LETTER XVIII.
Dear Charles,—You say that no comments will be
made till you have other incidents, and that perhaps you will
then favor me with some remarks.
Well, I do not propose to give you my whole string of
onions at once, or one at a time; but I shall throw specimens
off as they come to memory.
From boyhood, even to the very hour of writing now, I
have had a nervous horror as to certain forms of violent
death. I profess not to be a brave man; and yet am I not,
perhaps, pre-eminently a coward. In a just cause, I could,
especially if backed by an officer sword in hand, face the
cannon's mouth; but either with or without an officer, I certainly
would not, and could not, stand a charge. I should
die with fright! If my death must be a violent one, let my
head be shot away—but oh! do not run me through with
any thing like cold iron or gleaming steel! Eh! there's a
shiver now!
In other words, Charles, my imagination is not utterly
overwhelmed with horror in contemplating violent death in
some of its forms. Death, for instance, from a cannon ball
is passed in a moment; it leaves no time for thought. My
agitation, however, is very great if death approaches me
slowly yet surely, and penetrates by inches to the seat of
life. Let my courage be screwed ever so near to the sticking
or standing point, the point of a pike or the gleam of a
bayonet, or the flash of a sword, would lower my martial
ardor in a moment down to zero, if not several inches below.
At all events, the bare sight of two ill-favored cutlasses
once saved me from entering on a mode of life in which there
is the greatest probability of departing far away from goodness
and heaven. Certainly some ways of living, deemed
lawful, are yet utterly and irreconcileably at war with Christianity.
In my wild oats era—and wild enough they were—I
determined, partly in a fit of burning indignation at what
was conceived ill-treatment, and partly in a fit of boyish heroism,
to abscond from a detested employment, and become
neither more nor less than a—privateersman! For many
days the subject was deeply pondered; and all the chances of
death, life, pleasure, plunder, honor, and the like, were calculated,
till a resolution was taken to brave all consequences
and immediately to enlist on board Moffatt's vessel. Having
no day so opportune, I waited till the coming Sabbath, and
then, instead of reading Shakspeare, I called up all the
man—or demon, (?) Charles, and wended my way, sullen
and resolved, to the wharf.
And there lay the vessel. I may not say there were in
my heart no misgivings, no relentings before; I may not say
there were no thoughts of dear and kind friends that had
taught me prayers, in my dark and tossing spirit—yes, there
was a fierce conflict within. But alas! what home had I?
Ah! Charles, there were things in my early days bitter indeed,
and which often drove my wayward and proud spirit to
the verge of madness, or worse! The changes in my treatment
and hopes were too sudden and grievous for a boy to
bear philosophically, and with scarce a friend or adviser. I
may not say, then, there were no repentings before. But at
last I was on the point of entering the ship; it was low tide;
the scene is before me now; but as I was about to put my
foot on her deck to inquire for the captain, my eye caught,
just above the entrance of the companion-way, two drawn
cutlasses crossed—a sign that she was a vessel of war!
Had no weapons been there, or had the weapons been pistols,
muskets, or any species of fire-arms, my resolution
would not have been shaken; but at the sight of these drawn
swords, in a moment all my nervous fear of death from cutting
awoke, and I became in an instant what the world calls
a coward, and—I fled!
I know Mr. Coolheady will enjoy a hearty laugh at this
accident, as he will call it. Very well; I am afraid of cold
steel, it is true, but my nerves will stand his scorn and that
of a ship-load or regiment of skeptics and infidels. Because
use is made of my idiosyncracy, if you please, or of any
other natural instrumentality, to preserve me from what is
worse, in reality, than mere temporal death—the death of my
morals—the care of Providence is not less wonderful, nor
less to be thanked.
We do not expect Providence to use what some would
deem great instruments only. It is more wonderful and dignified,
(if that term here is admissible,) for Him to work
with any and every means, and with very ordinary instruments
to accomplish the most extraordinary results. I am,
in fact, somehow or other so steeped in my belief, or rather
the conviction of special and direct interference from heaven
is so wrought into the very fibre and texture of my soul, that
this very soul itself must be destroyed before that conviction
can be. I may be pressed with many objections, some of
which are difficult, perhaps impossible to answer; but
that is the case with any and every moral subject where it is
intended that faith should have any exercise. It is, indeed,
the case with many matters of art and science. Often, very
often is a thing admitted as true and beyond doubt, from the
clear evidences in its favor, although, ab ignorantia, we or
others may start unanswerable objections.
Must you have my dream, Charles? I once refused it
to a clergyman who wished to publish it. If you insist, I
must yield.
