| | 1 | Author: | Kirkland
Caroline M.
(Caroline Matilda)
1801-1864 | Requires 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. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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