University of Virginia Library

25. CHAPTER XXV.
HE VISITS THE GOVERNOR'S.

Among the events of not a little interest in this season's
experience was Richard's appointment with Madam Dennington.
He ascended the Governor's piazza and pulled at
the bell-handle with a slight palpitation of the heart; and
the servant who ushered him in might have noticed a certain
rusticity in his manner.

Madam received him with grace and dignity. Melicent
and Barbara took his hand in a cordial way. With the
Governor, whose greatness of mind and force of character
were always at the command of courtesy and kindness, and
replete with the minor social instincts, he was quite at ease.
Cousin Rowena was particularly complacent. There was
cause for this. Mrs. Melbourne rallied strong against Richard,
when she found attention to the Sawyer going so far as
a summons to a social family gathering. Not that she had
anything against Richard; only, — she could hardly tell
what. This was enough for Cousin, who thought the aversion
unreasonable, and was easily inclined to protect Richard
from it.

Tea was carried round. Were Richard's nerves a little
wanton, and his hand a little clumsy? What with cup and
saucer on his knees, and waiter with sugar and cream,
waiter with sandwiches and cheese, waiter with dough-nuts
and cake, and the gradual filling up of the narrow rim of
the only receptacle for this endless enumeration, and his
own desire to be polite, and his fear that he should not be,

and Mrs. Melbourne and Miss Rowena both watching him
so closely, — it was not strange there should be a downfall
both of bread and of feeling. But Cousin Rowena picked
up the fragments, and bit her lip.

The Governor's Family owed something to Richard, and
they were disposed to requite in full, and that in modes
at once delicate and honorable. Roscoe talked with him on
farming; Rasle joked with him; Barbara showed him the
library and pictures; Eunice played to him; Melicent
walked with him in the garden.

But would these parties square accounts, and be off?
Was this the purpose and upshot of their interview? Was
there no common ground of humanity or religion, — no consentaneousness
of thought or feeling, — no grandeur of
moral aim, — no depth of character, — no aspiration for
ideal progress, — no accidental revelations of approved state
and being, which might suggest a perpetuity of acquaintance,
and even protract remembrance when calls were ended?

In evidence that the invitation to Richard did not spring
from merely personal and private regards, but belonged to a
more expansive and general circle of social sentiments on
the part of the Family, other guests, obviously by invitation,
came in the evening. There were the Mayor Langreen,
the Redfernes of Victoria Square, the Lady Caroline, young
Chassford, Glendar, and other ladies and gentlemen.

Richard was in the centre, and, we might say, in the
centre of the centre, of the nobility of wealth, office and culture,
and, if the worthy Dressmaker aforesaid is to be trusted,
of the common sense, of Woodylin. How did he carry
himself? He had heard his beloved Pastor speak of God's
and nature's noblemen, and perhaps sometimes thought he
was as good an one as any. He had heard from the lips of
his respected Teacher, and was himself sufficiently versed

in geography and history to know, that in some countries
the nobility are distinguished by feathers in their caps, in
others by riding in coaches; in some by a red patch on the
cheek, in others by a gilt sword; and that it was once the
law that any man who had made three voyages round the
world should be knighted. But what did his knowledge
and convictions avail him now? His favorite feeling, that
he was as good as anybody, — his indomitable resolution to
cower to no man, and be confounded by no woman, even
Pastor Harold with his sacred gown, and Teacher Willwell
with his impressive spectacles, — vanished from his recollection,
and wavered in his hold; and he felt himself amidst
these people, shivering, like a ship suddenly brought to, with
all sails in the wind. He was fidgety, wandering, purblind.
He stood face to face, and shoulder to shoulder, with these
people, not one of whom wore a sword, or had more feathers
in his cap, or rode in better coaches, or had made more
voyages round the world, than he; yet he was not at ease.
To be in the centre of the Family and its appendages, and
compose one of its associates at an evening reünion, was a
different thing from having them, as we have said, under
his thumb, and driving them in an omnibus. With entire
self-possession, leaning on a cant-dog, he could talk with
Melicent and Barbara in the Mill. Having nothing for his
muscular hands to clutch, how could he talk in that drawing-room?
Calm and cool, on a certain occasion, he seized
the Governor, and lifted him bodily out of watery peril; yet
an introduction to the Governor's niece made him shake like
an aspen. He could take his turn at bowls or a dance with
the best of them; but, alas for the imperfections of human
nature, he was not adequate to the demands of this social
hour!

Still, Richard's weakness was sustained and relieved by

the intelligent and charitable experience of the Family, and
he was borne in tolerable condition through the shoals and
breakers of first encounter with high life.

The cardinal maxim of his Teacher, that he must inquire
the use of, and derive wisdom from, every new thing he saw,
he was too agitated to apply. It was as much as he could
do to be there, without asking why he was there. If he had
gone on to asking questions, he would, peradventure, have
startled points of a still lower deep, that would choke and
flurry him far more than the superficial aspects of the case did.

In that something which goes by the name of high life, or
good society, is what pesters inquiry as much as it eludes
attempt. When it is said of one, he is aspiring, or of
another, he looks down upon us, what is implied but that
there is a something above, which the first has not reached,
and which, to the last, is an attainment and a power?
There is an Idea in it; — that idea is supreme excellence;
or, in that height is centred, and by it evermore is symbolized,
the sum of what, in a given community, or country,
or age, is deemed most valuable. There is a divinity in it,
— it is an order of God. Wealth and office are not it;
they are subsidiary to its plan, and typify some of its results;
and are, remotely, a means of reaching it. Height, excellence,
superiority, are indeed tantamount and convertible
terms; and imply, respectively, that precious something,
which makes us feel poor and mean without it, and evermore
hangs out to us its banner of hope, and is an ultimate
desire of the mind. If my neighbor slights me, he makes
me feel he has something which I have not; and I either
sink into a brutish state of envy, or resolve to gain that
which shall make me his equal. Dr. Broadwell is in good
society partly by position; his position being that which
implies the requisites of good society. Mrs. Tunny means

to get into it by the wealth of her husband; but that will
depend wholly upon how he uses his wealth. Melicent — no
thanks to her — is born in it; therefore her responsibility is
greater. If Richard shall be established in it, it will be by
his virtues. Fashion sometimes sets up for good society in
its own name; but this is simply a mimicking of the great
Idea, and an attempt to get in by some other way. In
America, since what constitutes the best society is not determined
by Court, it is determined by ideas; and around
and toward these ideas is the community in city and country
always gravitating. Primary instinct will in the end be
found as absolute as historical precedent. That is a wise
and righteous government which affords to ability the free
opportunity of rising to its proper height. Good society is
therefore not only a measure, but a crown, of exertion.

After all, that is the best society which God loves most;
and among a depraved people much will pass for good
society which is really bad.

Richard was at his ease in the Saw-mill, and at Mrs.
Tunny's party, and at a public meeting; but he was not at
the Governor's. That mystic something which others possessed,
he was conscious of lacking; and he might have
retired in great disquiet, if Cousin Rowena had not supported
his flickering courage. He told her that he loved music,
and she ordered the young ladies to sing. This tranquillized
him, because it equalized him with the rest. He had
a good voice, and well modulated, not to troubadour songs,
but to pieces of a different description. Sacred melodies
were familiar to him; and he sang one, popularly known as
a pennyroyal hymn, — a measure that combines unction
and vivacity. It was well received, and he was pleased.

But, ever and anon, in course of the evening, — whether
it was owing to the heat of the room, or the proximity of

unfavorable comparison, or the rapid transition of unaccustomed
persons and topics, or his own effort to divest himself
of what he most dreaded, — his perceptions clouded, and
his language tripped; his hands swelled, and his face burnt.
He was glad to find an open door, and disburthen himself
to a draft of air. Blessings on the wind, that did for Richard
what the Governor's Family, with its opulence, its
beauty, its breeding, could not do! Melicent joined him on
the piazza; and Richard, being himself again, could converse
and behave more to his satisfaction.

Richard was honest, and had a heart, and spoke of things
that he loved most to those who loved to hear them. Melicent
answered to the same description; and as there were
many things in both their hearts alike, it was natural they
should get up quite an interchange of sentiment on cherished
and pleasant topics.

Correspondence of sentiment, connected as it often is
with correspondence of aim, is wont to lead to harmony of
feeling and mutuality of interest; and Melicent left Richard,
with a strong desire to know more of him, and be more with
him.

Richard went home that night burthened with reflections;
at one moment reproaching himself for pusillanimity and
weakness, — at another, questioning the authority of that
which exerted so strong a spell over him during the evening;
but after vibrating between several disagreeable and
disjointed subjects, he settled at last upon thinking about
Melicent. In her he saw exaltation without arrogance,
purity without demureness, tenderness without insipidity,
piety and no cant, beauty and no affectation, common sense
and yet great ardor and hope.

For the second time was he brought to the direct and
intense contemplation of Melicent; and that in the night, —

that with the glare and surroundings of the day withdrawn.
He had formerly thought of her as the Governor's daughter,
— beheld in her a wonderful instance of human and female
excellence, and admired the contrast she afforded to what
sometimes appears a dark back-ground of aristocracy, pride
of wealth, and meanness of station. He now thought of her
as Melicent; she was individualized to his imagination, —
she was beginning to stand out alone in the universe to his
eye; vapors or shadowy emptiness separated her from all
others, — an embarrassing, a hazardous state of affairs to a
young man. But, before he slept, the natural order of
things was restored,— her own proper world surrounded
and absorbed her; and his own world, — his Saw-mill and
his rusticity, — came and took him off.