Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 by Various
V >>
Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 | 17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21
"Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And departing leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time."
What the readers of Shakespeare, who are worthy to know aught of him,
long to know, would have been the same, had he been bred lawyer,
physician, soldier, or sailor. It is of his real life, not of its mere
accidents, that they crave a knowledge; and of that life, it is to be
feared, they will remain forever ignorant, unless he himself has written
it.
THE MINISTER'S WOOING.
[Continued.]
CHAPTER XVI.
We suppose the heroine of a novel, among other privileges and
immunities, has a prescriptive right to her own private boudoir, where,
as a French writer has it, "she appears like a lovely picture in its
frame."
Well, our little Mary is not without this luxury, and to its sacred
precincts we will give you this morning a ticket of admission. Know,
then, that the garret of this gambrel-roofed cottage had a projecting
window on the seaward side, which opened into an immensely large old
apple-tree, and was a look-out as leafy and secluded as a robin's nest.
Garrets are delicious places in any case, for people of thoughtful,
imaginative temperament. Who has not loved a garret in the twilight days
of childhood, with its endless stores of quaint, cast-off, suggestive
antiquity,--old worm-eaten chests,--rickety chairs,--boxes and casks
full of odd comminglings, out of which, with tiny, childish hands,
we fished wonderful hoards of fairy treasure? What peep-holes, and
hiding-places, and undiscoverable retreats we made to ourselves,--where
we sat rejoicing in our security, and bidding defiance to the vague,
distant cry which summoned us to school, or to some unsavory every-day
task! How deliciously the rain came pattering on the roof over our head,
or the red twilight streamed in at the window, while we sat snugly
ensconced over the delirious pages of some romance, which careful aunts
had packed away at the bottom of all things, to be sure we should never
read it! If you have anything, beloved friends, which you wish your
Charley or your Susie to be sure and read, pack it mysteriously away at
the bottom of a trunk of stimulating rubbish, in the darkest corner of
your garret;--in that case, if the book be at all readable, one that by
any possible chance can make its way into a young mind, you may be sure
that it will not only be read, but remembered to the longest day they
have to live.
Mrs. Katy Scudder's garret was not an exception to the general rule.
Those quaint little people who touch with so airy a grace all the lights
and shadows of great beams, bare rafters, and unplastered walls, had not
failed in their work there. Was there not there a grand easy-chair of
stamped-leather, minus two of its hinder legs, which had genealogical
associations through the Wilcoxes with the Vernons and through the
Vernons quite across the water with Old England? and was there not a
dusky picture, in an old tarnished frame, of a woman of whose tragic end
strange stories were whispered,--one of the sufferers in the time when
witches were unceremoniously helped out of the world, instead of being,
as now-a-days, helped to make their fortune in it by table-turning?
Yes, there were all these things, and many more which we will not stay
to recount, but bring you to the boudoir which Mary has constructed for
herself around the dormer-window which looks into the whispering old
apple-tree.
The inclosure was formed by blankets and bed-spreads, which, by reason
of their antiquity, had been pensioned off to an undisturbed old age in
the garret,--not _common_ blankets or bed-spreads, either,--bought,
as you buy yours, out of a shop,--spun or woven by machinery, without
individuality or history. Every one of these curtains had its story. The
one on the right, nearest the window, and already falling into holes,
is a Chinese linen, and even now displays unfaded, quaint patterns of
sleepy-looking Chinamen, in conical hats, standing on the leaves of most
singular herbage, and with hands forever raised in act to strike bells,
which never are struck and never will be till the end of time. These,
Mrs. Katy Scudder had often instructed Mary, were brought from the
Indies by her great-great-grandfather, and were her grandmother's
wedding-curtains,--the grandmother who had blue eyes like hers and was
just about her height.
The next spread was spun and woven by Mrs. Katy's beloved Aunt
Eunice,--a mythical personage, of whom Mary gathered vague accounts that
she was disappointed in love, and that this very article was part of a
bridal outfit, prepared in vain, against the return of one from sea, who
never came back,--and she heard of how she sat wearily and patiently at
her work, this poor Aunt Eunice, month after month, starting every time
she heard the gate shut, every time she heard the tramp of a horse's
hoof, every time she heard the news of a sail in sight,--her color,
meanwhile, fading and fading as life and hope bled away at an inward
wound,--till at last she found comfort and reunion beyond the veil.
Next to this was a bed-quilt pieced in tiny blocks, none of them bigger
than a sixpence, containing, as Mrs. Katy said, pieces of the gowns of
all her grandmothers, aunts, cousins, and female relatives for years
back,--and mated to it was one of the blankets which had served Mrs.
Scudder's uncle in his bivouac at Valley Forge, when the American
soldiers went on the snows with bleeding feet, and had scarce anything
for daily bread except a morning message of patriotism and hope from
George Washington.
Such were the memories woven into the tapestry of our little boudoir.
Within, fronting the window, stands the large spinning-wheel, one end
adorned with a snowy pile of fleecy rolls,--and beside it, a reel and a
basket of skeins of yarn,--and open, with its face down on the beam of
the wheel, lay always a book, with which the intervals of work were
beguiled.
The dusky picture of which we have spoken hung against the rough wall in
one place, and in another appeared an old engraved head of one of the
Madonnas of Leonardo da Vinci, a picture which to Mary had a mysterious
interest, from the fact of its having been cast on shore after a furious
storm, and found like a waif lying in the sea-weed; and Mrs. Marvyn, who
had deciphered the signature, had not ceased exploring till she found
for her, in an Encyclopaedia, a life of that wonderful man, whose
greatness enlarges our ideas of what is possible to humanity,--and
Mary, pondering thereon, felt the Sea-worn picture as a constant vague
inspiration.
Here our heroine spun for hours and hours,--with intervals, when,
crouched on a low seat in the window, she pored over her book, and then,
returning again to her work, thought of what she had read to the lulling
burr of the sounding wheel.
By chance a robin had built its nest so that from her retreat she could
see the five little blue eggs, whenever the patient brooding mother
left them for a moment uncovered. And sometimes, as she sat in dreamy
reverie, resting her small, round arms on the window-sill, she fancied
that the little feathered watcher gave her familiar nods and winks of a
confidential nature,--cocking the small head first to one side and then
to the other, to get a better view of her gentle human neighbor.
I dare say it seems to you, reader, that we have travelled, in our
story, over a long space of time, because we have talked so much and
introduced so many personages and reflections; but, in fact, it is only
Wednesday week since James sailed, and the eggs which were brooded when
he went are still unhatched in the nest, and the apple-tree has changed
only in having now a majority of white blossoms over the pink buds.
This one week has been a critical one to our Mary;--in it, she has made
the great discovery, that she loves; and she has made her first step
into the gay world; and now she comes back to her retirement to think
the whole over by herself. It seems a dream to her, that she who sits
there now reeling yarn in her stuff petticoat and white short-gown is
the same who took the arm of Colonel Burr amid the blaze of wax-lights
and the sweep of silks and rustle of plumes. She wonders dreamily as
she remembers the dark, lovely face of the foreign Madame, so brilliant
under its powdered hair and flashing gems,--the sweet, foreign accents
of the voice,--the tiny, jewelled fan, with its glancing pictures and
sparkling tassels, whence exhaled vague and floating perfumes; then she
hears again that manly voice, softened to tones so seductive, and sees
those fine eyes with the tears in them, and wonders within herself that
_he_ could have kissed her hand with such veneration, as if she had been
a throned queen.
But here the sound of busy, pattering footsteps is heard on the old,
creaking staircase, and soon the bows of Miss Prissy's bonnet part the
folds of the boudoir drapery, and her merry, May-day face looks in.
"Well, really, Mary, how do you do, to be sure? You wonder to see me,
don't you? but I thought I must just run in, a minute, on my way up to
Miss Marvyn's. I promised her at least a half-a-day, though I didn't see
how I was to spare it,--for I tell Miss Wilcox I just run and run till
it does seem as if my feet would drop off; but I thought I must just
step in to say, that I, for my part, _do admire_ the Doctor more than
ever, and I was telling your mother we mus'n't mind too much what people
say. I 'most made Miss Wilcox angry, standing up for him; but I put it
right to her, and says I, 'Miss Wilcox, you know folks _must_ speak
what's on their mind,--in particular, ministers must; and you know, Miss
Wilcox,' I says, 'that the Doctor _is_ a good man, and lives up to his
teaching, if anybody in this world does, and gives away every dollar he
can lay hands on to those poor negroes, and works over 'em and teaches
'em as if they were his brothers'; and says I, 'Miss Wilcox, you know I
don't spare myself, night nor day, trying to please you and do your work
to give satisfaction; but when it comes to my conscience,' says I, 'Miss
Wilcox, you know I always must speak out, and if it was the last word I
had to say on my dying bed, I'd say that I think the Doctor is right.'
Why! what things he told about the slave-ships, and packing those poor
creatures so that they couldn't move nor breathe!--why, I declare, every
time I turned over and stretched in bed, I thought of it;--and says I,
'Miss Wilcox, I do believe that the judgments of God will come down on
us, if something a'n't done, and I shall always stand by the Doctor,'
says I;--and, if you'll believe me, just then I turned round and saw
the General; and the General, he just haw-hawed right out, and says he,
'Good for you, Miss Prissy! that's real grit,' says he, 'and I like you
better for it.'--Laws," added Miss Prissy, reflectively, "I sha'n't lose
by it, for Miss Wilcox knows she never can get anybody to do the work
for her that I will."
"Do you think," said Mary, "that there are a great many made angry?"
"Why, bless your heart, child, haven't you heard?--Why, there never was
such a talk in all Newport. Why, you know Mr. Simeon Brown is gone clear
off to Dr. Stiles; and Miss Brown, I was making up her plum-colored
satin o' Monday, and you ought to 'a' heard her talk. But, I tell you, I
fought her. She used to talk to me," said Miss Prissy, sinking her voice
to a mysterious whisper, "'cause I never could come to it to say that I
was willin' to be lost, if it was for the glory of God; and she always
told me folks could just bring their minds right up to anything they
knew they must; and I just got the tables turned on her, for they talked
and abused the Doctor till they fairly wore me out, and says I, 'Well,
Miss Brown, I'll give in, that you and Mr. Brown _do_ act up to
your principles; you certainly _act_ as if you were willing to be
damned';--and so do all those folks who will live on the blood and
groans of the poor Africans, as the Doctor said; and I should think, by
the way Newport people are making their money, that they were all pretty
willing to go that way,--though, whether it's for the glory of God, or
not, I'm doubting.--But you see, Mary," said Miss Prissy, sinking her
voice again to a solemn whisper, "I never was _clear_ on that point; it
always did seem to me a dreadful high place to come to, and it didn't
seem to be given to me; but I thought, perhaps, if it _was_ necessary,
it would be given, you know,--for the Lord always has been so good to
me that I've faith to believe that, and so I just say, 'The Lord is my
shepherd, I shall not want'";--and Miss Prissy hastily whisked a little
drop out of her blue eye with her handkerchief.
At this moment, Mrs. Scudder came into the boudoir with a face
expressive of some anxiety.
"I suppose Miss Prissy has told you," she said, "the news about the
Browns. That'll make a great falling off in the Doctor's salary; and I
feel for him, because I know it will come hard to him not to be able to
help and do, especially for these poor negroes, just when he will. But
then we must put everything on the most economical scale we can, and
just try, all of us, to make it up to him. I was speaking to Cousin
Zebedee about it, when he was down here, on Monday, and he is all
clear;--he has made out free papers for Candace and Cato and Dinah, and
they couldn't, one of 'em, be hired to leave him; and he says, from what
he's seen already, he has no doubt but they'll do enough more to pay for
their wages."
"Well," said Miss Prissy, "I haven't got anybody to care for but myself.
I was telling sister Elizabeth, one time, (she's married and got four
children,) that I could take a storm a good deal easier than she could,
'cause I hadn't near so many sails to pull down; and now, you just look
to me for the Doctor's shirts, 'cause, after this, they shall all come
in ready to put on, if I have to sit up till morning. And I hope, Miss
Scudder, you can trust me to make them; for if I do say it myself,
I a'n't afraid to do fine stitching 'longside of anybody,--and
hemstitching ruffles, too; and I haven't shown you yet that French
stitch I learned of the nuns;--but you just set your heart at rest about
the Doctor's shirts. I always thought," continued Miss Prissy, laughing,
"that I should have made a famous hand about getting up that tabernacle
in the wilderness, with the blue and the purple and fine-twined linen;
it's one of my favorite passages, that is;--different things, you know,
are useful to different people."
"Well," said Mrs. Scudder, "I see that it's our call to be a remnant
small and despised, but I hope we sha'n't shrink from it. I thought,
when I saw all those fashionable people go out Sunday, tossing their
heads and looking so scornful, that I hoped grace would be given me to
be faithful."
"And what does the Doctor say?" said Miss Prissy.
"He hasn't said a word; his mind seems to be very much lifted above all
these things."
"La, yes," said Miss Prissy, "that's one comfort; he'll never know where
his shirts come from; and besides that, Miss Scudder," she said, sinking
her voice to a whisper, "as you know, I haven't any children to provide
for,--though I was telling Elizabeth t'other day, when I was making up
frocks for her children, that I believed old maids, first and last, did
more providing for children than married women; but still I do contrive
to slip away a pound-note, now and then, in my little old silver teapot
that was given to me when they settled old Mrs. Simpson's property, (I
nursed her all through her last sickness, and laid her out with my own
hands,) and, as I was saying, if ever the Doctor should want money, you
just let me know."
"Thank you, Miss Prissy," said Mrs. Scudder; "we all know where your
heart is."
"And now," added Miss Prissy, "what do you suppose they say? Why, they
say Colonel Burr is struck dead in love with our Mary; and you know his
wife's dead, and he's a widower; and they do say that he'll get to be
the next President. Sakes alive! Well, Mary must be careful, if she
don't want to be carried off; for they do say that there can't any woman
resist him, that sees enough of him. Why, there's that poor French
woman, Madame----what do you call her, that's staying with the
Vernons?--they say she's over head and ears in love with him."
"But she's a married woman," said Mary; "it can't be possible!"
Mrs. Scudder looked reprovingly at Miss Prissy, and for a few moments
there was great shaking of heads and a whispered conference between
the two ladies, ending in Miss Prissy's going off, saying, as she went
down-stairs,--
"Well, if women will do so, I, for my part, can't blame the men."
In a few moments Miss Prissy rushed back as much discomposed as a
clucking hen who has seen a hawk.
"Well, Miss Scudder, what do you think? Here's Colonel Burr come to call
on the ladies!"
Mrs. Scudder's first movement, in common with all middle-aged
gentlewomen, was to put her hand to her head and reflect that she had
not on her best cap; and Mary looked down at her dimpled hands, which
were blue from the contact with mixed yarn she had just been spinning.
"Now I'll tell you what," said Miss Prissy,--"wasn't it lucky you had me
here? for I first saw him coming in at the gate, and I whipped in quick
as a wink and opened the best-room window-shutters, and then I was back
at the door, and he bowed to me as if I'd been a queen, and says he,
'Miss Prissy, how fresh you're looking this morning!' You see, I was in
working at the Vernons', but I never thought as he'd noticed me. And
then he inquired in the handsomest way for the ladies and the Doctor,
and so I took him into the parlor and settled him down, and then I ran
into the study, and you may depend upon it I flew round lively for a few
minutes. I got the Doctor's study-gown off, and got his best coat on,
and put on his wig for him, and started him up kinder lively,--you know
it takes me to get him down into this world,--and so there he's
in talking with him; and so you can just slip down and dress
yourselves,--easy as not."
Meanwhile Colonel Burr was entertaining the simple-minded Doctor with
all the grace of a young neophyte come to sit at the feet of superior
truth. There are some people who receive from Nature as a gift a sort of
graceful facility of sympathy, by which they incline to take on, for
the time being, the sentiments and opinions of those with whom they
converse, as the chameleon was fabled to change its hue with every
surrounding. Such are often supposed to be wilfully acting a part, as
exerting themselves to flatter and deceive, when in fact they are only
framed so sensitive to the sphere of mental emanation which surrounds
others that it would require an exertion not in some measure to
harmonize with it. In approaching others in conversation, they are like
a musician who joins a performer on an instrument,--it is impossible for
them to strike a discord; their very nature urges them to bring into
play faculties according in vibration with those which another is
exerting. It was as natural as possible for Burr to commence talking
with the Doctor on scenes and incidents in the family of President
Edwards, and his old tutor, Dr. Bellamy,--and thence to glide on to
the points of difference and agreement in theology, with a suavity and
deference which acted on the good man like a June sun on a budding
elm-tree. The Doctor was soon wide awake, talking with fervent animation
on the topic of disinterested benevolence,--Burr the mean while studying
him with the quiet interest of an observer of natural history, who sees
a new species developing before him. At all the best possible points he
interposed suggestive questions, and set up objections in the quietest
manner for the Doctor to knock down, smiling ever the while as a man may
who truly and genuinely does not care a sou for truth on any subject not
practically connected with his own schemes in life. He therefore gently
guided the Doctor to sail down the stream of his own thoughts till his
bark glided out into the smooth waters of the Millennium, on which, with
great simplicity, he gave his views at length.
It was just in the midst of this that Mary and her mother entered.
Burr interrupted the conversation to pay them the compliments of the
morning,--to inquire for their health, and hope they suffered no
inconvenience from their night-ride from the party; then, seeing the
Doctor still looking eager to go on, he contrived with gentle dexterity
to tie again the broken thread of conversation.
"Our excellent friend," he said, "was explaining to me his views of
a future Millennium. I assure you, ladies, that we sometimes find
ourselves in company which enables us to believe in the perfectibility
of the human species. We see family retreats, so unaffected, so charming
in their simplicity, where industry and piety so go hand in hand! One
has only to suppose all families such, to imagine a Millennium."
There was no disclaiming this compliment, because so delicately worded,
that, while perfectly clear to the internal sense, it was, in a manner,
veiled and unspoken.
Meanwhile, the Doctor, who sat ready to begin where he left off, turned
to his complaisant listener and resumed an exposition of the Apocalypse.
"To my mind, it is certain," he said, "as it is now three hundred years
since the fifth vial was poured out, there is good reason to suppose
that the sixth vial began to be poured out at the beginning of the last
century, and has been running for a hundred years or more, so that it is
run nearly out; the seventh and last vial will begin to run early in the
next century."
"You anticipate, then, no rest for the world for some time to come?"
said Burr.
"Certainly not," said the Doctor, definitively; "there will be no rest
from overturnings till He whose right it is shall come.
"The passage," he added, "concerning the drying up of the river
Euphrates, under the sixth vial, has a distinct reference, I think, to
the account in ancient writers of the taking of Babylon, and prefigures,
in like manner, that the resources of that modern Babylon, the Popish
power, shall continue to be drained off, as they have now been drying up
for a century or more, till, at last, there will come a sudden and final
downfall of that power. And after that will come the first triumphs of
truth and righteousness,--the marriage-supper of the Lamb."
"These investigations must undoubtedly possess a deep interest for you,
Sir," said Burr; "the hope of a future as well as the tradition of
a past age of gold seems to have been one of the most cherished
conceptions of the human breast."
"In those times," continued the Doctor, "the whole earth will be of one
language."
"Which language, Sir, do you suppose will be considered worthy of such
preeminence?" inquired his listener.
"That will probably be decided by an amicable conference of all
nations," said the Doctor; "and the one universally considered most
valuable will be adopted; and the literature of all other nations being
translated into it, they will gradually drop all other tongues. Brother
Stiles thinks it will be the Hebrew. I am not clear on that point. The
Hebrew seems to me too inflexible, and not sufficiently copious. I do
not think," he added, after some consideration, "that it will be the
Hebrew tongue."
"I am most happy to hear it, Sir," said Burr, gravely; "I never felt
much attracted to that language. But, ladies," he added, starting up
with animation, "I must improve this fine weather to ask you to show
me the view of the sea from this little hill beyond your house, it is
evidently so fine;--I trust I am not intruding too far on your morning?"
"By no means, Sir," said Mrs. Scudder, rising; "we will go with you in a
moment."
And soon Colonel Burr, with one on either arm, was to be seen on the top
of the hill beyond the house,--the very one from which Mary, the week
before, had seen the retreating sail we all wot of. Hence, though
her companion contrived, with the adroitness of a practised man of
gallantry, to direct his words and looks as constantly to her as if
they had been in a _tete-a-tete_, and although nothing could be more
graceful, more delicately flattering, more engaging, still the little
heart kept equal poise; for where a true love has once bolted the door,
a false one serenades in vain under the window.
Some fine, instinctive perceptions of the real character of the man
beside her seemed to have dawned on Mary's mind in the conversation of
the morning;--she had felt the covert and subtile irony that lurked
beneath his polished smile, felt the utter want of faith or sympathy in
what she and her revered friend deemed holiest, and therefore there was
a calm dignity in her manner of receiving his attentions which rather
piqued and stimulated his curiosity. He had been wont to boast that he
could subdue any woman, if he could only see enough of her; in the first
interview in the garden, he had made her color come and go and brought
tears to her eyes in a manner that interested his fancy, and he could
not resist the impulse to experiment again. It was a new sensation
to him, to find himself quietly studied and calmly measured by those
thoughtful blue eyes; he felt, with his fine, instinctive tact, that
the soul within was infolded in some crystalline sphere of protection,
transparent, but adamantine, so that he could not touch it. What was
that secret poise, that calm, immutable centre on which she rested, that
made her, in her rustic simplicity, so unapproachable and so strong?
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 | 17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21