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University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875[X]
University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection[X]
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expand1997 (1)
1Author:  Kirkland Caroline M. (Caroline Matilda) 1801-1864Requires cookie*
 Title:  Forest Life  
 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 
 Description: A year and a half had elapsed since the abstraction of the grapes, and the skin had grown over Seymour's knuckles, and also the bark over certain letters which he had carved in very high places on some of Mr. Hay's forest-trees; and, sympathetically perhaps, a suitable covering over the wounds made in his heart by the scornful eyes of the unconscious Caroline. His figure had changed its proportions, as if by a wire-drawing process, since what it had gained in length was evidently subtracted from its breadth. The potato redness of his cheeks had subsided into a more presentable complexion, and his teeth were whiter than ever, while the yawns which used to exhibit them unseasonably had given place to a tolerable flow of conversation, scarcely tinctured by mauvaise honte. In short, considering that he was endowed with a good share of common sense, he was really a handsome young man. Not but some moss was still discoverable. It takes a good while to rub off inborn rusticity, especially when there is much force of character. The soft are more easily moulded. Is it possible, my dear Williamson, that after your experience of the world's utter hollowness—its laborious pleasures and its heart-wringing disappointments—you can still be surprised at my preference of a country life? you, who have sounded to its core the heart of fashionable society in the old world and the new, tested the value of its friendship, and found it less than nothing; sifted its pretensions of every kind, and expressed a thousand times your disgust at their falseness—you think it absurd in me to venture upon so desperate a plan as retirement? You consider me as a man who has taken his last, worst step; and who will soon deserve to be set aside by his friends as an irreclaimable enthusiast. Perhaps you are right as to the folly of the thing, but that remains to be proved; and I shall at least take care that my error, if it be one, shall not be irrevocable. * * * Since my last we have taken up our abode in the wilderness in good earnest,—not in “sober sadness,” as you think the phrase ought to be shaped. There is, to be sure, an insignificant village within two or three miles of us, but our house is the only dwelling on our little clearing— the immense trunks of trees, seemingly as old as the creation, walling us in on every side. There is an indescribable charm in this sort of solitary possession. In Alexander Selkirk's case, I grant that the idea of being “monarch of all I survey,” with an impassable ocean around my narrow empire, might suggest some inconvenient ideas. The knowledge that the breathing and sentient world is within a few minutes' walk, forms, it must be owned, no unpleasant difference between our lot and his. But with this knowledge, snugly in the background, not obtrusive, but ready for use, comparative solitude has charms, believe me. The constant sighing of the wind through the forest leaves; the wild and various noises of which we have not yet learned to distinguish one from the other—distinct yet softly mingled—clearly audible, yet only loud enough to make us remark more frequently the silence which they seem scarcely to disturb, such masses of deep shade that even in the sunny spots the light seems tinged with green—these things fill the mind with images of repose, of leisure, of freedom, of tranquil happiness, untrammelled by pride and ceremony;—of unbounded opportunity for reflection, with the richest materials for the cultivation of our better nature. Why have I not written you a dozen letters before this time? I can give you no decent or rational apology. Perhaps, because I have had too much leisure—perhaps too many things to say. Something of this sort it certainly must be, for I have none of the ordinary excuses to offer for neglect of my dear correspondent. Think any thing but that I love you less. This is the very place in which to cherish loving memories. But as to writing, this wild seclusion has so many charms for me, this delicious summer weather so many seductions, that my days glide away imperceptibly, leaving scarcely a trace of any thing accomplished during their flight. I rise in the morning determined upon the most strenuous industry. I hoped to have been before this time so deeply engaged with studs and siding, casings and cornice, that letter-writing would have been out of the question. But my lumber is at the saw-mill, and all the horses in the neighborhood are too busy to be spared for my service. I must have, of course, horses of my own, but it is necessary first to build a stable, so that I am at present dependent on hiring them when necessary. This, I begin to perceive, will cause unpleasant delays, since each man keeps no more horses than he needs for his own purposes. Here is a difficulty which recurs at every turn, in the country. There is nothing like a division of labor or capital. Every body tills the ground, and, consequently, each must provide a complete equipment of whatever is necessary for his business, or lose the seasons when business may be done to best advantage. At this season, in particular, this difficulty is increased, because the most important business of the year is crowded into the space of a few months. Those who hire extra help at no other period, now employ as much as they are able to pay, which increases much the usual scarcity of laborers. It is the time of year, too, when people in new countries are apt to be attacked by the train of ills arising from marsh miasmata, and this again diminishes the supply of able hands. I studied your last in the cool morning hour which I often devote to a ramble over the wooded hills which rise near our little cottage. I seated myself on a fallen tree, in a spot where I might have mused all day without seeing a human face, or hearing any sound more suggestive of civilization than the pretty tinkling of the numerous bells which help to find our wandering cattle. What a place in which to read a letter that seemed as if it might have been written after a stupid party, or in the agonies which attend a “spent ball.” (Vide T. Hood.) Those are not your real sentiments, my dear Kate; you do not believe life to be the scene of ennui, suffering, or mere endurance, which you persuaded yourself to think it just then. If I thought you did, I should desire nothing so much as to have your hand in mine for just such a ramble and just such a lounge as gave me the opportunity for reflecting on your letter; I am sure I could make you own that life has its hours of calm and unexciting, but high enjoyment. With your capabilities, think whether there must not be something amiss in a plan or habit of being that subjects you to these seasons of depression and disgust. Is that tone of chilling, I might say killing ridicule, which prevails in certain circles, towards every thing which does not approach a particular arbitrary standard, a wholesome one for our mental condition? I believe not; for I have never known one who adopted it fully, who had not at times a most uneasy consciousness that no one could possibly be entirely secure from its stings. Then there is a restless emulation, felt in a greater or less degree by all who have thrown themselves on the arena of fashionable life, which is, in my sober view, the enemy of repose. I am not now attempting to assign a cause for that particular fit of the blues which gave such a dark coloring to the beginning of your letter. I am only like the physician who recalls to his patient's mind the atmospheric influence that may have had an unfavorable effect upon his symptoms. You will conclude I must have determined to retort upon you in some degree the scorn which you cannot help feeling for the stupidity of a country life, by taking the first opportunity to hint that there are some evils from which the dweller in the wilds is exempt. On the other hand, I admit that in solitude we are apt to become mere theorists, or dreamers, if you will. Ideal excellence is very cheap; theory and sentiment may be wrought up to great accuracy and perfection; and it is an easy error to content ourselves with these, without seeking to ascertain whether we are capable of the action and sacrifice which must prove that we are in earnest. You are right, certainly, in thinking that in society we have occasion for more strenuous and energetic virtues; but yet, even here, there is no day which does not offer its opportunities for effort and self-denial, and in a very humble and unenticing form too. But we shall never settle this question, for the simple reason that virtue is at home every where alike; so I will spare you further lecture. Next to seeing yourself, my dear Williamson, I can scarcely think of any thing that would have afforded me more pleasure than the sight of a friend of yours bearing credentials under your hand and seal. And over and above this title to my esteem, Mr. Ellis brings with him an open letter of recommendation in that very handsome and pleasing countenance of his, and a frank and hearty manner which put us quite at ease with him directly, notwithstanding a certain awkward consciousness of the narrowness of our present accommodations, which might have made a visit from any other stranger rather embarrassing. His willingness to be pleased, his relish for the amusing points of the half-savage state, and the good-humor with which he laughed off sundry rather vexatious contre-temps really endeared him to us all. Half a dozen men of his turn of mind for neighbors, with wives of “kindred strain,” would create a paradise in these woods, if there could be one on earth. A letter is certainly your due, my dear Catharine; but yours of some fortnight since,—all kind, and lively, and sympathizing, and conceding, as it is,—deserves a better reply than this dripping sky will help me to indite. Why is it that I, who ever loved so dearly a rainy day in town, find it suggestive of—not melancholy—for melancholy and I are strangers—but of stupid things, in the country? To account for the difference drives me into the region of small philosophies. In the one case there is the quiet that bustle has made precious, the leisure which in visiting weather one is apt to see slip from one's grasp unimproved; a contrast like that which we feel on turning from the dusty pathway into the cool shade—a protected shade, as of a garden, where one locks the gate and looks up with satisfaction at high walls, impassable by foot unprivileged. In the other—the contrary case—we have leisure in sunshine as well as leisure in the rain; we have abundance of quiet at all seasons, and no company at any, so that when the rain comes it can but deprive us of our accustomed liberty of foot. The pattering sound so famed for its lulling powers is but too effectual when it falls on roofs not much above our heads; and the disconsolate looking cattle, the poor shivering fowls huddled together under every sheltering covert, and the continuous snore of cat and dog as they doze on the mats—all tend towards our infectious drowsiness, that is much more apt to hint the dreamy sweetness of a canto or two of the Faery Queene, than the duteous and spirited exercise of the pen, even in such service as yours. Yet I have broken the spell of “Sluggish Idleness, the nurse of sin.” by the magic aid of a third reading of your letter. And now I defy even the “Ever drizling raine upon the lofte, Mixt with a murmuring winde.” * * * Ought a letter to be a transcript of one's better mind, or only of one's present and temporary humor? If the former, I must throw away the pen, I fear, for some time to come. If the latter, I have only to scrawl the single word AGUE a thousand times on the face of my paper, or write it once in letters which would cover the whole surface. I have no other thought, I can no longer say, “My mind my kingdom is.” Didn't I say something, in one of my late letters, about an October landscape? I had not yet seen a November one in the forest. Since the splendid coloring of those days has been toned down by some hard frosts, and all lights and shades blended into heavenly harmony by the hazy atmosphere of the delicious period here called “Indian summer,” Florella and I have done little else but wander about, gazing in rapture, and wishing we could share our pleasure with somebody as silly as ourselves. If the Indians named this season, it must have been from a conviction that such a sky and such an atmosphere must be granted as an encouraging sample of the far-away Isles of Heaven, where they expect to chase the deer forever unmolested. If you can imagine a view in which the magnificent coloring of Tintoretto has been softened to the taste of Titian or Giorgione, and this seen through a transparent veil of dim silver, you may form some notion of our November landscape. I have grown very lazy of late,—so much so, that even letter-writing has become quite a task. Perhaps it is only that I so much prefer flying over this fine, hard, smooth snow in a sleigh, that I feel a chill of impatience at in-door employment. I make a point of duty of Charlotte's daily lessons, but beyond that I am but idle just now. The weather has been so excessively cold for some days that we have had much ado to keep comfortably warm, even with the aid of great stoves in the hall and kitchen, and bountiful wood fires elsewhere. These wood fires are the very image of abundance, and they are so enlivening that I am becoming quite fond of them, though they require much more attention than coal, and will, occasionally, snap terribly, even to the further side of the room, though the rug is generally the sufferer. An infant of one of our neighbors was badly burned, a day or two since, by a coal which flew into the cradle at a great distance from the fire. I marvel daily that destructive fires are not more frequent, when I see beds surrounded with light cotton curtains so near the immense fires which are kept in log-houses. How much more rational would be worsted hangings! Once more, with pen in hand, dearest Catharine; and oh, how glad and how thankful to find myself so well and so happy! I could have written you a week ago, but Mr. Sibthorpe, who is indeed a sad fidget, as I tell him every day, locked up pen, ink, and paper, most despotically, leaving me to grumble like Baron Trenck or any other important prisoner. To-day the interdict is taken off, and I must spur up my lagging thoughts, or I shall not have said forth half my say before I shall be reduced to my dormouse condition again. I have examined the sheets you put into my hands, and am happy to say, that I think your work will be found, both by teachers and pupils a valuable auxiliary in the acquisition of the French language. The manner in which you have obviated the principal difficulties in the first lessons, and the general plan of the work, make it a very useful first book for those who are old enough to study with some degree of judgment and discrimination. I have examined the sheets of the New Practical Translator, and believe that the work will be very useful as an introduction to the translating French into English, as it affords an easy explanation of most of the difficulties that are apt to embarrass beginners. I have long felt the want of a “First Book” for beginners in the French Language, upon the progressive principles which you have adopted, and shall show how sincere I am in this recommendation of your undertaking, by the immediate introduction of the “New Practical Translator” into my school. I have looked over the sheets of your “New Practical Translator,” and am much pleased both with the plan of the work, and with the style of its execution. It must form a valuable accession to the means already within the reach of the young for acquiring a knowledge of the French Language; and, if it finds with the public that measure of favour which it merits, I am satisfied that you will have no cause to complain that your labours, in this department of instruction, have not been well received or well rewarded. I have examined attentively the plan of your “New Practical Translator,” and, to some extent, the mode in which the plan has been executed. The work appears to me to be well adapted to promote the improvement of those who are commencing the study of the French Language. The real difficulties, in the progress of the student, he is furnished with the means of overcoming, while such as will yield to moderate industry, he is judiciously left to surmount by his own efforts. I have examined, with care, “The New Practical Translator,” by Mr. Bugard. The plan and execution of the author appear to me judicious, and I am acquainted with no elementary work, so well adapted for communicating a knowledge of the French language. I have examined with much pleasure the sheets of the French Practical Translator, which you were kind enough to send me. As far as I am able to judge, I should think it would be found a very useful auxiliary to the French instructer. I concur fully in the opinion of the work, expressed by Mr. T. B. Hayward. —It gives me much pleasure to express the high opinion I entertain of the “New French Practical Translator,” as an introduction to the study of the French language. The plan of it is very judicious. While those difficulties are removed which perplex and discourage young learners, it demands sufficient exercise of the pupil's own powers to keep alive the interest arising from the consciousness of successful effort. I should be happy if I could from my own knowledge give you a recommendation of your book, the Practical Translator. But, from my own little knowledge and from the most thorough information I can obtain, I am satisfied that we have no so valuable book of its kind for the study of the French language, and have therefore introduced it into my school. I have examined with much pleasure the new French Practical Translator, which you were so kind as to send me. I consider it a very valuable book for beginners, as it removes many difficulties, which have heretofore embarrassed them. I shall immediately introduce it into my school. —It gives me great pleasure to add my testimonial in favour of your “New Practical Translator,” to the many you have already received. I have used the work with a great many pupils in this institution, and find it a very excellent and interesting manual. It is of great service in removing the difficulties which beginners encounter at the commencement of their French Studies. I wish you much success in introducing it into our Schools and Academies.
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