Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 by Various

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Burr remembered once finding in his grandfather's study, among a mass of
old letters, one in which that great man, in early youth, described his
future wife, then known to him only by distant report. With his keen
natural sense of everything fine and poetic, he had been struck with
this passage, as so beautifully expressing an ideal womanhood, that he
had in his earlier days copied it in his private _recueil_.

"They say," it ran, "that there is a young lady who is beloved of that
Great Being who made and rules the world, and that there are certain
seasons in which this Great Being, in some way or other invisible, comes
to her and fills her mind with such exceeding sweet delight, that she
hardly cares for anything except to meditate on him; that she expects,
after a while, to be received up where he is, to be raised up out of the
world and caught up into heaven, being assured that he loves her too
well to let her remain at a distance from him always. Therefore, if you
present all the world before her, with the richest of its treasures, she
disregards it. She has a strange sweetness in her mind, and singular
purity in her affections; and you could not persuade her to do anything
wrong or sinful, if you should give her all the world. She is of a
wonderful sweetness, calmness, and universal benevolence of mind,
especially after this great God has manifested himself to her mind. She
will sometimes go from place to place singing sweetly, and seems to be
always full of joy and pleasure; and no one knows for what. She loves to
be alone, walking in fields and groves, and seems to have some invisible
one always conversing with her."

A shadowy recollection of this description crossed his mind more than
once, as he looked into those calm and candid eyes. Was there, then, a
truth in that inner union of chosen souls with God, of which his mother
and her mother before her had borne meek witness,--their souls shining
out as sacred lamps through the alabaster walls of a temple?

But then, again, had he not logically met and demonstrated, to his own
satisfaction, the nullity of the religious dogmas on which New England
faith was based? There could be no such inner life, he said to
himself,--he had demonstrated it as an absurdity. What was it,
then,--this charm, so subtile and so strong, by which this fair child,
his inferior in age, cultivation, and knowledge of the world, held him
in a certain awe, and made him feel her spirit so unapproachable? His
curiosity was piqued. He felt stimulated to employ all his powers of
pleasing. He was determined, that, sooner or later, she should feel his
power.

With Mrs. Scudder his success was immediate, she was completely won over
by the deferential manner with which he constantly referred himself
to her matronly judgments, and, on returning to the house, she warmly
pressed him to stay to dinner.

Burr accepted the invitation with a frank and almost boyish _abandon_,
declaring that he had not seen anything, for years, that so reminded him
of old times. He praised everything at table,--the smoking brown-bread,
the baked beans steaming from the oven, where they had been quietly
simmering during the morning walk, and the Indian pudding, with its
gelatinous softness, matured by long and patient brooding in the
motherly old oven. He declared that there was no style of living to be
compared with the simple, dignified order of a true New England home,
where servants were excluded, and everything came direct from the
polished and cultured hand of a lady. It realized the dreams of Arcadian
romance. A man, he declared, must be unworthy the name, who did not rise
to lofty sentiments and heroic deeds, when even his animal wants were
provided for by the ministrations of the most delicate and exalted
portion of the creation.

After dinner he would be taken into all the family interests. Gentle and
pliable as oil, he seemed to penetrate every joint of the _menage_ by a
subtile and seductive sympathy. He was interested in the spinning, in
the weaving,--and in fact, nobody knows how it was done, but, before the
afternoon shadows had turned, he was sitting in the cracked arm-chair of
Mary's garret-boudoir, gravely giving judgment on several specimens of
her spinning, which Mrs. Scudder had presented to his notice.

With that ease with which he could at will glide into the character
of the superior and elder brother, he had, without seeming to ask
questions, drawn from Mary an account of her reading, her studies, her
acquaintances.

"You read French, I presume?" he said to her, with easy negligence.

Mary colored deeply, and then, as one who recollects one's self,
answered, gravely,--

"No, Mr. Burr, I know no language but my own."

"But you should learn French, my child," said Burr, with that gentle
dictatorship which he could at times so gracefully assume.

"I should be delighted to learn," said Mary, "but have no opportunity."

"Yes," said Mrs. Scudder,--"Mary has always had a taste for study, and
would be glad to improve in any way."

"Pardon me, Madam, if I take the liberty of making a suggestion. There
is a most excellent man, the Abbe Lefon, now in Newport, driven here
by the political disturbances in France; he is anxious to obtain a few
scholars, and I am interested that he should succeed, for he is a most
worthy man."

"Is he a Roman Catholic?"

"He is, Madam; but there could be no manner of danger with a person so
admirably instructed as your daughter. If you please to see him, Madam,
I will call with him some time."

"Mrs. Marvyn will, perhaps, join me," said Mary. "She has been studying
French by herself for some time, in order to read a treatise on
astronomy, which she found in that language. I will go over to-morrow
and see her about it."

Before Colonel Burr departed, the Doctor requested him to step a moment
with him into his study. Burr, who had had frequent occasions during his
life to experience the sort of paternal freedom which the clergy of his
country took with him in right of his clerical descent, began to summon
together his faculties of address for the avoidance of a kind of
conversation which he was not disposed to meet. He was agreeably
disappointed, however, when, taking a paper from the table, and
presenting it to him, the Doctor said,--

"I feel myself, my dear Sir, under a burden of obligation for benefits
received from your family, so that I never see a member of it without
casting about in my own mind how I may in some measure express
my good-will towards him. You are aware that the papers of your
distinguished grandfather have fallen into my hands, and from them I
have taken the liberty to make a copy of those maxims by which he guided
a life which was a blessing to his country and to the world. May I
ask the favor that you will read them with attention? and if you find
anything contrary to right reason or sober sense, I shall be happy to
hear of it on a future occasion."

"Thank you, Doctor," said Burr, bowing. "I shall always be sensible of
the kindness of the motive which has led you to take this trouble on my
account. Believe me, Sir, I am truly obliged to you for it."

And thus the interview terminated.

That night, the Doctor, before retiring, offered fervent prayers for the
grandson of his revered master and friend, praying that his father's and
mother's God might bless him and make him a living stone in the Eternal
Temple.

Meanwhile, the object of these prayers was sitting by a table in
dressing-gown and slippers, thinking over the events of the day. The
paper which Dr. H. had handed him contained the celebrated "Resolutions"
by which his ancestor led a life nobler than any mere dogmas
can possibly be. By its side lay a perfumed note from Madame de
Frontignac,--one of those womanly notes, so beautiful, so sacred in
themselves, but so mournful to a right-minded person who sees whither
they are tending. Burr opened and perused it,--laid it by,--opened the
document that the Doctor had given, and thoughtfully read the first of
the "Resolutions":--

"Resolved, That I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God's glory,
and my own good profit and pleasure _in the whole of my duration_,
without any consideration of time, whether now or never so many myriad
ages hence.

"Resolved, To do whatever I think to be my duty and most for the good
and advantage of mankind in general.

"Resolved, To do this, whatsoever difficulties I meet with, and how many
and how great soever."

Burr read the whole paper through attentively once or twice, and paused
thoughtfully over many parts of it. He sat for some time after, lost in
reflection; the paper dropped from his hand, and then followed one of
those long, deep seasons of fixed reverie, when the soul thinks by
pictures and goes over endless distances in moments. In him, originally,
every moral fatuity and sensibility was as keenly strung as in any
member of that remarkable family from which he was descended, and which
has, whether in good or ill, borne no common stamp. Two possible lives
flashed before his mind at that moment, rapidly as when a train sweeps
by with flashing lamps in the night. The life of worldly expediency, the
life of eternal rectitude,--the life of seventy years, and that life
eternal in which the event of death is no disturbance. Suddenly he
roused himself, picked up the paper, filed and dated it carefully, and
laid it by; and in that moment was renewed again that governing purpose
which sealed him, with all his beautiful capabilities, as the slave of
the fleeting and the temporary, which sent him at last, a shipwrecked
man, to a nameless, dishonored grave.

He took his pen and gave to a friend his own views of the events of the
day.

"Mr. DEAR,----We are still in Newport, conjugating the verb
_s'ennuyer_, which I, for one, have put through all the moods and
tenses. _Pour passer le temps_, however, I have _la belle Francaise_ and
my sweet little Puritan. I visited there this morning. She lives with
her mother, a little walk out toward the seaside, in a cottage quite
prettily sequestered among blossoming apple-trees, and the great
hierarch of modern theology, Dr. H., keeps guard over them. No chance
here for any indiscretions, you see.

"By-the-by, the good Doctor astonished our _monde_ here on Sunday last,
by treating us to a solemn onslaught on slavery and the slave-trade. He
had all the chief captains and counsellors to hear him, and smote them
hip and thigh, and pursued them even unto Shur.

"He is one of those great, honest fellows, without the smallest notion
of the world we live in, who think, in dealing with men, that you must
go to work and prove the right or the wrong of a matter; just as if
anybody cared for that! Supposing he is right,--which appears very
probable to me,--what is he going to do about it? No moral argument,
since the world began, ever prevailed over twenty-five per cent. profit.

"However, he is the spiritual director of _la belle Puritaine_, and was
a resident in my grandfather's family, so I did the agreeable with
him as well as such an uncircumcised Ishmaelite could. I discoursed
theology,--sat with the most docile air possible while he explained to
me all the ins and outs in his system of the universe, past, present,
and future,--heard him dilate calmly on the Millennium, and expound
prophetic symbols, marching out before me his whole apocalyptic
menagerie of beasts and dragons with heads and horns innumerable, to all
which I gave edifying attention, taking occasion now and then to turn a
compliment in favor of the ladies,--never lost, you know.

"Really, he is a worthy old soul, and actually believes all these things
with his whole heart, attaching unheard-of importance to the most
abstract ideas, and embarking his whole being in his ideal view of
a grand Millennial _finale_ to the human race. I look at him and at
myself, and ask, Can human beings be made so unlike?

"My little Mary to-day was in a mood of 'sweet austere composure' quite
becoming to her style of beauty; her _naive nonchalance_ at times
is rather stimulating. What a contrast between her and _la belle
Francaise!_--all the difference that there is between a diamond and
a flower. I find the little thing has a cultivated mind, enriched by
reading, and more by a still, quaint habit of thinking, which is new and
charming. But a truce to this.

"I have seen our friends at last. We have had three or four meetings,
and are waiting to hear from Philadelphia,--matters are getting in
train. If Messrs. T. and S. dare to repeat what they said again, let me
know; they will find in me a man not to be trifled with. I shall be with
you in a week or ten days, at farthest. Meanwhile stand to your guns.

"Ever yours,

"BURR."

CHAPTER XVII.

The next morning, before the early dews had yet dried off the grass,
Mary started to go and see her friend Mrs. Marvyn. It was one of those
charming, invigorating days, familiar to those of Newport experience,
when the sea lies shimmering and glittering in deep blue and gold,
and the sky above is firm and cloudless, and every breeze that comes
landward seems to bear health and energy upon its wings.

As Mary approached the house, she heard loud sounds of discussion from
the open kitchen-door, and, looking in, saw a rather original scene
acting.

Candace, armed with a long oven-shovel, stood before the open door of
the oven, whence she had just been removing an army of good things which
appeared ranged around on the dresser. Cato, in the undress of a red
flannel shirt and tow-cloth trousers, was cuddled, in a consoled and
protected attitude, in the corner of the wooden settle, with a mug of
flip in his hand, which Candace had prepared, and, calling him in from
his work, authoritatively ordered him to drink, on the showing that he
had kept her awake the night before with his cough, and she was sure he
was going to be sick. Of course, worse things may happen to a man than
to be vigorously taken care of by his wife, and Cato had a salutary
conviction of this fact, so that he resigned himself to his comfortable
corner and his flip with edifying serenity.

Opposite to Candace stood a well-built, corpulent negro man, dressed
with considerable care, and with the air of a person on excellent
terms with himself. This was no other than Digo, the house-servant and
factotum of Dr. Stiles, who considered himself as the guardian of his
master's estate, his title, his honor, his literary character, his
professional position, and his religious creed.

Digo was ready to assert before all the world, that one and all of these
were under his special protection, and that whoever had anything to say
to the contrary of any of these must expect to take issue with him. Digo
not only swallowed all his master's opinions whole, but seemed to have
the stomach of an ostrich in their digestion. He believed everything,
no matter what, the moment he understood that the Doctor held it. He
believed that Hebrew was the language of heaven,--that the ten tribes of
the Jews had reappeared in the North American Indians,--that there was
no such thing as disinterested benevolence, and that the doings of the
unregenerate had some value,--that slavery was a divine ordinance, and
that Dr. H. was a radical, who did more harm than good,--and, finally,
that there never was so great a man as Dr. Stiles; and as Dr. Stiles
belonged to him in the capacity of master, why, he, Digo, owned the
greatest man in America. Of course, as Candace held precisely similar
opinions in regard to Dr. H., the two never could meet without a
discharge of the opposite electricities. Digo had, it is true, come
ostensibly on a mere worldly errand from his mistress to Mrs. Marvyn,
who had promised to send her some turkeys' eggs, but he had inly
resolved with himself that he would give Candace his opinion,--that is,
what Dr. Stiles had said at dinner the day before about Doctor H.'s
Sunday's discourse. Dr. Stiles had not heard it, but Digo had. He had
felt it due to the responsibilities of his position to be present on so
very important an occasion.

Therefore, after receiving his eggs, he opened hostilities by remarking,
in a general way, that he had attended the Doctor's preaching on Sunday,
and that there was quite a crowded house. Candace immediately began
mentally to bristle her feathers like a hen who sees a hawk in the
distance, and responded with decision:--

"Den you _heard_ sometin', for once in your life!"

"I must say," said Digo, with suavity, "dat I can't give my 'proval to
such sentiments."

"More shame for you," said Candace, grimly. "_You_ a man, and not stan'
by your color, and flunk under to mean white ways! Ef you was _half_ a
man, your heart would 'a' bounded like a cannon-ball at dat ar' sermon."

"Dr. Stiles and me we talked it over after church," said Digo,--"and de
Doctor was of my 'pinion, dat Providence didn't intend"----

"Oh, you go long wid your Providence! Guess, ef white folks had let us
alone, Providence wouldn't trouble us."

"Well," said Digo, "Dr. Stiles is clear dat dis yer's a-fulfillin' de
prophecies and bringin' in de fulness of de Gentiles."

"Fulness of de fiddlesticks!" said Candace, irreverently. "Now what a
way dat ar' is of talkin'! Go look at one o' dem ships we come
over in,--sweatin' and groanin',--in de dark and dirt,--cryin' and
dyin',--howlin' for breath till de sweat run off us,--livin' and dead
chained together,--prayin' like de rich man in hell for a drop o' water
to cool our tongues! Call dat ar' a-bringin' de fulness of de Gentiles,
do ye? Ugh!"

And Candace ended with a guttural howl, and stood frowning and gloomy
over the top of her long kitchen-shovel, like a black Bellona leaning on
her spear of battle.

Digo recoiled a little, but stood too well in his own esteem to give up;
so he shifted his attack.

"Well, for my part, I must say I never was 'clined to your Doctor's
'pinions. Why, now, Dr. Stiles says, notin' couldn't be more absurd dan
what he says 'bout disinterested benevolence. _My_ Doctor says, dere
a'n't no such ting!"

"I should tink it's likely!" said Candace, drawing herself up with
superb disdain. "_Our_ Doctor knows dere _is_,--and why? 'cause he's got
it IN HERE," said she, giving her ample chest a knock which resounded
like the boom from a barrel.

"Candace," said Cato, gently, "you's gittin' too hot."

"Cato, you shut up!" said Candace, turning sharp round. "What did I make
you dat ar' flip for, 'cept you was so hoarse you oughtn' for to say a
word? Pootty business, you go to agitatin' _your_self wid dese yer! Ef
you wear out your poor old throat talkin', you may get de 'sumption; and
den what'd become o' me?"

Cato, thus lovingly pitched _hors-de-combat_, sipped the sweetened cup
in quietness of soul, while Candace returned to the charge.

"Now, I tell ye what," she said to Digo,--"jest 'cause you wear your
master's old coats and hats, you tink you must go in for all dese yer
old, mean, white 'pinions. A'n't ye 'shamed--you, a black man--to have
no more pluck and make cause wid de Egyptians? Now, 'ta'n't what my
Doctor gives me,--he never giv' me the snip of a finger-nail,--but it's
what he does for _mine;_ and when de poor critturs lands dar, tumbled
out like bales on de wharves, ha'n't dey seen his great cocked hat, like
a lighthouse, and his big eyes lookin' sort o' pitiful at 'em, as ef
he felt o' one blood wid 'em? Why, de very looks of de man is worth
everyting; and who ever thought o' doin' anyting for deir souls, or
cared ef dey had souls, till he begun it?"

"Well, at any rate," said Digo, brightening up, "I don't believe his
doctrine about de doings of de unregenerate,--it's quite clear he's
wrong dar."

"Who cares?" said Candace,--"generate or unregenerate, it's all one
to me. I believe a man dat _acts_ as he does. Him as stands up for de
poor,--him as pleads for de weak,--he's my man. I'll believe straight
through anyting he's a mind to put at me."

At this juncture, Mary's fair face appearing at the door put a stop to
the discussion.

"Bress _you_, Miss Mary! comin' here like a fresh June rose! it makes
a body's eyes dance in deir head! Come right in! I got Cato up from de
lot, 'cause he's rader poorly dis mornin'; his cough makes me a sight o'
concern; he's allers a-pullin' off his jacket de wrong time, or doin'
sometin' I tell him not to,--and it just keeps him hack, hack, hackin',
all de time."

During this speech, Cato stood meekly bowing, feeling that he was
being apologized for in the best possible manner; for long years of
instruction had fixed the idea in his mind, that he was an ignorant
sinner, who had not the smallest notion how to conduct himself in this
world, and that, if it were not for his wife's distinguishing grace, he
would long since have been in the shades of oblivion.

"Missis is spinnin' up in de north chamber," said Candace; "but I'll run
up and fetch her down."

Candace, who was about the size of a puncheon, was fond of this familiar
manner of representing her mode of ascending the stairs; but Mary,
suppressing a smile, said, "Oh, no, Candace! don't for the world disturb
her. I know just where she is." And before Candace could stop her,
Mary's light foot was on the top step of the staircase that led up from
the kitchen.

The north room was a large chamber, overlooking a splendid reach of
sea-prospect. A moving panorama of blue water and gliding sails was
unrolled before its three windows, so that stepping into the room gave
one an instant and breezy sense of expansion. Mrs. Marvyn was standing
at the large wheel, spinning wool,--a reel and basket of spools on her
side. Her large brown eyes had an eager joy in them when Mary entered;
but they seemed to calm down again, and she received her only with that
placid, sincere air which was her habit. Everything about this woman
showed an ardent soul, repressed by timidity and by a certain dumbness
in the faculties of outward expression; but her eyes had, at times,
that earnest, appealing language which is so pathetic in the silence of
inferior animals.--One sometimes sees such eyes, and wonders whether
the story they intimate will ever be spoken in mortal language.

Mary began eagerly detailing to her all that had interested her since
they last met:--the party,--her acquaintance with Burr,--his visit to
the cottage,--his inquiries into her education and reading,--and,
finally, the proposal, that they should study French together.

"My dear," said Mrs. Marvyn, "let us begin at once;--such an opportunity
is not to be lost. I studied a little with James, when he was last at
home."

"With James?" said Mary, with an air of timid surprise.

"Yes,--the dear boy has become, what I never expected, quite a student.
He employs all his spare time now in reading and studying;--the second
mate is a Frenchman, and James has got so that he can both speak and
read. He is studying Spanish, too."

Ever since the last conversation with her mother on the subject of
James, Mary had felt a sort of guilty constraint when any one spoke
of him;--instead of answering frankly, as she once did, when anything
brought his name up, she fell at once into a grave, embarrassed silence.

Mrs. Marvyn was so constantly thinking of him, that it was difficult to
begin on any topic that did not in some manner or other knit itself into
the one ever present in her thoughts. None of the peculiar developments
of the female nature have a more exquisite vitality than the sentiment
of a frail, delicate, repressed, timid woman for a strong, manly,
generous son. There is her ideal expressed; there is the out-speaking
and out-acting of all she trembles to think, yet burns to say or do;
here is the hero that shall speak for her, the heart into which she has
poured hers, and that shall give to her tremulous and hidden aspirations
a strong and victorious expression. "I have gotten a _man_ from the
Lord," she says to herself; and each outburst of his manliness, his
vigor, his self-confidence, his superb vitality, fills her with a
strange, wondering pleasure, and she has a secret tenderness and pride
even in his wilfulness and waywardness. "What a creature he is!" she
says, when he flouts at sober argument and pitches all received opinions
hither and thither in the wild capriciousness of youthful paradox. She
looks grave and reproving; but he reads the concealed triumph in her
eyes,--he knows that in her heart she is full of admiration all
the time. First love of womanhood is something wonderful and
mysterious,--but in this second love it rises again, idealized and
refined; she loves the father and herself united and made one in this
young heir of life and hope.

Such was Mrs. Marvyn's still intense, passionate love for her son. Not
a tone of his manly voice, not a flash of his dark eyes, not one of the
deep, shadowy dimples that came and went as he laughed, not a ring of
his glossy black hair, that was not studied, got by heart, and dwelt on
in the inner shrine of her thoughts; he was the romance of her life. His
strong, daring nature carried her with it beyond those narrow, daily
bounds where her soul was weary of treading; and just as his voyages had
given to the trite prose of her _menage_ a poetry of strange, foreign
perfumes, of quaint objects of interest, speaking of many a far-off
shore, so his mind and life were a constant channel of outreach through
which her soul held converse with the active and stirring world. Mrs.
Marvyn had known all the story of her son's love, and to no other woman
would she have been willing to resign him; but her love to Mary was so
deep, that she thought of his union with her more as gaining a daughter
than as losing a son. She would not speak of the subject; she knew the
feelings of Mary's mother; and the name of James fell so often from her
lips, simply because it was so ever-present in her heart that it could
not be helped.

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