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University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 (1)
University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection[X]
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expand1997 (1)
1Author:  Sedgwick Catharine Maria 1789-1867Add
 Title:  The Linwoods; Or, "sixty Years Since" in America  
 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: Some two or three years before our revolutionary war, just at the close of day, two girls were seen entering Broadway through a wicket garden-gate, in the rear of a stately mansion which fronted on Broad-street, that being then the court-end of the city—the residence of unquestioned aristocracy— (sic transit gloria mundi!) whence royal favour and European fashions were diffused through the province of New-York. “You must love me, or you could not endure my stupid letters—you that can write so delightfully about nothing, and have so much to write about, while I can tell nothing but what I see, and I see so little! The outward world does not much interest me. It is what I feel that I think of and ponder over; but I know how you detest what you call sentimental letters, so I try to avoid all such subjects. Compared with you I am a child—two years at our age makes a great difference—I am really very childish for a girl almost fourteen, and yet, and yet, Isabella, I sometimes seem to myself to have gone so far beyond childhood, that I have almost forgotten that careless, light-hearted feeling I used to have. I do not think I ever was so light-hearted as some children, and yet I was not serious—at least, not in the right way. Many a time, before I was ten years old, I have sat up in my own little room till twelve o'clock Saturday night, reading, and then slept for an hour and a half through the whole sermon the next morning. I do believe it is the natural depravity of my heart. I never read over twice a piece of heathen poetry that moves me but I can repeat it—and yet, I never could get past `what is effectual calling?' in the Westminster Catechism; and I always was in disgrace on Saturday, when parson Wilson came to the school to hear us recite it:—oh dear, the sight of his wig and three-cornered hat petrified me!” “I have been enjoying a very pretty little episode in my college life, passing the vacation at Westbrook, with your old friends the Lees. A month in a dull little country town would once have seemed to me penance enough for my worst sin, but now it is heaven to get anywhere beyond the sound of college bells—beyond the reach of automaton tutors—periodical recitations—chapel prayers, and college rules. —Never say another word to me of what you hinted in your last letter: indeed, I am too young; and besides, I never should feel easy or happy again with Jasper, if I admitted such a thought. I have had but one opinion since our visit to Effie; not that I believed in her—at least, not much; but I have always known who was first in his thoughts—heart—opinion; and besides, it would be folly in me, knowing his opinions about rank, &c. Mother thinks him very proud, and somewhat vain; and she begins not to be pleased with his frequent visits to Westbrook. She thinks—no, fears, or rather she imagines, that Jasper and I—no, that Jasper or I—no, that I— it is quite too foolish to write, Isabella—mother does not realize what a wide world there is between us. I might possibly, sometimes, think he loved (this last word was carefully effaced, and cared substituted) cared for me, if he did not know you. “Thanks, dear Isabella, for your delightful letter by Jasper—no longer Jasper, I assure you to his face, but Mr. Meredith—oh, I often wish the time back when I was a child, and might call him Jasper, and feel the freedom of a child. I wonder if I should dare to call you Belle now, or even Isabella? Jasper, since his last visit at home, tells me so much of your being `the mirror of fashion— the observed of all observers' (these are his own words—drawing-room terms that were never heard in Westbrook but from his lips), that I feel a sort of fearful shrinking. It is not envy—I am too happy now to envy anybody in the wide world. Eliot is at home, and Jasper is passing a week here. Is it not strange they should be so intimate, when they differ so widely on political topics? I suppose it is because Jasper does not care much about the matter; but this indifference sometimes provokes Eliot. Jasper is very intimate with Pitcairn and Lord Percy; and Eliot thinks they have more influence with him than the honour and interest of his country. Oh, they talk it over for hours and hours, and end, as men always do with their arguments, just where they began. Jasper insists that as long as the quarrel can be made up it is much wisest to stand aloof, and not, `like mad boys, to rush foremost into the first fray;' besides, he says he is tied by a promise to his uncle that he will have nothing to do with these agitating disputes till his education is finished. Mother says (she does not always judge Jasper kindly) that it is very easy and prudent to bind your hands with a promise when you do not choose to lift them. —The world seems turned upside down since I began this letter—war (war, what an appalling sound) has begun—blood has been spilt, and our dear, dear Eliot—but I must tell you first how it all was. Eliot and Jasper were out shooting some miles from Cambridge, when, on coming to the road, they perceived an unusual commotion—old men and young, and even boys, all armed, in wagons, on horseback, and on foot, were coming from all points, and all hurrying onward in one direction. On inquiring into the hurly-burly, they were told that Colonel Smith had marched to Concord to destroy the military stores there; and that our people were gathering from all quarters to oppose his return. Eliot immediately joined them, Jasper did not; but, dear Isabella, I that know you so well, know, whatever others may think, that tories may be true and noble. There was a fight at Lexington. Our brave men had the best of it. Eliot was the first to bring us the news. With a severe wound in his arm, he came ten miles that we need not be alarmed by any reports, knowing, as he told mother, that she was no Spartan mother, to be indifferent whether her son came home with his shield or on his shield. Miss Linwood to Bessie Lee. —A week—a stormy, miserable week has passed since I wrote the above, and it has ended in Herbert's leaving us, and dishonouring his father's name by taking a commission in the rebel service. Papa has of course had a horrible fit of the gout. He says he has for ever cast Herbert out of his affections. Ah! I am not skilled in metaphysics, but I know that we have no power whatever over our affections. Mamma takes it all patiently, and chiefly sorroweth for that Herbert has lost caste by joining the insurgents, whom she thinks little better than so many Jack Cades. “You say, my dear madam, that you have heard `certain reports about me, which you are not willing to believe, and yet cannot utterly discredit.' You say, also, `that though you should revolt with horror from sanctioning your son in those liaisons that are advised by Lord Chesterfield, and others of your friends, yet you see no harm in' loverlike attentions `to young persons in inferior stations; they serve' you add, `to keep alive and cultivate that delicate finesse so essential to the success of a man of the world, and, provided they have no immoral purpose, are quite innocent,' as the object of them must know there is an `impassable gulf between her and her superiors in rank, and is therefore responsible for her mistakes.' I have been thus particular in echoing your words, that I may assure you my conduct is in conformity to their letter and spirit. Tranquillize yourself, my dear madam. There is nothing, in any little fooleries I may be indulging in, to disquiet you for a moment. The person in question is a divine little creature—quite a prodigy for this part of the world, where she lives in a seclusion almost equal to that of Prospero's isle; so that your humble servant, being scarce more than the `third man that e'er she saw,' it would not be to marvel at `if he should be the first that e'er she loved'—and if I am, it is my destiny—my conscience is quite easy— I never have committed myself, nor ever shall: time and absence will soon dissipate her illusions. She is an unaspiring little person, quite aware of the gulf, as you call it, between us. She believes that even if I were lover and hero enough to play the Leander and swim it, my destiny is fixed on the other side. I have no distrust of myself, and I beg you will have none; I am saved from all responsibility as to involving the happiness of this lily of the valley, by her very clear-sighted mother, 7* and her sage of a brother, her natural guardians. “I have arrived thus far, my dear mother, on my journey; and, according to my promise, am beginning the correspondence which is to soften our separation. “My sweet sister Bessie, nothing has afflicted me so much in leaving home as parting from you. I am inclined to believe there can be no stronger nor tenderer affection than that of brother and sister; the sense of protection on one part, and dependance on the other; the sweet recollections of childhood; the unity of interest; and the communion of memory and hope, blend their hearts together into one existence. So it is with us—is it not, my dear sister? With me, certainly; for though, like most young men, I have had my fancies, they have passed by like the summer breeze, and left no trace of their passage. All the love, liking (I cannot find a word to express the essential volatility of the sentiment in my experience of it) that I have ever felt for all my favourites, brown and fair, does not amount to one thousandth part of the immutable affection that I bear you, my dear sister. I speak only of my own experience, Bessie, and, as I well know, against the faith of the world. I should be told that my fraternal love would pale in the fires of another passion, as does a lamp at the shining of the sun; but I don't believe a word of it—do you, Bessie? I am not, my dear sister, playing the inquisitor with you, but fearfully and awkwardly enough approaching a subject on which I thought it would be easier to write than to speak; but I find it cannot be easy to do that, in any mode, which may pain you. —I arrived safely at headquarters on the 22d. Colonel Ashley received me with open arms. He applauded my resolution to join the army, and bestowed his curses liberally (as is his wont on whatever displeases him) on the young men who linger at home, while the gallant spirits of France and Poland are crossing the ocean to volunteer in our cause. He rubbed his hands exultingly when I told him that it was your self-originating decision that I should leave you. `The only son of your mother—that is, the only one to speak of' (forgive him, Sam and Hal), `and she a widow!' he exclaimed. `Let them talk about their Spartan mothers, half men and demimonsters; but look at our women-folks, as tender and as timid of their broods as hens, and as bold and self-sacrificing as martyrs! You come of a good stock, my boy, and so I shall tell the gin'ral. He's old Virginia, my lad; and looks well to blood in man and horse.' —I write under the inspiration of the agreeable consciousness that my letter may pass under the sublime eye of your commander-in-chief, or be scanned and sifted by his underlings. I wish to Heaven that, without endangering your bright orbs, I could infuse some retributive virtue into my ink to strike them blind. But the deuse take them. I defy their oversight. I am not discreet enough to be trusted with military or political secrets, and therefore, like Hotspur's Kate, I can betray none. As to my own private affairs, though I do not flatter myself I have attained a moral eminence which I may challenge the world to survey, yet I'll expose nothing to you, dear Belle, whose opinion I care more for than that of king, lords, and commons, which the whole world may not know without your loving brother being dishonoured thereby: so, on in my usual `streak o' lightning style,' with facts and feelings. “No, no, my dear Belle, I cannot remove to the city—it must not be; and I am sorry the question is again mooted. `A woman, and naturally born to fears,' I may be; but because I have that inconvenient inheritance, I see no reason why I should cherish and augment it. Your imagination, which is rather an active agent, has magnified the terrors of the times; and it seems just now to be unduly excited by the monstrous tales circulated in the city, of the atrocities the Yankees have committed on the tories. I see in Rivington's Gazette, which you wrapped around the sugarplums that you sent the children (thank you), various precious anecdotes of Yankee tigers and tory lambs, forsooth! that are just about as true as the tales of giants and ogres with which your childhood was edified. The Yankees are a civilized race, and never, God bless them! commit gratuitous cruelties. If they still `see it to be duty' (to quote their own Puritan phrase), they will cling to this contest till they have driven the remnant of your Israel, Belle, every tory and Englishman, from the land; but they will commit no episodical murders: it is only the ignorant man that is unnecessarily cruel. They are an instructed, kind-hearted, Christian people; and of this there will be abundant proof while the present war is remembered. Remember, Belle, these people have unadulterated English blood in their veins, which to you should be a prevailing argument in their favour; and believe me, they have a fair portion of the spirit of their freedom-loving and all-daring ancestors. Our English mother, God bless her, too, should have known better than to trammel, scold, and try to whip her sons into obedience, when they had come to man's estate, and were fit to manage their own household. Thank Heaven, I have outlived the prejudices against the people of New-England which my father transmitted to his children. `There they come,' he used to say, when he saw these busy people driving into the manor; `every snow brings them, and, d—n them, every thaw too!'
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