University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.

We are now off the capes of Virginia, and you begin to smell
the juleps. When the winds are fair, they impregnate the atmosphere
— gratefully I must confess — full forty miles at sea,
even as the Mississippi gives its color to the Gulf, the same
distance from the Balize. Should your vessel be becalmed along
the coast, as mine has been frequently, you will be compensated by
the grateful odor, morning and evening, as from gardens where
mint and tobacco grow together in most intimate communion.

The Virginian has always been a good liver. He unites the
contradictory qualities which distinguished the English squire
when he drew sword for the Stuarts. He has been freed from
the brutal excesses which debased the character of his ancestor
as described by Macaulay; but he has lost none of the generous
virtues, which, in the same pages, did honor to the same character.
He has all the loyalty and faith of the past — he still believes
in the antique charms of his home and parish. He is
brave and hardy, though indolent, and has a martial swagger
peculiarly his own, which gives an easy grace to his courage
while taking nothing from what is wholesome in his social demeanor.

The Virginian is a longer. He will sleep for days and
weeks, but only to start into the most energetic and performing
life. See him as he drowses at ease in the shade of his piazza,
his legs over the balustrade; observe him as he dawdles at the
tavern, in a like attitude, with a sympathetic crowd of idlers
around him. There he sits, as you perceive, in a ricketty chair,
of domestic fashion, the seat of which is untanned bull's hide —
his head thrown back, his heels in the air over an empty barrel,
a huge plantation cigar protruded from his left cheek, and a pint

goblet of julep, foaming amid green leaves and ice, beside him.
There he will sit, and swear famously, and discuss politics by
the hour, and talk of his famous horses, orators, and warriors —
for he is a good local chronicler always, and has a wonderful
memory of all that has happened in the “Old Dominion.” You
will, if you know nothing of him, fancy him a mere braggart and
a sluggard. But wait. Only sound the trumpet — give the
alarm — and he is on his feet. If a sluggard, he is like the
Black Sluggard in Ivanhoe. He only waits the proper provocation.
Like the war-horse, the blast of the trumpet puts his
whole frame in motion. He kicks the chair from under him.
He rolls the barrel away with a single lurch. The cigar is flung
from his jaw; and, emptying his julep, he is prepared for action
— ready to harangue the multitude, or square off against any
assailant.

His fault in war is want of caution. He never provides
against an enemy because he never fears one. He is frequently
caught napping, but he makes up for it, in the end, by extra exertions.
There is a dash of Raleigh and John Smith both in his
character, as when the “Old Dominion,” when it had not a gunboat
or a piece of ordnance, defied Cromwell, and declared at all
hazard for the Stuarts. His loyalty is as indisputable as his courage—provided
you let him show it as he pleases. He is as self-willed
as Prince Rupert, who, in most respects, was no bad representative
of the Virginian; — bold, headlong, dashing, full of courage
and effrontery, fond of a rouse, and mixing fun, fight and devotion,
together, in a rare combination, which does not always offend,
however it may sometimes startle. A proud fellow, who
loves no master, and who only serves because it is his humor to
do so.

He is profligate beyond his means. His hospitality, which
was once his virtue, is, like that of some of his neighbors further
south, becoming a weakness and a vice. He will not, however,
repudiate, though his gorge rises at the thought of bankruptcy.
He is too much of an individual for that — has too
much pride as a Virginian. But, I fear that his profligacy of
life has tainted the purity of his politics. I could wish that Virginians
were less solicitous of the flesh-pots of the national government.

The mention of Virginia recalls one of the most interesting of
our state histories. It is the pride of Virginia to have been one
of the maternal states of this country. She shares this distinction
with Massachusetts and the Carolinas. I do not mean to say,
simply, that her sons have contributed to form the population of
other states. It is in the formation of their character that she
has been conspicuous. She has given tone and opinion to the
new communities that have arisen along her frontier. She has
equally influenced their social habits and courage. It would be
a pleasant study, for the social philosopher, to inquire into the
degree in which she has done this. It is enough that I suggest
the inquiry.”

“What a misfortune to Virginia that she is so near to the District
of Columbia.”

“And that she has given five presidents to the confederacy.”

“Yes! this effect is to make office a natural craving; while,
it is thought that every male-child born since the days of Monroe,
is born with a sort of natural instinct for, and a right to the
presidency.”

“Yet, how curious now-a-days are the materiel for a president!”

“Curious, indeed! yet this would be no great evil — this
change in the sort of clay supposed essential for the manufacture
— if states preserved their integrity, their principles and
pride, with their passion. But we grow flexible in moral in proportion
to our appetites, and one who is constantly hungering
will never scruple at any sort of food. The eagle descends to
the garbage of the kite, and the race who once wrought their
gods out of marble, soon content themselves with very rude imitations
in putty.”

“They need not be imitations either. We have reached that
condition when it is no longer held essential, the counsel of Hamlet
to his mother, `assume a virtue if you have it not.' It is not
only no longer held essential to keep up the appearances of
truth and patriotism, but one is apt to be laughed at for his
pains. Even to seem patriotic at Washington is held to be a
gratuitous greenness.”

“Let us not speak of it. How much more grateful is it to
look back to the rough, wild, half savage, but brave and honest

past. What a pity it is that our people do not read their own
old chronicles. It is now scarcely possible to pick up any of the
old histories of the states, which a sincere people, with any veneration
left, would be careful to keep in every household.”

“What an equal pity it is that these chronicles have been so
feebly exemplified by the local historians. These have usually
shown themselves to be mere compilers. They were, in fact, a
very dull order of men among us. They were wholly deficient
in imagination and art; and quite incapable of developing gracefully,
or even of exhibiting fairly, the contents of the chronicle.
They merely accumulated or condensed the records; they never
displayed them. This is the great secret by which histories
are preserved to the future and kept popular through time. Art
is just as necessary in truth as in fiction — a fact of which critics
even do not always appear conscious. See now the wonderful
success and attraction of Mr. Prescott's labors. His secret consists
chiefly in the exercise of the appropriate degree of art.
His materials, in the main, are to be found in a thousand old
volumes, available to other writers; but it was in his art that
the lumbersome records became imbued with life. His narratives
of the conquest of Peru and Mexico are so many exquisite
pictures — action, scene, portrait, all harmoniously blended in
beautiful and symmetrical connection. His details, which, in
common hands, were usually sadly jumbled, constitute a series
of noble dramas — all wrought out in eloquent action. His
events are all arranged with the happiest order. His dramatis
personæ play their parts according to the equal necessities of the
history and of their individual character. The parts harmonize,
the persons work together, and the necessary links preserved
between them, the action is unbroken to the close. All irrelevant
matter, calculated to impair this interest, is carefully discarded;
all subordinate matter is dismissed with a proper brevity,
or compressed in the form of notes, at the bottom of his
page. Nothing is dwelt upon at length, but that which justifies
delineation, either from the intrinsic value of the material, or
from its susceptibilities for art. Suppose the historian were to
employ such a rule in the development of such chronicles as
those of Virginia? What a beautiful volume might be made of
it! How full of admirable lessons, of lovely sketches, of

fine contrasts, and spirit-stirring actions. The early voyagers,
down to the time of Smith, would form the subject of a most
delightful chapter; and then we open upon the career of Smith
himself — that remarkable man, excellent politician, and truly
noble gentleman and soldier. He seems to have been the last
representative of an age which had passed from sight before he
entered upon the stage. He was the embodiment of the best
characteristics of chivalry. How manly his career — with what
a noble self-esteem did he prepare for the most trying issues —
how generous his courage — how disinterested his virtues — how
devoted to the sex — a preux chevalier, not unworthy to have
supped with Bayard after the battle of Marignano. Neither
England nor America has ever done justice to the genius or the
performances of this man, and I fear that his name was somewhat
in the way of his distinctions. It is difficult to believe in
the heroism of a man named Smith. Men do not doubt that he
will fight, but mere fighting is not heroism. Heroism is the model
virtue; and we are slow to ally it with the name of Smith — indeed,
with any name of a single syllable. There are really few
or no flaws in the character of the founder of Virginia.”

“I am not sure of that! What do you say to his treatment
of the beautiful daughter of Powhatan? His coldness —”

“You have simply stumbled in the track of a popular error.
It is a vulgar notion that he encouraged and slighted the affections
of Pocahontas. All this is a mistake. He neither beguiled
her with false shows of love, nor was indifferent to her beauties
or her virtues. Pocahontas was a mere child to Smith, but
twelve years old when he first knew her, and he about forty.”

“But his neglect of her when she went to England”

“He did not neglect her.”

“She reproached him for it.”

“Yes; the poor savage in her unsophisticated child-heart,
knew nothing of that convention which, in Europe, lay as burdensomely
upon Smith as upon herself. Even then, however,
he treated her as tenderly as if she were his own child, with this
difference, that he was required to approach her as a princess.
His reserves were dictated by a prudent caution which did not
venture to outrage the pedantic prejudices of the Scottish Solomon,
then upon the throne, who, if you remember, was very

slow to forgive Rolfe, one of his subjects, for the audacity which
led him to marry the princess of Virginia.”

“By the way, you have yourself made Smith an object of the
love of Pocahontas.”

“It was the sin of my youth; and was the natural use to be
made of the subject when treating it in verse.”

“Come — as one of your contributions to our evening, give
us your legend. Miss Burroughs will no doubt be pleased to
hear it, and your verse may very well serve as a relief to our
prose.”

“What do you say, Selina?”

“Oh! by all means — the legend.”

“To hear is to obey.”

The circle closed about me, and, with many natural misgivings,
and a hesitation which is my peculiar infirmity, I delivered myself
as well as I could of the fabrication which follows:—

POCAHONTAS; A LEGEND OF VIRGINIA.