. M. detained me long enough
to say that some persons from S——, the town which
contained my own loved home, were waiting for me
in the hall.
For the first time in my life I had spent three
months from my father’s hearth-stone, and could
have welcomed the dog who had once passed the
threshold of my home, been patted by my sisters, or
who had looked into the face of my mother—as an
old friend. Without staying to inquire who my visiters
could be, I went eagerly forward, my hand half
extended in welcome, and with all the dear feelings
of home stirring about my heart. It certainly was a
damper—the sight of that lean gossiping little man,
our town miller—with the marks of his occupation
whitening his hatband, lying in the seams of his
coat, and marking the wrinkles in his boots—a personage
who had ground some fifty bushels of wheat
for my father, during his lifetime, but with whom I
had never known the honor of exchanging a dozen
consecutive words on that or any other subject.
There he sat, very diminutive and exceedingly perpendicular
on one of the hall chairs, with his feet
drawn under him, and his large bell-crowned hat
standing on the carpet by his side. Planted against
the wall, and on a direct file with himself, sat his
better half, one of the most superlatively silly and
talkative patterns of humanity that I have ever been
in contact with. In order to be a little genteel—as
she called it—Mrs. Johnson had honored the visit
with her best gown, a blazing calico with an immense
pattern running over it, which, with a Leghorn
bonnet lined with pink and trimmed with blue,
white silk gloves much too small for her hands, and
morocco shoes ready to burst with the wealth of feet
they contained, composed the tout ensemble, which
few persons could have looked upon once without
feeling particularly desirous for a second survey.
The appearance of Mr. Johnson and Mrs. Johnson
was vulgar enough in all conscience without the aid
of their hopeful progeny, in the shape of two little
Johnsons, with freckled faces and sun-burnt locks,
who sat by the side of their respectable mamma, in
jackets of blue cotton, striped trowsers much too short,
and with their dear little feet perched on the chair-rounds
squeezing their two unfortunate wool hats
between their knees and gazing with open mouths
through the drawing-room door. It certainly was an
exquisite group for the halls of an aristocratic and
fastidious man like Colonel M.; I dared not look
toward him as he stood giving some directions to
Tom, but went forward with an uncomfortable suspicion
that the negro was exhibiting rather more of
his teeth than was exactly necessary in his master’s
presence.
The fear of ridicule was strong in my heart, but
other and more powerful feelings were beating there.
My visiters were vulgar but honest people, and I
could not treat them coldly while the sweet impulses
and affectionate associations their coming had given
rise to were swarming in my bosom. They might
be rude, but had they not lately trod the places of my
childhood? Their faces were coarse and inanimate,
but they were familiar ones, and as such I welcomed
them; for they brought to my heart sweet thoughts
of a happy home. I went forward and shook hands
with them all, notwithstanding a glimpse I caught of
Maria as she paused on the stairs, her roguish eyes
absolutely laughing with merriment as she witnessed
the scene.
An hour went by, and the Johnsons were still sitting
in Colonel M.’s hall. I had gained all the information
regarding my friends which they could
communicate. It was drawing near the dinner hour,
and, in truth, I had become exceedingly anxious for
my visiters to depart. But there sat Mrs. Johnson
emitting a continued current of very small talk about
her currant bushes, her luck in making soap, and the
very distressing mortality that had existed among
her chickens—she became pathetic on this subject—six
of her most promising fledglings had perished
under an old cart during a thunder-storm, and as
many goslings had been dragged lifeless from her
husband’s mill-dam, where they had insisted upon
swimming before they were sufficiently fledged. The
account was very touching; peculiarly so from a
solemn moral which Mrs. J. contrived to deduct
from the sad and untimely fate of her poultry—which
moral, according to the best of my memory, was,
that if the chickens had obeyed their mother and kept
under the parent wing, the rain had not killed them,
and if the goslings had not put forth their swimming
propensities too early, they might, that blessed moment,
have been enjoying the coolness of the mill-dam
in all the downy majesty of half-grown geese.
Mrs. Johnson stopped the hundredth part of a second
to take breath and branched off into a dissertation on
the evils of disobedience in general, and the forwardness
and docility of her two boys in particular.
Then, drawing all her interesting topics to a focus,
she took boys, geese, chickens, currant bushes, &c.,
&c., and bore them rapidly onward in the stream of
her inveterate loquacity. One might as well have
attempted to pour back the waters rushing from her
husband’s mill-dam, when the flood-gates were up,
as to check the motion of her unmanageable tongue.
The clatter of his whole flour establishment must
have been a poetical sound compared to the incessant
din of meaningless words that rolled from it.
Another good hour passed away, and the volubility
of that tongue was increasing, while my politeness
and patience, it must be owned, were decreasing in
an exact ratio.
Maria had dressed for dinner, and I caught a
glimpse of her bright face peeping roguishly over
the banisters. Mrs. M. came into the hall, looked
gravely toward us, and walked into the garden with
a step rather more dignified than usual.
“Dear me, is that the lady you are staying with?”
said Mrs. Johnson, cutting short the thread of her
discourse, “how sorry I am that I didn’t ask her
how she did, she must think we country people
hav’n’t got no bringing up.”
Without replying to Mrs. Johnson, I seized the
opportunity to inquire at what house they stayed,
and innocently proposed calling on them after dinner.
“Oh,” said the little man, with a most insinuating
smile, “we calculate to put up with you. Didn’t think
we were the kind o’ people to slight old friends—ha?”
“With me—old friends!” I was thunderstruck,
and replied, I fear with some lack of politeness, that
Colonel M. did not keep a hotel.
“Wal, I guess I knowd that afore, but I’d jist as
lives pay him my money as any body else.”
This was too much—I cast a furtive look at the
banister; Maria’s handkerchief was at her mouth,
and her face sparkled all over with suppressed mirth.
Before I could answer Mr. Johnson’s proposition,
Colonel M. came into the ball, and the modest little
gentleman very coolly informed him of the high
honor intended his house.
Colonel M. glanced at my burning face—made his
most solemnly polite bow, and informed my tormentor
that he should entertain any visiter of mine
with great pleasure.
I was about to disclaim all Mr. Johnson’s pretensions
to hospitality, backed by an acquaintance with
myself, when he interrupted me with—
“Wal, that’s jest what I was a saying to my
woman here as we came along. Wife, says I, never
put up to a tavern when you can go any where else.
I’d jest as lives pay my money to a private as to a
tavern-keeper; they’re expensive fellers and allers
grumble if one brings his own horse provender.”
The colonel stared at him a moment, then coldly
saying “he was very welcome,” passed on.
“What a polite gentleman the colonel is!” ejaculated
the little miller, rubbing his hands together as
if he had been kneading a batch of his own flour,
and turning triumphantly to his wife, who looked as
pleased as if she had just heard of the resuscitation
of her six lamented goslings, chickens inclusive.
“Come now,” she said, jumping up and tying the
strings of her bonnet, “let’s go down to the salt
water and eat our dinner on the grass. Run up and
get your things, Miss Sophy—now come to think on
it, I s’pose it wouldn’t be the genteel thing if we
didn’t ask the colonel and his wife and that young
girl that just come in with you—but the wagon is not
large enough to hold us all without husband there
can find a board to put along the front for an extra
seat.”
I heard a sound of smothered laughter from the
stairs, and hastened to relieve Mrs. Johnson from
her dilemma, by declining her invitation for myself,
while I informed her that Colonel M. expected company,
and I was certain could not benefit by her politeness.
“Wal, then,” said Mr. Johnson, setting down his
bell-crowned hat—“It don’t make much difference
whether we eat our dinner here or on the sea-side.
So, if Miss Sophy and the rest on ’em can’t go,
s’posing we give it up and go to the museum.”
This plan was less endurable than the other. I
knew that company would drop in after dinner, and
the very thought of introducing Mr. Johnson and
Mrs. Johnson, with both the little Johnsons, to my
friends was enough to drive me into the salt water,
as they called it, if those interesting persons had
given me no other alternative. And then to be
dragged to the museum with them! I accepted the
sea-side dinner in a fit of desperation, and ran up
stairs to get ready, half angry with the droll face
which Maria made up for my benefit as I passed her
in the upper hall.
I put on a calash, folded a large shawl about me,
and, with a parasol in my hand, was descending the
stairs when I heard Mr. J. observe to his wife that
he had felt pretty sure of managing affairs all the
time, and that he was ready to bet any thing Colonel
M. wouldn’t charge for what little trouble they should
be. Mrs. Johnson pinched his arm unmercifully
when I appeared in sight, which gentle admonition
broke off his calculation of expenses and sent him
in search of his equipage. He returned with a
rickety one-horse wagon—a rusty harness, tied by
pieces of rope in sundry places, which covered an
old chesnut horse, whose organs of starvation were
most astonishingly developed over his whole body.
Into this crazy vehicle Mr. Johnson handed us, with a
ludicrous attempt at gallantry which made the old
horse turn his head with a rueful look to see what his
master could be about. The wagon contained but
one springless seat, and where we should find accommodations
for five persons was a subject of mystery
to me. I however quietly took my portion of the
seat; Mrs. Johnson, whose dimensions required
rather more than half, placed herself by my side, her
husband grasped the reins and crowded his diminutive
proportions between us, while the dear little
boys stood up behind and held by the back of our
seat. Mr. Johnson gave his reins a jerk and
flourished a whip—with a very short and white
hickory handle, a long lash, and a thong of twisted
leather fastened on for a snapper—with peculiar
grace over the drooping head of our steed. The poor
animal gathered up his limbs and walked down the
street, dragging us after him, with great majesty and
decorum. We must have been a magnificent exhibition
to the pedestrians as we passed down State
street, Mr. Johnson shaking the reins and cheruping
the poor horse along—his wife exclaiming at every
thing she saw, and those interesting boys standing
behind us very upright, with their wool hats set far
back on their heads, and they pointing and staring
about as only very young gentlemen from the country
can stare and point, while I, poor victim, sat
crouching behind Mr. J., my calash drawn to its
utmost extension over my face, and my parasol directed
with a reference to the side-walk rather than
to the sun. I was young, sensitive, and perhaps a
little too keenly alive to the ridiculous, and if I did
not feel exactly like a criminal going to execution, I
did feel as if some old lady’s fruit stall had been robbed
and I was the suspected person.
When about three miles from town, we left our
equipage, whose rattle had given me a headache,
and, after walking along the shore awhile, Mrs. J.
selected a spot of fresh grass, shaded by a clump of
junipers, where she commenced preparations for
dinner. First, with the assistance of her two boys,
she dragged forth a basket that had been stowed
away under the wagon seat—then a table-cloth, white
as a snow drift, was spread on the grass—next appeared
sundry bottles of cider and currant wine, with
cakes of various kinds and dimensions, but mostly
spiced with caraway seed. To these were added a
cold tongue, a loaf of exquisite bread, a piece of
cheese, a cup of butter covered with a cool cabbage
leaf, and, last of all, a large chicken-pie, its edge
pinched into regular scollops by Mrs. Johnson’s two
thumbs, and the centre ornamented by the striking
resemblance of a broken leaf, cut by the same ingenious
artist in the original paste.
Truly a day is like a human life, seldom all clouds
or entire sunshine. The most gloomy is not all darkness,
nor the most happy all light. When the remembrance
of that sea-side dinner, under the juniper
bushes, comes over me, I must acknowledge that my
day of tribulation—with all its provoking incidents
and petty vexations—had its hour of respite, if not of
enjoyment. There we sat upon the grass in a refreshing
shade, with nobody to look on as we cut the tender
crust of that pie, while the cider and the currant
wine sparkled in the two glasses which we circulated
very promiscuously from lip to lip, while the
cool wind came sweeping over us from the water,
and the sunshine, that else had been too powerful,
played and glittered every where about. A few
yards from our feet the foam-crested waves swept
the beach with their dash of perpetual music. The
Sound, studded by a hundred snowy sails, lay out-stretched
before us. Far on our right spread an extensive
plain, with cattle grazing peacefully over it,
and here and there a dwelling or a cluster of trees
flinging their shadows on the grass. On our left was
the town, with its houses rising, like palaces of snow,
among the overhanging trees; its taper steeples pencilled
in regular lines against the sky, and a picturesque
extremity of the Green Mountains looming
in the distance.
It cannot be denied that I rather enjoyed that dinner
under the juniper bushes, and was not half so
much shocked by the jocund conversation and merry
laughter of my companions as became the dignity of
a young lady whose “Lines to a Rose-bud” had been
extensively copied through several remote papers of
the Union, and who had been twice serenaded by
her own words, set to most excruciating music, but I
hope the refined reader will excuse my fault. It happened
several years ago, and I am to this day a little
inclined to be social with good-natured people, even
those who are not particularly literary or intelligent.
They do not expect you to talk books because you
write them—never torment you with a discussion of
“woman’s rights,” equality of the sexes, and like
popular absurdities—or force you into a detestation
of all books with quotations, which you would rejoice
to think were “unwritten music.”
The clocks were striking four when we drove into
town again, much as we had left it except the basket
of fragments under our seat. When we reached
Colonel M’s. door there was a sound of voices in
the drawing-room, and I knew that company was
there. I entered the hall, and with a palpitating heart
persuaded Mrs. Johnson to accompany me to my
chamber, leaving her husband to take care of himself,
and devoutly hoping that he would find his way
into the garden, or stables, or any where except the
drawing-room.
I entered my chamber resolved to entertain Mrs.
Johnson so pleasantly that she would be content to
remain there. I opened the window and pointed out
one of the most lovely prospects that eye ever dwelt
upon, but she was busy with the pink bows and cotton
lace border of her cap, and preferred the reflection
of her own stout figure in the looking-glass
to any the open sash could afford. When her toilet
was finished, I was even preposterous enough to
offer a book, but, after satisfying herself that it contained
no pictures, she laid it down and walked toward
the door. As a last resource, I flung open my
wardrobe, as if by accident, and that had its effect;
she came back with the avidity of a great child,
handled every article, and was very particular to inquire
the price of each garment, and the number of
yards it contained. How I wished that Queen Elizabeth
had but left me heiress to her nine hundred
dresses. Had she been so thoughtful, it is highly
probable that Mrs. Johnson would have contented
herself in my room till morning; but, alas! my
wardrobe was only extensive enough to detain her
half an hour, and when that failed she grew stubborn
and insisted on going down.
I followed Mrs. J. down stairs and into the drawing-room
with the resolution of a martyr. She
paused at the door, dropped three sublime curtsies,
put on one of her superlatively silly smiles, and entered,
with a little mincing step and her cap ribands
all in a flutter. Had I been called upon to select the
five persons whom I should have been most unwilling
to meet in my irksome predicament, it would
have been the two beautiful girls and three highly
bred students of the law-school whom I found in a
group near the centre table. Maria was with them,
but looking almost ill-tempered with annoyance.
When she saw Mrs. Johnson, the crimson that
burned on her usually pale cheek spread over her
face and neck, while, spite of shame and anger, her
mouth dimpled almost to a laugh as that lady performed
her curtsies at the door. Maria gave one
glance of comic distress at my face, which was
burning till it pained me, and another toward the
farther extremity of the room. There was Mr. Johnson
perched on a music stool, and fingering the keys
of a piana, as he called Maria’s superb rose-wood
instrument, and the feet of those little Johnsons dangled
from two of the chairs near by: there, at my
right hand, was Mrs. Johnson, radiant as a sunflower,
and disposed to make herself peculiarly fascinating
and agreeable to our visiters. She informed the law
students that her husband was a great musicianer,
that he led the singing in the Methodist meeting-house
at home, every other Sunday, when the ministers
came to preach, and that her two boys gave
strong indications of musical genius which had
almost induced Mr. Johnson to patronize their village
singing-school. While in the midst of this eloquence,
her eye was caught by a rich scarf worn by
one of our lady visiters, so changing the subject she
began to express her admiration, and, after taking an
end of the scarf in her hands and minutely examining
the pattern, she inquired the price of its fair
owner, and called her husband to say if he could not
afford one like it for her.
There was a roguish look in the lady’s eye, but
she politely informed Mrs. J. where the scarf was
purchased, and, being too well bred to laugh in our
faces, the party took their leave. We breathed freely
once more; but Maria and I had scarcely exchanged
glances of congratulation for their absence, when
another party was announced. To be mortified thus
a second time was beyond endurance, and while
Maria stepped forward to close the folding doors
on Mr. Johnson and his musical performance, I
turned in very desperation to his better half and proposed
to accompany her in a walk about the city.
Most earnestly did I entreat her to exchange that
fine bonnet and orange-colored silk shawl for a cottage
and merino of my own; but no, Mrs. J. clung
to her tri-colors tenaciously as a Frenchman, so investing
myself in the rejected articles we sallied
forth.
As we were turning a corner into Chapel-street, I
looked back and lo, the two boys walking behind us,
lovingly as the Siamese twins. This reminded Mrs.
Johnson that she had promised them some candy, so
I was forced into a confectioner’s shop that the young
gentlemen might be gratified. The candy was purchased
and a pound of raisins called for. While the
man was weighing them, she called out,
“Stop a minute, while I see if I’ve got change
enough for ’em,” and sitting down on a keg she took
out a large green worsted purse with deliberate ostentation,
and untied a quantity of silver and copper
cents into her lap. Being satisfied with this display
of her wealth, she gave the man permission to proceed.
I had suffered so much that day that the
jeering smile of that candy-man went for nothing.
On leaving the candy shop I allowed my tormentor
to choose her own direction, which, as my evil stars
would have it, led directly before the Tontine, and
there, upon the steps, stood the two young gentlemen
who had serenaded Maria and myself only the night
before, and whom we had seen that morning on the
college grounds. They recognized me and bowed,
Mrs. Johnson instantly appropriated the compliment,
paused, faced about and returned their salutations
with a curtsey for each, while she scolded the boys
for not having “manners enough to make their bows
when gentlemen noticed them.” The urchins took
off their wool hats and did make their bows. My
serenaders of the Sophomore class could not withstand
this, and though their faces were turned away,
I had a delightful consciousness that they were ready
to die with suppressed laughter as I urged my companion
down the street.
A short distance below the Tontine stands a most
splendid mansion, perhaps, at that time, the most
costly one in the city. Two of my school mates
resided there and I was very anxious to pass without
being observed, but just as we came opposite the
front windows which opened to the ground, Mrs.
Johnson made a dead halt, and pointing to the house,
called out, “Come here, boys, and see what a sight
o’ windows this ere house has got.”
The little Johnsons had lingered behind, but they
ran up and obeyed their mother’s summons, by
planting themselves directly before us, and the whole
group took another survey of the building. I looked
up, the blinds of a chamber were gently parted and I
caught a glimpse of two sweet, familiar faces looking
down upon our interesting party. “They are staring
at us, do walk on!” I whispered in a perfect agony.
Mrs. Johnson paid no attention, she was looking
earnestly down the street, I apprehensively followed
the direction of her gaze. The two Sophomore students
were coming up the opposite side walk laughing
immoderately, a piece of ill breeding which they
endeavored to check when their eyes met mine, but
all in vain. Their eyes laughed in spite of the violence
put upon the lips. I could endure it no longer
but tore my arm from the tenacious grasp of my tormentor,
turned the first corner and hastened home.
When Mrs. Johnson returned she had forgotten
my rudeness in her delight at the attentions paid her
by the students. “They had talked and laughed
together a full half hour,” she said, “and were so
perlite.”
“What did you talk about?” I inquired with uncomfortable
foreboding.
“Why, I believe it was purty much about you,
after all.”
“Me?” said I, faintly.
“Yes, they asked how long we’d been acquainted,
so, of course, I told them what old friends we were—kind
of relations.”
The last drop was flung in the bowl—and it overflowed—I
said I was ill—had a headache—and running
to my room, locked myself in.
I never had courage to ask Maria what occurred
after my exit. But the next morning I arose very
early, threw open the blinds and looked out. The
day was breaking, like an angel’s smile, in the east,
dividing the gray mist with a line of radiance, and
embroidering the horizon with its delicate golden
threads. The fresh air came up from an opposite
garden rich with fragrance. The flowers bent their
wet heads as it came with a gentle breath and
charmed the odor from their cups; the grass had not
yet flung off its night jewelry, and all around was
still and silent as the heart of a wilderness—no, there
was one sound not so musical as it might have been,
but still the most welcome that ever fell on my ear.
It was the rattle of Mr. Johnson’s wagon as it came
lumbering up to the front door. And the most gratifying
sight of that lovely morning was the old chesnut
horse stalking down the street, and dragging behind
him Mr. Johnson, Mrs. Johnson, and both the little
Johnsons.
———
BY ROBERT MORRIS.
———
’Tis midnight’s solemn hour! And mark—yon room
Narrow, and dimly lit. The thicken’d gloom
Of deepest night is scarcely chased away,
The lamp so small—so thin its feeble ray!
Alas! poor student! What a fate is thine!
Within thy bosom burns a ray divine,
A fire has to thy spirit’s cell been given,
Alive with flame caught from the founts of Heaven!
Genius is thine, and like a worshipper
Of some far world, or glory beaming star.
Night after night, thou toilest slowly on,
Each thought refining—each comparison,
And phrase, and figure, weighing well and long,
And thus thy life-blood pouring with thy song!
How little reck we of the toil of mind!
The inward strain some sparkling thought to find—
The hollow cheek—the fever-thrilling brain—
And worse than all, when venal is the strain,
And the poor author toils alone for gain!
Not such, pale wooer of the solemn night,
Not such thy fate. The far and dazzling light
That leads thee on, is that which Death nor Time
Can wholly quench—the towering light sublime,
That burns in Fame’s high temple—the strong fire
That flashed when Milton struck his mighty lyre!
The radiant Future dawns upon thy sight,
And all thy being maddens with delight—
The dust that forms thy fragile body now,
May shrink and fade, as melts the early snow—
And where the blue veins course throughout thy form,
The things of death may revel with the worm—
But oh! wild vision—thought o’er mastering death,
Thy name shall brighten with thy parting breath—
Beings as yet unborn shall give thee praise—
And Glory’s hand shall bind thy brow with bays!
For this—for this—thine hours are given to toil,
For this alone thou burn’st the midnight oil—
Thou see’st the Future radiant with thy name,
And yield’st thy life in sacrifice for Fame!
COMPOSED FOR GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.
The Fountain and other Poems. By William C. Bryant.
One vol. 12mo. New York: Wiley & Putnam, 1842.
It will give pleasure to the lovers of elegant literature
to learn that Mr. Bryant has prepared a second volume of
poems. Many, if not all of them, have before appeared in
the magazines; but the book will not be welcomed the less
warmly for that reason. Indeed, no one reads a poem by
this author without desiring to possess it in the most agreeable
and permanent form. His admirers will be gratified,
therefore, that he has so far overcome his singular feeling
of modesty as to make a collection of his scattered gems,
and present them in a casket to the public.
So much has been said of the character of Bryant’s genius
that we have no disposition to enter upon that subject
now; his various and high excellencies have been pretty
generally recognized; indeed, more universally than those
of any other living poet; and he himself—even if his literary
vanity is a thousand times as great as we believe it
to be—and his most ardent admirers, must be satisfied with
the feeling entertained by the public toward him. They
must be satisfied, because that feeling is in the highest
degree friendly. As to ourselves, we are conscious
that our estimation of him has been constantly undergoing
a change. We have been deepening and enlarging the
grounds of our admiration. The more we have read, the
more we have reflected upon his poems, the stronger have
grown our convictions of his preëminent merit. Nor are
we alone in this experience. We remember well the remark
of a friend, in whose critical discernment we are
accustomed to place considerable reliance, and who, being
a foreigner, is not likely to have been led away by that
fondness for over praise which is said to mark the literary
criticisms of the Americans—“I have been,” said he,
“again reading your poet; and must confess that, as deeply
as I felt his excellence before, I have never until now
formed an adequate idea of the extent of his genius. Although
I thought I had exhausted his depth, I find that
new views of the most exalted and touching thought are
continually opening upon me. I know not when I shall
have done admiring.” We replied, and the observation is
worth repeating, that this only showed the perfection of
the poet’s art; for true art, like nature—indeed, being nature
itself—is inexhaustible, and the more it is studied the
greater and the richer are the resources which it discovers.
A creation, whether it be of a world, a poem, or a picture,
is an infinite work, and can be profitably contemplated
year after year—each look revealing some new and remarkable
trait.
There could be no better proof of the singular merits of
Mr. Bryant’s poetry than the fact that men of every school
of art, and of every variety of taste, agree in the acknowledgment
of its claims. The disciples of Pope and of
Wordsworth—those who profess to find the excellence of
the poetic art only in its external forms, and those who
look into the body of its thought and meaning—the lover
of graceful rhythm and expression, and the admirer of profound
reflection or passion—alike concur in the sentiment
of admiration and respect for Bryant. We do not mean
that it shall be inferred from this that no one is a poet
who does not awaken this unanimity of feeling, for some
of the greatest poets of the last century—Shelley for instance—are
not even yet appreciated; but we mean that
when this unanimity does exist it is a most unquestionable
proof of merit. It is true, it does not always demonstrate
the highest merit; yet it shows, more conclusively perhaps
than anything, that the beauties of the author are of that
unequivocal, obvious kind, which the child and the savage,
the illiterate man and the philosopher, are alike capable of
recognizing. It is an easy task, then, to point out the characteristics
which have given the poet his general celebrity.
One of the most striking is the complete mastery of language
that he every where displays. If there were not
many higher traits to be discovered, we should think he
spent his whole time in casting his thoughts in the most
beautiful form of expression. Precision, compactness,
purity, elegance, and force, mark every line in an almost
equal degree. It is this nice perception of the proprieties
of language that gives such exquisite finish to his versification.
Its melody is perfect.[1] Line follows line in liquid
and beautiful harmony—yet all is as simple as the utterance
of a child. There is no where swelling pomp or
straining for effect. The terms, no less than the style and
manner arise naturally out of the thought. When the subject
is grave and imposing, the movement is slow and
solemn; but when the theme is lighter, the measure becomes
airy, elastic, and playful. Compare, as a proof of
this, the impressive tread of “The Ages,” or “Thanatopsis,”
in which the long line of buried nations and men
file before us in all their silent majesty, with the graceful
motion of “The Gladness of Nature” or the wild dance
of “The Song of the Stars.”
Two things, however, above all others, distinguish the
poetry of Mr. Bryant. The first is the fidelity with which
it paints natural scenery, and the second, the pensive and
profound, yet Christian philosophy which pervades its spirit.
As we have remarked in another place, no man ever
lived whose sensibility was more susceptible than Mr.
Bryant’s. Not only is his eye open to Nature, but every
fibre of his being seems to be tremblingly alive to its presence.
His nerves, like the Æolian harp, the faintest
breath of wind can make vibrate musically. The shapes
and hues of natural objects, in all their infinite diversity,
seem to be the constant companions of his thoughts. Hardly
a leaf or a flower exists with which he is not familiar.
From the spire of grass by the wayside to the huge oak
in the mountains, from the violet in its secluded bed to
the bright and boundless firmament, from the shy bird
brooding in his silent nooks to the stars that weave their
everlasting web of motion through the sky, all things of
nature claim his loving friendship and care. Streams, and
woods, and meadows, and rocks, and lakes mingle in his
musings, and are the very staple of his imagination. They
are
“His haunt, and main region of his song.”
If we turn over his title-pages, we shall find that about
two thirds of his subjects are drawn from the various
aspects or phenomena of external nature; while, by consulting
the poems themselves, we shall see that so delicate
is his eye, so perfect his command of language, and so exquisite
his taste, that his descriptions have all the effect of
a faithful but warmly colored picture. We say warmly
colored, for with all his minuteness and accuracy in the
delineation of nature, he possesses a wonderful power of
imagination.
But it is not so much the graces of language or style, or
the appropriateness or beauty of imagery, as the pensive
but deep and manly philosophy, that incites our admiration
of Mr. Bryant’s genius. It must strike every one, upon
the most slight and cursory perusal of his poems, that he
is a man of the most unquestionable good sense. The silent
meditation of nature, in her more genial and subduing
aspects, seems to have imparted to him the gentleness,
truth, simplicity, and calmness that ever await upon her
teachings. In the spirit of his own “Forest Hymn,” he
seems often to have returned to the solitudes, to reassure
his virtue, and thus, while meditating in “God’s first temples,”
His milder majesty,
“to the beautiful order of His works
Seemed to conform the action of his life.”
Sweet affections, tenderness, patience, love, and, above
all, trust in Nature and God, are the virtues that chiefly
inspire his song. It is for this reason, that amidst his most
striking and picturesque descriptions there is always something
to soften and improve. Not the tempest, the earth-quake,
or the torrent move him, but nature, in her gladness
and smiles. With every phase of the external world he
has connected some noble moral, or some beautiful religious
or philosophical sentiment. Indeed, these are so
many and so touching that it is equally a matter of amusement
and instruction to trace them. Thus, in the deep
slumber of the woodlands he finds an emblem of the inward
peace that marks the life of virtue, twilight hues,
“lingering after the bright sun has set,” are like the memory
of good men gone; the perishing flowers of autumn
recall those who “in their youthful beauty died;” the
golden sunlight that follows the tempest anticipates the
day when “the voice of war shall cease, and married nations
dwell in harmony;” the unconscious flow of the rivulet
shows how changeless nature is amid all her change;
the flight of the lone bird amid the air tells of that power
that in “the long way that we must tread alone, will
guide our steps aright;” while “morn and eve, whose
glimmerings almost meet,” indicate the spread of the light
of that knowledge and justice which is destined to
“Crowd back to narrow bounds the ancient night.”
It must be confessed, however, speaking of the spirit of
Mr. Bryant’s poetry, that many of his readers feel the
absence of a deep and fervid interest in humanity. They
have complained, and we think in some degree justly, that
he exhibits too little of human passion. His mind, to use
a distinction of the Germans, has been too objective, and
not enough subjective; the forms and appearance of the
outward world have absorbed his attention almost to the
exclusion of the feelings and sentiments of the inward being.
Not that he has been wholly wanting in sympathy
for his race, for in the “Ages,” the “Old Man’s Funeral,”
the “Living Lost,” the “Fairest of the Rural Maids,”
and other of his poems, there are to be found passages of
the most touching and subduing pathos; but that the truths
of man’s existence; his experience on earth; the mysteries
of his condition; the trials of his life; his deathless affections;
his sublime hopes of a future state; and other topics
of that character, have been neglected. They have wished
that one who could discourse so truthfully and genially of
stars, and skies, and flowers, and forests, should speak to
them, out of the depths of his own nature, of that quickening
principle which is more lovely in itself, of higher worth,
and more lasting, than the whole outward world—the human
soul. They have wished that he who has been able
to interpret in such beautiful meaning the language of nature,
would apply the same noble and accomplished skill
to the interpretation of the heart. They would have him,
like Wordsworth, to whom he is in this respect only second,
sing more
“Of Truth, of Grandeur, Beauty, Love and Hope—
And melancholy Fear subdued by Faith;
Of blessed consolations in distress;
Of moral strength and intellectual power;
Of joy in widest commonalty spread;
Of the individual Mind that keeps her own
Inviolate retirement, subject them
To conscience only, and the law supreme
Of that Intelligence which governs all.”
We say that they would have him treat more frequently of
such themes; let us add that their wishes are in a fair way
of being gratified. We find, on comparing the present
volume with Mr. Bryant’s former one, that his thoughts
have already taken the direction to which we refer. Indeed,
we have before remarked, that of late years his mind
had been coming into closer contact with human sympathies.
The last poem of his first volume—The Battle
Field—so full of the highest truth, so inspiring and consolatory,
may be ranked with the best lyrics of the language.
In the volume before us, the larger number of
poems are of a similar character. Where is there a finer
or a loftier hymn than the following?
How shall I know thee in the sphere which keeps
The disembodied spirits of the dead,
When all of thee that time could wither sleeps
And perishes among the dust we tread?
For I shall feel the sting of ceaseless pain
If there I meet thy gentle presence not;
Nor hear the voice I love, nor read again
In thy serenest eyes the tender thought.
Will not thy own meek heart demand me there?
That heart whose fondest throbs to me were given?
My name on earth was ever in thy prayer,
Shall it be banished from thy tongue in heaven?
In meadows fanned by heaven’s life-breathing wind,
In the resplendence of that glorious sphere,
And larger movements of the unfettered mind,
Wilt thou forget the love that joined us here?
The love that lived through all the stormy past
And meekly with my harsher nature bore
And deeper grew, and tenderer to the last,
Shall it expire with life, and be no more?
A happier lot than mine, and larger light,
Await thee there; for thou hast bowed thy will
In cheerful homage to the rule of right,
And lovest all, and renderest good for ill.
For me, the sordid cares in which I dwell,
Shrink and consume the heart, as heat the scroll;
And wrath hath left its scar—that fire of hell
Has left its frightful scar upon my soul.
Yet, though thou wear’st the glory of the sky,
Wilt thou not keep the same beloved name,
The same fair thoughtful brow, and gentle eye,
Lovelier in heaven’s sweet climate, yet the same?
Shalt thou not teach me, in that calmer home,
The wisdom that I learned so ill in this—
The wisdom which is love—till I become
Thy fit companion in that land of bliss?
Whoever can read this without feeling his affections
expand, or his whole nature grow better, has less than
the sensibility of humanity. We should be glad to present
other pieces to our readers, of the same character;[2] and
particularly to quote the noble poem entitled “The Antiquity
of Freedom,” in which liberty is so nobly impersonated,
but we have not room for further extracts, and can only
indulge in one or two closing remarks. It appears to be a
common regret with those who speak or write of Mr. Bryant,
that he has not, as they express it, written a “great”
poem. Be it observed, that by a great poem is here meant
a long poem—a poem that in print will form a quarto!
This kind of critic measures poems as the Dutch are said
formerly to have gauged the merits of books—by their size.
Perhaps of no author is there less reason for the lamentation
that he has not written a great poem; for, in truth, he
has written not only one, but nearly two dozen works of
this description. He has written a series of lyrics, each
perfect in itself, manifesting the highest excellence of that
department of art, and destined to an existence as indestructible
as the richest treasures of the English tongue.
Indeed, we may safely say of him, that he has written a
larger number of excellent poems than any other English
author. So uniform is this excellence that it is difficult to
make a selection between his various compositions. As
some one has said of Shakspeare’s plays, the best one is
that which you read last. The cause of this is, that Mr.
Bryant writes as an artist. He does not, with the multitude
of our poetasters, throw off lines as a patent printing
press does newspapers, five thousand an hour. He feels
like a true artist, and composes with the labor and spirit of
one who is confident that his works will live.
The Official and other Papers of the late Maj. Gen. Alexander
Hamilton: Compiled chiefly from the Originals in
the possession of Mrs. Hamilton. Vol. I. 8vo. Pp. 496.
New York and London: Wiley & Putnam. Philadelphia:
Carey & Hart.
Every year, we believe, the name of Alexander Hamilton
is becoming dearer to the American People. The prejudices
occasioned by some of his unpopular and perhaps erroneous
political opinions are passing away, and all men are
beginning to look upon his great qualities and important
services with candor, and consequent admiration and gratitude.
The volume of his official and other papers before
us was edited by the Rev. Francis L. Hawks, D. D. whose
known familiarity with early American history fitted him
well for the duty. It commences with some letters written
while Hamilton was a clerk in a merchant’s counting-house
in the island of St. Croix, in 1769. He was then but thirteen
years old, and his correspondence at this early period
is chiefly remarkable as showing that strong reliance on his
own resources which was so well vindicated by the after
fortunes of the man. The remainder of the book is made
up of controversial essays in defence of the measures of the
continental Congress and of the steps preparatory to the
Revolution, and of his military and private correspondence
down to the close of the year 1780. A few of the letters
have before been published. Almost every one has read
the admirable account of the arrest and fate of Andre,
which he addressed to his friend Laurens. It is not surpassed
in interest or pathos by any narrative of the circumstances,
in prose or verse, by historian or novelist, that
has appeared. General Hamilton was an accomplished
gentleman and a brave soldier, but his fame, as “the second
man of the republic,” rests on his achievements as a
statesman, and the succeeding volume of these papers, to
embrace the period from 1780 to 1793, will contain matters
of far more general and profound interest than the one
before us. The task of Dr. Hawks has been little more
than that of compilation; he but arranged the papers in
chronological order and added occasionally a note; thinking
that the recently published life of General Hamilton by
his son, John C. Hamilton, rendered a biographical notice
unnecessary. We think he erred: there are among us but
few such character-writers as the historian of the Church in
America, and an extended introduction to the work, from
his pen, would have added much to its value.
The Book of the Poets: The Poets of the Nineteenth Century.
London, Scott, Webster, & Co. Philadelphia,
Carey & Hart.
This is a splendid octavo volume, in the style of S. C.
Hall’s “Book of Gems,” published in London, in 1838, but
is larger and more profusely illustrated. It contains an
elaborate and well written essay on the English poetry of
the present age, and selections from the works of the following
authors, with brief biographical and critical notices.
William Gifford, Joanna Baillie, Hannah Moore, Robert
Bloomfield, George Crabbe, William Sotheby, Samuel Rogers,
William Lisle Bowles, William Wordsworth, James
Montgomery, Charles Dibdin, Thomas Haynes Bayley,
Sir Walter Scott, S. T. Coleridge, Mary Tighe, James
Hogg, Walter Savage Landor, Robert Southey, Charles
Lamb, Thomas Campbell, Ebenezer Elliott, Reginald Heber,
Thomas Moore, Leigh Hunt, Henry Kirke White, Lord
Byron, Barry Cornwall, Professor Wilson, Henry Hart
Milman, Charles Wolfe, Allan Cunningham, P. B. Shelley,
John Clare, Mrs. Hemans, John Keats, George Croly,
Robert Pollok, Mary Russel Mitford, Letitia Elizabeth
Landon, James Sheridan Knowles, Mrs. Norton, and others.
We have not had leisure to examine the selections generally,
but presume they are judiciously made. Doubtless
the work will be in great demand during the holiday
season.
The Life of Peter Van Schaack, LL. D. Embracing selections
from his Correspondence, and other writings during
the American Revolution, and his Exile in England.
By his son, Henry C. Van Schaack. One vol. 8vo. pp.
500. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Philadelphia:
Carey & Hart.
This is a novel and interesting contribution to our historical
literature, Mr. Van Schaack was an eminent young
lawyer in the city of New York during the period immediately
preceding the Revolution, and was on terms of intimacy
with John Jay, Richard Harrison, Gouverneur Morris,
and other master-spirits of that time. He was opposed to
the declaration of independence in the colonies, and to
the resort to arms in its defence, and for his opinions was
banished to England. While abroad he was placed in
situations to see and to learn much in regard to the movements
of both parties, and his strictures on the policy of the
British, notices of public characters, etc., throw additional
light upon the most important era in our history. He was
a pious and well educated man, with strong powers of observation,
classical taste and much skill in the use of language;
and his son has done the country an acceptable
service by publishing his memoirs and writings. A fine
portrait by Gimbrede, from a painting by Colonel Trumbull,
adds to the beauty and value of the volume.
An Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of
England, by Bishop Burnet. With an Appendix, containing
the Augsburg Confession, Creed of Pope Pius
IV., &c. Revised and Corrected, with copious Notes and
additional References, by the Rev. James R. Paige, A.M.,
of Queen’s College, Cambridge. One volume, 8vo. New
York: D. Appleton & Co.
The valuable notes from the most distinguished theological
writers of the sixteenth century, biographical sketches
of celebrated divines and controvertists, indices, etc. which
the learned editor has added to the great work of Bishop
Burnet, must cause this edition to supersede every other as
a manual for students. It is printed in Messrs. Appleton
and Company’s usual style of elegance and correctness.
The Writings of Rev. William Bradford Homer, with a Memoir,
by Edwards A. Park. One vol. 12mo. Pp. 420.
Boston: Tappan & Dennet. Philadelphia: H. Perkins.
From the interesting memoir by Professor Park we learn
that Mr. Homer was a native of Boston; that he was educated
at Amherst College and the Theological School at
Andover; and that he died in 1841, at South Berwick, in
Maine, where he was settled as minister over a Congregational
Church. His literary remains consist of addresses,
religious discourses, and notes on the classics, all of which
are distinguished for elegance of taste and correct and appropriate
thought. It is hardly necessary so to speak of a
volume from the Boston press, as well printed.
History of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign
Missions. Compiled chiefly from the published and
unpublished documents of the Board. By Joseph Tracy.
Second edition, carefully revised and enlarged. One vol.
8vo. New York: M. W. Dodd, 1842.
The American Missionary Society has doubtless done
more for the promotion of religion and civilization than any
other association in the world. Its progress, condition, and
prospects must, therefore, be deeply interesting to the better
classes of men in every country. The work before as
is written with great care and ability, and brings the history
of the society’s operations down to the commencement
of the present year. It is compactly printed and illustrated
by several engravings.
The Poetical Remains of the late Lucy Hooper, with a Memoir,
by John Keese. One vol. 12mo. Philadelphia, Carey
& Hart. New York, Samuel Colman.
Lucy Hooper died last year in the city of Brooklyn, near
New York, at the early age of twenty-four years. She
had previously become widely known by her contributions,
in prose and verse, to the periodicals, distinguished alike
for their elegant diction, purity of thought, and womanly
feeling. The Memoir, by Mr. Keese, is an admirable specimen
of character-writing, and the work altogether is one
of the most interesting of its kind published in this country.
We regret our inability to give a more extended notice of
it in this number of our magazine.
To Readers And Correspondents.—It affords us great
pleasure to state that the publisher of this magazine has
entered into engagements with James Fenimore Cooper,
the most popular of our country’s authors, by which we
shall be enabled to present in every number, after that for
September, an article from his pen. Mr. Cooper has
never before been connected with any periodical. His
works are so familiar to every reader in the old or the new
world, that it is unnecessary to speak at length of the increase
in interest and value our magazine will derive from
his contributions.
Of Professor Longfellow’s poems several have already
appeared in this magazine. He has recently completed a
drama, in three acts, entitled “The Spanish Student,” the
MS. of which is in our possession. It is the most elaborate,
and will unquestionably prove to be the most popular of
his poetical works. It will appear, entirely or in part, in
our next number. Professor Longfellow is now abroad,
in quest of health. From an exquisite poem addressed to
him on the day of his departure, by his friend George S.
Hillard, we quote the following stanza, joining heartily in
the invocation—
Ye gales that breathe, ye founts that gush,
With renovating power,
Upon that loved and laurelled head,
Your gifts of healing shower:
And jocund Health that loves to climb
The breezy mountain side;
Wake with your touch, to bounding life,
His pulse’s languid tide!
The name of William Cullen Bryant—dear to the
lovers of elegant literature wherever the English tongue is
spoken—appears now, for the first time, on our pages. We
have elsewhere given some opinions on his character as a
poet, in which we doubt not every reader will concur.
“Henri Quatre, or the Days of the League” was republished
in this country immediately after its appearance in
London, and universally pronounced one of the best romances
in the language. It has since passed through
several editions, and is now incorporated with the standard
works of fiction. The author, it will be perceived, has
become a writer for this magazine, and the admirable story
entitled “De Pontis,” of which the first part is given in
the preceding pages, will sustain his high reputation.
Charles Fenno Hoffman, the accomplished author of
“A Winter in the West,” “Wild Scenes in the Forest
and the Prairie,” “Greyslaer,” “The Vigil of Faith,”
etc., has also become a regular contributor, and our next
number will contain a tale in his best manner.
Theodore S. Fay, author of “Norman Leslie,” “Reveries
of a Quiet Man,” “The Countess Ida,” etc., and
now United States Secretary of Legation at Berlin, will
continue to write for our pages.
Henry T. Tuckerman, author of “Isabelle, or Sicily,”
“The Italian Sketch Book,” “Rambles and Reveries,”
etc., has likewise been engaged, and an article from his
pen will appear in September.
Alfred B. Street, one of the best descriptive poets
now living, has forwarded to us a beautiful poem which
will also be published in the number for the next month.
One more part will complete Mr. Herbert’s spirited tale,
“The Sisters.” We have received another article by this
popular writer, which will soon be laid before our readers.
Niagara Falls.—This number of our magazine appears
in the midst of “the hot season,” while the warmest
aspirations of its readers are for “the cool retreats, the
woodlands, and the waves.” In August no place is more
attractive than Niagara—as our friend Schoolcraft, who
understands better than any one else the Indian tongues,
says the name should be pronounced—and the following
letter from the Cataract House will therefore be read with
interest, especially by those who intend to visit the scenes
it so admirably describes.
CATARACT HOUSE, Niagara Falls, July, 1842.
Friend Griswold:—Years, though not many, have
weighed upon me since first, in boyhood, I gazed from the
deck of a canal-boat upon the distant cloud of white vapor
which marked the position of the world’s great cataract,
and listened to catch the rumbling of its deep thunders.
Circumstances did not then permit me to gratify my strong
desire of visiting it; and now, when I am tempted to wonder
at the stolidity of those who live within a day’s journey,
yet live on through half a century without one glance at
the mighty torrent, I am checked by the reflection that I
myself passed within a dozen miles of it no less than five
times before I was able to enjoy its magnificence. The
propitious hour came at last, however; and, after a disappointed
gaze from the upper terrace on the British side, (in
which I half feared that the sheet of broken and boiling
water above was all the cataract that existed,) and a rapid
tortuous descent by the woody declivity, I stood at length
on Table Rock, and the whole immensity of the tremendous
avalanche of waters burst at once on my arrested vision,
while Awe struggled with Amazement for the mastery of
my soul.
This was late in October; I have twice revisited the
scene amid the freshness and beauty of June; but I think
the later Autumn is by far the better season. There is
then a sternness in the sky, a plaintive melancholy in the
sighing of the wind through the mottled forest foliage, which
harmonizes better with the spirit of the scene. For the
Genius of Niagára, O friend! is never a laughter-loving
spirit. For the gaudy vanities, the petty pomps, the light
follies of the hour, he has small sympathy. Let not the
giddy heir bring here his ingots, the selfish aspirant his ambition,
the libertine his victim, and hope to find enjoyment
and gaiety in the presence. Let none come here to
nurse his pride, or avarice, or any low desire. God and
His handiwork here stand forth in lone sublimity; and all
the petty doings and darings of the ants at the base of the
pyramid appear in their proper insignificance. Few can
have visited Niagára and left it no humbler, no graver
than they came.
The common fault of visiters here, as of sight-seers elsewhere,
is that of haste. Two hours are devoted to a scene
which requires days, if not weeks, for its proper appreciation.
Niagára, like St. Peter’s at Rome, enlarges on the
vision; the mind must have time to expand ere it can grasp
all its giant proportions. The first view always deludes
and disappoints the gazer with regard to the height of the
perpendicular fall; the vast scale on which Nature has
fashioned her wonder-work deceives; the depth, and
breadth, and volume, detract from the altitude; and I doubt
if the larger number of new comers would not estimate the
height at less than one half the one hundred and sixty feet
which the line gives from surface above to surface below.
Observation, however, soon corrects the error; if not, a
walk down the interminable stairway, and a gaze upward
at the ocean which seems to be poured from a window of
heaven, will do it at once.
The giant masonry of Nature, which has so long interposed
a barrier against the draining of Lake Erie into
Ontario at a rush, and the consequent overwhelming of
all the dwellers upon the latter and the St. Lawrence by a
deluge, is evidently wearing away; I can perceive a decided
change since I first stood here, seven years ago.
The main or British fall is receding near the middle, and
thus exchanging its original (or recent) form of a horseshoe
for that of an irregular wedge. By this process the
beauty and grandeur of the cataract are sensibly diminished.
I understand that the recession here, under the pressure of
so vast a body of water, has been so rapid as essentially to
diminish the amount of water flowing on the American
side of Goat Island, even within twenty years. Five
hundred will probably suffice to dry this channel altogether;
five thousand may or may not suffice to bring on
the great convulsion which will destroy the falls entirely,
change Lake Erie into a sandy valley divided by a rapid
river, leave one half the Erie Canal without water, and
change the whole face of Nature from Detroit to the Ocean,
And why from Detroit only? It may be that a barrier of
rock equally firm prevents the immediate occurrence of a
similar convulsion at the mouths of the Huron and Michigan,
and thus the cataract will but be transferred to a point
much nearer the Superior; yet I should deem it quite as
likely that the final submersion of Niagara, if instantaneous,
as it very probably will be, when the rocky barrier
has been sapped and broken down so nearly through as no
longer to afford adequate resistance to the intense pressure of
Lake Erie, will be the signal for a convulsion so mighty as
to change the whole topography of Central North America.
Since I wrote the foregoing, I have slept to the music of
the great cataract, my window looking out on the foaming
and hurrying waters of the American current, just before
it is precipitated over the ledge. It has rained through a
good part of the night, though the roar of the waters
drowned completely the noise of the storm, and the morning
is wet and forbidding, while a heavy fog or cloud
detracts much from the grandeur of the scene. My morning
walk along the American shore has been less satisfactory
than any previous observation, the water suspended
in vapor somewhat shrouding the spectacle, while that
falling or fallen detracts likewise from the comfort of all
but web-footed travellers. No matter—I did not meditate
any precise description of the Fall, and shall not attempt
it. The readers of your Magazine, I presume, are mainly
of the class who have either been here or intend to see for
themselves at a fitting season. And beside, description
avails very little in such a case. It is only by its comparisons
and assimilations of the unknown with the known
that description enlightens—and what has the world to
compare with Niagara?
A few hints to visiters must close this hasty epistle.
They tell you, good friends, that the best view of the Cataract
is that from the Canada side; and so it is; but it is
far from being the only good or even necessary view. The
details are essential to the completeness and fulness of
your impression, and those are only gleaned from hours of
intent observation from all positions. The very best view
is probably that from Table Rock; the next best perhaps
that from under the same, on the point just before passing
behind the grand curtain, when having descended the
winding stairway and scrambled over some rods of shale
between the beetling cliff and the whirling basin, forcing
your way through an eternal tempest of wind and rain such
as upper earth endures but once in many years, you stand
at length directly face to face with the mighty torrent, and
put your hands, if you please, into the edge of its very self.
You look up, and the columnar sea seems pouring from the
very sky overhead; you now learn to appreciate more
justly the vast height of the Fall; as you gaze, the impending
water seems to advance upon, and the next moment
likely to dash over and whelm you.
But these are not alone as points of deepest interest; and
I think some of the many views from Goat Island scarcely
inferior in impressiveness, while superior in softness and
beauty. The noble forest, the velvet turf, the glowing sun-beams,
the unconstrained stillness of all things save the
Great Cataract itself, fitly blend with and modify the first
sensations of unapproachable grandeur and power. The
stern severity, the austere majesty of the scene is softened
down; and we return to our primal knowledge of Nature
under no stepmother aspect, but as a sympathizing confidant
and friend. I must break off.
Yours,
H. G.
John Fitch.—Our readers will be pleased to learn that
Miss Leslie is preparing for the press a Memoir of this remarkable
man, to whom the world is really indebted for
the most important of modern discoveries. While Fitch
was in London Miss Leslie’s father was one of his warmest
friends, and the papers of her family enable her to give
many particulars of his history unknown to other biographers.
A year or two since, we wrote a brief account of
the eccentric and unfortunate inventor, which led to an
interesting correspondence with several eminent persons
who had been acquainted with him. Among the letters
which we received was the following, from the venerable
Noah Webster, LL. D., of New Haven.
Dear Sir:—In your notice of John Fitch you justly remark
that his biography is still a desideratum. The facts
related of him by Mr. St. John to Mr. Stone, and published
in the New York Commercial Advertiser, are new to me;
and never before had I heard of Mr. Fitch at Sharon, in
Connecticut; but I know Mr. St. John very well, and cannot
discredit his testimony any more than I can Mr. Stone’s
memory. The substance of the account given of Mr. Fitch
by the indefatigable J. W. Barber, in his Connecticut Historical
Collections, is as follows: John Fitch was born in
East Windsor, in Connecticut, and apprenticed to Mr.
Cheney, a watch and clock-maker of East Hartford, now
Manchester, a new town separated from East Hartford.
He married, but did not live happily with his wife, and he
left her and went to New Brunswick, in New Jersey,
where he set up the business of clock-making, engraving,
and repairing muskets, before the revolution. When New
Jersey was invaded by the British troops, Mr. Fitch removed
into the interior of Pennsylvania, where he employed
his time in repairing arms for the army.
Mr. Fitch conceived the project of steam navigation in
1785, as appears by his advertisement. He built his boat
in 1787. In my Diary I have noted that I visited the boat,
lying at the wharf in the Delaware, on the ninth day of
February, 1787. The Governor and Council were so much
gratified with the success of the boat that they presented
Mr. Fitch with a superb flag. About that time the company
aiding Mr. Fitch sent him to France, at the request of Mr.
Vail, our Consul at L’Orient, who was one of the company.
But this was when France began to be agitated by the revolution,
and nothing in favor of Mr. Fitch was accomplished;
he therefore returned. Mr. Vail afterwards presented to
Mr. Fulton for examination the papers of Mr. Fitch, containing
his scheme of steam navigation. After Mr. Fitch
returned to this country, he addressed a letter to Mr. Rittenhouse,
in which he predicted that in time the Atlantic
would be crossed by steam power; he complained of his
poverty, and urged Mr. Rittenhouse to buy his land in Kentucky,
for raising funds to complete his scheme. But he
obtained no efficient aid. Disappointed in his efforts to obtain
funds, he resorted to indulgence in drink; he retired to
Pittsburgh, and finally ended his life by plunging into the
Alleghany. His books and papers he bequeathed to the
Philadelphia Library, with the injunction that they were
to remain closed for thirty years. At the end of that period,
the papers were opened, and found to contain a minute
account of his perplexities and disappointments. Thus far
the narration of Mr. Barber, who refers for authority to the
American edition of the Edinburgh Encyclopedia. It may
be worth while for some gentleman to attempt to find these
papers.
N. WEBSTER.
Rufus W. Griswold.
The papers to which Dr. Webster alludes in the above
letter have been examined by Miss Leslie, and the curious
details they contain of Fitch’s early life, his courtship,
unfortunate marriage, captivity among the Indians, experiments,
etc. will be embraced in her work, which will undoubtedly
be one of the most interesting biographies in our
language.
William L. Stone, author of “The Life of Brant,”
“Life and Eloquence of Red Jacket,” “History of Wyoming,”
etc., is now engaged on another important historical
work to be called “The Life and Times of Sir William
Johnson.” It will embrace accounts of the French wars in
America from 1743 to 1849, and from 1754 to 1761, which
resulted in the conquest of Canada. With this interesting
period no writer is more familiar than Mr. Stone, and he
will unquestionably produce a volume of great value.
Segur’s Life of Charles VIII.—Among the new
works soon to appear is the Memoir of Charles VIII., King
of France, by Count Philip De Segur, author of the “History
of Napoleon’s Campaigns in Russia,” etc., translated
by Richard R. Montgomery, of this city. It is one of the most
interesting books ever written. In its style it resembles
the Chronicles of Philip de Comines.
Mr. Stevens, the Traveller.—Mr. Stevens, with Mr.
Catherwood who accompanied him as draughtsman, has
returned a second time from Central America, and is now
busily engaged on a new work in regard to the curious antiquities
of that country. It will be published by the Harpers,
during the autumn.
William Gilmore Simms.—Mr. Simms has become editor
of “The Magnolia,” a monthly literary magazine, recently
established at Charleston. No man in the South is
so well qualified for the office. We give him joyfully the
right hand of fellowship.
Mr. Cooper.—“La Few Follet, or Wing-and-Wing,
a Nautical Tale,” by the author of the “Spy,” will appear
in a few weeks. The scene of the story is the Mediterranean,
in 1799. It will be published simultaneously in Philadelphia
and London.
John Augustus Shea.—This gentleman has in press a
collection of his poetical writings, of which we shall take
due notice on its appearance.
Transcriber’s Notes:
Table of Contents has been added for reader convenience.
Archaic spellings and hyphenation have been retained. Obvious
punctuation and typesetting errors have been corrected
without note.
[End of Graham’s Magazine, Vol. XXI, No. 2, August 1842, George R. Graham, Editor]
