| | 461 | Author: | Willis
Nathaniel Parker
1806-1867 | Add | | | Title: | Dashes at life with a free pencil  | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | “Has there been any mistake in the two-penny post
delivery, that I have not received your article for this
month? If so, please send me the rough draught by
the bearer (who waits), and the compositors will try
to make it out. “The tale of this month will be called—” “Dear Mr. Clay: From causes which you will
probably understand, I have been induced to reconsider
your proposal of marriage to my niece.—Imprudent
as I must still consider your union, I find myself
in such a situation that, should you persevere, I must
decide in its favor, as the least of two evils. You will
forgive my anxious care, however, if I exact of you,
before taking any decided step, a full and fair statement
of your pecuniary embarrassments (which I
understand are considerable) and your present income
and prospects. I think it proper to inform you that
Miss Gore's expectations, beyond an annuity of £300
a year, are very distant, and that all your calculations
should be confined to that amount. With this understanding,
I should be pleased to see you at Ashurst
to-morrow morning. “Your dark eye rests on this once familiar handwriting.
If your pulse could articulate at this moment,
it would murmur he loved me well! He who writes to
you now, after years of silence, parted from you with
your tears upon his lips—parted from you as the last
shadow parts from the sun, with a darkness that must
deepen till morn again. I begin boldly, but the usage
of the world is based upon forgetfulness in absence,
and I have not forgotten. Yet this is not to be a love-letter. “Dear Lady Fanny: If you have anything beside
the ghost-room vacant at Freer Hall, I will run
down to you. Should you, by chance, be alone ask
up the curate for a week to keep Sir Harry off my
hands; and, as you don't flirt, provide me with somebody
more pretty than yourself for our mutual
security. As my autograph sells for eighteen pence,
you will excuse the brevity of “Sir: I am intrusted with a delicate commission,
which I know not how to broach to you, except by
simple proposal. Will you forgive my abrupt brevity,
if I inform you, without further preface, that the
Countess Nyschriem, a Polish lady of high birth and
ample fortune, does you the honor to propose for your
hand. If you are disengaged, and your affections are
not irrevocably given to another, I can conceive no
sufficient obstacle to your acceptance of this brilliant
connexion. The countess is twenty-two, and not
beautiful, it must in fairness be said; but she has
high qualities of head and heart, and is worthy of any
man's respect and affection. She has seen you, of
course, and conceived a passion for you, of which this
is the result. I am directed to add, that should you
consent, the following conditions are imposed—that
you marry her within four days, making no inquiry
except as to her age, rank, and property, and that,
without previous interview, she come veiled to the
altar. “You will pardon me that I have taken two days to
consider the extraordinary proposition made me in
your letter. The subject, since it is to be entertained
a moment, requires, perhaps, still further reflection—
but my reply shall be definite, and as prompt as I can
bring myself to be, in a matter so important. “Dear Fred: Nothing going on in town, except
a little affair of my own, which I can't leave to go
down to you. Dull even at Crocky's—nobody plays
this hot weather. And now, as to your commissions.
You will receive Dupree, the cook, by to-night's mail.
Grisi won't come to you without her man—`'twasn't
thus when we were boys!'—so I send you a figurante,
and you must do tableaux. I was luckier in finding
you a wit. S— will be with you to-morrow, though,
by the way, it is only on condition of meeting Lady
Midge Bellasys, for whom, if she is not with you, you
must exert your inveiglements. This, by way only
of shuttlecock and battledore, however, for they play
at wit together—nothing more, on her part at least.
Look out for this devilish fellow, my lord Fred!—
and live thin till you see the last of him—for he'll
laugh you into your second apoplexy with the dangerous
ease of a hair-trigger. I could amuse you with
a turn or two in my late adventures, but black and
white are bad confidants, though very well as a business
firm. And, mentioning them, I have drawn on
you for a temporary £500, which please lump with
my other loan, and oblige “Dear Sir Humphrey: Perhaps you will scarce
remember Jane Jones, to whom you presented the
brush of your first fox. This was thirty years ago.
I was then at school in the little village near Tally-ho
hall. Dear me! how well I remember it! On hearing
of your marriage, I accepted an offer from my late
husband, Mr. S—, and our union was blessed
with one boy, who, I must say, is an angel of goodness.
Out of his small income, my dear James furnished
and rented this very genteel house, and he
tells me I shall have it for life, and provides me one
servant, and everything I could possibly want. Thrice
a week he comes out to spend the day and dine with
me, and, in short, he is the pattern of good sons. As
this dear boy is going down to Warwickshire, I can not
resist the desire I have that you should know him,
and that he should bring me back an account of my
lover in days gone by. Any attention to him, dear
Sir Humphrey, will very much oblige one whom you
once was happy to oblige, and still “Dear Sir: I remember Miss Jones very well,
God bless me, I thought she had been dead many
years. I am sure I shall be very happy to see her
son. Will you come out and dine with us?—dinner
at seven. “Dear Nuncle: It's hard on to six o'clock, and
I'm engaged at seven to a junketing at the `Hen and
chickens,' with Stuggins and the maids. If you intend
to make me acquainted with your great lord, now
is the time. If you don't, I shall walk in presently,
and introduce myself; for I know how to make my
own way, nuncle—ask Miss Bel's maid, and the other
girls you introduced me to at Tally-ho hall! Be in
a hurry, I'm just outside. “My dear Lord: In the belief that a frank communication
would be best under the circumstances, I
wish to make an inquiry, prefacing it with the assurance
that my only hope of happiness has been for
some time staked upon the successful issue of my
suit for your daughter's hand. It is commonly understood,
I believe, that the bulk of your lordship's fortune
is separate from the entail, and may be disposed
of at your pleasure. May I inquire its amount, or
rather, may I ask what fortune goes with the hand of
Lady Angelica. The Beauchief estates are unfortunately
much embarrassed, and my own debts (I may
frankly confess) are very considerable. You will at
once see, my lord, that, in justice to your daughter, as
well as to myself, I could not do otherwise than make
this frank inquiry before pushing my suit to extremity.
Begging your indulgence and an immediate answer, I
remain, my dear lord, “Dear Lord Frederick: I trust you will not
accuse me of a want of candor in declining a direct
answer to your question. Though I freely own to a
friendly wish for your success in your efforts to engage
the affections of Lady Angelica, with a view to marriage,
it can only be in the irrevocable process of a
marriage settlement that her situation, as to the probable
disposal of my fortune, can be disclosed. I may
admit to you, however, that, upon the events of this
day on which you have written (it so chances), may
depend the question whether I should encourage you
to pursue further your addresses to Lady Angelica. “My dear Angelica: I am happy to know that
there are circumstances which will turn aside much
of the poignancy of the communication I am about to
make to you. If I am not mistaken at least, in believing
a mutual attachment to exist between yourself
and Count Pallardos, you will at once comprehend
the ground of my mental relief, and perhaps, in
a measure, anticipate what I am about to say. “Dear Count: You will wonder at receiving a
friendly note from me after my refusal, two months
since, to meet you over `pistols and coffee;' but reparation
may not be too late, and this is to say, that
you have your choice between two modes of settlement,
viz:—to accept for your stable the hunter you
stole from me (vide police report) and allow me to take
a glass of wine with you at my own table and bury the
hatchet, or, to shoot at me if you like, according to
your original design. Manners and Beauchief hope
you will select the latter, as they owe you a grudge
for the possession of your incomparable bride and her
fortune; but I trust you will prefer the horse, which
(if I am rightly informed) bore you to the declaration
of love at Chasteney. Reply to Crockford's. “My dear St. Leger: Enclosed you have the
only surviving lock of my grizzled wig—sign and symbol
that my disguises are over and my object attained.
The wig burns at this instant in the grate, item my
hand-ruffles, item sundry embroidered cravats a la
vielle cour, item (this last not without some trouble at
my heart) a solitary love-token from Constantia Hervey.
One faded rose—given me at Pæstum, the day
before I was driven disgraced from her presence by
the interference of this insolent fool—one faded rose
has crisped and faded into smoke with the rest. And
so fled from the world the last hope of a warm and
passionate heart, which never gave up its destiny till
now—never felt that it was made in vain, guarded, refined,
cherished in vain, till that long-loved flower lay
in ashes. I am accustomed to strip emotion of its
drapery—determined to feel nothing but what is real—
yet this moment, turn it and strip it, and deny its illusions
as I will, is anguish. `Self-inflicted,' you smile
and say! “And now that we know each other again—now
that I can call you by name, as in the past, and be
sure that your inmost consciousness must reply—
a new terror seizes me! Your soul comes back,
youthfully and newly clad, while mine, though of
unfading freshness and youthfulness within, shows to
your eye the same outer garment, grown dull with
mourning and faded with the wear of time. Am I
grown distasteful? Is it with the sight only of this
new body that you look upon me? Rodolph!—spirit
that was my devoted and passionate admirer! soul
that was sworn to me for ever!—am I—the same Margaret,
refound and recognised, grown repulsive? Oh
God! What a bitter answer would this be to my
prayers for your return to me! “I have followed up to this hour, my fair cousin, in
the path you have marked out for me. It has brought
me back, in this chamber, to the point from which I
started under your guidance, and if it had brought me
back unchanged—if it restored me my energy, my
hope, and my prospect of fame, I should pray Heaven
that it would also give me back my love, and be content—more
than content, if it gave me back also my
poverty. The sight of my easel, and of the surroundings
of my boyish dreams of glory, have made my
heart bitter. They have given form and voice to a
vague unhappiness, which has haunted me through all
these absent years—years of degrading pursuits and
wasted powers—and it now impels me from you, kind
and lovely as you are, with an aversion I can not control.
I can not forgive you. You have thwarted my
destiny. You have extinguished with sordid cares a
lamp within me that might, by this time, have shone
through the world. And what am I, since your wishes
are accomplished? Enriched in pocket, and bankrupt
in happiness and self-respect. Dined with F—, the artist, at a trattoria. F— is
a man of genius, very adventurous and imaginative in
his art, but never caring to show the least touch of
these qualities in his conversation. His pictures have
given him great vogue and consideration at Rome, so
that his daily experience furnishes staple enough for
his evening's chit-chat, and he seems, of course, to be
always talking of himself. He is very generally set
down as an egotist. His impulse to talk, however,
springs from no wish for self-glorification, but rather
from an indolent aptness to lay hands on the readiest
and most familiar topic, and that is a kind of egotism
to which I have very little objection—particularly
with the mind fatigued, as it commonly is in Rome,
by a long day's study of works of art. “You will be surprised on glancing at the signature
to this letter. You will be still more surprised when
you are reminded that it is a reply to an unanswered
one of your own—written years ago. That letter lies
by me, expressed with all the diffidence of boyish
feeling. And it seems as if its diffidence would encourage
me in what I wish to say. Yet I write far
more tremblingly than you could have done. “Where art thou, bridegroom of my soul? Thy
Ione S— calls to thee from the aching void of her
lonely spirit! What name bearest thou? What path
walkest thou? How can I, glow-worm like, lift my
wings and show thee my lamp of guiding love? Thus
wing I these words to thy dwelling-place (for thou art,
perhaps, a subscriber to the M—r). Go—truants!
Rest not till ye meet his eye. “`Dear Miss Blidgims: Feeling quite indisposed
myself, and being firmly persuaded that we are
three cases of cholera, I have taken advantage of a
return calesino to hurry on to Modena for medical
advice. The vehicle I take, brought hither a sister of
charity, who assures me she will wait on you, even in
the most malignant stage of your disease. She is
collecting funds for an hospital, and will receive compensation
for her services in the form of a donation to
this object. I shall send you a physician by express
from Modena, where it is still possible we may meet.
With prayers, &c., &c. “Sir: The faculty have decided to impose upon
you the fine of ten dollars and damages, for painting
the president's horse on sabbath night while grazing
on the college green. They, moreover, have removed
Freshman Wilding from your rooms, and appoint as
your future chum the studious and exemplary bearer,
Forbearance Smith, to whom you are desired to show
a becoming respect. “Dear Philip: You will be surprised to hear
that I am in the Lynn jail on a charge of theft and
utterance of counterfeit money. I do not wait to tell
you the particulars. Please come and identify, “Dear Tom: If your approaching nuptials are to
be sufficiently public to admit of a groomsman, you
will make me the happiest of friends by selecting me
for that office. “Dear Phil: The devil must have informed you
of a secret I supposed safe from all the world. Be assured
I should have chosen no one but yourself to
support me on the occasion; and however you have
discovered my design upon your treasure, a thousand
thanks for your generous consent. I expected no less
from your noble nature. “Baron: Before taking the usual notice of the occurrence
of this morning, I wish to rectify one or two
points in which our position is false. I find myself,
since last night, the accepted lover of Lady Imogen
Ravelgold, and the master of estates and title as a
count of the Russian empire. Under the etourdissement
of such sudden changes in feelings and fortune,
perhaps my forgetfulness of the lady, in whose cause
you are so interested, admits of indulgence. At any
rate, I am so newly in love with life, that I am willing
to suppose for an hour that had you known these circumstances,
you would have taken a different view of
the offence in question. I shall remain at home till
two, and it is in your power till then to make me the
reparation necessary to my honor. “Dear Sir: My wife wishes me to write to you,
and inform you of her marriage, which took place a
week or two since, and of which she presumes you
are not aware. She remarked to me, that you thought
her looking unhappy last evening, when you chanced
to see her at the play. As she seemed to regret not
being able to answer your note herself, I may perhaps
convey the proper apology by taking upon myself to
mention to you, that, in consequence of eating an imprudent
quantity of unripe fruit, she felt ill before going
to the theatre, and was obliged to leave early.
To day she seems seriously indisposed. I trust she
will be well enough to see you in a day or two—and
remain, THE FOLLOWING PAGES ARE
RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED,
BY HIS FRIEND, Start fair, my sweet Violet! This letter will lie on
your table when you arrive at Saratoga, and it is intended
to prepare you for that critical campaign. You
must know the ammunition with which you go into
the field. I have seen service, as you know, and,
from my retirement (on half-pay), can both devise
strategy and reconnoitre the enemy's weakness, with
discretion. Set your glass before you on the table,
and let us hold a frank council of war. My dear widow: For the wear and tear of your
bright eyes in writing me a letter you are duly credited.
That for a real half-hour, as long as any ordinary
half-hour, such well-contrived illuminations
should have concentrated their mortal using on me
only, is equal, I am well aware, to a private audience
of any two stars in the firmament—eyelashes and petticoats
(if not thrown in) turning the comparison a
little in your favor. Thanks—of course—piled high
as the porphyry pyramid of Papantla! My dear neph-ling: I congratulate you on the
attainment of your degree as “Master of Arts.” In
other words, I wish the sin of the Faculty well repented
of, in having endorsed upon parchment such a
barefaced fabrication. Put the document in your pocket,
and come away! There will be no occasion to
air it before doomsday, probably, and fortunately for
you, it will then revert to the Faculty. Quiescat ad-huc—as
I used to say of my tailor's bills till they came
through a lawyer. Dear reader: A volume of poems goes from us
in an extra of the Mirror this week, which leaves us
with a feeling—we scarce know how to phrase it—a
feeling of timidity and dread—like a parent's apprehensiveness,
giving his child into the hands of a stranger.
It is not Pliny's “quam sit magnum dare aliquid
in manus hominum,” nor is it, what the habitual avoidance
of grave themes looks like, sometimes—a preference
“to let the serious part of life go by
Like the neglected sand.”
We are used to buttering curiosity with the ooze of
our brains—careful more to be paid than praised—
and we have a cellar, as well as many stories, in our
giddy thought-house; and it is from this cave of privacy
that we have, with reluctance, and consentings far
between, drawn treasures of early feeling and impression,
now bound and offered to you for the first time
in one bundle. Oh, from the different stories of the
mind—from the settled depths, and from the effervescent
and giddy surface—how different looks the world!
—of what different stuff and worth the link that binds
us to it! In looking abroad from one window of the
soul, we see sympathy, goodness, truth, desire for us
and our secrets, that we may be more loved; from
another, we see suspicion, coldness, mockery, and ill-will—the
evil spirits of the world—lying in wait for
us. At one moment—the spirits down, and the heart
calm and trusting—we tear out the golden leaf nearest
the well of life, and pass it forth to be read and wept
over. At another, we bar shutter and blind upon prying
malice, turn key carefully on all below, and,
mounting to the summit, look abroad and jest at the
very treasures we have concealed—wondering at our
folly in even confessing to a heartless world that we
had secrets, and would share them. We are not always
alike. The world does not seem always the
same. We believe it is all good sometimes. We believe
sometimes, that it is but a place accursed, given
to devils and their human scholars. Sometimes we
are all kindness—sometimes aching only for an an
tagonist, and an arena without barrier or law. And
oh what a Procrustes's bed is human opinion—trying
a man's actions and words, in whatever mood committed
and said, by the same standard of rigor! How
often must the angels hovering over us reverse the
sentence of the judge—how oftener still the rebuke
of the old maid and the Pharisee. Sir: A French writer wittily turns the paradox:
“Il faut de l'argent même pour se passer d'argent”—
(is it necessary to have money to be able to do without
it)—and we please ourselves with suspecting that it is
only amid the forgetful ease of possession that you can
have made up your mind to forego us. If so, and
your first se'ennight of unmirrored solitude prove
heavier to bear than the aching three dollar void
balanced against it—so! The pathos of this parting
will have been superfluous. Ladies and gentlemen: In the eleven thousand
shining sixpences which duly rise and dispense their
silver light upon our way, we see of course the
“Heaven of eternal change” toward whose “patines
of bright gold” we have been long stretching with
tiptoe expectation. We trust that, like the unpocketable
troop whose indefatigable punctuality you emulate,
there are still comers to your number unarrived,
and that the “Lost Pleiad” (the single heavenly body
upon whose discontinuance to rise we indited the
foregoing epistle), will come round again in his erratic
orbit, and take his place in the constellation he has
deserted. We give notice here, however, that, at
eleven thousand, we shall, like the nuns of St. Ursula,
stop numbering. There have been virgins since the
shelving of the bones of the “eleven thousand virgins
of Cologne,” yet the oft-told number is still told,
without increase, in the holy tradition. We believe
with the sainted sisterhood that human credence can
go no farther—that 'twixt millions and billions of
virgins the disciple's mind would not be likely to discriminate.
You will still permit us, therefore, to cast
our horoscope upon this nominal number. As other
starry sixpences fall into the chinks of boundless space,
the perceptible increase of our brightness will alone
tell the tale—but they will be marked and welcomed
in the careful astronomy of our leger. You are feeding the news-hopper of your literary
mill, my dear poet, and I am trying on the old trick
of gayety at Saratoga. Which of us should write
the other a letter? You, if you say so—though as I
get older, I am beginning to think well of the town,
even in August. You have your little solaces, my fast
liver! Dear Willis: Your kind note to St. John, of the
Knickerbocker, got me the state-room with the picture
of “Glenmary” on the panel, and I slept under
the protection of your household gods—famously, of
course. The only fault I found with that magnificent
boat, was the right of any “smutched villain” to walk
through her. It is a frightful arrangement that can
sell, to a beauty and a blackguard, for the same money,
the right to promenade on the same carpet, and go to
sleep with the same surroundings on the opposite
sides of a pine partition! Give me a world where
antipodes stay put! But what a right-royal, “slap-up”
supper they give in the Knickerbocker! They'll
make the means better than the end—travelling better
than arriving—if they improve any more! I had a
great mind to go back the next day, and come up
again. “Dear Bel-Phœbe: I have been `twiddling my
sunbeam' (you say my letters are `perfect sunshine')
for some time, more or less, in a quandary as to what
is now resolved upon as `Dear Bel-Phœbe'—the beginning
of this (meant-to-be) faultless epistle. I
chanced to wake critical this morning, and, `dear
Phœbe,' as the beginning of this letter of mine, looked
both vulgar and meaningless. I inked it out as you
see. A reference to my etymological dictionary,
however, restored my liking for that `dear' word. It
is derived from the Anglo-Saxon verb Der-ian, which
means to do mischief. Hence dearth, which, by doing
mischief, makes what remains more precious, and
hence dear, meaning something made precious by having
escaped hurting. `Dear Phœbe,' therefore (meaning
unhurt Phœbe), struck me as pretty well—you being
one of those delicious, late-loving women, destined
to be `hurt' first at thirty. Still, the sacred word
`Phœbe' was too abruptly come upon. It sounded
familiar, and familiarity should be reserved for the
postscript. I should have liked to write `dear Lady
Phœbe,' or `dear Countess Phœbe'—but we are not
permitted to `read our title clear,' in this hideously-simple
country. Might I invent an appellative? We
say char-woman and horse-man—why not put a descriptive
word before a lady's name, by way of respectful
distance. Phœbe Lorn is a belle—why not
say Bel-Phœbe? Good! It sounds authentic. This
letter, then, is to Phœbe, unhurt and beautiful (alias),
`Dear Bel-Phœbe!' “Dear Madam: The undersigned, booksellers,
publishers, and authors, of the city of New York,
have long felt desirous of transmitting to you a memorial
of the high and respectful admiration which
they entertain for one to whose pen we are indebted
for some of the purest and most imaginative productions
in the wide range of English literature. As the
authoress of `Thaddeus of Warsaw,' the `Scottish
Chiefs,' &c., your name has spread over the length
and breadth of our land, and the volumes of your delightful
works may be found gracing alike the abodes
of the wealthy, and the humble dwellings of the
poor. And deservedly so—for if purity of sentiment,
felicity of expression, and the constant inculcation of
the noblest lessons of religion and morality, be any
passport to literary fame, then will the name of Miss
Porter rank high on the list of those whom the present
age delights to honor, and for whom coming ages
will entertain a deep feeling of reverential esteem. Dear Jack: Since my compulsory budding, flowering,
and bearing fruit, have been accelerated to one
season per diem, to feed a daily paper, you will easily
understand that I found it necessary at first to work
all my sap into something useful—omitting as it were,
the gum deposite of superfluous correspondence. I
accordingly left you off. Your last letter was slipped
into the no-more-bother hole, without the usual endorsement
of “answered,” and I considered you like
a trinket laid aside before a race—not to encumber
me. I miss the writing of trumpery, however. I miss
the sweeping out of the corners of my mind—full of
things fit only for the dust-pan, but still very possibly
hiding a silver-spoon. Dear Custom: Your friend is wrong, from the
egg to the apple. Miss Lucy Jones has a mother, or
father, guardian, or friend, at whose house she is to be
married. The invitation should come from the person
under whose protection she is given away—(sent,
if you please, to Mr. Smith's friends, with Mr. Smith's
card, but understood by Miss Lucy Jones's friends,
without card or explanation). It is tampering with
serious things, very dangerously, to circulate the three
words, “and Mrs. John Smith,” one minute before
the putting on of the irrevocable ring. The law
which permits ladies (though not gentlemen) to
change their minds up to the last minute before wed
lock, exacts also that the privileged angels should not
be coerced by the fear of seeing the escaped name
afterward on a wedding card! Besides, such a card,
so issued, would be received from Mrs. Smith before
there was any such person. “Dear Sir: I am directed by the committee of the `Travellers'
to inform you that they have great pleasure in admitting
you as a visiter to the club for the ensuing month, and
that they hope to be favored with your frequent attendance. “Sir: I am directed to inform you that the committee of
the `Athenæum' have ordered your name to be placed on
the list of distinguished foreigners residing in London, who
are invited to the house of the club for three months, subject
to the same regulations as the members are required to
observe. “Mr. Editor: I observe that a `bachelor,' writing
in the `American,' recommends to `invited'
and `inviters,' to send invitations and answers, stamped,
through the penny-post. This is a capital idea,
and I shall adopt it for one. I perceive that a bachelor
in another paper says, `it will suit him and his fellow-bachelors,'
for reasons set forth, and that he will adopt
the plan. Now, Mr. Editor, I am a housekeeper,
and married, and my wife requires the use of all my
servants, and can not spare them to be absent three or
four days, going round the city, delivering notes, on
the eve of a party. These notes could, by the plan
suggested, be delivered in three hours, and insure a
prompt answer. I can then know exactly who is
coming and who is not—a very convenient point of
knowledge! “Right Trusty and Right Well-beloved
Cousin.—We greet you well. Whereas, the 1st day
of March next (or thereabouts) is appointed for our
coronation.—These are to will and command you (all
excuses set apart) to make your personal attendance
on us at the time above-mentioned, furnished and appointed
as to your rank and quality appertaineth.—
There to do and perform all such services as shall be
required and belong to you.—Whereof you are not to
fail.—And so we bid you heartily farewell. “Mr. Editor: One of the greatest treats you
could give your country lady readers, would be to
furnish them from time to time, with brief hints as to
the actual style of fashions in the metropolis. We
have, all along, depended for information on this important
subject, upon the monthly magazines, all of
which profess to give the fashions as worn, but we find
out to our dismay, that they pick up their fashions
from the Paris and London prints at random—some
of them adopted by our city ladies, some not! It thus
happens that we country people, who like to be in the
fashion, are often subjected to great expense and mortification—relying
too implicitly upon the magazine
reports. We cause a bonnet or a dress to be made
strictly in accordance with the style prescribed in the
fashion plate of the magazine, and when we hie away
to the city with our new finery, we discover that our
costume is so outrè that every one laughs at us! Now,
should there not be some remedy for this evil? “`Madam: There is a fund applicable, as vacancies
may occur, to the grant of annual pensions of very
limited amount, which usage has placed at the disposal
of the lady of the first minister. On this fund
there is a surplus of £20 per annum. Dear Fanny: Would your dark eyes vouchsafe
to wonder how I come to write to you? Thus it
befell:— Madame Pico's Concert.—We should guess that
between two and three thousand persons were listeners
in the vast hall of the Tabernacle at the concert. The
five hundred regular opera-goers, who were apparently
all there, were scattered among a mass of graver
countenances, and Madame Pico saw combined her
two bailiwicks of fashion and seriousness. She seems
to be equally popular with both, and her “good-fellow”
physiognomy never showed its honest beauty to
more advantage. She wore a Greek cap of gold braid
on the right-side organ of conscientiousness, and probably
magnetized very powerfully the large gold tassel
that fell from it over her cheek. The English song
was the qui-vive-ity of the evening, however, and
English, from a tongue cradled in a gondola, is certainly
very peculiar! But, preserve us, Rossini-Bellini!
After hearing exclusively Italian music from a
songstress, the descent to Balfe is rather intolerable.
A lark starting for its accustomed zenith with “chicken
fixings” would represent our soul as it undertook to
soar last night with Balfeathered Pico!—What should
make that same song popular is beyond our divining.
Most of its movement works directly in the joint between
the comfortable parts of the voice, and nobody
ever tilted through its see-saw transitions, in our hearing,
without apparent distress. To a lady-friend in the country: I am up to the
knees in newspapers, and write to you under the stare
of nine pigeon-holes, stuffed with literary portent.
Were there such a thing (in this world of everythings)
as papyral magnetism, you would get a letter, not
only typical in itself, but typical of a flood in which
my identity is fast drowning. Oh, the drown of news,
weighed unceasingly—little events and great ones—
against little more than the trouble of snipping round
with scissors! To a horrid death—to a miraculous
preservation—to a heart-gush of poesy—to a marriage
—to a crime—to the turn of a political crisis—to
flashing wit and storied agonies—giving but the one
invariable first thought—“Shall I cut it out?” Alas,
dear beauty-monarch of all you survey!—your own
obituary, were I to read it in a newspaper of to-morrow,
would speak scarce quicker to my heart than to
those scissors of undiscriminating circum-cision!
With the knowledge that the sky above me was enriched,
as Florence once was, by the return of its
long-lost and best model of beauty, I should ask,
with be-paragraphed grief—“will her death do for
the Mirror?” My Dear Sir: To ask me for my idea of General
Morris is like asking the left hand's opinion of the
dexterity of the right. I have lived so long with the
“brigadier,” known him so intimately, worked so constantly
at the same rope, and thought so little of ever
separating from him (except by precedence of ferriage
over the Styx), that it is hard to shove him from me
to the perspective distance—hard to shut my own partial
eyes, and look at him through other people's. I
will try, however, and as it is done with but one foot
off from the treadmill of my ceaseless vocation, you
will excuse both abruptness and brevity. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 462 | Author: | Willis
Nathaniel Parker
1806-1867 | Add | | | Title: | The complete works of N.P. Willis | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | This volume is sent forth, with a feeling
somewhat akin to a parent's apprehensiveness,
in giving his child into the hands of a stranger.
We have a cellar, as well as many
stories, in our giddy thought-house; and it
is from this cave of privacy that we have,
with reluctance, and consentings far between,
drawn treasures of feeling and impression,
now bound and offered to you for the first
time in one bundle. Oh, from the different
stories of the mind — from the settled
depths, and from the effervescent and giddy
surface — how different looks the world! — of
what different stuff and worth the link that
binds us to it! In looking abroad from one
window of the soul, we see sympathy, goodness,
truth, desire for us and our secrets, that
we may be more loved; from another, we see
suspicion, coldness, mockery, and ill will —
the evil spirits of the world — lying in wait for
us. At one moment — the spirits down, and
the heart calm and trusting — we tear out the
golden leaf nearest the well of life, and pass
it forth to be read and wept over. At another,
we bar shutter and blind upon prying malice,
turn key carefully on all below, and,
mounting to the summit, look abroad and jest
at the very treasures we have concealed —
wondering at our folly in even confessing to a
heartless world that we had secrets, and would
share them. We are not always alike. The
world does not seem always the same. We
believe it is all good sometimes. We believe
sometimes, that it is but a place accursed, given
to devils and their human scholars. Sometimes
we are all kindness — sometimes aching
only for an antagonist, and an arena without
barrier or law. And oh what a Procrustes'
bed is human opinion — trying a man's actions
and words, in whatever mood committed and
said, by the same standard of rigor! How
often must the angels hovering over us reverse
the sentence of the judge — how oftener still
the rebuke of the old maid and the Pharisee. Sir: In selling you the dew and sunshine ordained
to fall hereafter on this bright spot of earth — the
waters on their way to this sparkling brook — the tints
mixed for the flowers of that enamelled meadow, and
the songs bidden to be sung in coming summers by
the feathery builders in Glenmary, I know not whether
to wonder more at the omnipotence of money, or at
my own impertinent audacity toward Nature. How
you can buy the right to exclude at will every other
creature made in God's image from sitting by this
brook, treading on that carpet of flowers, or lying listening
to the birds in the shade of these glorious trees
— how I can sell it you, is a mystery not understood
by the Indian, and dark, I must say to me. “Has there been any mistake in the two-penny post
delivery, that I have not received your article for this
month? If so, please send me the rough draught by
the bearer (who waits), and the compositors will try
to make it out. “Dear Mr. Clay: From causes which you will
probably understand, I have been induced to reconsider
your proposal of marriage to my niece. — Imprudent
as I must still consider your union, I find myself
in such a situation that, should you persevere, I must
decide in its favor, as the least of two evils. You will
forgive my anxious care, however, if I exact of you,
before taking any decided step, a full and fair statement
of your pecuniary embarrassments (which I
understand are considerable) and your present income
and prospects. I think it proper to inform you that
Miss Gore's expectations, beyond an annuity of £300
a year, are very distant, and that all your calculations
should be confined to that amount. With this understanding,
I should be pleased to see you at Ashurst
to-morrow morning. “Your dark eye rests on this once familiar handwriting.
If your pulse could articulate at this moment,
it would murmur he loved me well! He who writes to
you now, after years of silence, parted from you with
your tears upon his lips — parted from you as the last
shadow parts from the sun, with a darkness that must
deepen till morn again. I begin boldly, but the usage
of the world is based upon forgetfulness in absence,
and I have not forgotten. Yet this is not to be a love-letter. “Dear Lady Fanny: If you have anything beside
the ghost-room vacant at Freer Hall, I will run
down to you. Should you, by chance, be alone, ask
up the curate for a week to keep Sir Harry off my
hands; and, as you don't flirt, provide me with somebody
more pretty than yourself for our mutual
security. As my autograph sells for eighteen pence,
you will excuse the brevity of “Sir: I am intrusted with a delicate commission,
which I know not how to broach to you, except by
simple proposal. Will you forgive my abrupt brevity,
if I inform you, without further preface, that the
Countess Nyschriem, a Polish lady of high birth and
ample fortune, does you the honor to propose for your
hand. If you are disengaged, and your affections are
not irrevocably given to another, I can conceive no
sufficient obstacle to your acceptance of this brilliant
connexion. The countess is twenty-two, and not
beautiful, it must in fairness be said; but she has
high qualities of head and heart, and is worthy of any
man's respect and affection. She has seen you, of
course, and conceived a passion for you, of which this
is the result. I am directed to add, that should you
consent, the following conditions are imposed — that
you marry her within four days, making no inquiry
except as to her age, rank, and property, and that,
without previous interview, she come veiled to the
altar. “You will pardon me that I have taken two days to
consider the extraordinary proposition made me in
your letter. The subject, since it is to be entertained
a moment, requires, perhaps, still further reflection —
but my reply shall be definite, and as prompt as I can
bring myself to be, in a matter so important. “Dear Fred: Nothing going on in town, except
a little affair of my own, which I can't leave to go
down to you. Dull even at Crocky's — nobody plays
this hot weather. And now, as to your commissions.
You will receive Dupree, the cook, by to-night's mail.
Grisi won't come to you without her man — `'twasn't
thus when we were boys!' — so I send you a figurante,
and you must do tableaux. I was luckier in finding
you a wit. S — will be with you to-morrow, though,
by the way, it is only on condition of meeting Lady
Midge Bellasys, for whom, if she is not with you, you
must exert your inveiglements. This, by way only
of shuttlecock and battledore, however, for they play
at wit together — nothing more, on her part at least.
Look out for this devilish fellow, my lord Fred! —
and live thin till you see the last of him — for he'll
laugh you into your second apoplexy with the dangerous
ease of a hair-trigger. I could amuse you with
a turn or two in my late adventures, but black and
white are bad confidants, though very well as a business
firm. And, mentioning them, I have drawn on
you for a temporary £500, which please lump with
my other loan, and oblige “Dear Sir Humphrey: Perhaps you will scarce
remember Jane Jones, to whom you presented the
brush of your first fox. This was thirty years ago.
I was then at school in the little village near Tally-ho
hall. Dear me! how well I remember it! On hearing
of your marriage, I accepted an offer from my late
husband, Mr. S — , and our union was blessed
with one boy, who, I must say, is an angel of goodness.
Out of his small income, my dear James furnished
and rented this very genteel house, and he
tells me I shall have it for life, and provides me one
servant, and everything I could possibly want. Thrice
a week he comes out to spend the day and dine with
me, and, in short, he is the pattern of good sons. As
this dear boy is going down to Warwickshire, I can not
resist the desire I have that you should know him,
and that he should bring me back an account of my
lover in days gone by. Any attention to him, dear
Sir Humphrey, will very much oblige one whom you
once was happy to oblige, and still “Dear Sir: I remember Miss Jones very well,
God bless me, I thought she had been dead many
years. I am sure I shall be very happy to see her
son. Will you come out and dine with us? — dinner
at seven. “Dear Nuncle: It's hard on to six o'clock, and
I'm engaged at seven to a junketing at the `Hen and
chickens,' with Stuggins and the maids. If you intend
to make me acquainted with your great lord, now
is the time. If you don't, I shall walk in presently,
and introduce myself; for I know how to make my
own way, nucle — ask Miss Bel's maid, and the other
girls you introduced me to at Tally-ho hall! Be in
a hurry, I'm just outside. “My dear Lord: In the belief that a frank communication
would be best under the circumstances, I
wish to make an inquiry, prefacing it with the assurance
that my only hope of happiness has been for
some time staked upon the successful issue of my
suit for your daughter's hand. It is commonly understood,
I believe, that the bulk of your lordship's fortune
is separate from the entail, and may be disposed
of at your pleasure. May I inquire its amount, or
rather, may I ask what fortune goes with the hand of
Lady Angelica. The Beauchief estates are unfortunately
much embarrassed, and my own debts (I may
frankly confess) are very considerable. You will at
once see, my lord, that, in justice to your daughter, as
well as to myself, I could not do otherwise than make
this frank inquiry before pushing my suit to extremity.
Begging your indulgence and an immediate answer, I
remain, my dear lord, “Dear Lord Frederick: I trust you will not
accuse me of a want of candor in declining a direct
answer to your question. Though I freely own to a
friendly wish for your success in your efforts to engage
the affections of Lady Angelica, with a view to marriage,
it can only be in the irrevocable process of a
marriage settlement that her situation, as to the probable
disposal of my fortune, can be disclosed. I may
admit to you, however, that, upon the events of this
day on which you have written (it so chances), may
depend the question whether I should encourage you
to pursue further your addresses to Lady Angelica. “My dear Angelica: I am happy to know that
there are circumstances which will turn aside much
of the piognancy of the communication I am about to
make to you. If I am not mistaken at least, in believing
a mutual attachment to exist between yourself
and Count Pallardos, you will at once comprehend
the ground of my mental relief, and perhaps, in
a measure, anticipate what I am about to say. “Dear Count: You will wonder at receiving a
friendly note from me after my refusal, two months
since, to meet you over `pistols and coffee;' but reparation
may not be too late, and this is to say, that
you have your choice between two modes of settlement,
viz: — to accept for your stable the hunter you
stole from me (vide police report) and allow me to take
a glass of wine with you at my own table and bury the
hatchet, or, to shoot at me if you like, according to
your original design. Manners and Beauchief hope
you will select the latter, as they owe you a grudge
for the possession of your incomparable bride and her
fortune; but I trust you will prefer the horse, which
(if I am rightly informed) bore you to the declaration
of love at Chasteney. Reply to Crockford's. “My dear St. Leger: Enclosed you have the
only surviving lock of my grizzled wig — sign and symbol
that my disguises are over and my object attained.
The wig burns at this instant in the grate, item my
hand-ruffles, item sundry embroidered cravats a la
vielle cour, item (this last not without some trouble at
my heart) a solitary love-token from Constantia Hervey.
One faded rose — given me at Pæstum, the day
before I was driven disgraced from her presence by
the interference of this insolent fool — one faded rose
has crisped and faded into smoke with the rest. And
so fled from the world the last hope of a warm and
passionate heart, which never gave up its destiny till
now — never felt that it was made in vain, guarded, refined,
cherished in vain, till that long-loved flower lay
in ashes. I am accustomed to strip emotion of its
drapery — determined to feel nothing but what is real —
yet this moment, turn it and strip it, and deny its illusions
as I will, is anguish. `Self-inflicted,' you smile
and say! “I have followed up to this hour, my fair cousin, in
the path you have marked out for me. It has brought
me back, in this chamber, to the point from which I
started under your guidance, and if it had brought me
back unchanged — if it restored me my energy, my
hope, and my prospect of fame, I should pray Heaven
that it would also give me back my love, and be content
— more than content, if it gave me back also my
poverty. The sight of my easel, and of the surroundings
of my boyish dreams of glory, have made my
heart bitter. They have given form and voice to a
vague unhappiness, which has haunted me through all
these absent years — years of degrading pursuits and
wasted powers — and it now impels me from you, kind
and lovely as you are, with an aversion I can not control.
I can not forgive you. You have thwarted my
destiny. You have extinguished with sordid cares a
lamp within me that might, by this time, have shone
through the world. And what am I, since your wishes
are accomplished? Enriched in pocket, and bankrupt
in happiness and self-respect. “Where art thou, bridegroom of my soul? Thy
Ione S — calls to thee from the aching void of her
lonely spirit! What name bearest thou? What path
walkest thou? How can I, glow-worm like, lift my
wings and show thee my lamp of guiding love? Thus
wing I these words to thy dwelling-place (for thou art,
perhaps, a subscriber to the M — r). Go — truants!
Rest not till ye meet his eye. “`Dear Miss Blidgims: Feeling quite indisposed
myself, and being firmly persuaded that we are
three cases of cholera, I have taken advantage of a
return calesino to hurry on to Modena for medical
advice. The vehicle I take, brought hither a sister of
charity, who assures me she will wait on you, even in
the most malignant stage of your disease. She is
collecting funds for an hospital, and will receive compensation
for her services in the form of a donation to
this object. I shall send you a physician by express
from Modena, where it is still possible we may meet.
With prayers, &c., &c. “Sir: The faculty have decided to impose upon
you the fine of ten dollars and damages, for painting
the president's horse on sabbath night while grazing
on the college green. They, moreover, have removed
Freshman Wilding from your rooms, and appoint as
your future chum the studious and exemplary bearer,
Forbearance Smith, to whom you are desired to show
a becoming respect. “Dear Philip: You will be surprised to hear
that I am in the Lynn jail on a charge of theft and
utterance of counterfeit money. I do not wait to tell
you the particulars. Please come and identify, “Dear Tom: If your approaching nuptials are to
be sufficiently public to admit of a groomsman, you
will make me the happiest of friends by selecting me
for that office. “Dear Phil: The devil must have informed you
of a secret I supposed safe from all the world. Be assured
I should have chosen no one but yourself to
support me on the occasion; and however you have
discovered my design upon your treasure, a thousand
thanks for your generous consent. I expected no less
from your noble nature. “Baron: Before taking the usual notice of the occurrence
of this morning, I wish to rectify one or two
points in which our position is false. I find myself,
since last night, the accepted lover of Lady Imogen
Ravelgold, and the master of estates and title as a
count of the Russian empire. Under the etourdissement
of such sudden changes in feelings and fortune,
perhaps my forgetfulness of the lady, in whose cause
you are so interested, admits of indulgence. At any
rate, I am so newly in love with life, that I am willing
to suppose for an hour that had you known these circumstances,
you would have taken a different view of
the offence in question. I shall remain at home till
two, and it is in your power till then to make me the
reparation necessary to my honor. “Dear Sir: My wife wishes me to write to you,
and inform you of her marriage, which took place a
week or two since, and of which she presumes you
are not aware. She remarked to me, that you thought
her looking unhappy last evening, when you chanced
to see her at the play. As she seemed to regret not
being able to answer your note herself, I may perhaps
convey the proper apology by taking upon myself to
mention to you, that, in consequence of eating an imprudent
quantity of unripe fruit, she felt ill before going
to the theatre, and was obliged to leave early.
To day she seems seriously indisposed. I trust she
will be well enough to see you in a day or two — and
remain, Start fair, my sweet Violet! This letter will lie on
your table when you arrive at Saratoga, and it is intended
to prepare you for that critical campaign. You
must know the ammunition with which you go into
the field. I have seen service, as you know, and,
from my retirement (on half-pay), can both devise
strategy and reconnoitre the enemy's weakness, with
discretion. Set your glass before you on the table,
and let us hold a frank council of war. My dear widow: For the wear and tear of your
bright eyes in writing me a letter you are duly credited.
That for a real half-hour, as long as any ordinary
half-hour, such well-contrived illuminations
should have concentrated their mortal using on me
only, is equal, I am well aware, to a private audience
of any two stars in the firmament — eyelashes and petticoats
(if not thrown in) turning the comparison a
little in your favor. Thanks — of course — piled high
as the porphyry pyramid of Papantla! My dear neph-ling: I congratulate you on the
attainment of your degree as “Master of Arts.” In
other words, I wish the sin of the Faculty well repented
of, in having endorsed upon parchment such a
barefaced fabrication. Put the document in your pocket,
and come away! There will be no occasion to
air it before doomsday, probably, and fortunately for
you, it will then revert to the Faculty. Quiescat ad-huc
— as I used to say of my tailor's bills till they came
through a lawyer. Dear reader: A volume of poems goes from us
in an extra of the Mirror this week, which leaves us
with a feeling — we scarce know how to phrase it — a
feeling of timidity and dread — like a parent's apprehensiveness,
giving his child into the hands of a stranger.
It is not Pliny's “quam sit magnum dare aliquid
in manus hominum,” nor is it, what the habitual avoidance
of grave themes looks like, sometimes — a preference
“to let the serious part of life go by
Like the neglected sand.”
We are used to buttering curiosity with the ooze of
our brains — careful more to be paid than praised —
and we have a cellar, as well as many stories, in our
giddy thought-house; and it is from this cave of privacy
that we have, with reluctance, and consentings far
between, drawn treasures of early feeling and impression,
now bound and offered to you for the first time
in one bundle. Oh, from the different stories of the
mind — from the settled depths, and from the effervescent
and giddy surface — how different looks the world!
— of what different stuff and worth the link that binds
us to it! In looking abroad from one window of the
soul, we see sympathy, goodness, truth, desire for us
and our secrets, that we may be more loved; from
another, we see suspicion, coldness, mockery, and ill-will
— the evil spirits of the world — lying in wait for
us. At one moment — the spirits down, and the heart
calm and trusting — we tear out the golden leaf nearest
the well of life, and pass it forth to be read and wept
over. At another, we bar shutter and blind upon prying
malice, turn key carefully on all below, and,
mounting to the summit, look abroad and jest at the
very treasures we have concealed — wondering at our
folly in even confessing to a heartless world that we
had secrets, and would share them. We are not always
alike. The world does not seem always the
same. We believe it is all good sometimes. We believe
sometimes, that it is but a place accursed, given
to devils and their human scholars. Sometimes we
are all kindness — sometimes aching only for an an
tagonist, and an arena without barrier or law. And
oh what a Procrustes's bed is human opinion — trying
a man's actions and words, in whatever mood committed
and said, by the same standard of rigor! How
often must the angels hovering over us reverse the
sentence of the judge — how oftener still the rebuke
of the old maid and the Pharisee. You are feeding the news-hopper of your literary
mill, my dear poet, and I am trying on the old trick
of gayety at Saratoga. Which of us should write
the other a letter? You, if you say so — though as I
get older, I am beginning to think well of the town,
even in August. You have your little solaces, my fast
liver! Dear Willis: Your kind note to St. John, of the
Knickerbocker, got me the state-room with the picture
of “Glenmary” on the panel, and I slept under
the protection of your household gods — famously, of
course. The only fault I found with that magnificent
boat, was the right of any “smutched villain” to walk
through her. It is a frightful arrangement that can
sell, to a beauty and a blackguard, for the same money,
the right to promenade on the same carpet, and go to
sleep with the same surroundings on the opposite
sides of a pine partition! Give me a world where
antipodes stay put! But what a right-royal, “slap-up”
supper they give in the Knickerbocker! They'll
make the means better than the end — travelling better
than arriving — if they improve any more! I had a
great mind to go back the next day, and come up
again. “Dear Willis: You frightened me to-day, terribly,
in the hint you threw out in the course of conversation
with the `brigadier,' to wit: `Shall we
make it into a monthly?' “Dear Bel-Phœbe: I have been `twiddling my
sunbeam' (you say my letters are `perfect sunshine')
for some time, more or less, in a quandary as to what
is now resolved upon as `Dear Bel-Phœbe' — the beginning
of this (meant-to-be) faultless epistle. I
chanced to wake critical this morning, and, `dear
Phœbe,' as the beginning of this letter of mine, looked
both vulgar and meaningless. I inked it out as you
see. A reference to my etymological dictionary,
however, restored my liking for that `dear' word. It
is derived from the Anglo-Saxon verb Der-ian, which
means to do mischief. Hence dearth, which, by doing
mischief, makes what remains more precious, and
hence dear, meaning something made precious by having
escaped hurting. `Dear Phœbe,' therefore (meaning
unhurt Phœbe), struck me as pretty well — you being
one of those delicious, late-loving women, destined
to be `hurt' first at thirty. Still, the sacred word
`Phœbe' was too abruptly come upon. It sounded
familiar, and familiarity should be reserved for the
postscript. I should have liked to write `dear Lady
Phœbe,' or `dear Countess Phœbe' — but we are not
permitted to `read our title clear,' in this hideously-simple
country. Might I invent an appellative? We
say char-woman and horse-man — why not put a descriptive
word before a lady's name, by way of respectful
distance. Phœbe Lorn is a belle — why not
say Bel-Phœbe? Good! It sounds authentic. This
letter, then, is to Phœbe, unhurt and beautiful (alias),
`Dear Bel-Phœbe!' “Dear Madam: The undersigned, booksellers,
publishers, and authors, of the city of New York,
have long felt desirous of transmitting to you a memorial
of the high and respectful admiration which
they entertain for one to whose pen we are indebted
for some of the purest and most imaginative productions
in the wide range of English literature. As the
authoress of `Thaddeus of Warsaw,' the `Scottish
Chiefs,' &c., your name has spread over the length
and breadth of our land, and the volumes of your delightful
works may be found gracing alike the abodes
of the wealthy, and the humble dwellings of the
poor. And deservedly so — for if purity of sentiment,
felicity of expression, and the constant inculcation of
the noblest lessons of religion and morality, be any
passport to literary fame, then will the name of Miss
Porter rank high on the list of those whom the present
age delights to honor, and for whom coming ages
will entertain a deep feeling of reverential esteem. Dear Jack: Since my compulsory budding, flowering,
and bearing fruit, have been accelerated to one
season per diem, to feed a daily paper, you will easily
understand that I found it necessary at first to work
all my sap into something useful — omitting as it were,
the gum deposite of superfluous correspondence. I
accordingly left you off. Your last letter was slipped
into the no-more-bother hole, without the usual endorsement
of “answered,” and I considered you like
a trinket laid aside before a race — not to encumber
me. I miss the writing of trumpery, however. I miss
the sweeping out of the corners of my mind — full of
things fit only for the dust-pan, but still very possibly
hiding a silver-spoon. Messrs. Editors: My friend John Smith is to be
married to Lucy Jones. She issues a card of invitation
like this: — Dear Custom: Your friend is wrong, from the
egg to the apple. Miss Lucy Jones has a mother, or
father, guardian, or friend, at whose house she is to be
married. The invitation should come from the person
under whose protection she is given away — (sent,
if you please, to Mr. Smith's friends, with Mr. Smith's
card, but understood by Miss Lucy Jones's friends,
without card or explanation). It is tampering with
serious things, very dangerously, to circulate the three
words, “and Mrs. John Smith,” one minute before
the putting on of the irrevocable ring. The law
which permits ladies (though not gentlemen) to
change their minds up to the last minute before wed
lock, exacts also that the privileged angels should not
be coerced by the fear of seeing the escaped name
afterward on a wedding card! Besides, such a card,
so issued, would be received from Mrs. Smith before
there was any such person. “Dear Sir: I am directed by the committee of the `Travellers'
to inform you that they have great pleasure in admitting
you as a visiter to the club for the ensuing month, and
that they hope to be favored with your frequent attendance. “Sir: I am directed to inform you that the committee of
the `Athenæum' have ordered your name to be placed on
the list of distinguished foreigners residing in London, who
are invited to the house of the club for three months, subject
to the same regulations as the members are required to
observe. “Je suis vraiment desolée de ne pouvoir aller ce soir chez
Lady Morgan. Je dine chez le Prince Esterhazy ou je dois
passer la soirée. Demain au soir, j'ai un concert pour M. Laporte,
le reste de la semaine je suis libre et tout à vos ordres.
Si vous croyez de combiner quelque-choze avec Lady Morgan,
comptez sur moi! Demain je passerai chez Lady Morgan
pour faire mes excuses en personne. “Mr. Editor: I observe that a `bachelor,' writing
in the `American,' recommends to `invited'
and `inviters,' to send invitations and answers, stamped,
through the penny-post. This is a capital idea,
and I shall adopt it for one. I perceive that a bachelor
in another paper says, `it will suit him and his fellow-bachelors,'
for reasons set forth, and that he will adopt
the plan. Now, Mr. Editor, I am a housekeeper,
and married, and my wife requires the use of all my
servants, and can not spare them to be absent three or
four days, going round the city, delivering notes, on
the eve of a party. These notes could, by the plan
suggested, be delivered in three hours, and insure a
prompt answer. I can then know exactly who is
coming and who is not — a very convenient point of
knowledge! “Right Trusty and Right Well-beloved
Cousin. — We greet you well. Whereas, the 1st day
of March next (or thereabouts) is appointed for our
coronation. — These are to will and command you (all
excuses set apart) to make your personal attendance
on us at the time above-mentioned, furnished and appointed
as to your rank and quality appertaineth. —
There to do and perform all such services as shall be
required and belong to you. — Whereof you are not to
fail. — And so we bid you heartily farewell. “Mr. Editor: One of the greatest treats you
could give your country lady readers, would be to
furnish them from time to time, with brief hints as to
the actual style of fashions in the metropolis. We
have, all along, depended for information on this important
subject, upon the monthly magazines, all of
which profess to give the fashions as worn, but we find
out to our dismay, that they pick up their fashions
from the Paris and London prints at random — some
of them adopted by our city ladies, some not! It thus
happens that we country people, who like to be in the
fashion, are often subjected to great expense and mortification
— relying too implicitly upon the magazine
reports. We cause a bonnet or a dress to be made
strictly in accordance with the style prescribed in the
fashion plate of the magazine, and when we hie away
to the city with our new finery, we discover that our
costume is so outrè that every one laughs at us! Now,
should there not be some remedy for this evil? “`Madam: There is a fund applicable, as vacancies
may occur, to the grant of annual pensions of very
limited amount, which usage has placed at the disposal
of the lady of the first minister. On this fund
there is a surplus of £20 per annum. To a lady-friend in the country: I am up to the
knees in newspapers, and write to you under the stare
of nine pigeon-holes, stuffed with literary portent.
Were there such a thing (in this world of everythings)
as papyral magnetism, you would get a letter, not
only typical in itself, but typical of a flood in which
my identity is fast drowning. Oh, the drown of news,
weighed unceasingly — little events and great ones —
against little more than the trouble of snipping round
with scissors! To a horrid death — to a marriage
preservation — to a heart-gush of poesy — to a marriage
— to a crime — to the turn of a political crisis — to
flashing wit and storied agonies — giving but the one
50
invariable first thought — “Shall I cut it out?” Alas,
dear beauty-monarch of all you survey! — your own
obituary, were I to read it in a newspaper of to-morrow,
would speak scarce quicker to my heart than to
those scissors of undiscriminating circum-cision!
With the knowledge that the sky above me was enriched,
as Florence once was, by the return of its
long-lost and best model of beauty, I should ask,
with be-paragraphed grief — “will her death do for
the Mirror?” My Dear Sir: To ask me for my idea of General
Morris is like asking the left hand's opinion of the
dexterity of the right. I have lived so long with the
“brigadier,” known him so intimately, worked so constantly
at the same rope, and thought so little of ever
separating from him (except by precedence of ferriage
over the Styx), that it is hard to shove him from me
to the perspective distance — hard to shut my own partial
eyes, and look at him through other people's. I
will try, however, and as it is done with but one foot
off from the treadmill of my ceaseless vocation, you
will excuse both abruptness and brevity. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 463 | Author: | Willis
Nathaniel Parker
1806-1867 | Add | | | Title: | The miscellaneous works of N.P. Willis | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | I have not written to you in your boy's lifetime—
that fine lad, a shade taller than yourself, whom I
sometimes meet at my tailor's and bootmaker's. I
am not very sure, that after the first month (bitter
month) of your marriage, I have thought of you for
the duration of a revery—fit to be so called. I loved
you—lost you—swore your ruin and forgot you—
which is love's climax when jilted. And I never expected
to think of you again. Start fair, my sweet Violet! This letter will lie on
your table when you arrive at Saratoga, and it is intended
to prepare you for that critical campaign. You
must know the ammunition with which you go into
the field. I have seen service, as you know, and,
from my retirement (on half-pay), can both devise
strategy and reconnoitre the enemy's weakness, with
discretion. Set your glass before you on the table,
and let us hold a frank council of war. My dear widow: For the wear and tear of your
bright eyes in writing me a letter you are duly credited.
That for a real half-hour, as long as any ordinary
half-hour, such well-contrived illuminations
should have concentrated their mortal using on me
only, is equal, I am well aware, to a private audience
of any two stars in the firmament—eyelashes and petticoats
(if not thrown in) turning the comparison a
little in your favor. Thanks—of course—piled high
as the porphyry pyramid of Papantla! My dear neph-ling: I congratulate you on the
attainment of your degree as “Master of Arts.” In
other words, I wish the sin of the Faculty well repented
of, in having endorsed upon parchment such a
barefaced fabrication. Put the document in your pocket,
and come away! There will be no occasion to
air it before doomsday, probably, and fortunately for
you, it will then revert to the Faculty. Quiescat adhuc—as
I used to say of my tailor's bills till they came
through a lawyer. Dear reader: A volume of poems goes from us
in an extra of the Mirror this week, which leaves us
with a feeling—we scarce know how to phrase it—a
feeling of timidity and dread—like a parent's apprehensiveness,
giving his child into the hands of a stranger.
It is not Pliny's “quam sit magnum dare aliquid
in manus hominum,” nor is it, what the habitual avoidance
of grave themes looks like, sometimes—a preference
“to let the serious part of life go by
Like the neglected sand.”
We are used to buttering curiosity with the ooze of
our brains—careful more to be paid than praised—
and we have a cellar, as well as many stories, in our
giddy thought-house; and it is from this cave of privacy
that we have, with reluctance, and consentings far
between, drawn treasures of early feeling and impression,
now bound and offered to you for the first time
in one bundle. Oh, from the different stories of the
mind—from the settled depths, and from the effervescent
and giddy surface—how different looks the world!
—of what different stuff and worth the link that binds
us to it! In looking abroad from one window of the
soul, we see sympathy, goodness, truth, desire for us
and our secrets, that we may be more loved; from
another, we see suspicion, coldness, mockery, and ill-will—the
evil spirits of the world—lying in wait for
us. At one moment—the spirits down, and the heart
calm and trusting—we tear out the golden leaf nearest
the well of life, and pass it forth to be read and wept
over. At another, we bar shutter and blind upon prying
malice, turn key carefully on all below, and,
mounting to the summit, look abroad and jest at the
very treasures we have concealed—wondering at our
folly in even confessing to a heartless world that we
had secrets, and would share them. We are not always
alike. The world does not seem always the
same. We believe it is all good sometimes. We believe
sometimes, that it is but a place accursed, given
to devils and their human scholars. Sometimes we
are all kindness—sometimes aching only for an an
tagonist, and an arena without barrier or law. And
oh what a Procrustes's bed is human opinion—trying
a man's actions and words, in whatever mood committed
and said, by the same standard of rigor! How
often must the angels hovering over us reverse the
sentence of the judge—how oftener still the rebuke
of the old maid and the Pharisee. Sir: A French writer wittily turns the paradox:
“Il faut de l'argent même pour se passer d'argent”—
(is it necessary to have money to be able to do without
it)—and we please ourselves with suspecting that it is
only amid the forgetful ease of possession that you can
have made up your mind to forego us. If so, and
your first se'ennight of unmirrored solitude prove
heavier to bear than the aching three dollar void
balanced against it—so! The pathos of this parting
will have been superfluous. Ladies and gentlemen: In the eleven thousand
shining sixpences which duly rise and dispense their
silver light upon our way, we see of course the
“Heaven of eternal change” toward whose “patines
of bright gold” we have been long stretching with
tiptoe expectation. We trust that, like the unpocketable
troop whose indefatigable punctuality you emulate,
there are still comers to your number unarrived,
and that the “Lost Pleiad” (the single heavenly body
upon whose discontinuance to rise we indited the
foregoing epistle), will come round again in his erratic
orbit, and take his place in the constellation he has
deserted. We give notice here, however, that, at
eleven thousand, we shall, like the nuns of St. Ursula,
stop numbering. There have been virgins since the
shelving of the bones of the “eleven thousand virgins
of Cologne,” yet the oft-told number is still told,
without increase, in the holy tradition. We believe
with the sainted sisterhood that human credence can
go no farther—that 'twixt millions and billions of
virgins the disciple's mind would not be likely to discriminate.
You will still permit us, therefore, to cast
our horoscope upon this nominal number. As other
starry sixpences fall into the chinks of boundless space,
the perceptible increase of our brightness will alone
tell the tale—but they will be marked and welcomed
in the careful astronomy of our leger. You are feeding the news-hopper of your literary
mill, my dear poet, and I am trying on the old trick
of gayety at Saratoga. Which of us should write
the other a letter? You, if you say so—though as I
get older, I am beginning to think well of the town,
even in August. You have your little solaces, my fast
liver! Dear Willis: Your kind note to St. John, of the
Knickerbocker, got me the state-room with the picture
of “Glenmary” on the panel, and I slept under
the protection of your household gods—famously, of
course. The only fault I found with that magnificent
boat, was the right of any “smutched villain” to walk
through her. It is a frightful arrangement that can
sell, to a beauty and a blackguard, for the same money,
the right to promenade on the same carpet, and go to
sleep with the same surroundings on the opposite
sides of a pine partition! Give me a world where
antipodes stay put! But what a right-royal, “slap-up”
supper they give in the Knickerbocker! They'll
make the means better than the end—travelling better
than arriving—if they improve any more! I had a
great mind to go back the next day, and come up
again. “Dear Willis: You frightened me to-day, terribly,
in the hint you threw out in the course of conversation
with the `brigadier,' to wit: `Shall we
make it into a monthly?' “Dear Bel-Phœbe: I have been `twiddling my
sunbeam' (you say my letters are `perfect sunshine')
for some time, more or less, in a quandary as to what
is now resolved upon as `Dear Bel-Phœbe'—the beginning
of this (meant-to-be) faultless epistle. I
chanced to wake critical this morning, and, `dear
Phœbe,' as the beginning of this letter of mine, looked
both vulgar and meaningless. I inked it out as you
see. A reference to my etymological dictionary,
however, restored my liking for that `dear' word. It
is derived from the Anglo-Saxon verb Der-ian, which
means to do mischief. Hence dearth, which, by doing
mischief, makes what remains more precious, and
hence dear, meaning something made precious by having
escaped hurting. `Dear Phœbe,' therefore (meaning
unhurt Phœbe), struck me as pretty well—you being
one of those delicious, late-loving women, destined
to be `hurt' first at thirty. Still, the sacred word
`Phœbe' was too abruptly come upon. It sounded
familiar, and familiarity should be reserved for the
postscript. I should have liked to write `dear Lady
Phœbe,' or `dear Countess Phœbe'—but we are not
permitted to `read our title clear,' in this hideously-simple
country. Might I invent an appellative? We
say char-woman and horse-man—why not put a descriptive
word before a lady's name, by way of respectful
distance. Phœbe Lorn is a belle—why not
say Bel-Phœbe? Good! It sounds authentic. This
letter, then, is to Phœbe, unhurt and beautiful (alias),
`Dear Bel-Phœbe!' “Dear Madam: The undersigned, booksellers,
publishers, and authors, of the city of New York,
have long felt desirous of transmitting to you a memorial
of the high and respectful admiration which
they entertain for one to whose pen we are indebted
for some of the purest and most imaginative productions
in the wide range of English literature. As the
authoress of `Thaddeus of Warsaw,' the `Scottish
Chiefs,' &c., your name has spread over the length
and breadth of our land, and the volumes of your delightful
works may be found gracing alike the abodes
of the wealthy, and the humble dwellings of the
poor. And deservedly so—for if purity of sentiment,
felicity of expression, and the constant inculcation of
the noblest lessons of religion and morality, be any
passport to literary fame, then will the name of Miss
Porter rank high on the list of those whom the present
age delights to honor, and for whom coming ages
will entertain a deep feeling of reverential esteem. Dear Jack: Since my compulsory budding, flowering,
and bearing fruit, have been accelerated to one
season per diem, to feed a daily paper, you will easily
understand that I found it necessary at first to work
all my sap into something useful—omitting as it were,
the gum deposite of superfluous correspondence. I
accordingly left you off. Your last letter was slipped
into the no-more-bother hole, without the usual endorsement
of “answered,” and I considered you like
a trinket laid aside before a race—not to encumber
me. I miss the writing of trumpery, however. I miss
the sweeping out of the corners of my mind—full of
things fit only for the dust-pan, but still very possibly
hiding a silver-spoon. Messrs. Editors: My friend John Smith is to be
married to Lucy Jones. She issues a card of invitation
like this:— Dear Custom: Your friend is wrong, from the
egg to the apple. Miss Lucy Jones has a mother, or
father, guardian, or friend, at whose house she is to be
married. The invitation should come from the person
under whose protection she is given away—(sent,
if you please, to Mr. Smith's friends, with Mr. Smith's
card, but understood by Miss Lucy Jones's friends,
without card or explanation). It is tampering with
serious things, very dangerously, to circulate the three
words, “and Mrs. John Smith,” one minute before
the putting on of the irrevocable ring. The law
which permits ladies (though not gentlemen) to
change their minds up to the last minute before wed
lock, exacts also that the privileged angels should not
be coerced by the fear of seeing the escaped name
afterward on a wedding card! Besides, such a card,
so issued, would be received from Mrs. Smith before
there was any such person. “Dear Sir: I am directed by the committee of the `Travellers'
to inform you that they have great pleasure in admitting
you as a visiter to the club for the ensuing month, and
that they hope to be favored with your frequent attendance. “Sir: I am directed to inform you that the committee of
the `Athenæum' have ordered your name to be placed on
the list of distinguished foreigners residing in London, who
are invited to the house of the club for three months, subject
to the same regulations as the members are required to
observe. “Je suis vraiment desolée de ne pouvoir aller ce soir chez
Lady Morgan. Je dine chez le Prince Esterhazy ou je dois
passer la soirée. Demain au soir, j'ai un concert pour M. Laporte,
le reste de la semaine je suis libre et tout à vos ordres.
Si vous croyez de combiner quelque-choze avec Lady Morgan,
comptez sur moi! Demain je passerai chez Lady Morgan
pour faire mes excuses en personne. “Mr. Editor: I observe that a `bachelor,' writing
in the `American,' recommends to `invited'
and `inviters,' to send invitations and answers, stamped,
through the penny-post. This is a capital idea,
and I shall adopt it for one. I perceive that a bachelor
in another paper says, `it will suit him and his fellow-bachelors,'
for reasons set forth, and that he will adopt
the plan. Now, Mr. Editor, I am a housekeeper,
and married, and my wife requires the use of all my
servants, and can not spare them to be absent three or
four days, going round the city, delivering notes, on
the eve of a party. These notes could, by the plan
suggested, be delivered in three hours, and insure a
prompt answer. I can then know exactly who is
coming and who is not—a very convenient point of
knowledge! “Right Trusty and Right Well-beloved
Cousin.—We greet you well. Whereas, the 1st day
of March next (or thereabouts) is appointed for our
coronation.—These are to will and command you (all
excuses set apart) to make your personal attendance
on us at the time above-mentioned, furnished and appointed
as to your rank and quality appertaineth.—
There to do and perform all such services as shall be
required and belong to you.—Whereof you are not to
fail.—And so we bid you heartily farewell. “Mr. Editor: One of the greatest treats you
could give your country lady readers, would be to
furnish them from time to time, with brief hints as to
the actual style of fashions in the metropolis. We
have, all along, depended for information on this important
subject, upon the monthly magazines, all of
which profess to give the fashions as worn, but we find
out to our dismay, that they pick up their fashions
from the Paris and London prints at random—some
of them adopted by our city ladies, some not! It thus
happens that we country people, who like to be in the
fashion, are often subjected to great expense and mortification—relying
too implicitly upon the magazine
reports. We cause a bonnet or a dress to be made
strictly in accordance with the style prescribed in the
fashion plate of the magazine, and when we hie away
to the city with our new finery, we discover that our
costume is so outrè that every one laughs at us! Now,
should there not be some remedy for this evil? “`Madam: There is a fund applicable, as vacancies
may occur, to the grant of annual pensions of very
limited amount, which usage has placed at the disposal
of the lady of the first minister. On this fund
there is a surplus of £20 per annum. Dear Fanny: Would your dark eyes vouchsafe
to wonder how I come to write to you? Thus it
befell:— To a lady-friend in the country: I am up to the
knees in newspapers, and write to you under the stare
of nine pigeon-holes, stuffed with literary portent.
Were there such a thing (in this world of everythings)
as papyral magnetism, you would get a letter, not
only typical in itself, but typical of a flood in which
my identity is fast drowning. Oh, the drown of news,
weighed unceasingly—little events and great ones—
against little more than the trouble of snipping round
with scissors! To a horrid death—to a miraculous
preservation—to a heart-gush of poesy—to a marriage
—to a crime—to the turn of a political crisis—to
flashing wit and storied agonies—giving but the one
invariable first thought—“Shall I cut it out?” Alas,
dear beauty-monarch of all you survey!—your own
obitnary, were I to read it in a newspaper of to-morrow,
would speak scarce quicker to my heart than to
those scissors of undiscriminating circum-cision!
With the knowledge that the sky above me was enriched,
as Florence once was, by the return of its
long-lost and best model of beauty, I should ask,
with be-paragraphed grief—“will her death do for
the Mirror?” My Dear Sir: To ask me for my idea of General
Morris is like asking the left hand's opinion of the
dexterity of the right. I have lived so long with the
“brigadier,” known him so intimately, worked so constantly
at the same rope, and thought so little of ever
separating from him (except by precedence of ferriage
over the Styx), that it is hard to shove him from me
to the perspective distance—hard to shut my own partial
eyes, and look at him through other people's. I
will try, however, and as it is done with but one foot
off from the treadmill of my ceaseless vocation, you
will excuse both abruptness and brevity. “Has there been any mistake in the two-penny post
delivery, that I have not received your article for this
mouth? If so, please send me the rough draught by
the bearer (who waits), and the compositors will try
to make it out. “Dear Mr. Clay: From causes which you will
probably understand, I have been induced to reconsider
your proposal of marriage to my niece.—Imprudent
as I must still consider your union, I find myself
in such a situation that, should you persevere, I must
decide in its favor, as the least of two evils. You will
forgive my anxious care, however, if I exact of you,
before taking any decided step, a full and fair statement
of your pecuniary embarrassments (which I
understand are considerable) and your present income
and prospects. I think it proper to inform you that
Miss Gore's expectations, beyond an annuity of £300
a year, are very distant, and that all your calculations
should be confined to that amount. With this understanding,
I should be pleased to see you at Ashurst
to-morrow morning. “Dear Lady Fanny: If you have anything beside
the ghost-room vacant at Freer Hall, I will run
down to you. Should you, by chance, be alone, ask
up the curate for a week to keep Sir Harry off my
hands; and, as you don't flirt, provide me with somebody
more pretty than yourself for our mutual
security. As my autograph sells for eighteen pence,
you will excuse the brevity of “Sir: I am intrusted with a delicate commission,
which I know not how to broach to you, except by
simple proposal. Will you forgive my abrupt brevity,
if I inform you, without further preface, that the
Countess Nyschriem, a Polish lady of high birth and
ample fortune, does you the honor to propose for your
hand. If you are disengaged, and your affections are
not irrevocably given to another, I can conceive no
sufficient obstacle to your acceptance of this brilliant
connexion. The countess is twenty-two, and not
beautiful, it must in fairness be said; but she has
high qualities of head and heart, and is worthy of any
man's respect and affection. She has seen you, of
course, and conceived a passion for you, of which this
is the result. I am directed to add, that should you
consent, the following conditions are imposed—that
you marry her within four days, making no inquiry
except as to her age, rank, and property, and that,
without previous interview, she come veiled to the
altar. “You will pardon me that I have taken two days to
consider the extraordinary proposition made me in
your letter. The subject, since it is to be entertained
a moment, requires, perhaps, still further reflection—
but my reply shall be definite, and as prompt as I can
bring myself to be, in a matter so important. “Dear Fred: Nothing going on in town, except
a little affair of my own, which I can't leave to go
down to you. Dull even at Crocky's—nobody plays
this hot weather. And now, as to your commissions.
You will receive Dupree, the cook, by to-night's mail.
Grisi won't come to you without her man—`'twasn't
thus when we were boys!'—so I send you a figurante,
and you must do tableaux. I was luckier in finding
you a wit. S— will be with you to-morrow, though,
by the way, it is only on condition of meeting Lady
Midge Bellasys, for whom, if she is not with you, you
must exert your inveiglements. This, by way only
of shuttlecock and battledore, however, for they play
at wit together—nothing more, on her part at least.
Look out for this devilish fellow, my lord Fred!—
and live thin till you see the last of him—for he'll
laugh you into your second apoplexy with the dangerous
ease of a hair-trigger. I could amuse you with
a turn or two in my late adventures, but black and
white are bad confidants, though very well as a business
firm. And, mentioning them, I have drawn on
you for a temporary £500, which please lump with
my other loan, and oblige “Dear Sir Humphrey: Perhaps you will scarce
remember Jane Jones, to whom you presented the
brush of your first fox. This was thirty years ago.
I was then at school in the little village near Tally-ho
hall. Dear me! how well I remember it! On hearing
of your marriage, I accepted an offer from my late
husband, Mr. S—, and our union was blessed
with one boy, who, I must say, is an angel of goodness.
Out of his small income, my dear James furnished
and rented this very genteel house, and he
tells me I shall have it for life, and provides me one
servant, and everything I could possibly want. Thrice
a week he comes out to spend the day and dine with
me, and, in short, he is the pattern of good sons. As
this dear boy is going down to Warwickshire, I can not
resist the desire I have that you should know him,
and that he should bring me back an account of my
lover in days gone by. Any attention to him, dear
Sir Humphrey, will very much oblige one whom you
once was happy to oblige, and still “Dear Sir: I remember Miss Jones very well,
God bless me, I thought she had been dead many
years. I am sure I shall be very happy to see her
son. Will you come out and dine with us?—dinner
at seven. “Dear Nuncle: It's hard on to six o'clock, and
I'm engaged at seven to a junketing at the `Hen and
chickens,' with Stuggins and the maids. If you intend
to make me acquainted with your great lord, now
is time. If you don't, I shall walk in presently,
and introduce myself; for I know how to make my
own way, nucle—ask Miss Bel's maid, and the other
girls you introduced me to at Tally-ho hall! Be in
a hurry, I'm just outside. “My dear Lord: In the belief that a frank communication
would be best under the circumstances, I
wish to make an inquiry, prefacing it with the assurance
that my only hope of happiness has been for
some time staked upon the successful issue of my
suit for your daughter's hand. It is commonly understood,
I believe, that the bulk of your lordship's fortune
is separate from the entail, and may be disposed
of at your pleasure. May I inquire its amount, or
rather, may I ask what fortune goes with the hand of
Lady Angelica. The Beauchief estates are unfortunately
much embarrassed, and my own debts (I may
frankly confess) are very considerable. You will at
once see, my lord, that, in justice to your daughter, as
well as to myself, I could not do otherwise than make
this frank inquiry before pushing my suit to extremity.
Begging your indulgence and an immediate answer, I
remain, my dear lord, “Dear Lord Frederick: I trust you will not
accuse me of a want of candor in declining a direct
answer to your question. Though I freely own to a
friendly wish for your success in your efforts to engage
the affections of Lady Angelica, with a view to marriage,
it can only be in the irrevocable process of a
marriage settlement that her situation, as to the probable
disposal of my fortune, can be disclosed. I may
admit to you, however, that, upon the events of this
day on which you have written (it so chances), may
depend the question whether I should encourage you
to pursue further your addresses to Lady Angelica. “My dear Angelica: I am happy to know that
there are circumstances which will turn aside much
of the poignancy of the communication I am about to
make to you. If I am not mistaken at least, in believing
a mutual attachment to exist between yourself
and Count Pallardos, you will at once comprehend
the ground of my mental relief, and perhaps, in
a measure, anticipate what I am about to say. “Dear Count: You will wonder at receiving a
friendly note from me after my refusal, two months
since, to meet you over `pistols and coffee;' but reparation
may not be too late, and this is to say, that
you have your choice between two modes of settlement,
viz:—to accept for your stable the hunter you
stole from me (vide police report) and allow me to take
a glass of wine with you at my own table and bury the
hatcher, or, to shoot at me if you like, according to
your original design. Manners and Beauchief hope
you will select the latter, as they owe you a grudge
for the possession of your incomparable bride and her
fortune; but I trust you will prefer the horse, which
(if I am rightly informed) bore you to the declaration
of love at Chasteney. Reply to Crockford's. “My dear St. Leger: Enclosed you have the
only surviving lock of my grizzled wig—sign and symbol
that my disguises are over and my object attained.
The wig burns at this instant in the grate, item my
hand-ruffles, item sundry embroidered cravats a la
vielle cour, item (this last not without some trouble at
my heart) a solitary love-token from Constantia Hervey.
One faded rose—given me at Pæstum, the day
before I was driven disgraced from her presence by
the interference of this insolent fool—one faded rose
has crisped and faded into smoke with the rest. And
so fled from the world the last hope of a warm and
passionate heart, which never gave up its destiny till
now—never felt that it was made in vain, guarded, refined,
cherished in vain, till that long-loved flower lay
in ashes. I am accustomed to strip emotion of its
drapery—determined to feel nothing but what is real—
yet this moment, turn it and strip it, and deny its illusions
as I will, is anguish. `Self-inflicted,' you smile
and say! “I have followed up to this hour, my fair cousin, in
the path you have marked out for me. It has brought
me back, in this chamber, to the point from which I
started under your guidance, and if it had brought me
back unchanged—if it restored me my energy, my
hope, and my prospect of fame, I should pray Heaven
that it would also give me back my love, and be content—more
than content, if it gave me back also my
poverty. The sight of my easel, and of the surroundings
of my boyish dreams of glory, have made my
heart bitter. They have given form and voice to a
vague unhappiness, which has haunted me through all
these absent years—years of degrading pursuits and
wasted powers—and it now impels me from you, kind
and lovely as you are, with an aversion I can not control.
I can not forgive you. You have thwarted my
destiny. You have extinguished with sordid cares a
lamp within me that might, by this time, have shone
through the world. And what am I, since your wishes
are accomplished? Enriched in pocket, and bankrupt
in happiness and self-respect. Dined with F—, the artist, at a trattoria. F— is
a man of genius, very adventurous and imaginative in
his art, but never caring to show the least touch of
these qualities in his conversation. His pictures have
given him great vogue and consideration at Rome, so
that his daily experience furnishes staple enough for
his evening's chit-chat, and he seems, of course, to be
always talking of himself. He is very generally set
down as an egotist. His impulse to talk, however,
springs from no wish for self-glorification, but rather
from an indolent aptness to lay hands on the readiest
and most familiar topic, and that is a kind of egotism
to which I have very little objection—particularly
with the mind fatigued, as it commonly is in Rome,
by a long day's study of works of art. “Where art thou, bridegroom of my soul? Thy
Ione S— calls to thee from the aching void of her
lonely spirit! What name bearest thou? What path
walkest thou? How can I, glow-worm like, lift my
wings and show thee my lamp of guiding love? Thus
wing I these words to thy dwelling-place (for thou art,
perhaps, a subscriber to the M—r). Go—truants!
Rest not till ye meet his eye. “`Dear Miss Blidgims: Feeling quite indisposed
myself, and being firmly persuaded that we are
three cases of cholera, I have taken advantage of a
return calesino to hurry on to Modena for medical
advice. The vehicle I take, brought hither a sister of
charity, who assures me she will wait on you, even in
the most malignant stage of your disease. She is
collecting funds for an hospital, and will receive compensation
for her services in the form of a donation to
this object. I shall send you a physician by express
from Modena, where it is still possible we may meet.
With prayers, &c., &c. “The delivery of this was subject, of course, to
the condition of the ladies when they should arrive,
though I had a presentiment they were in for a serious
business. “Baron: Before taking the usual notice of the occurrence
of this morning, I wish to rectify one or two
points in which our position is false. I find myself,
since last night, the accepted lover of Lady Imogen
Ravelgold, and the master of estates and title as a
count of the Russian empire. Under the etourdissement
of such sudden changes in feelings and fortune,
perhaps my forgetfulness of the lady, in whose cause
you are so interested, admits of indulgence. At any
rate, I am so newly in love with life, that I am willing
to suppose for an hour that had you known these circumstances,
you would have taken a different view of
the offence in question. I shall remain at home till
two, and it is in your power till then to make me the
reparation necessary to my honor. “Dear Sir: My wife wishes me to write to you,
and inform you of her marriage, which took place a
week or two since, and of which she presumes you
are not aware. She remarked to me, that you thought
her looking unhappy last evening, when you chanced
to see her at the play. As she seemed to regret not
being able to answer your note herself, I may perhaps
convey the proper apology by taking upon myself to
mention to you, that, in consequence of eating an imprudent
quantity of unripe fruit, she felt ill before going
to the theatre, and was obliged to leave early.
To day she seems seriously indisposed. I trust she
will be well enough to see you in a day or two—and
remain, | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 464 | Author: | Willis
Nathaniel Parker
1806-1867 | Add | | | Title: | The prose works of N.P. Willis | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | Sir: In selling you the dew and sunshine ordained
to fall hereafter on this bright spot of earth—the
waters on their way to this sparkling brook—the tints
mixed for the flowers of that enamelled meadow, and
the songs bidden to be sung in coming summers by
the feathery builders in Glenmary, I know not whether
to wonder more at the omnipotence of money, or at
my own impertinent audacity toward Nature. How
you can buy the right to exclude at will every other
creature made in God's image from sitting by this
brook, treading on that carpet of flowers, or lying listening
to the birds in the shade of these glorious trees
—how I can sell it you, is a mystery not understood
by the Indian, and dark, I must say to me. “Has there been any mistake in the two-penny post
delivery, that I have not received your article for this
month? If so, please send me the rough draught by
the bearer (who waits), and the compositors will try
to make it out. “Dear Mr. Clay: From causes which you will
probably understand, I have been induced to reconsider
your proposal of marriage to my niece.—Imprudent
as I must still consider your union, I find myself
in such a situation that, should you persevere, I must
decide in its favor, as the least of two evils. You will
forgive my anxious care, however, if I exact of you,
before taking any decided step, a full and fair statement
of your pecuniary embarrassments (which I
understand are considerable) and your present income
and prospects. I think it proper to inform you that
Miss Gore's expectations, beyond an annuity of £300
a year, are very distant, and that all your calculations
should be confined to that amount. With this understanding,
I should be pleased to see you at Ashurst
to-morrow morning. “Dear Lady Fanny: If you have anything beside
the ghost-room vacant at Freer Hall, I will run
down to you. Should you, by chance, be alone, ask
up the curate for a week to keep Sir Harry off my
hands; and, as you don't flirt, provide me with somebody
more pretty than yourself for our mutual
security. As my autograph sells for eighteen pence,
you will excuse the brevity of “Sir: I am intrusted with a delicate commission,
which I know not how to broach to you, except by
simple proposal. Will you forgive my abrupt brevity,
if I inform you, without further preface, that the
Countess Nyschriem, a Polish lady of high birth and
ample fortune, does you the honor to propose for your
hand. If you are disengaged, and your affections are
not irrevocably given to another, I can conceive no
sufficient obstacle to your acceptance of this brilliant
connexion. The countess is twenty-two, and not
beautiful, it must in fairness be said; but she has
high qualities of head and heart, and is worthy of any
man's respect and affection. She has seen you, of
course, and conceived a passion for you, of which this
is the result. I am directed to add, that should you
consent, the following conditions are imposed—that
you marry her within four days, making no inquiry
except as to her age, rank, and property, and that,
without previous interview, she come veiled to the
altar. “You will pardon me that I have taken two days to
consider the extraordinary proposition made me in
your letter. The subject, since it is to be entertained
a moment, requires, perhaps, still further reflection—
but my reply shall be definite, and as prompt as I can
bring myself to be, in a matter so important. “Dear Fred: Nothing going on in town, except
a little affair of my own, which I can't leave to go
down to you. Dull even at Crocky's—nobody plays
this hot weather. And now, as to your commissions.
You will receive Dupree, the cook, by to-night's mail.
Grisi won't come to you without her man—`'twasn't
thus when we were boys!'—so I send you a figurante,
and you must do tableaux. I was luckier in finding
you a wit. S—will be with you to-morrow, though,
by the way, it is only on condition of meeting Lady
Midge Bellasys, for whom, if she is not with you, you
must exert your inveiglements. This, by way only
of shuttlecock and battledore, however, for they play
at wit together—nothing more, on her part at least.
Look out for this devilish fellow, my lord Fred!—
and live thin till you see the last of him—for he'll
laugh you into your second apoplexy with the dangerous
ease of a hair-trigger. I could amuse you with
a turn or two in my late adventures, but black and
white are bad confidauts, though very well as a business
firm. And, mentioning them, I have drawn on
you for a temporary £500, which please lump with
my other loan, and oblige “Dear Sir Humphrey: Perhaps you will scarce
remember Jane Jones, to whom you presented the
brush of your first fox. This was thirty years ago.
I was then at school in the little village near Tally-ho
hall. Dear me! how well I remember it! On hearing
of your marriage, I accepted an offer from my late
husband, Mr. S—, and our union was blessed
with one boy, who, I must say, is an angel of goodness.
Out of his small income, my dear James furnished
and rented this very genteel house, and he
tells me I shall have it for life, and provides me one
servant, and everything I could possibly want. Thrice
a week he comes out to spend the day and dine with
me, and, in short, he is the pattern of good sons. As
this dear boy is going down to Warwickshire, I can not
resist the desire I have that you should know him,
and that he should bring me back an account of my
lover in days gone by. Any attention to him, dear
Sir Humphrey, will very much oblige one whom you
once was happy to oblige, and still “Dear Sir: I remember Miss Jones very well,
God bless me, I thought she had been dead many
years. I am sure I shall be very happy to see her
son: Will you come out and dine with us?—dinner
at seven. Your ob't servant, “Humphrey Fencher. “Dear Nuncle: It's hard on to six o'clock, and
I'm engaged at seven to a junketing at the `Hen and
chickens,' with Stuggins and the maids. If you intend
to make me acquainted with your great lord, now
is the time. If you don't, I shall walk in presently,
and introduce myself; for I know how to make my
own way, nuncle—ask Miss Bel's maid, and the other
girls you introduced me to at Tally-ho hall! Be in
a hurry, I'm just outside. “My dear Lord: In the belief that a frank communication
would be best under the circumstances, I
wish to make an inquiry, prefacing it with the assurance
that my only hope of happiness has been for
some time staked upon the successful issue of my
suit for your daughter's hand. It is commonly understood,
I believe, that the bulk of your lordship's fortune
is separate from the entail, and may be disposed
of at your pleasure. May I inquire its amount, or
rather, may I ask what fortune goes with the hand of
Lady Angelica. The Beauchief estates are unfortunately
much embarrassed, and my own debts (I may
frankly confess) are very considerable. You will at
once see, my lord, that, in justice to your daughter, as
well as to myself, I could not do otherwise than make
this frank inquiry before pushing my suit to extremity.
Begging your indulgence and an immediate answer, I
remain, my dear lord, “Dear Lord Frederick: I trust you will not
accuse me of a want of candor in declining a direct
answer to your question. Though I freely own to a
friendly wish for your success in your efforts to engage
the affections of Lady Angelica, with a view to marriage,
it can only be in the irrevocable process of a
marriage settlement that her situation, as to the probable
disposal of my fortune, can be disclosed. I may
admit to you, however, that, upon the events of this
day on which you have written (it so chances), may
depend the question whether I should encourage you
to pursue further your addresses to Lady Angelica. “My dear Angelica: I am happy to know that
there are circumstances which will turn aside much
of the poignancy of the communication I am about to
make to you. If I am not mistaken at least, in believing
a mutual attachment to exist between yourself
and Count Pallardos, you will at once comprehend
the ground of my mental relief, and perhaps, in
a measure, anticipate what I am about to say. “Dear Count: You will wonder at receiving a
friendly note from me after my refusal, two months
since, to meet you over `pistols and coffee;' but reparation
may not be too late, and this is to say, that
you have your choice between two modes of settlement,
viz:—to accept for your stable the hunter you
stole from me (vide police report) and allow me to take
a glass of wine with you at my own table and bury the
hatchet, or, to shoot at me if you like, according to
your original design. Manners and Beauchief hope
you will select the latter, as they owe you a grudge
for the possession of your incomparable bride and her
fortune; but I trust you will prefer the horse, which
(if I am rightly informed) bore you to the declaration
of love at Chasteney. Reply to Crockford's. “I have followed up to this hour, my fair cousin, in
the path you have marked out for me. It has brought
me back, in this chamber, to the point from which I
started under your guidance, and if it had brought me
back unchanged—if it restored me my energy, my
hope, and my prospect of fame, I should pray Heaven
that it would also give me back my love, and be content—more
than content, if it gave me back also my
poverty. The sight of my easel, and of the surroundings
of my boyish dreams of glory, have made my
heart bitter. They have given form and voice to a
vague unhappiness, which has haunted me through all
these absent years—years of degrading pursuits and
wasted powers—and it now impels me from you, kind
and lovely as you are, with an aversion I can not control.
I can not forgive you. You have thwarted my
destiny. You have extinguished with sordid cares a
lamp within me that might, by this time, have shone
through the world. And what am I, since your wishes
are accomplished? Enriched in pocket, and bankrupt
in happiness and self-respect. Dined with F—, the artist, at a trattoria. F— is
a man of genius, very adventurous and imaginative in
his art, but never caring to show the least touch of
these qualities in his conversation. His pictures have
given him great vogue and consideration at Rome, so
that his daily experience funishes staple enough for
his evening's chit-chat, and he seems, of course, to be
always talking of himself. He is very generally set
down as an egotist. His impulse to talk, however,
springs from no wish for self-glorification, but rather
from an indolent aptness to lay hands on the readiest
and most familiar topic, and that is a kind of egotism
to which I have very little objection—particularly
with the mind fatigued, as it commonly is in Rome,
by a long day's study of works of art. “You will be surprised on glancing at the signature
to this letter. You will be still more surprised when
you are reminded that it is a reply to an unanswered
one of your own—written years ago. That letter lies
by me, expressed with all the diffidence of boyish
feeling. And it seems as if its diffidence would encourage
me in what I wish to say. Yet I write far
more tremblingly than you could have done. “Where art thou, bridegroom of my soul? Thy
Ione S— calls to thee from the aching void of her
lonely spirit! What name bearest thou? What path
walkest thou? How can I, glow-worm like, lift my
wings and show thee my lamp of guiding love? Thus
wing I these words to thy dwelling-place (for thou art,
perhaps, a subscriber to the M—r). Go—truants!
Rest not till ye meet his eye. “`Dear Miss Blidgims: Feeling quite indisposed
myself, and being firmly persuaded that we are
three cases of cholera, I have taken advantage of a
return calesino to hurry on to Modena for medical
advice. The vehicle I take, brought hither a sister of
charity, who assures me she will wait on you, even in
the most malignant stage of your disease. She is
collecting funds for an hospital, and will receive compensation
for her services in the form of a donation to
this object. I shall send you a physician by express
from Modena, where it is still possible we may meet.
With prayers, &c., &c. “Sir: The faculty have decided to impose upon
you the fine of ten dollars and damages, for painting
the president's horse on sabbath night while grazing
on the college green. They, moreover, have removed
Freshman Wilding from your rooms, and appoint as
your future chum the studious and exemplary bearer,
Forbearance Smith, to whom you are desired to show
a becoming respect. “Dear Philip: You will be surprised to hear
that I am in the Lynn jail on a charge of theft and
utterance of counterfeit money. I do not wait to tell
you the particulars. Please come and identify. “Dear Tom: If your approaching nuptials are to
be sufficiently public to admit of a groomsman, you
will make me the happiest of friends by selecting me
for that office. “Dear Phil: The devil must have informed you
of a secret I supposed safe from all the world. Be assured
I should have chosen no one but yourself to
support me on the occasion; and however you have
discovered my design upon your treasure, a thousand
thanks for your generous consent. I expected no less
from your noble nature. “Baron: Before taking the usual notice of the occurrence
of this morning, I wish to rectify one or two
points in which our position is false. I find myself,
since last night, the accepted lover of Lady Imogen
Ravelgold, and the master of estates and title as a
count of the Russian empire. Under the etourdissement
of such sudden changes in feelings and fortune,
perhaps my forgetfulness of the lady, in whose cause
you are so interested, admits of indulgence. At any
rate, I am so newly in love with life, that I am willing
to suppose for an hour that had you known these circumstances,
you would have taken a different view of
the offence in question. I shall remain at home till
two, and it is in your power till then to make me the
reparation necessary to my honor. Yours, etc., “Dear Sir: My wife wishes me to write to you,
and inform you of her marriage, which took place a
week or two since, and of which she presumes you
are not aware. She remarked to me, that you thought
her looking unhappy last evening, when you chanced
to see her at the play. As she seemed to regret not
being able to answer your note herself, I may perhaps
convey the proper apology by taking upon myself to
mention to you, that, in consequence of eating an imprudent
quantity of unripe fruit, she felt ill before going
to the theatre, and was obliged to leave early.
To day she seems seriously indisposed. I trust she
will be well enough to see you in a day or two—and
remain, Start fair, my sweet Violet! This letter will lie
your table when you arrive at Saratoga, and it is intended
to prepare you for that critical campaign. You
must know the ammunition with which you go into
the field. I have seen service, as you know, and,
from my retirement (on half-pay), can both devise
strategy and reconnoitre the enemy's weakness, with
discretion. Set your glass before you on the table,
and let us hold a frank council of war. My dear widow: For the wear and tear of you
bright eyes in writing me a letter you are duly credited.
That for a real half-hour, as long as any ordinary
half-hour, such well-contrived illumination
should have concentrated their mortal using on me
only, is equal, I am well aware, to a private audience
of any two stars in the firmament—eyelashes and petticoats
(if not thrown in) turning the comparison
little in your favor. Thanks—of course—piled high
as the porphyry pyramid of Papantla! My dear neph-ling: I congratulate you on the
attainment of your degree as “Master of Afts.” In
other words, I wish the sin of the Faculty well repented
of, in having endorsed upon parchment such a
barefaced fabrication. Put the document in your pocket,
and come away! There will be no occasion to
air it before doomsday, probably, and fortunately for
you, it will then revert to the Faculty. Quiescat adhuc—as
I used to say of my tailor's bills till they came
through a lawyer. Dear reader: A volume of poems goes from us
in an extra of the Mirror this week, which leaves us
with a feeling—we scarce know how to phrase it—a
feeling of timidity and dread—like a parent's apprehensiveness,
giving his child into the hands of a stranger.
It is not Pliny's “quam sit magnum dare aliquid
in manus hominum,” nor is it, what the habitual avoidance
of grave themes looks like, sometimes—a preference
“to let the serious part of life go by
Like the neglected sand.”
We are used to buttering curiosity with the ooze of
our brains—careful more to be paid than praised—
and we have a cellar, as well as many stories, in our
giddy thought-house; and it is from this cave of privacy
that we have, with reluctance, and consentings far
between, drawn treasures of early feeling and impression,
now bound and offered to you for the first time
in one bundle. Oh, from the different stories of the
mind—from the settled depths, and from the effervescent
and giddy surface—how different looks the world!
—of what different stuff and worth the link that binds
us to it! In looking abroad from one window of the
soul, we see sympathy, goodness, truth, desire for us
and our secrets, that we may be more loved; from
another, we see suspicion, coldness, mockery, and ill-will—the
evil spirits of the world—lying in wait for
us. At one moment—the spirits down, and the heart
calm and trusting—we tear out the golden leaf nearest
the well of life, and pass it forth to be read and wept
over. At another, we bar shutter and blind upon prying
malice, turn key carefully on all below, and,
mounting to the summit, look abroad and jest at the
very treasures we have concealed—wondering at our
folly in even confessing to a heartless world that we
had secrets, and would share them. We are not always
alike. The world does not seem always the
same. We believe it is all good sometimes. We believe
sometimes, that it is but a place accursed, given
to devils and their human scholars. Sometimes we
are all kindness—sometimes aching only for an an
tagonist, and an arena without barrier or law. And
oh what a Procrustes's bed is human opinion—trying
a man's actions and words, in whatever mood committed
and said, by the same standard of rigor! How
often must the angels hovering over us reverse the
sentence of the judge—how oftener still the rebuke
of the old maid and the Pharisee. You are feeding the news-hopper of your literary
mill, my dear poet, and I am trying on the old trick
of gayety at Saratoga. Which of us should write
the other a letter? You, if you say so—though as I
get older, I am beginning to think well of the town,
even in August. You have your little solaces, my fast
liver! Dear Willis: Your kind note to St. John, of the
Knickerbocker, got me the state-room with the picture
of “Glenmary” on the panel, and I slept under
the protection of your household gods—famously, of
course. The only fault I found with that magnificent
boat, was the right of any “smutched villain” to walk
through her. It is a frightful arrangement that can
sell, to a beauty and a blackguard, for the same money,
the right to promenade on the same carpet, and go to
sleep with the same surroundings on the opposite
sides of a pine partition! Give me a world where
antipodes stay put! But what a right-royal, “slap-up”
supper they give in the Knickerbocker! They'll
make the means better than the end—travelling better
than arriving—if they improve any more! I had a
great mind to go back the next day, and come up
again. “Mrs. Noggs, too—a strong woman, by the way—
is, nevertheless, weekly on this point, very. She says
she'll never forgive you if you change the fair, form
of the Mirror. Think o' that! Though not a vain
woman, she has a passion for looking into the Mirror
that is very affecting. On the other hand, she says
if you'll give up the horrid notion of changing the
form of the Mirror, she'll fry you `a nipper' as
brown as a nut, with her own fair hands, when next
you come Bostonward, and will visit our humble
cottage near the sea. I have ye now! For my well-tried
friends, Gentleman Charles (him of the Astor
house, I mean) and his handsome partner, tell me
you are a gallant youth and well affected toward the
ladies. “Dear Bel-Phœbe: I have been `twiddling my
sunbeam' (you say my letters are `perfect sunshine')
for some time, more or less, in a quandary as to what
is now resolved upon as `Dear Bel-Phœbe'—the beginning
of this (meant-to-be) faultless epistle. I
chanced to wake critical this morning, and, `dear
Phœbe,' as the beginning of this letter of mine, looked
both vulgar and meaningless. I inked it out as you
see. A reference to my etymological dictionary,
however, restored my liking for that `dear' word. It
is derived from the Anglo-Saxon verb Der-ian, which
means to do mischief. Hence dearth, which, by doing
mischief, makes what remains more precious, and
hence dear, meaning something made precious by having
escaped hurting. `Dear Phœbe,' therefore (meaning
unhurt Phœbe), struck me as pretty well—you being
one of those delicious, late-loving women, destined
to be `hurt' first at thirty. Still, the sacred word
`Phœbe' was too abruptly come upon. It sounded
familiar, and familiarity should be reserved for the
postscript. I should have liked to write `dear Lady
Phœbe,' or `dear Countess Phœbe'—but we are not
permitted to `read our title clear,' in this hideously-simple
country. Might I invent an appellative? We
say char-woman and horse-man—why not put a descriptive
word before a lady's name, by way of respectful
distance. Phœbe Lorn is a belle—why not
say Bel-Phœbe? Good! It sounds authentic. This
letter, then, is to Phœbe, unhurt and beautiful (alias),
`Dear Bel-Phœbe!' “Dear Madam: The undersigned, booksellers,
publishers, and authors, of the city of New York,
have long felt desirous of transmitting to you a memorial
of the high and respectful admiration which
they entertain for one to whose pen we are indebted
for some of the purest and most imaginative productions
in the wide range of English literature. As the
authoress of `Thaddeus of Warsaw,' the `Scottish
Chiefs,' &c., your name has spread over the length
and breadth of our land, and the volumes of your delightful
works may be found gracing alike the abodes
of the wealthy, and the humble dwellings of the
poor. And deservedly so—for if purity of sentiment,
felicity of expression, and the constant inculcation of
the noblest lessons of religion and morality, be any
passport to literary fame, then will the name of Miss
Porter rank high on the list of those whom the present
age delights to honor, and for whom coming ages
will entertain a deep feeling of reverential esteem. Dear Jack: Since my compulsory budding, flowering,
and bearing fruit, have been accelerated to one
season per diem, to feed a daily paper you will easily
understand that I found it necessary at first to work
all my sap into something useful—omitting as it were,
the gum deposite of superfluous correspondence. I
accordingly left you off. Your last letter was slipped
into the no-more-bother hole, without the usual endorsement
of “answered,” and I considered you like
a trinket laid aside before a race—not to encumber
me. I miss the writing of trumpery, however. I miss
the sweeping out of the corners of my mind—full of
things fit only for the dust-pan, but still very possibly
hiding a silver-spoon. Messrs. Editors: My friend John Smith is to be
married to Lucy Jones. She issues a card of invitation
like this:— Dear Custom: Your friend is wrong, from the
egg to the apple. Miss Lucy Jones has a mother, or
father, guardian, or friend, at whose house she is to be
married. The invitation should come from the person
under whose protection she is given away—(sent,
if you please, to Mr. Smith's friends, with Mr. Smith's
card, but understood by Miss Lucy Jones's friends,
without card or explanation). It is tampering with
serious things, very dangerously, to circulate the three
words, “and Mrs. John Smith,” one minute before
the putting on of the irrevocable ring. The law
which permits ladies (though not gentlemen) to
change their minds up to the last minute before wedlock,
exacts also that the privileged angels should not
be coerced by the fear of seeing the escaped name
afterward on a wedding card! Besides, such a card,
so issued, would be received from Mrs. Smith before
there was any such person. “Dear Sir: I am directed by the committee of the `Travellers'
to inform you that they have great pleasure in admitting
you as a visiter to the club for the ensuing month, and
that they hope to be favored with your frequent attendance. “Sir: I am directed to inform you that the committee of
the `Athenæum' have ordered your name to be placed on
the list of distinguished foreigners residing in London, who
are invited to the house of the club for three months, subject
to the same regulations as the members are required to
observe. “Je suis vraiment desolée de ne pouvoir aller ce soir chez
Lady Morgan. Je dine chez le Prince Esterhazy ou je dois
passer la soirée. Demain au soir, j'ai un concert pour M. Laporte,
le reste de la semaine je suis libre et tout à vos ordres.
Si vous croyez de combiner quelque-choze avec Lady Morgan,
comptez sur moi! Demain je passerai chez Lady Morgan
pour faire mes excuses en personne. “Mr. Editor: I observe that a `bachelor,' writing
in the `American,' recommends to `invited'
and `inviters,' to send invitations and answers, stamped,
through the penny-post. This is a capital idea,
and I shall adopt it for one. I perceive that a bachelor
in another paper says, `it will suit him and his fellow-bachelors,'
for reasons set forth, and that he will adopt
the plan. Now, Mr. Editor, I am a housekeeper,
and married, and my wife requires the use of all my
servants, and can not spare them to be absent three or
four days, going round the city, delivering notes, on
the eve of a party. These notes could, by the plan
suggested, be delivered in three hours, and insure a
prompt answer. I can then know exactly who is
coming and who is not—a very convenient point of
knowledge! “Mr. Editor: One of the greatest treats you
could give your country lady readers, would be to
furnish them from time to time, with brief hints as to
the actual style of fashions in the metropolis. We
have, all along, depended for information on this important
subject, upon the monthly magazines, all of
which profess to give the fashions as worn, but we find
out to our dismay, that they pick up their fashions
from the Paris and London prints at random—some
of them adopted by our city ladies, some not! It thus
happens that we country people; who like to be in the
fashion, are often subjected to great expense and mortification—relying
too implicitly upon the magazine
reports. We cause a bonnet or a dress to be made
strictly in accordance with the style prescribed in the
fashion plate of the magazine, and when we hie away
to the city with our new finery, we discover that our
costume is so outrè that every one laughs at us! Now,
should there not be some remedy for this evil? Dear Fanny: Would your dark eyes vouchsafe
to wonder how I come to write to you? Thus it
befell:— To a lady-friend in the country: I am up to the
knees in newspapers, and write to you under the stare
of nine pigeon-holes, stuffed with literary portent.
Were there such a thing (in this world of everythings)
as papyral magnetism, you would get a letter, not
only typical in itself, but typical of a flood in which
my identity is fast drowning. Oh, the drown of news,
weighed unceasingly—little events and great ones—
against little more than the trouble of snipping round
with scissors! To a horrid death—to a miraculous
preservation—to a heart-gush of poesy—to a marriage
—to a crime—to the turn of a political crisis—to
flashing wit and storied agonies—giving but the one
50
invariable first thought—“shall I cut it out?” Alas,
dear beauty-monarch of all you survey!—your own
obituary, were I to read it in a newspaper of to-morrow,
would speak scarce quicker to my heart than to
those scissors of undiscriminating circum-cision!
With the knowledge that the sky above me was enriched,
as Florence once was, by the return of its
long-lost and best model of beauty, I should ask,
with be-paragraphed grief—“will her death do for
the Mirror?” My Dear Sir: To ask me for my idea of General
Morris is like asking the left hand's opinion of the
dexterity of the right. I have lived so long with the
“brigadier,” known him so intimately, worked so constantly
at the same rope, and thought so little of ever
separating from him (except by precedence of ferriage
over the Styx), that it is hard to shove him from me
to the perspective distance—hard to shut my own partial
eyes, and look at him through other people's. I
will try, however, and as it is done with but one foot
off from the treadmill of my ceaseless vocation, you
will excuse both abruptness and brevity. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 465 | Author: | Willis
Nathaniel Parker
1806-1867 | Add | | | Title: | People I have met, or, Pictures of society and people of mark, drawn under a thin veil of fiction | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | The death of a lady, in a foreign land, leaves me at liberty to
narrate the circumstances which follow. “My dear Lord: In the belief that a frank communication
would be best under the circumstances, I wish to make an inquiry,
prefacing it with the assurance that my only hope of happiness
has been for some time staked upon the successful issue of my
suit for your daughter's hand. It is commonly understood, I
believe, that the bulk of your lordship's fortune is separate from
the entail, and may be disposed of at your pleasure. May I
inquire its amount, or rather, may I ask what fortune goes with
the hand of Lady Angelica. The Beauchief estates are unfortunately
much embarrassed, and my own debts (I may frankly
confess) are very considerable. You will at once see, my lord,
that, in justice to your daughter, as well as to myself, I could not
do otherwise than make this frank inquiry before pushing my suit
to extremity. Begging your indulgence and an immediate answer,
I remain, my dear lord, yours very faithfully, “Dear Lord Frederick: I trust you will not accuse me of
a want of candor in declining a direct answer to your question.
Though I freely own to a friendly wish for your success in your
efforts to engage the affections of Lady Angelica, with a view to
marriage, it can only be in the irrevocable process of a marriage
settlement that her situation, as to the probable disposal of my
fortune, can be disclosed. I may admit to you, however, that
upon the events of this day on which you have written, (it so
chances,) may depend the question whether I should encourage
you to pursue further your addresses to Lady Angelica. A letter from Lord Aymar to Lady Angelica will put the story
forward a little: “Dear Count: You will wonder at receiving a friendly note
from me, after my refusal, two months since, to meet you over
`pistols and coffee;' but reparation may not be too late, and this
is to say, that you have your choice between two modes of settlement,
viz:—to accept for your stable the hunter you stole from
me (vide police report) and allow me to take a glass of wine with
you at my own table and bury the hatchet, or, to shoot at me if
you like, according to your original design. Mynners and Beauchief
hope you will select the latter, as they owe you a grudge for
the possession of your incomparable bride and her fortune; but I
trust you will prefer the horse, which (if I am rightly informed)
bore you to the declaration of love at Chasteney. Reply to
Crockford's. “My dear St. Leger: Enclosed you have the only surviving
lock of my grizzled wig—sign and symbol that my disguises are
over and my object attained. The wig burns at this instant in
the grate, item my hand-ruffles, item sundry embroidered cravats
3
â la veille cour, item (this last not without some trouble at my
heart) a solitary love-token from Constantia Hervey. One faded
rose—given me at Pæstum, the day before I was driven disgraced
from her presence by the interference of this insolent fool—one
faded rose has crisped and faded into smoke with the rest. And
so fled from the world the last hope of a warm and passionate
heart, which never gave up its destiny till now—never felt that
it was made in vain, guarded, refined, cherished in vain, till that
long-loved flower lay in ashes. I am accustomed to strip emotion
of its drapery—determined to feel nothing but what is real—yet
this moment, turn it and strip it, and deny its illusions as I will,
is anguish. `Self-inflicted,' you smile and say! “I have followed up to this hour, my fair cousin, in the path
you have marked out for me. It has brought me back, in this
chamber, to the point from which I started under your guidance,
and if it had brought me back unchanged—if it restored me my
energy, my hope, and my prospect of fame, I should pray Heaven
that it would also give me back my love, and be content—
more than content, if it gave me back also my poverty. The
sight of my easel, and of the surroundings of my boyish dreams
of glory, have made my heart bitter. They have given form and
voice to a vague unhappiness, which has haunted me through all
these absent years—years of degrading pursuits and wasted
powers—and it now impels me from you, kind and lovely as you
are, with an aversion I can not control. I cannot forgive you.
You have thwarted my destiny. You have extinguished with
sordid cares a lamp within me, that might, by this time, have
shone through the world. And what am I, since your wishes are
accomplished? Euriched in pocket, and bankrupt in happiness
and self-respect. Dined with F—, the artist, at a trattoria. F— is a man of
genius, very adventurous and imaginative in his art, but never
caring to show the least touch of these qualities in his conversation.
His pictures have given him great vogue and consideration
at Rome, so that his daily experience furnishes staple enough for
his evening's chit-chat, and he seems, of course, to be always
talking of himself. He is very generally set down as an egotist.
His impulse to talk, however, springs from no wish for self-glorification,
but rather from an indolent aptness to lay hands on
the readiest and most familiar topic, and that is a kind of egotism
to which I have very little objection—particularly with the mind
fatigued, as it commonly is in Rome, by a long day's study of
works of art. “Baron: Before taking the usual notice of the occurrence of
this morning, I wish to rectify one or two points in which our
position is false. I find myself, since last night, the accepted
lover of Lady Imogen Ravelgold, and the master of estates and
title as a Count of the Russian empire. Under the etourdissement
of such sudden changes in feelings and fortune, perhaps my forgetfulness
of the lady, in whose cause you are so interested, admits
of indulgence. At any rate, I am so newly in love with
life, that I am willing to suppose, for an hour, that had you known
these circumstances, you would have taken a different view of the
offence in question. I shall remain at home till two, and it is in
your power till then to make me the reparation necessary to
my honor. Yours, etc., “Dear Sir: My wife wishes me to write to you, and inform
you of her marriage, which took place a week or two since, and of
which she presumes you are not aware. She remarked to me,
that you thought her looking unhappy last evening, when you
chanced to see her at the play. As she seemed to regret not
being able to answer your note herself, I may perhaps convey the
proper apology by taking upon myself to mention to you, that, in
consequence of eating an imprudent quantity of unripe fruit, she
felt ill before going to the theatre, and was obliged to leave early.
To day she seems seriously indisposed. I trust she will be well
enough to see you in a day or two—and remain, “My Dear Tremlet,—In the two days that I have exiled
you from my presence, I have exiled my happiness also—as you
well know without my confessing—but I needed to sleep and wake
more than once upon your welcome but unexpected avowal. I
fear, indeed, that I need much more time, and that reflection
would scarce justify what I am now about to write to you. But
my life, hitherto, has been such a succession of heart-chilled waitings
upon Reason, that, for once, while I have the power, I am
tempted to bound away with Impulse, after happiness. “I promised to return to you when I should resemble my picture.
It is possible that exile from your presence has marred
more beauty than mental culture has developed—but the soul
you drew in portrait has, at least found its way to my features—
for the world acknowledges what you alone read prophetically at
Leipsic. I have kept myself advised of your movements, with a
woman's anxiety. You are still toiling at the art which made us
acquainted, and, (thank God!) unmarried. To-night, at the
concert of the Countess Isny-Frere, I shall sing to you, for I
have taken pains to know that you will be there. Do not speak
to me till you can see me alone—but hear me in my art before
I abandon myself to the joy long deferred, of throwing myself
at your feet with the fortune and fame it is now mine to offer
you. “`Dear Miss Blidgims: Feeling quite indisposed myself, and
being firmly persuaded that we are three cases of cholera, I have
taken advantage of a return calesino to hurry on to Modena for
medical advice. The vehicle I take brought hither a sister of
charity, who assures me she will wait on you, even in the most
malignant stage of your disease. She is collecting funds for a
hospital, and will receive compensation for her services in the
form of a donation to this object. I shall send you a physician
by express from Modena, where it is still possible we may meet.
With prayers, &c. &c. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 466 | Author: | Woodworth
Samuel
1784-1842 | Add | | | Title: | The champions of freedom, or The mysterious chief | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | AMONG the early champions of American
freedom, few, perhaps, bore arms with more
honor to themselves or success to the glorious
cause, than Major Willoughby. He was the only
son of the most opulent farmer in the state of
Massachusetts, who designed his son for the
study and practice of the law. But while he was
preparing for an admittance into Harvard University,
the plains of Lexington were wet with
the blood of his countrymen. “My Son—I have strange things to tell you—
events that will excite your “special wonder,”
and which may almost cause you to doubt the
veracity of your father. Attend, therefore, while
I relate a series of facts as extraordinary as any
that ever figured in romance, either ancient or
modern. “The plot thickens—war is inevitable—
and the folly or madness of democracy fully established.
The vassals of Bonaparte in the house
of representatives, have agreed to enlist these
States under the banners of the tyrant against
England; there can be no doubt of the senate's
concurrence—war will be declared in a few days
—Detroit is the sally-port—look to Sandwich,
and expect further particulars as soon as they
transpire. “I have, my brave but unfortunate boy, written
several letters, and directed them to you at
different military posts in Canada; but know not
whether either of them has been fortunate enough
to reach you. Mr. Fleming, who departs for
Buffalo to-morrow morning, expects to meet a
young Irish prisoner there, to whom he can safely
confide this letter—he being the son of Fleming's
particular friend. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 467 | Author: | Woodworth
Samuel
1784-1842 | Add | | | Title: | The champions of freedom, or The mysterious chief | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | The rocky precipice which now sheltered
these few “hardy gleanings” of so many desperate
fights, was within a few paces of the river's
margin; but not a boat was there to receive them.
In this extremely painful situation they remained
many minutes, when they found themselves suddenly
surrounded by more than five times their
number; and knowing that a further resistance
would produce an useless effusion of blood, they
reluctantly complied with their leader's advice,
who sighed in the performance of what had now
become a necessary duty, for the prevention of a
greater sacrifice. They threw down their arms
in sullen despondency, which Scott, with a graceful
dignity peculiar to himself, tendered his sword
to his more fortunate opponent. “Your last, my son, is now before me, and
every sentence yields me pleasure, except that in
which you mention Amelia's fears on my account.
Assure her from me, that the moment any real
cause of alarm presents itself, I shall not be backward
in providing for the safety of myself and
those under my protection. It grieves me that
she should make herself unhappy in anticipating
evils that may never arrive. Let me intreat her,
through you, to banish every fear for the safety
of her father, and repose her trust in that merciful
Being who, in the operations of his providence,
never permits an evil to take place but for
the ultimate good of his creatures; and it is our
duty to submit without a murmur. I do not wish
it to be understood that the ordinary human
means of shunning an impending danger are to
be neglected: so far from it, I should conceive
that I was tempting the Almighty, to remain in a
place of danger, when I could retreat consistently
with duty. I repeat, that I will remove from
Mulberry-Grove the moment I apprehend any
27*
danger from staying. Were it a tenable fortress,
the case would be different. Let this assurance
restore peace to the bosom of my child. “Sir—I have the honor to inform you, that on
the 25th inst. being in the lat. 29 N. long. 29, 30,
W. we fell in with, and, after an action of an hour
and an half, captured his Britannic Majesty's ship
Macedonian, commanded by captain John Carden,
and mounting forty-nine carriage guns (the
odd gun shifting.) She is a frigate of the largest
class, two years old, four months out of dock, and
reputed one of the best sailors in the British service.
The enemy being to windward, had the
advantage of engaging us at his own distance,
which was so great, that for the first half hour we
did not use our carronades, and at no moment
was he within the complete effect of our musketry
and grape—to this circumstance and a heavy
swell, which was on at the time, I ascribe the
unusual length of the action. “Yours of the fifteenth December came
duly to hand, and has yielded me indescribable
pleasure. The unparalleled achievements of
our gallant sailors, must convince every man, not
blinded by prejudice, of the importance of a respectable
naval establishment. This is a point
to which the strength and resources of our country
can be directed with advantage—with honor—
with complete success. Congress will become
convinced of this without a very long study in
that dear school you speak of. “I hasten, my dear brother, to furnish an antidote
to the melancholy which the writing of your
last must have occasioned. “Another Naval Victory, my dear George,
has rewarded the courage and enterprise of American
sailors, and the name of Lawrence is now
inscribed with those of Hull, Decatur, Jones, and
Bainbridge, on an imperishable pillar of glory. “We are now standing on and off the harbor
of York, which we shall attack at day-light in
the morning. I shall dedicate these last moments
to you, my love, and to-morrow throw all other
ideas but my country to the winds. As yet I
know not if general Dearborn lands; he has acted
honorably so far, and I feel great gratitude to
the old gentleman: my sword and pen shall both
be exerted to do him honor. I have no new injunction—no
new charge to give you; nor any
new idea to communicate; yet we love to commune
with those we love, more especially when
we conceive it may be the last time in this world.
Should I fall, defend my memory: and only believe,
had I lived, I would have aspired to deeds
worthy of your husband. Remember me with a
father's love—a father's care, to our dear daughter,
and believe me to be, with the warmest sentiments
of love and friendship, your “Sir—Pity alone has prompted me to take
this method of relieving an embarrassment which
must not only be very painful to your feelings,
but which (judging from what I this day witnessed)
will so impede the performance of your professional
duties, as to endanger your reputation.
But, sir, you may discard all apprehensions from
your mind—I shall never molest you. You know
the word of George Washington Willoughby is
sacred—it was never yet violated—I shall not
condescend to chastise a being whose meanness has
sunk him so far below my resentment. I know
what you might reasonably expect from many of
our young officers, were they placed in my situation.
But it is well known to you that my notions
of honor are altogether different. You have never
injured me, because—it was not in your power.
But even if your despicable attempts had succeeded—had
you robbed me of my greatest
earthly treasure, your blood would no more tend
to wash away the injury, than that which daily
flows in the meanest butcher's shambles. Entertain
no fears, then, for your life; I shall never
seek to deprive you of a gem so tarnished with
corruption, and yet, so dear to its possessor. “Call all your native fortitude to your aid, my
son, for the intelligence I have to communicate
is afflicting. Catharine Fleming is safe under
my protection—would I could say she was well.
Her amiable mother has joined the rest of her
unfortunate family in a better world. Fleming
is a prisoner of war, and their house is in ashes.
Mulberry Grove exhibits nothing but a black
heap of smoking ruins. “First recover that—
and then thou shalt hear further.” “I am happy, my dear boy, to inform you, that
by a courier, who is travelling express from Harrison's
head-quarters to Erie, I have received a
letter from Fleming, written on board an English
gun-boat in Sandusky Bay, just preparing to sail
for Malden. He is anxious to learn the fate of his
family, and fears the worst. Catharine herself
has undertaken to relieve this suspense, by writing
immediately, and as flags are frequently passing
between the two armies, there will be no difficulty
attending its conveyance, except the customary
inspection of its contents, which is of no
consequence. I am sensible of Harrison's disposition
to oblige me, and he has promised to exert
his influence in procuring Fleming's release.
May the choicest blessings of Heaven rest upon
the hero's head. “We arrived at this place on the evening of
the thirteenth instant. By a pilot-boat, which was
sent out for observation, a British sail was discovered
at anchor near one of the islands, and
the signal for chase was immediately made. By
dark, we were almost within gunshot of the enemy;
one hour more of day light, and she would
have been captured. A very severe storm came
on, and for fear of getting the squadron separated,
we anchored for the night. Captain Richardson
has gone on shore to proceed to Harrison's head-quarters
at Seneca, and accompany the general
down to the fleet. General Clay, the commandant
at Fort Meigs, has received orders from Harrison
to reduce the compass of that fort in such a
manner as to enable three hundred men to hold
it, and then march with the balance of his force to
42
head-quarters, at Seneca. Preparations are accordingly
making to convey the stores, ammunition,
and cannon, to Cleveland and Seneca, which
it will take about ten days to accomplish. After
these arrangements are completed, a force of five
thousand troops, regulars and militia, will embark
on board this squadron, and be conveyed to Malden,
where Harrison will retrieve all that Hull
lost. Previous to the embarkation, however, you
may expect to hear that we are masters of the
lake. “The last eastern mail has brought us the welcome
news of Another Naval Victory, the particulars
of which I will relate as far as they have
been made public, before I descend to local and
domestic subjects. “You was right, my dear Willoughby—“Revenge
will not remedy the evil.” British blood
has flowed in torrents, and still I am the last remaining
twig on our family tree; nor can all the
blood that flows in English veins, resuscitate the
other branches, or restore my lost happiness.
We have had a battle, and hundreds of Englishmen
are laid low—many of them beneath the waters
of Erie. The survivors are our prisoners,
and I have conversed with many of them who
would willingly die for their country, but who
loudly condemn the conduct of those ministers
whose ambition has plunged them into a war
with their brethren. It is the blood of such men,
the blood of our brethren, that has so lavishly
crimsoned the waves of this lake, and their
blood will cry for vengeance on those ambitious
wretches who guide the counsels of England.
You was right—these men, whom I have been so
eager to destroy, do `commiserate my sufferings,
and denounce the authors of them.' Every
English groan that has saluted my ears since the
battle, has caused me to confess—`that was not
the voice which decreed my brother's death; that
man had no hand in dragging me on board a
British ship; he never employed an Indian to
murder my sister; why then should I rejoice at
his sufferings?' I do not; I am a convert to your
doctrine, and my present tenderness to those poor
wounded men who are placed under my care,
shall in some measure atone for my former error. “Good news, my dear Willoughby! Detroit,
Sandwich, Malden—all that Hull and you lost,
and all that you might have taken—is now in possession
of the Americans. Tecumseh is slain,
Proctor fled, and the British army captured, with
all their camp equipage and their leader's private
baggage. Harrison is the hero who has achieved
all this, by the valor of the brave troops under his
command. I have just conversed with an officer
who served as a volunteer in this brilliant affair,
and he has furnished me with the following particulars: “Be not alarmed, my daughter, that this letter
is not written by your father's hand. That hand
is, alas! too much enfeebled by disease to hold
a pen; I have, therefore, employed that of my
most excellent friend, captain Miller, who has
generously offered to make a journey to Ithaca
for the sole purpose of conveying to you the last
injunctions and blessing of your affectionate father.” “Adieu, my dearest, best friend—adieu, until
we meet in that world where parting will be no
more. I should feel guilty of an unpardonable
neglect, did I longer delay to inform you that I
am rapidly sinking beneath the iron hand of affliction.
Grief for the loss of my parents has
made such havoc with my constitution, that my
health I fear can never be again restored. I shall
never cease to love you—no, not even in heaven;
next to my Saviour's, your image will be the object
which I shall contemplate with the greatest
delight, through the boundless ages of eternity.
My greatest earthly comfort is the perusal of your
affectionate epistles—this is the first I have ever
written to you—it will be the last you must ever
expect—preserve it as a legacy of my affection.
I will not conceal—for why should I?—that your
presence would soothe my dying hour, and
that the transition would be sweet from your
arms to those of my attendant angels, who are
waiting to receive me. But I will not drag you
from those higher duties to which you are called
by your God and your country. Continue to
serve both faithfully, and you will one day be
again restored to your ever faithful “It is my good fortune, my dear sir, to announce
that I have for the second time, witnessed
the glorious sight of a whole British fleet surrendering
to the superior skill and bravery of American
seamen. Our gallant commodore, M`Donough,
will now vie with Perry, while the name of
M`Comb will be coupled with those of Harrison,
Brown, Scott, Boyd, Ripley, Porter, &c. The
eleventh of September will also shine as bright on
the page of history, as the tenth. But I will descend
to particulars. “Heaven be praised for all its mercies! Catharine
is safe! Yes, my dear sir, my poor niece is
alive—well—among friends—uninjured—happy,
as she can be while separated from us. The inclosed
will tell you all—it is from my son, who is
in New-Orleans, where he has just taken a wife.
Read it, and then join with me in adoring that
Being whose `judgments are unsearchable, and
whose ways are past finding out.' “Be happy, my dear mother, for I have good
news to communicate. Our cousin Catharine
Fleming is safe under my protection—the same
innocent happy being, as when we were romping
together at Ithaca. Pause, while you freely indulge
the rapturous tears of joy, and then proceed
to particulars. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 469 | Author: | Brackenridge
H. H.
(Hugh Henry)
1748-1816 | Add | | | Title: | Modern chivalry | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | JOHN FARRAGO, was a man of about
fifty-three years of age, of good natural
sense, and considerable reading; but in
some things whimsical, owing perhaps to
his greater knowledge of books than of the
world; but, in some degree, also, to his
having never married, being what they call
an old batchelor, a characteristic of which
is, usually, singularity and whim. He had
the advantage of having had in early life,
an academic education; but having never
applied himself to any of the learned professions,
he had lived the greater part of his
life on a small farm, which he cultivated
with servants or hired hands, as he could
conveniently supply himself with either.
The servant that he had at this time, was
an Irishman, whose name was Teague
Oregan. I shall say nothing of the character
of this man, because the very name imports
what he was. I have two objections to this duel
matter. The one is, lest I should hurt
you; and the other is, lest you should
hurt me. I do not see any good it would
do me to put a bullet through any part
of your body. I could make no use of
you when dead, for any culinary purpose,
as I would a rabbit or a turkey. I am
no cannibal to feed on the flesh of men.
Why then shoot down a human creature,
of which I could make no use. A buffalo
would be better meat. For though your
flesh might be delicate and tender; yet it
wants that firmness and consistency which
takes and retains salt. At any rate it would
not be fit for long sea voyages. You might
make a good barbecue, it is true, being of
the nature of a racoon or an opossum;
I
but people are not in the habit of barbecuing
any thing human now. As to your
hide, it is not worth the taking off, being
little better than that of a year old colt. “Know all men by these presents, that
I Teague O'Regan, Major, am held and
firmly bound unto John Hardicknute, in
the sum of one hundred pounds, money
of the United States, well and truly to be
paid to him the said John, his heirs, executors,
administators, or assigns. Given
under my hand and seal this second day of
June, in the year of our Lord one thousand
seven hundred and ninety-one. Would wish to have the pleasure of
Major O'Regan's company this evening at
tea. Lawyer Crabtree and Doctor Drug
will be here; and you know we shall split
our sides laughing at the ninnies. You're
so full of your jokes that I want you here.
Dear Major, don't be engaged; but come. You will instantly do one of two things,
either relinquish your attention to Miss
Muslin, and be no more in her company;
or meet me this evening precisely at six
o'clock, on the commons the back of the
Potter's-field, with a brace of pistols, and
a second, to take a shot. I shall have a
coffin ready, and a grave dug, for which
ever of us shall have occasion to make use
of it. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 474 | Author: | Cooper
James Fenimore
1789-1851 | Add | | | Title: | The Last of the Mohicans | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | Leather-stocking tales | leather stocking tales | | | | Description: | It was a feature peculiar to the colonial wars of
North America, that the toils and dangers of the wilderness
were to be encountered, before the adverse
hosts could meet in murderous contact. A wide,
and, apparently, an impervious boundary of forests,
severed the possessions of the hostile provinces of
France and England. The hardy colonist, and the
trained European who fought at his side, frequently
expended months in struggling against the rapids of
the streams, or in effecting the rugged passes of the
mountains, in quest of an opportunity to exhibit
their courage in a more martial conflict. But, emulating
the patience and self-denial of the practised
native warriors, they learned to overcome every difficulty;
and it would seem, that in time, there was
no recess of the woods so dark, nor any secret place
so lovely, that it might claim exemption from the inroads
of those who had pledged their blood to satiate
their vengeance, or to uphold the cold and selfish
policy of the distant monarchs of Europe. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 475 | Author: | Cooper
James Fenimore
1789-1851 | Add | | | Title: | The Last of the Mohicans | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | Leather-stocking tales | leather stocking tales | | | | Description: | The bloody and inhuman scene which we have
rather incidentally mentioned than described, in the
close of the preceding volume, is conspicuous in the
pages of colonial history, by the merited title of
“The massacre of William Henry.” It so far deepened
the stain which a previous and very similar
event had left upon the reputation of the French
commander, that it was not entirely erased by his
early and glorious death. It is now becoming obscured
by time; and thousands, who know that Montcalm
died like a hero on the plains of Abraham, have
yet to learn how much he was deficient in that moral
courage, without which no man can be truly great.
Pages might be written to prove, from this illustrious
example, the defects of human excellence; to
show how easy it is for generous sentiments, high
courtesy, and chivalrous courage, to lose their influence
beneath the chilling ascendency of mistaken
selfishness, and to exhibit to the world a man who
was great in all the minor attributes of character,
but who was found wanting, when it became necessary
to prove how much principle is superior to policy.
But the task would exceed our fanciful prerogatives;
and, as history, like love, is so apt to surround
her heroes with an atmosphere of imaginary
brightness, it is probable that Louis de Saint Véran
will be viewed by posterity only as the gallant defender
of his country, while his cruel apathy on the
shores of the Oswego and of the Horican, will be
forgotten. Deeply regretting this weakness on the
part of our sister muse, we shall at once retire from
her sacred precincts, within the proper limits of our
own humbler vocation. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 476 | Author: | Hawthorne
Nathaniel
1804-1864 | Add | | | Title: | Mosses from an Old Manse | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | Wiley and Putnam's library of American books | wiley and putnams library of american books | | | | Description: | In the latter part of the last century, there lived a man of science—
an eminent proficient in every branch of natural philosophy—who,
not long before our story opens, had made experience of a spiritual:
affinity, more attractive than any chemical one. He had left his,
laboratory to the care of an assistant, cleared his fine countenance
from the furnace-smoke, washed the stain of acids from his fingers,
and persuaded a beautiful woman to become his wife. In those
days, when the comparatively recent discovery of electricity, and
other kindred mysteries of nature, seemed to open paths into the
region of miracle, it was not unusual for the love of science to rival
the love of woman, in its depth and absorbing energy. The higher
intellect, the imagination, the spirit, and even the heart, might all-find
their congenial aliment in pursuits which, as some of their
ardent votaries believed, would ascend from one step of powerful
intelligence to another, until the philosopher should lay his hand
on the secret of creative force, and perhaps make new worlds for
himself. We know not whether Aylmer possessed this degree of
faith in man's ultimate control over nature. He had devoted himself,
however, too unreservedly to scientific studies, ever to be weaned
from them by any second passion. His love for his young wife
might prove the stronger of the two; but it could only be by
intertwining itself with his love of science, and uniting the strength
of the latter to its own. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 477 | Author: | Hawthorne
Nathaniel
1804-1864 | Add | | | Title: | Mosses from an Old Manse | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | Wiley and Putnam's library of American books | wiley and putnams library of american books | | | | Description: | We, who are born into the world's artificial system, can never
adequately know how little in our present state and circumstances
is natural, and how much is merely the interpolation of the perverted
mind and heart of man. Art has become a second and
stronger Nature; she is a step-mother, whose crafty tenderness
has taught us to despise the bountiful and wholesome ministrations
of our true parent. It is only through the medium of the
imagination that we can lessen those iron fetters, which we call
truth and reality, and make ourselves even partially sensible what
prisoners we are. For instance, let us conceive good Father
Miller's interpretation of the prophecies to have proved true. The
Day of Doom has burst upon the globe, and swept away the whole
rece of men. From cities and fields, sea-shore, and mid-land
mountain region, vast continents, and even the remotest islands of
the ocean—each living thing is gone. No breath of a created
being disturbs this earthly atmosphere. But the abodes of man,
and all that he has accomplished, the foot-prints of his wanderings,
and the results of his toil, the visible symbols of his intellectual
cultivation, and moral progress—in short, everything
physical that can give evidence of his present position—shall
remain untouched by the hand of destiny. Then, to inherit and
repeople this waste and deserted earth, we will suppose a new
Adam and a new Eve to have been created, in the full development
of mind and heart, but with no knowledge of their predecessors,
nor of the diseased circumstances that had become encrusted
around them. Such a pair would at once distinguish between
art and nature. Their instincts and intuitions would immediately
recognize the wisdom and simplicity of the latter, while the
former, with its elaborate perversities, would offer them a continual
succession of puzzles. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 478 | Author: | Hall
James
1793-1868 | Add | | | Title: | The wilderness and the war path | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | Wiley and Putnam's library of American books | wiley and putnams library of american books | | | | Description: | The life of the American Indian is not so destitute of the interest
created by variety of incident, as might be supposed by a
casual observation of the habits of this singular race. It is true
that the simple structure of their communities, and the sameness
of their occupations, limit the Savage within a narrow sphere of
thought and action. Without commerce, agriculture, learning, or
the arts, and confined to the employments of war and hunting,
the general tenour of his life must be monotonous. His journies
through the unpeopled wilderness, furnish him with no information
as to the modes of existence of other nations, nor any subjects
for reflection, but those which nature supplies, and with
which he has been familiar from childhood. Beyond his own
tribe, his intercourse extends only to savages as ignorant as himself,
and to traders but little elevated above his own moral standard. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 479 | Author: | Kirkland
Caroline M.
(Caroline Matilda)
1801-1864 | Add | | | Title: | Western clearings | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | Wiley and Putnam's library of American books | wiley and putnams library of american books | | | | Description: | The wild new country, with all its coarseness and all its
disadvantages of various kinds, has yet a fascination for the
settler, in consequence of a certain free, hearty tone, which has
long since disappeared, if indeed it ever existed, in parts of the
country where civilization has made greater progress. The
really fastidious, and those who only pretend to be such, may hold
this as poor compensation for the many things lacking of another
kind; but those to whose apprehension sympathy and sincerity
have a pre-eminent and independent charm, prefer the kindly
warmth of the untaught, to the icy chill of the half-taught; and
would rather be welcomed by the woodsman to his log-cabin, with
its rough hearth, than make one of a crowd who feed the ostentation
of a millionaire, or gaze with sated eyes upon costly feasts
which it would be a mockery to dignify with the name of hospitality.
The infrequency of inns in a newly settled country leads
naturally to the practice of keeping “open house” for strangers;
and it is rare indeed that the settler, however poor his accommodations,
hesitates to offer the best he has to the tired wayfarer.
Where payment is accepted, it is usually very inconsiderable;
and it is seldom accepted at all, unless the guest is manifestly
better off than his entertainer. But whether a compensation be
taken or refused, the heartiness of manner with which every thing
that the house affords is offered, cannot but be acceptable to the
visitor. Even the ever rampant pride, which comes up so disagreeably
at the West, where the outward appearance of the
stranger betokens any advantage of condition, slumbers when
that stranger claims hospitality. His horse is cared for with
more solicitude than the host ever bestows on his own; the table
is covered with the best provisions the house affords, set forth in
the holiday dishes; the bed is endued with the brightest patchwork
quilt—the pride of the housewife's heart; and if there be
any fat fowls—any white honey—any good tea—about the premises,
the guest will be sure to have it, even though it may have
been reserved for “Independence” or “Thanksgiving.” | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 480 | Author: | Paulding
James Kirke
1778-1860 | Add | | | Title: | The Dutchman's fireside | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | Harper's library of select novels | harpers library of select novels | | | | Description: | “Somewhere about the time of the old French
war,” there resided on the rich border that skirts the
Hudson, not a hundred miles from the good city of
Albany, a family of some distinction, which we shall
call Vancour, consisting of three brothers whose names
were Egbert, Dennis, and Ariel, or Auriel as it was
pronounced by the Dutch of that day. They were
the sons of one of the earliest as well as most respectable
of the emigrants from Holland, and honourably
sustained the dignity of their ancestry, by
sturdy integrity, liberal hospitality, and a generous
public spirit. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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