University of Virginia Library

13. CHAPTER XIII.

The route, which conducted them over a range of gently
ascending hills, through groves tolerably thick, an uncleared
woodland tract comprising every variety of pleasant
foliage, at length brought them to a lonely tarn or lake,
about a mile in circumference, nestled and crouching in
the hollow of the hills, which, in some places sloped
gently down to its margin, at others hung abruptly over
its deep and pensive waters. A thick fringe of shrubs,
water-grasses, and wild flowers girdled its edges, and gave
a dark and mysterious expression to its face. There were
many beaten tracks, narrow paths for individual wayfarers
on foot, which conducted down to favourite fishing spots.
These were found chiefly on those sides of the lake where
the rocks were precipitous. Perched on a jutting eminence,
and half shrouded in the bushes which clothed it,

the silent fisherman took his place, while his fly was
made to kiss the water in capricious evolutions, such as
the experienced angler knows how to employ to beguile the
wary victim from close cove, or gloomy hollow, or from
beneath those decaying trunks of overthrown trees which
have given his brood a shelter from immemorial time.
To one of these selected spots, Ned Hinkley proceeded,
leaving his companions above, where, in shade themselves,
and lying at ease upon the smooth turf, they could watch
his successes, and at the same time enjoy the coup d'œil,
which was singularly beautiful, afforded by the whole
surrounding expanse. The tarn, like the dark mysterious
dwelling of an Undine, was spread out before them with
the smoothness of glass, though untransparent, and shining
beneath their eyes like a vast basin of the richest jet.
A thousand pretty changes along the upland slopes, or abrupt
hills which hemmed it in, gave it a singular aspect of
variety which is seldom afforded by any scene very remarkable
for its stillness and seclusion. Opposite to the
rock on which Ned Hinkley was already crouching, the
hillslope to the lake was singularly unbroken, and so gradual
was the ascent from the margin, that one was scarcely
conscious of his upward movement, until looking behind
him, he saw how far below lay the waters which he had
lately left. The pathway, which had been often trodden,
was very distinctly marked to the eyes of our two friends
on the opposite elevation, and they could also perceive
where the same footpath extended on either hand a few
yards from the lake, so as to enable the wanderer to prolong
his rambles, on either side, until reaching the foot of
the abrupt masses of rock which distinguished the opposite
margin of the basin. To ascend these, on that side,
was a work of toil, which none but the lover of the picturesque
is often found willing to encounter. Above, even
to the eyes of our friends, though they occupied an eminence,
the skies seemed circumscribed to the circumference
of the lake and the hills by which it was surrounded;
and the appearance of the whole region, therefore, was
that of a complete amphitheatre, the lake being the floor,
the hills the mighty pillars, and the roof, the blue, bright,
fretted canopy of heaven.

“I have missed you, my son, for some time past, and
the beauty of this picture reminds me of what your seeming

neglect has made me lose. When I was a young man
I would have preferred to visit such a spot as this alone.
But the sense of desolation presses heavily upon an old
man under any circumstances; and he seeks for the company
of the young, as if to freshen, with sympathy and
memory, the cheerlessness and decay which attends all his
own thoughts and fancies. To come alone into the woods,
even though the scene I look on be as fair as this, makes
me moody and awakens gloomy imaginations; and since
you have been so long absent, I have taken to my books
again, and given up the woods. Ah! books, alone, never
desert us; never prove unfaithful; never chide us; never
mock us, as even these woods do, with the memory of
baffled hopes, and dreams of youth, gone, never to return
again!”

“I trust, my dear sir, you do not think me ungrateful.
I have not wilfully neglected you. More than once I set
out to visit you; but my heart was so full—I was so very
unhappy—that I had not the spirit for it. I felt that I
should not be any company for you, and feared that I
would only affect you with some of my own dulness.”

“Nay, that should be no fear with you, my dear boy,
for you should know that the very sorrows of youth, as
they awaken the sympathies of age, provide it with the
means of excitement. It is the misfortune of age that its
interest is slow to kindle. Whatever excites the pulse, if
not violently, is beneficial to the heart of the old man.
But these sorrows of yours, my son—do you not call them
by too strong a name? I suspect they are nothing more
than the discontents, the vague yearnings of the young
and ardent nature, such as prompt enterprise and lead to
nobleness. If you had them not, you would think of little
else than how to squat with your cousin there, seeking to
entrap your dinner; nay, not so much—you would think
only of the modes of cooking and the delight of eating the
fish, and shrink from the toil of taking it. Do not deceive
yourself. This sorrow which distresses you is possibly
a beneficial sorrow. It is the hope which is in you to be
something—to do something—for this doing is after all,
and before all, the great object of living. The hope of the
heart is always a discontent—most generally a wholesome
discontent—sometimes a noble discontent leading to noble-ness.

It is to be satisfied rather than nursed. You mnst
do what it requires.”

“I know not what it requires.”

“Your doing then must be confined at present to finding
out what that is.”

“Alas! sir, it seems to me as if I could no more think
than I can do.”

“Very likely;—that is the case at present; and there
are several reasons for this feebleness. The energies
which have not yet been tasked, do not know well how to
begin. You have been a favoured boy. Your wants
have been well provided for. Your parents have loved
you only too much.”

“Too much! Why, even now, I am met with cold
looks and reproachful words, on account of this stranger,
of whom nobody knows any thing.”

“Even so: suppose that to be the case, my son; still
it does not alter the truth of what I say. You cannot
imagine that your parents prefer this stranger to yourself,
unless you imagine them to have undergone a very sudden
change of character. They have always treated you tenderly—too
tenderly.”

“Too tenderly, sir?”

“Yes, William, too tenderly. Their tenderness has
enfeebled you, and that is the reason you know not in
what way to begin to dissipate your doubts, and apply
your energies. If they reproach you, that is because they
have some interest in you, and a right in you, which constitutes
their interest. If they treat the stranger civilly,
it is because he is a stranger.”

“Ay, sir, but what if they give this stranger authority
to question and to counsel me? Is not this a cruel indignity?”

“Softly, William, softly! There is something at the
bottom of this which I do not see, and which perhaps you
do not see. If your parents employ a stranger to counsel
you, it proves that something in your conduct leads them
to think that you need counsel.”

“That may be, sir; but why not give it themselves—
why employ a person of whom nobody knows any thing?”

“I infer from your tone, my son, rather than your
words, that you have some dislike to this stranger.”

“No, sir—” was the beginning of the young man's
reply, but he stopped short with a guilty consciousness.
A warm blush overspread his cheek, and he remained
silent. The old man, without seeming to perceive the momentary
interruption, or the confusion which followed it,
proceeded in his commentary.

“There should be nothing, surely, to anger you in good
counsel, spoken even by a stranger, my son; and even
where the counsel be not good, if the motive be so, it requires
our gratitude though it may not receive our adoption.”

“I don't know, sir, but it seems to me very strange,
and is very humiliating, that I should be required to submit
to the instructions of one of whom we know nothing,
and who is scarcely older than myself.”

“It may be mortifying to your self-esteem, my son, but
self-esteem, when too active, is compelled constantly to
suffer this sort of mortification. It may be that one man
shall not be older in actual years than another, yet be able
to teach that other. Mere living days, and weeks, and
months, constitute no right to wisdom; it is the crowding
events and experience; the indefatigable industry; the
living actively and well, that supplies us with the materials
for knowing and teaching. In comparison with millions
of your own age, who have lived among men, and shared
in their strifes and troubles, you would find yourself as
feeble a child as ever yet needed the helping hand of counsel
and guardianship; and this brings me back to what I
said before. Your parents have treated you too tenderly.
They have done every thing for you. You have done
nothing for yourself. They provide for your wants,
hearken to your complaints, nurture you in sickness, with
a diseasing fondness, and so render you incapable. Hence
it is, that, in the toils of manhood, you do not know how
to begin. You lack courage and perseverance.”

“Courage and perseverance!” was the surprised exclamation
of the youth.

“Precisely, and lest I should offend you, my son, I
must acknowledge to you beforehand, that this very deficiency
was my own.”

“Yours, sir? I cannot think it. What! lack courage?”

“Exactly so!”

“Why, sir—did I not see you myself, when every

body else looked on with trembling and with terror, throw
yourself in the way of Drummond's horses and save the
poor boy from being dashed to pieces? There was surely
no lack of courage there!”

“No! in that sense, my son, I labour under no deficiency.
But this sort of courage is of the meanest kind.
It is the courage of impulse, not of steadfastness. Hear
me, William. You have more than once allowed the expression
of a wonder to escape you, why a man, having
such a passion for books and study, and with the appearance
of mental resources, such as I am supposed to possess,
should be content, retiring from the great city, to set
up his habitation in this remote and obscure region. My
chosen profession was the law; I was no unfaithful student.
True, I had no parents to lament my wanderings
and failures; but I did not wander. I studied closely,
with a degree of diligence which seemed to surprise all
my companions. I was ambitious—intensely ambitious.
My head ran upon the strifes of the forum, its exciting
contests of mind and soul—its troubles, its triumphs. This
was my leading thought—it was my only passion. The
boy-frenzies for women, which are prompted less by
sentiment or judgment, than by feverish blood, troubled
me little. Law was my mistress—took up all my time—
absorbed all my devotion. I believe that I was a good
lawyer—no pettifogger—the merely drilled creature who
toils for his license, and toils for ever after solely for his
petty gains, in the miserably petty arts of making gains
for others, and eluding the snares set for his own feet by
kindred spirits. As far as the teaching of this country
could afford me the means and opportunity, I endeavoured
to procure a knowledge of universal law—its sources—its
true objects—its just principles—its legitimate dicta. Mere
authorities never satisfied me, unless, passing behind the
black gowns, I could follow up the reasoning to the first
fountains—the small original truths, the nicely discriminated
requisitions of immutable justice—the clearly defined
and inevitable wants of a superior and prosperous society.
Every thing that could illustrate law as well as fortify it;
every collateral aid, in the shape of history or moral truth,
I gathered together, even as the dragoon whose chief agent
is his sabre, yet takes care to provide himself with pistols,
that may finish what the other weapon has begun. Nor

did I content myself with the mere acquisition of the necessary
knowledge. Knowing how much depends upon
voice, manner and fluency, in obtaining success before a
jury, I addressed myself to these particulars with equal
industry. My voice, even now, has a compass which
your unexercised lungs, though quite as good originally as
mine, would fail entirely to contend with. I do not deceive
myself, as I certainly do not seek to deceive you,
when I say, that I acquired the happiest mastery over my
person.”

“Ah! sir,—we see that now—that must have been the
case!” said the youth interrupting him. The other continued,
sadly smiling as he heard the eulogy which the
youth meant to speak, the utterance of which was obviously
from the heart.

“My voice was taught by various exercises to be slow
or rapid, soft or strong, harsh or musical, by the most sudden,
yet unnoticeable transitions. I practised all the arts,
which are recommended by elocutionists for this purpose.
I rumbled my eloquence standing on the sea-shore, up to
my middle in the breakers. I ran, roaring up steep hills—
I stretched myself at length by the side of meandering
brooks, or in slumberous forests of pine, and sought, by
the merest whispers, to express myself with distinctness
and melody. But there was something yet more requisite
than these, and this was language. My labours to obtain
all the arts of utterance did not seem less successful. I
could dilate with singular fluency, with classical propriety,
and great natural vigour of expression. I studied directness
of expression by a frequent intercourse with men of
business, and examined, with the nicest urgency, the particular
characteristics of those of my own profession who
were most remarkable for their plain, forcible speaking.
I say nothing of my studies of such great masters in discourse
and philosophy, as Milton, Shakspeare, Homer,
Lord Bacon, and the great English divines. As a model
of pure English the Bible was a daily study of two hours;
and from this noble well of vernacular eloquence, I gathered—so
I fancied—no small portion of its quaint expressive
vigour, its stern emphasis, its golden and choice
phrases of illustration. Never did a young lawyer go into
the forum more thoroughly clad in proof, or with a better
armoury as well for defence as attack.”

“You did not fail, sir?” exclaimed the youth with a
painful expression of eager anxiety upon his countenance.

“I did fail—fail altogether! In the first effort to speak,
I fainted, and was carried lifeless from the court-room.”

The old man covered his face with his hands, for a few
moments, to conceal the expression of pain and mortification
which memory continued to renew in utter despite of
time. The young man's hand rested affectionately on his
shoulder. A few moments sufficed to enable the former
to renew his narrative.

“I was stunned but not crushed by this event. I knew
my own resources. I recollected a similar anecdote of
Sheridan; of his first attempt and wretched failure. I, too,
felt that `I had it in me,' and though I did not express, I
made the same resolution, that `I would bring it out.' But
Sheridan and myself failed from different causes, though
I did not understand this at that time. He had a degree of
hardihood which I had not; and he utterly lacked my
sensibilities. The very intenseness of my ambition; the
extent of my expectation; the elevated estimate which I
had made of my own profession; of its exactions; and,
again, of what was expected from me; were all so many
obstacles to my success. I did not so esteem them, then;
and after renewing my studies in private, my exercises of
expression and manner, and going through a harder course
of drilling, I repeated the attempt to suffer a repetition of
the failure. I did not again faint, but I was speechless.
I not only lost the power of utterance, but I lost the corresponding
faculty of sight. My eyes were completely
dazed and confounded. The objects of sight around me
were as crowded and confused as the far, dim ranges of
figures, tribes upon tribes, and legions upon legions, which
struggle in obscurity and distance, in any one of the begrimed
and blurred pictures of Martin's Pandemonium.
My second failure was a more enfeebling disaster than the
first. The first procured me the sympathy of my audience,
the last exposed me to its ridicule.”

Again the old man paused. By this time, the youth
had got one of his arms about the neck of the speaker, and
had taken one of his hands within his grasp.

“Yours is a generous nature, William,” said Mr. Calvert,
“and I have not said to you, until to-day, how grateful
your boyish sympathies have been to me from the first

day when you became my pupil. It is my knowledge of
these sympathies, and a desire to reward them, that
prompts me to tell a story which still brings its pains to
memory, and which would be given to no other ears than
your own. I see that you are eager for the rest—for the
wretched sequel.”

“Oh, no! sir—do not tell me any more of it if it
brings you pain. I confess I should like to know all,
but—”

“You shall have it all, my son. My purpose would
not be answered unless I finished the narrative. You will
gather from it, very possibly, the moral which I could not.
You will comprehend something better, the woful distinction
between courage of the blood and courage of the
brain; between the mere recklessness of brute impulse,
and the steady valour of the soul—that valour, which,
though it trembles, marches forward to the attack—recovers
from its fainting, to retrieve its defeat; and glows
with self-indignation because it has suffered the moment
of victory to pass, without employing itself to secure the
boon!—

“Shame, and a natural desire to retrieve myself, operated
to make me renew my efforts. I need not go through
the processes by which I endeavoured to acquire the necessary
degree of hardihood. In vain did I recal the fact
that my competitors were notoriously persons far inferior
to me in knowledge of the topics; far inferior in the capacity
to analyze them; rude and coarse in expression; unfamiliar
with the language—mere delvers and diggers in a
science in which I secretly felt that I should be a master.
In vain did I recal to mind the fact that I knew the community
before which I was likely to speak; I knew its
deficiencies; knew the inferiority of its idols, and could
and should have no sort of fear of its criticism. But it
was myself that I feared. I had mistaken the true censor.
It was my own standards of judgment that distressed and
made me tremble. It was what I expected of myself—
what I thought should be expected of me—that made my
weak soul recoil in terror from the conviction that I must
fail in its endeavour to reach the point which my ambitious
soul strove to attain. The fear, in such cases, produced
the very disaster, from the anticipated dread of which
it had arisen. I again failed—failed egregiously—failed

utterly and for ever! I never again attempted the fearful
trial. I gave up the contest, yielded the field to my inferiors,
better nerved though inferior, and, with all my learning,
all my eloquence, my voice, my manner; my resources
of study, thought and utterance, fled from sight—fled here
—to bury myself in the wilderness, and descend to the
less ambitious, but less dangerous, vocation of schooling—
I trust, to better uses—the minds of others. I had done
nothing with my own.”

“Oh, sir, do not say so. Though you may have failed
in one department of human performance, you have succeeded
in others. You have lost none of the knowledge
which you then acquired. You possess all the gifts of
eloquence, of manner, of voice, of education, of thought.”

“But of what use, my son? Remember, we do not toil
for these possessions to lock them up—to content ourselves,
as the miserable miser, with the consciousness that
we possess a treasure known to ourselves only—useless to
all others as to ourselves! Learning, like love, like money,
derives its true value from its circulation.”

“And you circulate yours, my dear sir. What do we
not owe you in Charlemont? What do I not owe you,
over all?”

“Love, my son—love only. Pay me that. Do not
desert me in my old age. Do not leave me utterly alone!”

“I will not, sir—I never thought to do so.”

“But,” said the old man, “to resume. Why did I fail
is still the question. Because I had not been taught those
lessons of steady endurance in my youth which would
have strengthened me against failure, and enable me finally
to triumph. There is a rich significance in what we hear
of the Spartan boy, who never betrayed his uneasiness or
agony though the fox was tearing out his bowels. There
is a sort of moral roughening which boys should be made
to endure from the beginning, if the hope is ever entertained,
to mature their minds to intellectual manhood. Our
American Indians prescribe the same laws, and in their
practice, very much resemble the ancient Spartans. To
bear fatigue, and starvation, and injury—exposure, wet,
privation, blows—but never to complain. Nothing betrays
so decidedly the lack of moral courage as the voice
of complaint. It is properly the language of woman. It

must not be your language. Do you understand me, William?”

“In part, sir, but I do not see how I could have helped
being what I am.”

“Perhaps not, because few have control of their own
education. Your parents have been too tender for you.
They have not lessoned you in that proper hardihood
which leads to performance. That task is before yourself,
and you have shrunk from the first lessons.”

“How, sir?”

“Instead of clinging to your Blackstone, you have allowed
yourself to be seduced from its pages, by such attractions
as usually delude boys. The eye and lip of a
pretty woman—a bright eye and a rosy cheek, have diverted
you from your duties.”

“But do our duties deny us the indulgence of proper
sensibilities?”

“Certainly not—proper sensibilities, on the contrary,
prescribe our duties.”

“But love, sir—is not love a proper sensibility?”

“In its place, it is. But you are a boy only. Do you
suppose that it was ever intended that you should entertain
this passion before you had learned the art of providing
your own food? Not so; and the proof of this is
to be found in the fact that the loves of boyhood are never
of a permanent character. No such passion can promote
happiness if it is indulged before the character of the parties
is formed. I now tell you that in five years from this
time you will probably have forgotten Miss Cooper.”

“Never! never!”

“Well, well—I go farther in my prophecy. Allow me
to suppose you successful in your suit, which I fancy can
never be the case—”

“Why, sir, why?”

“Because she is not the girl for you—or rather, she
does not think you the man for her!”

“But why do you think so, sir?”

“Because I know you both. There are circumstances
of discrepancy between you which will prevent it, and
even were you to be successful in your suit, which I am
very sure will never be the case, you would be the most
miserably matched couple under the sun.”

“Oh, sir, do not say so—do not. I cannot think so,
sir.”

“You will not think so, I am certain. I am equally
certain from what I know of you both, that you are secure
from any such danger. It is not my object to pursue this
reference, but let me ask you, William, looking at things
in the most favourable light, has Margaret Cooper ever
given you any encouragement?”

“I cannot say that she has, sir, but—”

“Nay, has she not positively discouraged you? Does
she not avoid you—treat you coldly when you meet—say
little, and that little of a kind to denote—I will not say
dislike—but pride, rather than love?”

The young man said nothing. The old one proceeded.

“You are silent and I am answered. I have long
watched your intercourse with this damsel, and loving
you as my own son, I have watched it with pain. She
is not for you, William. She loves you not. I am sure
of it. I cannot mistake the signs. She seeks other qualities
than such as you possess. She seeks meretricious
qualities, and yours are substantial. She seeks the pomps
of mind, rather than its subdued performances. She sees
not and cannot see your worth; and whenever you propose
to her, your suit will be rejected. You have not done
so yet?”

“No, sir—but I had hoped—”

“I am no enemy, believe me, William, when I implore
you to discard your hope in that quarter. It will do you
no hurt. Your heart will suffer no detriment, but be as
whole and vigorous a few years hence—perhaps months—
as if it had never suffered any disappointment.”

“I wish I could think so, sir.”

“And you would not wish that you could think so, if
you were not already persuaded that your first wish is
hopeless.”

“But I am not hopeless, sir.”

“Your cause is. But, promise me that you will not
press your suit at present.”

The young man was silent.

“You hesitate.”

“I dare not promise.”

“Ah, you are a foolish boy. Do you not see the rock

on which you are about to split. You have never learned
how to submit. This lesson of submission was that which
made the Spartan boy famous. Here, you persist in your
purpose, though your own secret convictions, as well as
your friend's counsel, tell you that you strive against hope.
You could not patiently submit to the counsel of this stranger,
though he came directly from your parents armed with
authority to examine and to counsel.”

“Submit to him! I would sooner perish!” exclaimed
the indignant youth.

“You will perish unless you learn this one lesson. But
where now is your ambition, and what does it aim at?”

The youth was silent.

“The idea of an ambitions youth, at twenty, giving up
book and candle, leaving his studies and abandoning himself
to despair, because his sweetheart won't be his sweetheart
any longer, gives us a very queer idea of the sort of
ambition which works in his breast.”

“Don't sir, don't, I pray you, speak any more in this
manner.”

“Nay, but, William, ask yourself. Is it not a queer
idea?”

“Spare me, sir, if you love me.”

“I do love you, and to show you that I do, I now recommend
to you to propose to Margaret Cooper.”

“What, sir, you do not think it utterly hopeless then?”

“Yes, I do.”

“And you would have me expose myself to rejection?”

“Exactly so!”

“Really, sir, I do not understand you.”

“Well, I will explain. Nothing short of rejection will
possibly cure you of this malady; and it is of the last
importance to your future career, that you should be freed
as soon as possible from this sickly condition of thought
and feeling—a condition in which your mind will do nothing,
and in which your best days will be wasted. Blackstone
can only hope to be taken up when you have done
with her.”

“Stay, sir,—that is she below.”

“Who?”

“Margaret—”

“Who is with her?”

“The stranger—this man, Stevens.”

“Ha! your counsellor, that would be? Ah! William,
you did not tell me all.”