University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.

Henry Howard, the hero of our tale, was a young Bostonian of fortune
and education, endowed by nature with a fine person and unexceptionable
address, character and position in society. At the period
of our tale he was twenty-seven years of age, and when, besides his
youth, his other advantages just enumerated are taken into consideration,
it is not surprising that the bright eyes and gentle regards of more
than one marriageable belle were turned towards him. But in spite of
their charms, Henry passed unscathed through the winter assemblies
and the summerings at Saratoga and Nahant, each autumn's return
finding him as free as the spring had found him.

But our hero was not a marrying man! That is, he had no mind,
as he said, to sacrifice his independence to a wife's silken restraints.
He found some others of his particular friends in the same liberty-loving
mood, and one convivial evening a few months prior to the
opening of our story, they combined to stand together in a war of resistance
against matrimony! This anti-marrying club consisted besides
Henry, of five others, all of them young men of high respectability,
and all equally opposed to the nuptial bondage. They held their
meetings once a week, and over wine and cigars strengthened each
other's resolutions, and rejoiced in their mutual independence of Hymen.

Our hero no doubt thought that this compact would render him forever
secure from the toils of matrimony, and that, armed with the
panoply of his resolutions, he might safely trust himself amid the blaze
of beauty and bid defiauce to the archery of Don Cupid. But the
little love-God had no idea of suffering a conspiracy of this kind to
exist against his legitimate power; and placing himself within the
bright eyes of a charming girl named Louise Lintot, she shot a shower
of arrows from behind her eye lashes, as from the covert of a chevaur
de frise, and penetrated his heart in a hundred places!

The result was, that Henry found himself over head in ears in love,
and after in vain trying to subdue and conquer the passion, he submitted
to it, and forgetting his resolutions and his club, he made a declaration
at the feet of his lovely conqueror! This event took place at
Portland, that city renowned for female grace and beauty, where

Harry was on a visit at the time, and so beyond the immediate protection
of his brothers in the vow; if it had been in Boston, their presence
and the fear of their ridicule possibly might have restrained him from
going so far. But the first they heard of it was from the following
letter, written by him to his friend, Charles Lester, the most inveterate
of the anti-matrimonialists, with whom he had been touring, until
Charles and his other friends left him in Portland to proceed to Boston;
for the party of anti-conjugalists had been travelling together to the
White Mountains. It will be seen, by the letter, that Harry resolved
to be precipitate and to get through with the matter before he could
receive any remonstrances from his friends:

Within a week, my dear friend, I shall be a married man!

I can see you burst into a fit of the loudest laughter at this unexpected
revelation! Joke me as much as you please, my friend; remind
me of my bitter diatribes against matrimony, and of the oaths by which
I, with you, bound ourselves never to augment the list of its victims!—
But how has it turned out? I surely have not changed my opinion; I
only act contrary from what I think! Shall I be the first one whose
actions have been in complete opposition to his words, or, at least, who
has not the courage to sustain his opinion? You already know that
my past history has been romantic and adventurous enough to make
me a fit hero for a novel or a comedy! What I am about to relate
will not lessen in your mind this idea.

I will not say that Louise is beautiful! for you yourself saw her when
here, and she appeared to you so perfect, that when you parted from
me at the depot you recommended to me careful vigilance over myself!
I have struggled like a hero! but I have finally yielded to my fate, and
in imitation of the ancient paladin knights, I have chosen to surrender
my arms to the most formidable of my enemies, MATRIMONY. Thus in
my fall, I have fallen with honor!

Indeed and in truth, my friend, it was impossible for me to resist!—
I will not bring into account by way of extenuation of my fault, the
lively desire of my poor father, who was highly displeased on discovering
my anti-conjugal ideas. This consideration, although powerful,
would not have been sufficient to determine me to this step; but I love
Louise! I confess it to my disgrace that what filial love and the tears
of my father could not achieve has been brought about effectually by
my own passion, by the egotistical desire of my own personal felicity.
In vain have I invoked and arrayed against my weakness, the remembrance
of our convivial, anti-conjugal meeting, and recalled to my aid
the ardent and once sincere repugnances I once entertained with you
and among you! In deed and in truth, my dear Charles, I still do most
cordially hate matrimony, but I love Louise more!

I have just written to my father, asking his consent. I question
whether his business added to his obstinate gout will suffer him to come
and bring it to me in person. But I am quite confident he will not long
delay a reply. There is one thing that is in my favour. Louise is the

daughter of his most intimate friend, and, as you are aware, being an
orphan my father had taken a deep intesest in her. It was, I begin to
mistrust, a trap of his to get me to call on her with the letter of introduction
he gave me! If so, I can only say I am fairly taken captive!
My father, I know, is greatly attached to her; for I have often heard
him speak of her with the most paternal interest! Therefore I know
that in marrying her I am going to make my excellent parent happy!
The idea of his joy consoles me something for the sadness—yes, for the
sadness which a certain discontent of myself causes me in the midst of
my happiness! Truly and frankly, Charles, I am the most miserable
man that ever was known. I am about to marry freely and voluntarily,
and if Louise should come to me and say, `No longer do I love you!'
I should be in utter dispair and misery, and be tempted to blow out my
brains! Nevertheless, the idea of matrimony makes my turn pale, and
before taking the first vacillating step I — Ah! my Charles! I
feel a faintness seize me at the heart. I have already shown myself a
coward in retreating from the firm resolution never to marry: and I will
not now be one also in now refusing to marry!

I have had a bad head-ache and must close. Fortunately my heart
is firm. Adieu.

`Yet ought I not to be flattered by even such a notice? If indeed
Louise loves my person, I think she ought to be happy with my love
which no ceremony will increase! How then, or why then should I
manifest joy when I see myself on the verge of a union which will not
make me love her more than I do now? Will it not be that, like all
the rest, she will be more pleased with the matrimony than with the
husband! This idea has tormented me atrociously, and has given a
lukewarmness to our interviews. I know this idea is a foolish one, be
cause I cannot doubt of the purity and of the reality of the love of
Louise for me. But I am tortured, I hardly know wherefore. I am
agitated while I write, and feel a fever in my veins.

If you were at my side, Charles, I think I should hardly dare to be
married.

[A letter from Mr. Howard, the father of our hero to Miss Lintot.]

`How can I thank you, my dear daughter — for in anticipation I
give you this name! What a fine triumph for you to have reduced my
son to a treaty to which, I know not from what false and ridiculous

ideas, he has been so adverse. I assure you that he has cost me great
solicitude, and in conquering him you have restored to me happiness
and life. I have loved you as a daughter of an old and dear friend; but
now I shall love in you equally my daughter and the tutelar angel of
my son.

[A letter from Charles Lester, to Henry Howard.]

You, yourself, have said it! you are a coward.

But you have told me no news. When we left Portland I presayed
your fall; and in order to reinforce your courage, if it was yet time,
(for I saw how it went with you the moment you sat eyes on Miss Lintot!)
or in order to make more open and apparent your perjury, I invited
thee to a banquet where alone were admitted bachelors: bachelors,
you will understand.

It was at the Cumberland Hotel! We were six! enemies all of
matrimony! and when, at that time, I hinted, in jest, that you would
be our first deserter, you cried out, exclaiming loudly, `Calumny!' and
when we alleged, in proof, your passion (apparent to all) for Louise
Lintot, you denied it, saying, `If I could be so base as to let love for
woman cause me to break my word, then should I deserve to be broken
upon the wheel as I break this glass!..' and the fragments
of the crystal fell upon the table in the midst of the thunder of our applause!

Our oaths, those oaths of which you speak in your letter, were then
renewed with all due solemnity, and when the champagne appeared,
you sang the popular song,

and we repeated and re-echoed the chorus with formidable enthusiasm.

Of the six friends that joined that day their hands and their pledges,
four are, at this moment, while I am writing you, seated in my room,
and your letter has given us a subject to laugh at for a whole rainy day!
As for the sixth, his marriage bans are being published and he is getting
ready his wedding garments! Ah, what a fall is there.

Harry! if you are a man, break through every thing, take the cars
the very evening you get this letter, come to us and repeat the oaths of
the first of July. If not, leave us and we will compose a dirge for thee,
and at our next meeting chant it over the vacant chair you once occupied
in our midst. Requiescat in pace.