University of Virginia Library

“I TOLD you in my last of our surprise at the
little coincidence of the number on the card, and
that on the house where the lady alighted, with
whom Lamar had exchanged some intelligent
glances in her more girlish days; but I did not
complete the relation, which I will do presently.

“In the mean time, was there ever a man of
any travel or adventure, who has not been alarmed
at these seeming accidents, or, what is more probable,
made superstitious by their frequent recurrence?
I think that I hazard nothing in saying,
that more of such strange coincidences have occurred
to me than I have ever seen in any work
of fiction; not the clap-traps, and other little contrivances,
which are intended to electrify the
blunted nerves of veteran readers; but the coincidences
of ordinary life in society, which reveal
to us occasionally the finger of Providence in the
course we vainly suppose we are chalking out for
ourselves. What is it to a man to possess the will,
when all the circumstances upon which that will
is to operate, are ready arranged to his hand? I

do not repine at this, if it be a fact. On the contrary,
it is often a matter of consolation to me to
think, how narrow is the choice which the Creator
has given us; thereby, of course, decreasing our
means of doing wrong; nor is this all his beneficence
to us,—he has made it easier for us to do
right than wrong; often leaving us but two plain
roads to follow, the right one being the easier,
plainer, more attractive to a cultivated head and
heart, and more profitable in this world. There!
you see I never preach beyond this world; and
hard enough it is to see clearly all around us in
that.

“This brings me, by a very circuitous route you
will no doubt think, to the further coincidence
spoken of.

“As Damon does not take up his abode with us,
besides other reasons, he was not of our party
when we went to pay our respects to the Hazlehurst
family. On entering the parlour, we found
the young gentleman who had invited us, with
Arthur and the lady, who were sitting, at the time
of our entrance, engaged in an apparently interesting
conversation, in the recess of one of the
windows. Arthur and Lamar seemed pleased to
meet again. The lady smiled upon Lamar, and
acknowledged her recollection of his countenance.
She is elegant and lofty; not in height, indeed, for
she is not remarkably tall, but lofty in her demeanour
and bearing. There are none of the
gentle whisperings which come directly from the

heart of a certain little unhappy runaway. The
one would captivate an assembly; the other has
made terrible inroads upon the heart of a single
gentleman; and this brings me to the matter with
which I began this epistle.

“Lamar, having mentioned to Arthur something
about the young lady we had met on our travels,
and having thrown many gratuitous remarks and
glances towards me, the lady seemed at length to
take some interest in the subject, and in Lamar's
description. She then appealed to me for the
name.

“`Miss St. Clair!' exclaimed she, when I had
succeeded in uttering it, `and have you really
fallen into her toils? Alas, I pity you!'

“Why the plague should she pity me, Randolph?
It was evident enough that she did not mean the
mock pity, which is only another way for saying,
`how I am rejoiced!'

“`But,' continued she, `the lady is a dear and
valued friend of mine, and you shall see her.'

“`But when?' said I, eagerly, awakening out of
a brown study.

“All laughed; and I cannot say from my own
experience, that I like the sport any better than
yourself.

“You could have amused yourself (it was no
amusement to me) with the odd looks of Lamar,
in presence of the object of a first and youthful
attachment. There is something pure and primitive
in these boyish loves, and they are too much

out of fashion in the present age, even in this country.
It is not certainly because matches of mere
convenience have supplanted them, so much as
because it has become too much the custom to treat
very young affairs of the heart with ridicule and
contempt. People are apt to say `Oh! it is nothing
more than puppy love!' (a refined expression
truly) and to throw derision upon all such demonstrations,
at the very time, too, when we are most
sensitive upon such subjects, and when our impressions
of the fair one are but too easily modified
by the pretended opinions of our seniors and
superiors. Opposition, direct and serious, will
indeed sometimes make the youth steady in his
course, but ridicule of the object, never!

“From the little I know of the science of political
economy and human happiness, I am inclined
to run right into the teeth of the prevailing doctrines
on this subject. I have never known a
couple who married, whether young or old, upon
the strength of a first and mutual passion, who
were not contented, prosperous, and happy. There
are doubtless exceptions to this sweeping rule, but
I have not seen them.

“Its enemies urge that the youthful pair are not
capable of estimating each other's qualifications.
But do age and experience qualify them? Or is
the judgment of so much avail in these matters as
is pretended? Look at the men most remarkable
for discretion and judgment; I will venture to say
you will find that most of them have trusted too

much to their judgments, and too little to their
hearts, to be happy. The truth is, that nature has
made the heart the magnetic point of mutual attraction
in these affairs, and the head of the wisest
man is here out of its sphere.

“It is too true, that many of your slow, cautious,
miserly characters, attempt to reduce the whole
business to a question in the single rule of three;
as thus: if Caroline B. with a sweet face and a
prudent turn makes a thrifty wife, what will Adeline
B. make, with a sweet face, thrifty ways, and
a heavy purse?

“Thanks be to an overruling providence, they
are often carried a rule or two farther in their
mathematics than they intended; the honey-moon
winds up with doleful calculations, in the ashes of
the chimney-corner, with the end of their rattans;
such as Vulgar Fractions, Profit and Loss, Tare
and Trett, et cetera.

“You must not imagine, from what I have here
said, that I am one of those dreamers who contend
that the world might again become a paradise;
if, in these things, men would always consult the
dictates of the heart.

“If we look forward at the marriages which are
to come, we can discern nothing. This you may
think is too true to make a joke of, and too serious
to discuss. But look back over all the world that
you have seen, and I think you will own that
Providence or destiny has had a great design constantly
in view in their fulfilment. The human

character has been equipoised, extremes have been
avoided, the humble elevated, the exalted humbled;
all the genius, and the wit, and the judgment, and
the virtues, have not been suffered to be concentrated
in the descendants of a single pair, but
have been as nearly as possible divided among us,
the descendants of the multitude. Opposite, or
rather diverging characters, are frequently enamoured
of each other—the brave man loves the
gentle woman; the gentle man, the gay woman;
and thus in their descendants we have the grand
compromise of nature.

“There is a sermon, now for the text—`neither
is the battle to the strong nor the race to the swift.'

“The day being Sunday, I sent old Cato this
morning to arouse Lamar quite early, in order to
ascertain if he was disposed to walk before breakfast,
and view some of the boasted parks, groves,
and gardens of these hospitable Gothamites. Old
Cato soon returned, saying that Lamar had but
that moment fallen asleep, but that he would be
with me as soon as he could make a hasty toilet;
hasty it indeed was, for he was not many minutes

behind Cato, in his morning-gown and slippers,
yawning and stretching his clenched fists through
the room as if he had sat in his chair all night.

“`Beshrew me, Chevillere,' said he, `but you
are an uneasy and restless spirit, to be waking a
man up at all hours of the night in this style. I
thought, at least, when I saw old Cato's grisly
head, that you had had a surfeit, or a fit of indigestion.'

“I suppose then you are disappointed to find
me well; but tell me, Lamar, how you intend to
spend the day?

“`Why, I have not laid it down in a regular
campaign, but I suppose, as you are too much of
a Roundhead to kill the day with me at cards, that
I shall have to submit myself to be whined to death
with nasal psalmody, at some conventicle or other.
Be that as it may, Damon shall sit on the stool of
repentance as well as myself.'

“`In the mean time, suppose we walk to the
Battery and Castle Garden?'

“`Agreed!' said he, `provided you wait till I
jump into a more seemly garb.'

“We were soon arm in arm, sauntering down
the southern extremity of Broadway, which terminates
in a beautiful oval grass-plot, called the
Bowling Green; surrounded by a handsome iron
railing, and containing a young and an old grove
of trees; in imitation, doubtless, of human life, the
young to supplant the aged. During the colonial
government, there stood in the centre of this beautiful

spot a painted leaden equestrian statue of
George the Third, but as soon as the revolutionary
war broke out, it was melted into bullets, and shot
at his own ships and soldiers. On the opposite
side of the right branch of Broadway, in a south-westerly
direction, is the Battery—a noble lawn,
covering some acres of the southern extremity of
Manhattan Island, and of course looking into the
Bay of New-York. What is by a misnomer called
Castle Garden, stands out in the waters of the bay
on the south-west side, and is connected with the
lawn by a wooden bridge of some thirty or forty
yards length, and not too strong to give way under
some future pressure. Castle Garden is a castellated
structure, without turrets and battlements,
built of hewn stone, and pierced with a row of
port-holes. It seems to have been built for warlike
purposes, but is now used as a public promenade,
and exhibition garden, having tiers of seats
inside, and around an extensive area, in the manner
of an amphitheatre. In the centre of the area
is a little temple or dome, supported on columns.
Surmounting the whole body of the castle is an
esplanade, protected by plain railings; from the
top of this extends high into the air a flag-staff,
from which, on national festivals, the `star spangled
banner' proudly floats over the blue waves which
beat against its base.

“It was here that the corporation entertained
Lafayette, a platform having been thrown over the
area, and a canvass marquee over the top; this

ball-room is said to have been capable of containing
from six to ten thousand persons.

“Lamar and I mounted the esplanade, and
seated ourselves upon the benches, just within the
railing.

“We could see the ships of every nation, as
they rode triumphantly over the waters of this
magnificent bay, gliding about like `things of life;'
marine birds screaming and diving among them,
and sometimes the porpoises in their clumsy gambols,
shooting their black masses above the water
and down again; steamers with their gay pennants,
thundering noises, and deafening bells; the rude
music and songs of the sailors, the hoarse voice of
the pilot, as he stepped on board some outward-bound
vessel, and the `ay! ay!' of the sailor,
as the order reached his ears, through the rattling
of the shrouds, and the whistling of the breeze.

“Farther out in the bay, between us and the
ocean, is a beautiful chain of islands; first Ellis's,
then Bedloe's, and lastly, next the ocean, Staten
Island.

“Gay throngs of well-dressed people began now
to crowd the gravelled walks of the Battery;
maids attending on children were seen with their
little charges, gambolling over the green in their
Sunday suits; the emancipated mechanics, with
their snow-white jackets and collars; and the
happy negro, with his tawdry and cast-off finery,
as free (personally, not politically, free) as any of
the loungers. There was something in this Sunday

scene inexpressibly soothing and delightful to
my feelings.

“Every southern should visit New-York. It
would allay provincial prejudices, and calm his
excitement against his northern countrymen. The
people here are warm-hearted, generous, and
enthusiastic, in a degree scarcely inferior to our
own southerns. The multitude move as one man,
in all public-spirited, benevolent, or charitable
measures. Many of these Yorkers are above
local prejudices, and truly consider this as the commercial
metropolis of the Union, and all the people
of the land as their customers, friends, patrons, and
countrymen.

“Nor is trade the only thing that flourishes.
The arts of polished and refined life, refined literature,
and the profounder studies of the schoolmen,
all have their distinguished votaries,—I say distinguished,
with reference to the standard of science
in our country.

“This much I have written before going to
church. The further adventures of the day, in the
evening.

“10 o'clock P. M.

“About ten o'clock this morning the bells began
to ring, from Trinity to St. John's. A forest of
steeples seemed to have let loose their artillery at
once upon us tardy Christians. These gongs
seemed to take effect in about fifteen minutes, for
simultaneously the houses poured out their thronging
occupants, until the streets literally swarmed
with these church-going people.

“`Whither shall we bend our steps?' said I;
`here are various routes to heaven; which do you
choose, Episcopal, Methodist, or Presbyterian?'

“`Not any one of the three,' said he.

“`Indeed! Perhaps Jewishly inclined?'

“`No; I thought that you were aware of my
partiality for the close-communion Baptists,' said
he, with mock gravity.

“`But seriously, Lamar, you accused me of
wishing to drag you to some conventicle or other;
choose for us both; indeed for three, for here comes
Damon.'

“`Then,' said he, `I choose the most celebrated
preacher! you will thus be most likely to see a
certain demure little runaway.'

“`And there,' said I, `you will be most likely to
see her friend, with Arthur by her side.'

“Damon now coming up, was asked by me
where he would choose to spend the forenoon of
the day.

“`I can't tell exactly,' replied he, `for the truth
is, I feel pretty much like a fish out of water even
of week days; but Sunday I'm completely dished;
I was thinking of walking out into the country, and
bantering somebody for a foot-race.'

“I proposed that we should all go and hear Dr.
* * *, and forthwith led the way, my two companions
following on, much like truant boys on their
return march to school. We entered a low white
church, I don't recollect where exactly, but on the
western side of Broadway. The preacher was
already in the pulpit, and the aisles and pews on
the lower floor were crammed with hearers, insomuch
that we were compelled to seek seats in the
small gallery, where with great difficulty we found
them.

“The preacher, who had already begun, was a
commanding-looking gentleman, clothed in black,
and, like most of our dissenting clergymen, without
gown or surplice; his features were large and
well-formed; his forehead lofty beyond any thing
I have ever seen, but falling back at the top until
it was lost in little short bristly curls; his attitudes
were lofty and dignified. He had, as I said
before, announced the portion of Scripture which
he was attempting to elucidate, before we entered
the church. The subject seemed to be, the practicability
and means of a direct revelation from

God! When he spoke of the Great Spirit who
rules our destinies revealing himself, and his manner
of doing it, he was almost sublime. I must
try to recollect a few passages for your edification,
but you must remember that they are transposed
into my own language.

“He painted in vivid and striking colours, the
utter incapacity of man to conceive identically of
such a being as God. `The little puny brain of
man,' said he, `which you may hold in the hollow
of your hand, cannot contain a true conception of
God in all his majesty! the little arteries and fibres
of our poor heads would rend and burst asunder
with such an idea.

“`To form one single correct thought of so great
a Spirit, you must first conceive of those things
which surround him; as, when we view a painting
of some earthly object, there must first be a background
to relieve the eye. So when you would
conceive of that great Being truly and fully, you
must be able to realize the duration of eternity,
obliterate the little periods of time and chronology,
which require a starting and a resting-place in our
human minds,—soar out of the reach of the sickly
atmospheres which surround these little planets, and
stand erect in the broad and fathomless light of
God's own atmosphere! Could the human eye see
with such rays, and stretch its glances over the
great waves and boundless oceans of light in
which he dwells, one single ray of it would blast
your optic nerves.

“`Even here upon earth, if we are suddenly
brought from a dark dungeon into the bright rays
of his reflected glory, our little optical machinery
quails and dances with the shock; but take that
same creature from his gloomy dungeon, and place
him in the glassy sea of light in which God dwells!
The utter horrors of such a moment, if they did
not instantly explode the soul into its elements,
would be worse than the terrors of convulsions,
and earthquakes, and the black and fathomless
chasms of the sea. And yet! some of us desire
in our hearts a direct revelation to ourselves from
this sublime Being! Know you what you desire?
You desire that God should stretch out his mighty
power, and draw away the friendly veil of the
heavens, and burst upon an astounded world in all
his fearful attributes! Before such an immediate
presence, the sun and moon would become dark
in contrast. The natural laws which he has given
us for our protection, of gravitation, electricity,
and magnetism, would burst loose from their reflected
positions, and all animate and inanimate
nature would fall before their First Great Cause!
We cannot have direct physical intercourse with
God. We are physically incompetent to encounter
him, either in his goodness or in his wrath.

“You say in your hearts, that there is mystery
in this revelation of the Bible! Can mystery be
separable from sublime or profound greatness,
when viewed through human powers? Are not
height, and depth, and space, and air, all mysterious

to your minds, when beyond the reach of the eye?
Is not darkness alone profoundly mysterious?
mysterious in its effects and in its properties! Can
any mind analyze darkness? Is it positive or negative?
Does it extend through eternal and measureless
space? or is it only a creative property
dependent upon the functions of the eye? Our
darkness is to one part of creation light, and our
light their darkness.

“Is measureless space a positive creation, or a
negative nonentity! No human intellect can
fathom these subjects; not from any of their delusive
properties, but from our limited capacities!
These then are but the beginning of those things
which interpose between us and our great and
sublime Creator!

“You can now, perhaps, form some idea of the
difficulties of revealing God to man!

“What would you have with a more powerful
and sublime revelation than this? Would you
disorganize the minds of the whole human family,
by opening to them frightful volumes which would
craze and bewilder, rather than direct them? Do
you complain of mystery, and yet call upon God
for more?

“But the greatest difficulty between us and a direct
revelation from our Creator, has yet to be
considered.

“This revelation of the Bible was necessarily
conveyed to us through the medium of human
language. Now let us examine what this human

language is. It is a system of words or signs,
which convey to our minds the ideas of things.
These words only represent such ideas as we ourselves
have formed from the things we have seen,
and their various combinations. How then can
these signs and symbols convey identical ideas of
God and his attributes? All the imperfections of
this revelation then are confessedly owing to our
imperfections, both as it regards mind and language.

“I have given you but a faint outline of this
powerful and vehement speaker's discourse. During
its delivery I once or twice turned to Lamar and
the Kentuckian, to see how they were affected.
The former had insensibly risen during the fervency
of the preacher's eloquence, and stood leaning
over the balustrade, drinking in the sounds of
a voice which are truly powerful though not musical,
until he came to a pause; he then sank into
his seat, a grim smile passing over his pale sickly
features, clearly showing to those who knew him,
how intently he had listened. Damon chewed
tobacco at a prodigious rate, and the more eloquent
the speaker became, the more energetic was the action
of his jaws. His eye was wild and savage, like
that of a forest animal when it suddenly finds itself
in the midst of a settlement. He sometimes cracked
his fingers together, for the same purpose, I suppose,
that he used to crack his whip when travelling
on horseback, to give emphasis and round
his periods.

“But I had not long to consider these effects upon
different characters, for at this moment Lamar pointed
over the balustrade at two moving figures on the
lower floor. You already guess, if you are any thing
of a Yankee, what these were. Lamar and I simultaneously
arose to our feet and gazed at the heads
which filled up every crevice, as a veteran soldier
would have gazed at so many bristling bayonets
upon an impregnable bastion. We soon heard the
steps of a carriage let down, and then the rolling
of the wheels. Lamar bit his lip till the blood
almost started from it. Whether the pressure
was increased by his having seen that Arthur
joined the ladies near the door, I shall not undertake
to say.

“The sermon now being over we had merely to
throw ourselves into the tide of human figures
which moved down stairs, to be carried safely to
the bottom.

“When there, Damon drew one long and whistling
breath, and an inarticulate sound not unlike
the snort of a whale.

“`I'm flambergasted! if that ain't what I call
goin the whole cretur, he'd go to Congress from
old Kentuck as easy as I could put a gin sling
under my jacket. O Christopher! what a stump
speech he could make, if he would only turn his
hand to it, instead of wasting his wind here among
the old wives!'

“`Well, Lamar, what did you think of him?'

“`Think of him! (rousing himself from a brown

study), I never knew before that I had nerves in
the hairs of my head.'

“`And where did you now obtain that precious
piece of anatomical news?'

“`In the church, to be sure! Were not my
locks dancing all the while to the music of that
eccentric man's voice? The cold chills ran over
me, as if I had been under the influence of miasma.'

“I watched Damon through an unusually long
silence, while he several times snapped his fingers
and took a fresh chew of tobacco.

“`I'll tell you what it is, that's what I call a real
tear-down sneezer,' ejaculated he; `he's a bark-well
and hold-fast too; he doesn't honey it up to
'em, and mince his words—he lets it down upon
'em hot and heavy; he knocks down and drags
out; first he gives it to 'em in one eye and then in
'tother, then in the gizzard, and at last he gits your
head under his arm, and then I reckon he feathers
it in, between the lug and the horn; he gives a
feller no more chance nor a 'coon has in a black
jack.'

“`Then you give him more credit for sincerity
than you usually do men of his cloth,' said I.

“`Yes, yes! there's no whippin the devil round
the stump with him; he jumps right at him, tooth
and toe-nail, and I'm flambergasted if I don't think
he rather worsted the Old Boy this morning; and
he's the best match I ever saw him have, he looks
so stout and soldier-like; and then his eye! Did
you see his eye, stranger? I'm shot if he didn't

look as if he could 'a jumped right a-straddle of
the devil's neck, and just run his thumbs in, and
scooped out his two eyes, as easy as I would scoop
an oyster out of his shell.'

“`You don't go to church often when you are at
home?'

“`No; but I would go, if we had such a Samson
as this; he raises old Kentuck in me in a minute.
I feel full of fight, and ready for any thing
now! But our old parson! he's an entirely different
cut in the jib. He whines it out to us like an
old woman in the last of pea-time; he doesn't
thunder it down to 'em like this chap, and like old
Hickory did the grape-shot at New-Orleans.'

“We had now arrived at that point of the street
where we were to separate. Damon abruptly informed
us of his intention to return soon to Baltimore.
I asked him if he was not pleased with
New-York.

“`O, yes;' said he, `it's a real Kentuck of a
place, a man can do here what he likes; they don't
look at the cut of a feller's coat, but at the cut of
his jib. I could wear my coat upside down here,
and my hat smashed all into a gin-shop, and nobody
has time to turn round and look at me. Yes, yes,
stranger, they are a whole-souled people, and I
like 'em, but I have staid long enough.'

“Here we separated for the day. Lamar intends
to try and prevail upon him to accompany
us to the theatre, and the Italian opera. I have
great curiosity to see him at the latter place. Pedrotti,

they say, can tame a tiger with her melodious
and touching voice. As you may suppose,
I am anxious to hear it myself, and to see its effects
upon one so unschooled in the music of luxurious
and effeminate Italy.

“I have written you more at length than I intended,
but I could not do otherwise in return for
your amusing, friendly, and satisfactory epistle.
We shall meet again, as in days of yore, and then
we will gather up all these scribblings, and enjoy
these scenes again. In the mean time, believe
that I wish you success in your present suit, for
the sake of three of us,—but more particularly
and selfishly that of