| | 1 | Author: | Stowe
Harriet Beecher
1811-1896 | Add | | | Title: | The minister's wooing  | | | | Published: | 2003 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | Mrs. Katy Scudder had invited Mrs. Brown, and
Mrs. Jones, and Deacon Twitchel's wife to take tea
with her on the afternoon of June second, A. D. 17 —. “I cannot leave you so. I have about two hundred
things to say to you, and it's a shame I could
not have had longer to see you; but blessed be ink
and paper! I am writing and seeing to fifty things
besides; so you mustn't wonder if my letter has
rather a confused appearance. “As to the business, it gets on rather slowly
L— and S— are away, and the coalition
cannot be formed without them; they set out a
week ago from Philadelphia, and are yet on the
road. “My dear, — We are still in Newport, conjugating
the verb s'ennuyer, which I, for one, have
put through all the moods and tenses. Pour
passer le temps, however, I have la belle Fran
çaise and my sweet little Puritan. I visited there
this morning. She lives with her mother, a little
walk out toward the seaside, in a cottage quite
prettily sequestered among blossoming apple-trees,
and the great hierarch of modern theology, Dr.
Hopkins, keeps guard over them. No chance here
for any indiscretions, you see. “My dear, honored friend, — How can I sufficiently
thank you for your faithfulness with me?
All you say to me seems true and excellent; and
yet, my dear Sir, permit me to try to express to
you some of the many thoughts to which our conversation
this evening has given rise. To love
God because He is good to me you seem to think
is not a right kind of love; and yet every moment
of my life I have experienced His goodness.
When recollection brings back the past, where can
I look that I see not His goodness? What moment
of my life presents not instances of merciful
kindness to me, as well as to every creature, more
and greater than I can express, than my mind is
able to take in? How, then, can I help loving
God because He is good to me? Were I not an
object of God's mercy and goodness, I cannot
have any conception what would be my feeling.
Imagination never yet placed me in a situation not
to experience the goodness of God in some way or
other; and if I do love Him, how can it be but because
He is good, and to me good? Do not God's
children love Him because He first loved them? “I am longing to see you once more, and before
long I shall be in Newport. Dear little Mary,
I am sad, very sad; — the days seem all of them
too long; and every morning I look out of my
window and wonder why I was born. I am not
so happy as I used to be, when I cared for nothing
but to sing and smooth my feathers like the
birds. That is the best kind of life for us women;
— if we love anything better than our clothes, it
is sure to bring us great sorrow. For all that, I
can't help thinking it is very noble and beautiful
to love; — love is very beautiful, but very, very sad.
My poor dear little white cat, I should like to hold
you a little while to my heart; — it is so cold all
the time, and aches so, I wish I were dead; but
then I am not good enough to die. The Abbé
says, we must offer up our sorrow to God as a
satisfaction for our sins. I have a good deal to
offer, because my nature is strong and I can feel
a great deal. “Dear —. Nous voici — once more in Philadelphia.
Our schemes in Ohio prosper. Frontignac
remains there to superintend. He answers
our purpose passablement. On the whole, I don't
see that we could do better than retain him; he
is, besides, a gentlemanly, agreeable person, and
wholly devoted to me, — a point certainly not to
be overlooked. “You behold me, my charming Gabrielle, quite
pastoral, recruiting from the dissipations of my
Philadelphia life in a quiet cottage, with most
worthy, excellent people, whom I have learned to
love very much. They are good and true, as pious
as the saints themselves, although they do not belong
to the Church, — a thing which I am sorry
for; but then let us hope, that, if the world is
wide, heaven is wider, and that all worthy people
will find room at last. This is Virginie's own
little, pet, private heresy; and when I tell it to the
Abbé, he only smiles, and so I think, somehow,
that it is not so very bad as it might be. “I have lived through many wonderful scenes
since I saw you last. My life has been so adventurous,
that I scarcely know myself when I
think of it. But it is not of that I am going
now to write. I have written all that to mother,
and she will show it to you. But since I parted
from you, there has been another history going on
within me; and that is what I wish to make you
understand, if I can. “You wonder, I s'pose, why I haven't written
you; but the fact is, I've been run just off my
feet, and worked till the flesh aches so it seems
as if it would drop off my bones, with this wedding
of Mary Scudder's. And, after all, you'll be
astonished to hear that she ha'n't married the
Doctor, but that Jim Marvyn that I told you
about. You see, he came home a week before
the wedding was to be, and Mary, she was so
conscientious she thought 'twa'n't right to break
off with the Doctor, and so she was for going
right on with it; and Mrs. Scudder, she was for
going on more yet; and the poor young man, he
couldn't get a word in edgeways, and there
wouldn't anybody tell the Doctor a word about it,
and there 'twas drifting along, and both on 'em
feeling dreadful, and so I thought to myself, `I'll
just take my life in my hand, like Queen Esther,
and go in and tell the Doctor all about it.' And
so I did. I'm scared to death always when I
think of it. But that dear blessed man, he took
it like a saint. He just gave her up as serene
and calm as a psalm-book, and called Jim in and
told him to take her. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
|
