 | CHAPTER IV.
FAMILY PARAGONS. Swallow Barn, or A sojourn in the Old Dominion |  |
4. CHAPTER IV.
FAMILY PARAGONS.
My picture of the family would be incomplete if
I did not give a conspicuous place to my two young
cousins Lucy and Victorine. It is true, they are
cousins only in the second remove, but I have become
sufficiently naturalized to this soil to perceive
the full value of the relation; and as they acknowledge
it very affectionately to me—for I was promoted
to “cousin Mark” almost in the first hour after
my arrival,—I should be unreasonably reluctant not
to assert the full right of blood. Lucy tells me she
is only fifteen, and is careful to add that she is one
year and one month older than Vic, “for all that
Vic is taller than she.” Now Lucy is a little fairy
in shape, with blue eyes and light hair, and partially
freckled and sunburnt,—being a very pretty likeness
of Rip, who I have said is an imp of homeliness,—a
fact which all experience shows is quite consistent
with the highest beauty. Victorine is almost a head
taller, and possesses a stronger frame. She differs,
too, from her sister by her jet black eyes and dark
hair;—though they resemble each other in the
wholesome tan which exposure to the atmosphere
has spread alike over the cheeks of both.
These two girls have been educated at home, and
have grown up together with an almost inseparable
instinct. Their parents, according to the common
notions of such indulgences, have done every thing
to spoil them, but, as yet, completely without effect.
I cannot, however, help thinking, that it is a popular
errour to believe that freedom is not fully compatible
with the finest nurture of the affections. A kindly
nature will most generally expand in the direction
of the charities, and its currents will flow in a channel
of virtue unless solicited out of their track by evil
enticements. Though the vigilance which is necessary
to separate the young mind from what is likely
to deceive it, does necessarily contract the theatre
upon which the propensities of the pupil are allowed
to range, it is not in any degree restrictive of her
freedom whilst she is ignorant that there is any thing
forbidden. The opportunity which is afforded by a
country life of maintaining this unconscious restraint,
constitutes its principal preference over the city, in
the education of a young female. There is nothing
more lovely to my imagination than the picture of
an artless girl, tranquilly gliding onwards to womanhood
in the seclusion of the parent bower; invigorated
in the affections by the ceaseless caresses of her
nearest kindred, and her taste receiving its daily hue
from the fresh and exquisite colours of nature, as she
sees them in the grove and fountain and varying skies,
remote from the tawdry artifices of a compact and
crowded society: Her first lessons of love imbued
from the lips of a mother; her only lore taught her
citadel of happiness; her emotions allowed to pursue
their unchecked wanderings through all her world,
bounded, as she believes it to be, by the objects with
which she has always been familiar; and her rambles
limited to “her ancient neighbourhood,” like
the flights of a dove in its native valley.
Lucy and Victorine present a beautiful archetype
of this picture. Meriwether has the tenderest fondness
for them; and my cousin Lucretia has cherished
in them that kind of intimacy with their parents
that has more of the intercourse of equals than the
subordination of children. Towards each other
these two girls manifest a gentleness that is the perfection
of harmony;
Still they went coupled and inseparable.
Their tempers, nevertheless, are somewhat in contrast.
Lucy is rather meditative for her age,—calm
and almost matronly. Thought seems to repose like
sleep upon her countenance, except when it is
warmed by the lively play of feelings that flicker
across it, like breezes upon the surface of a lake.
She is attached to books, and, following the instinct
of her peculiar temperament, her mind has early
wandered through the mysterious marvels of fiction,
which have impressed a certain trace of superstition
upon her infant character. Victorine is more intrepid
than her elder sister, and attracts a universal
regard, by that buoyant jollity of disposition which,
in a young girl, is the index both of innocence and affection.
I often see them sitting together at their
common tasks, poring upon the same book, with their
arms around each other's waists. Almost every
evening—and often without any any others of the
family—they walk out for exercise along the by-paths
upon the river bank. In these excursions they
are attended by two large white pointers, that gambol
around them in all manner of fantastic play,
soliciting the applause of their pretty mistresses by
the gallant assiduities that belong to the race of these
noble animals.
Meriwether is accustomed to have the girls read
to him some portion of every day, and by this requisition,
which he puts upon the ground of a personal
favour, has beguiled them into graver studies than
are generally appropriated to the sex. It is delightful
to observe what an unwearying devotion they bestow
upon a labour which they think gives pleasure
to the father. He, of course, looks upon them as
the most gifted creatures in existence; and, truly, I
am almost a convert to his opinion!
A window in the upper story of one of the wings
of the building, overlooks a flower garden; and
around this window grows a profusion of creeping
vine, which is trained to diffuse itself with an architectural
precision along the wall towards the roof;
and it is evident that the disciplined plant dares not
throw out a leaf or a tendril awry. It is a prim, pedantic,
virgin plant, with icy leaves of perdurable
green without a flower to give variety to its trimmed
rose has surreptitiously stolen in amongst its
plexures, and peeps forth from beneath its sober tapestry.
In this window, about noon-tide, may be
daily seen, just visible from within the chamber, the
profuse tresses of a head of sandy hair, scrupulously
adjusted in glossy volume; and ever and anon, as it
moves to some slow impulse, is disclosed a studious
brow of fairest white. And sometimes, more fully
revealed, may be seen the entire head of a `lady
bright,' as she seems intent upon a book. The lady
Prudence sits in her bower, and thoughtfully pursues
some theme of romance in the delicious realm of
poesy,—or, with pencil and brush, shapes and gilds
the gaudy wings of her painted butterflies, or, peradventure,
enricheth her album with dainty sonnets.
And sometimes, in listless musing, she rests her chin
upon her gem-bedizened hand, and fixes her soft
blue eye upon the flower beds, where the humming
bird is poised before the honeysuckle, or the finical
wren prates lovingly to his dame. But, howsoever
engaged, it is a dedicated hour, and `the ladie' is in
her secret bower. I have said profanely, once before,
that `a tall spinster' sat at the family board—
and now, here she sits in her morning guise, silent
and alone, pondering over uncreated things, and
turning up her imaginative eye to the cerulean
deeps.
Prudence is the only sister of Frank Meriwether,
and, like most only sisters, holds a sort of consecrated
notches his eras upon mortal forms, with as little
mercy as if they were mere sticks, has calendared the
stages of his journey in some delicate touches, even
upon this goodly page, and has published the fact,
that Prudence Meriwether has now arrived at that
isthmus of life, in which her pretensions to count with
old or young are equally doubtful. It is settled, however,
she has reached all the discretion she will ever
possess. What boots it that she is arrayed in an
urgent vivacity of manner, and an air of thoughtless
joy? Is it not manifestly overdone? and are there
not, as plain as the veteran of the scythe could draw
them, certain sober lines, creeping from the mouth
cheek-ward, that betoken sedate rumination? and
will not every astute, good-humoured bachelor see
that she has come to that mellow time, when a woman
is especially captivating to him, because she is
more complaisant, and bears her virtues more meekly?
For myself, I speak experimentally in behalf of
the brotherhood, and declare it is even so.
The lady in question has undoubtedly thought
very gravely over the important concerns that belong
to her estate, and is fast coming to the conclusion,
that her destiny hereafter is likely to be exercised in
the cares of a single and unlorded dowry. She has
given several indications of this. I find that of late
she talks peremptorily of her decided preference for
the maiden state, and has taken up some newfangled
notions of the unworthiness of the male sex. She
hers, in which she had the credit, a few years ago,
of disconcerting some spruce gallants of the country.
But all this I consider a mere feint, like that of a
politic commander, who, having made a disastrous
campaign, puts his reputation in repair by the fame
of his early conquests.
There are other fearful prognostics of this temper
dawning upon her manners. She has grown inveterately
charitable, and addicts herself to matters
that, but a short time ago, were clean out of sight.
Her views have gradually become more comprehensive;
and her pursuits have something of the diffusiveness
of a public functionary. For example, she
is known to be the principal founder of three Sunday
Schools in the neighbourhood; is supposed to have
pensioned out several poor families; besides being a
stirring advocate of the scheme for colonizing the
negroes, and a patroness of sundry Tract Societies;—
to say nothing of even a supererogatory zeal for the
suppression of intemperance in the lower sections of
Virginia. These acts cause her to be regarded as a
very model of piety; and I have heard it whispered,
that the flattery she has received from divers
young ministers on this score, has actually set her to
writing a book in imitation of mistress Hannah More,
—which, however, I set down for pure scandal.
One thing is certain,—Prudence is more romantic
than she used to be;—for about sun-set, she often
wanders forth alone, to a sequestered part of the
amongst the old oaks, unbonneted, in a rapturous
contemplation of the radiant tints of evening; and
then, in her boudoir may be found exquisite sketches
from her pencil, of forms of love and beauty—gallant
knights, and old castles, and pensive ladies,—madonnas
and cloistered nuns,—the teeming offspring of
an imagination heated with romance and devotion.
Her attire is sometimes plain, and even negligent, to
a studied degree;—but this does not last long; for
Prudence, in spite of her discipline, does not under-rate
her personal advantages, and it is not unusual
for her to break out almost into a riotous vivacity,
especially when she is brought into communion with
a flaunting, mad-cap belle, that is carrying all before
her:—She then, like `a pelting river,' overbears
`her continents,' and, in the matter of dress and
manners, becomes almost as flaunting a mad-cap as
the other.
Her person is very good, although I think it unnecessarily
erect; and a hypercritical observer might
say her air was rather formal; but that would depend
very much upon the time when he saw her;—
for if it should happen to be just before dinner, in the
drawing-room, he would be ready to acknowledge that
she only wanted a pastoral crook, to make an Arcadian
of her.
If Prudence has a fault, it is in setting down the
domestic virtues at too high a value;—by which virtues
I mean those undisturbed humours that quiet
properties,—the sleep of the passions, and not the
subjugation of them, which the good people of the
country are fond of praising, as much as if it were a
matter they could help. This point of character is
manifested by our lady in a habitual exaggeration
of the benefits of solitude and self constraint, and
has rendered her, to an undue degree, merciless towards
the pretensions of those whose misfortune it is
to live in a busier sphere than herself. To my mind,
she is too rigid in her requisitions upon society. This,
however, is a very slight blemish, and amply compensated
by the many pleasant variations in her
composition. She talks with great ease upon every
subject; and is even, now and then, a little too high-flown
in her diction. Her manner, at times, might
be called oratorical, more particularly when she
bewails the departure of the golden age, or declaims
upon the prospect of its revival amongst the rejuvenescent
glories of the Old Dominion. She has awful
ideas of personal decorum and the splendour of her
lineage, but these are almost the only points upon
which I know her to be touchy. Apart from such
defects, which appear upon her character like fleecy
clouds upon a summer sky, or mites upon a snowdrift,
she is a captivating specimen of a ripened lady
just standing on that sunshiny verge from which the
prospect below presents a sedate, autumnal landscape,
gently subsiding into a distant, undistinguishable
and misty confusion of tree and field, arrayed in
sober brown. It is no wonder, therefore, that with
the world—by which I mean that scattered
population which inhabits the banks of the James
River, extending inland some ten miles on either
side—should, by degrees, and almost insensibly,
have propagated the opinion that Prudence Meriwether
is a prodigy.
| CHAPTER IV.
FAMILY PARAGONS. Swallow Barn, or A sojourn in the Old Dominion | |