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expand2003 (1)
1Author:  Curtis George William 1824-1892Add
 Title:  Trumps  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: Forty years ago Mr. Savory Gray was a prosperous merchant. No gentleman on 'Change wore more spotless linen or blacker broadcloth. His ample white cravat had an air of absolute wisdom and honesty. It was so very white that his fellow-merchants could not avoid a vague impression that he had taken the church on his way down town, and had so purified himself for business. Indeed a white cravat is strongly to be recommended as a corrective and sedative of the public mind. Its advantages have long been familiar to the clergy; and even, in some desperate cases, politicians have found a resort to it of signal benefit. There are instructive instances, also, in banks and insurance offices of the comfort and value of spotless linen. Combined with highly-polished shoes, it is of inestimable mercantile advantage. “My dear Abel,—You have now nearly reached the age at which, by your grandfather's direction, you were to leave school and enter upon active life. Your grandfather, who had known and respected Mr. Gray in former years, left you, as you know, a sum sufficient for your education, upon condition of your being placed at Mr. Gray's until your nineteenth birthday. That time is approaching. Upon your nineteenth birthday you will leave school. Mr. Gray gives me the best accounts of you. My plans for you are not quite settled. What are your own wishes? It is late for you to think of college; and as you will undoubtedly be a business man, I see no need of your learning Greek or writing Latin poetry. At your age I was earning my own living. Your mother and the family are well. Your affectionate father, “Dear Abel,—I am very glad to hear from Mr. Gray of your fine progress in study, and your general good character and deportment. I trust you give some of your leisure to solid reading. It is very necessary to improve the mind. I hope you attend to religion. It will help you if you keep a record of Dr. Peewee's texts, and write abstracts of his sermons. Grammar, too, and general manners. I hear that you are very self-possessed, which is really good news. My friend Mrs. Beacon was here last week, and she says you bow beautifully! That is a great deal for her to admit, for her son Bowdoin is one of the most elegant and presentable young men I have ever seen. He is very gentlemanly indeed. He and Alfred Dinks have been here for some time. My dear son, could you not learn to waltz before you come home? It is considered very bad by some people, because you have to put your arm round the lady's waist. But I think it is very foolish for any body to set themselves up against the customs of society. I think if it is permitted in Paris and London, we needn't be so very particular about it in New York. Mr. Dinks and Mr. Beacon both waltz, and I assure you it is very distingué indeed. But be careful in learning. Your sister Fanny says the Boston young men stick out their elbows dreadfully when they waltz, and look like owls spinning on invisible teetotums. She declares, too, that all the Boston girls are dowdy. But she is obliged to confess that Mr. Beacon and Mr. Dinks are as well dressed and gentlemanly and dance as well as our young men here. And as for the Boston ladies, Mr. Dinks tells Fanny that he has a cousin, a Miss Wayne, who lives in Delafield, who might alter her opinion of the dowdiness of Boston girls. It seems she is a great heiress, C and very beautiful; and it is said here (but you know how idle such gossip is) that she is going to marry her cousin, Alfred Dinks. He does not deny it. He merely laughs and shakes his head—the truth is, he hasn't much to say for himself. Bless me! I've got to take another sheet. “Dear Sir,—I trust you will pardon this intrusion. It is a long time since I have had the honor of writing to you; but I thought you would wish to know that Miss Wayne will be in New York, for the first time, within a day or two after you receive this letter. She is with her aunt, Mrs. Dinks, who will stay at Bunker's. “Dear Aunty,—We're about going away, and we have been so gay that you would suppose I had had `society' enough. Do you remember our talk? There have been a great many people here from every part of the country; and it has been nothing but bowling, walking, riding, dancing, dining at the lake, and listening to music in the moonlight, all the time. Aunt Dinks has been very kind, but although I have met a great many people I have not made many friends. I have seen nobody whom I like as much as Amy Waring or Mr. Lawrence Newt, of whom I wrote you from New York, and they have neither of them been here. I think of Pinewood a great deal, but it seems to me long and long ago that I used to live there. It is strange how much older and different I feel. But I never forget you, dearest Aunty, and I should like this very moment to stand by your side at your window as I used to, and look out at the hills, or, better still, to lie in your lap or on my bed, and hear you sing one of the dear old hymns. I thought I had forgotten them until lately. But I remember them very often now. I think of Pinewood a great deal, and I love you dearly; and yet somehow I do not feel as if I cared to go back there to live. Isn't that strange? Give my love to Grandpa, and tell him I am neither engaged to a foreign minister, nor a New York merchant, nor a Southern planter—nor to any body else. But he must keep up heart, for there's plenty of time yet. Good-by, dear Aunty. I seem to hear you singing, `Oh that I now the rest might know!' Do you know how often you used to sing that? Good-by. “My dear Mr. Newt,—Mrs. Simcoe writes me that grandfather has had a stroke of paralysis, and lies very ill. Aunt Dinks has, therefore, resolved to leave on Monday, and I shall go with her. She seems very much affected, indeed, by the news. Mrs. Simcoe writes that the doctor says grandfather will hardly live more than a few days, and she wishes you could go on with us. I know that you have some kind of association with Pinewood—you have not told me what. In this summer weather you will find it very beautiful; and you know how glad I shall be to have you for my guest. My guest, I say; for while grandfather lies so dangerously ill I must be what my mother would have been—mistress of the house. I shall hardly feel more lonely than I always did when he was active, for we had but little intercourse. In case of his death, which I suppose to be very near, I shall not care to live at the old place. In fact, I do not very clearly see what I am to do. But there is One who does; and I remember my dear old nurse's hymn, `On Thee I cast my care.' Come, if you can. “My dear Belch,—B. Newt, Son, & Co. have stopped. We do not hear of an assignment, so desire you to take steps at once to secure judgment upon the inclosed account. “My dear Sir,—I have just heard of your misfortunes. Don't be dismayed. In the shindy of life every body must have his head broken two or three times, and in our country 'tis a man's duty to fall on his feet. Such men as Abel Newt are not made to fail. I want to see you immediately. “Fellow-Citizens, — Deeply grateful for the honorable trust you have so long confided to me, nothing but the imperative duty of attending to my private affairs, seriously injured by my public occupations, would induce me to resign it into your hands. But while his country may demand much of every patriot, there is a point, which every honest man feels, at which he may retire. I should be deeply grieved to take this step did I not know how many abler representatives you can find in the ranks of that constituency of which any man may be proud. I leave the halls of legislation at a moment when our party is consolidated, when its promise for the future was never more brilliant, and when peace and prosperity seem to have taken up their permanent abode in our happy country, whose triumphant experiment of popular institutions makes every despot shake upon his throne. Gentlemen, in bidding you farewell I can only say that, should the torch of the political incendiary ever be applied to the sublime fabric of our system, and those institutions which were laid in our father's struggles and cemented with their blood, should totter and crumble, I, for one, will be found going down with the ship, and waving the glorious flag of our country above the smouldering ruins of that moral night.
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