University of Virginia Library

THE OPPORTUNITY.

I have never been apt at taking the tide of fortune,
when auspiciously setting in the true direction. Somehow,
I invariably linger until it is turned or turning, and
then my course is an up current one—all riffles, snags,
and sawyers, like that of a Mississippi steamboat. In
large and little concerns alike, it is my fate never to
avail myself of opportunities. I can see them well
enough when they have gone by—never before. Looking
back, they are so many mocking commentaries
upon my dilly-dallying disposition, that I cannot complain
or repine. They seem to do all that for me,
and, in this respect, at least, I am indebted to them.
My friends, and enemies, I may add, all know of this
failing in my mental make; and with one accord have
denominated me, “Topic the Unready.” The stage
and steamboat leave me, the show is gone, before I
look to it—and all things in nature, animate and inanimate
alike, seem familiar with my deficiencies, and
perpetually take advantage of them.

One of my misfortunes, arising from this unconscious
unreadiness, I take more seriously to heart than any
other. I loved, and have reason to believe was in a
fair way to make a favourable impression. I danced
perpetual attendance at the house of the fair one—

escorted her here, and followed her there—wrote song
and sonnet in her favour—sighed my love to every
zephyr that travelled in the direction of the beauty's
abode—did every thing in short, that a lover should
do—except perhaps the simple but most necessary
duty of all—I never popped the question. I had however
determined upon this measure, and had prepared
myself accordingly.

The evening came, and I took my place by the
centre table in the parlour of Miss Emily's parents.
There was something of company present. There
was a poet and a painter, and several other persons
given to such trifling pursuits. I was, to speak with
due modesty, the only philosopher in the room; and
I was something more than surprised to find my fair
devoting more of her time to my neighbours, than, it
struck me, was altogether consistent with good sense
and a proper understanding. Above all, I was vexed
to find her so attentive to my how-d'ye-do acquaintance,
Bill Walton, whom, in order that he should
judge of the merits of my chosen, I had myself introduced
to her acquaintance. But this attention to him,
upon second thought, I set down to her regard for me.

Some fine engravings from Helvetian scenery lay
upon the table before us, to which Walton had called
her attention.

“We have no such achievements from the hands of
our artists, Miss Emily,” said he—“indeed we have
not the material, we want the scenery itself. Such
wonderous indications of her power, nature does not
exhibit to our eyes in this country.”

“None, none,” she replied, with something of a

tone of disappointment and regret, coupled at the same
time with an air of unconscious rapidity, which, however,
seemed to depart, as Walton, in a whisper, appeared
to conclude his remark.

Mr. Cambridge, a member of congress, a gentleman
of some pretension and appearance, interfered:

“We are not deficient, however, in the objects of
moral contemplation,”—he said with an air of the
schools—“though we may lack,” he continued, “some
few of the physical wonders which are here delineated.
Has not `Liberty' made an effort, and are not her exhibitions
in America, upon a scale as magnificent as
these rude rocks, and snows, and `shelvings down?'
Her achievements in our land, which, by the way, I
must take occasion to say, is just as well supplied with
stupendous and striking scenery, as any other, have
thrown into a just obscurity the mere physical and
animal wonders of the world. Our moral and political
stature”—

Here I interposed. I saw what was coming, and
could not forbear exclaiming, while falling, unhappily
for myself, into the very error of habit, I was seeking
to reprove—“Nay, my good sir, let us have no more
of this same ad captandum about what we are, and
what we may be. That would do very well for a
Tammany Hall meeting, and would admirably suit and
split the ears of the groundlings, but cannot very
greatly enlighten or amuse the intellect of a fashionable
young lady. What does Miss Emily care whether
`Liberty' prefers ours to all other countries or not?
The thing affects her neither one way nor another.
Besides, freedom is a word not known in their vocabulary.

Ladies have nothing to do with liberty. Their
business is conquest and captives. Talk to them of
bonds rather, of dungeons in the arms of love: of
chains, though they be made of flowers; and servitude,
though it be in the gardens of beauty, and in the cultivation
of those plants which are the favourite of that
worst of tyrants, love! Tell them of bands of roses, and
shackles of jessamines and honeysuckle, and prisons of
moonlighted and leaf-covered bowers: any thing but
liberty. We have no liberty. Neither you nor I, nor any
of our sex. We are slaves to some despotism or other;
and obtain our emancipation from one, only to run headlong
and blind into another. If we are not slaves of women,
we are of men, and vice versa. We have no liberty.
We are as much in bondage as any people under the
sun. In fact, there can be no freedom for the great
mass. They were never intended to be free. Take
from them that restraint, which, if it be not chains actually,
is nevertheless so in effect, and they are the
veriest brutes and savages that walk. There are some
men born expressly to be slaves—liberty would be
poison and death to them, as poison in some cases—
that of Mithridates of Pontus for instance—is healthful
and nutritious.”

“Dear me, Mr. Topic, how long you can talk on so
tedious a subject. I'm sure I have not heard a single
syllable of all you have been saying, except one pretty
sentence about jessamines and honeysuckles. Your
speech has been like a wide wilderness, into which,
being a lover of sterile solitude, you have, with a niggardly
hand, admitted but a few flowers, and those less
for the sake of relief than for their own beauty and

odour.” So spake a lively little girl whom I had not
before remarked, so earnestly had I been engaged in
my observations. “And you, miss,” I replied, “have
been the industrious bee to ferret and find out those
few flowers, without regarding the whole wilderness
you speak of beside. Yet is that wilderness, though it
forms so trifling an object of our contemplation, spread
out in all its variety and loveliness, as, at any time in
our country, we may behold it, as abundantly stored
with the materiel of the sublime, as this bungling and
confused succession of clouds and mountains, which,
for the last ten minutes, you have all been so gravely
admiring.”

“Oh, how can you think so?”—exclaimed the lady.
“I'm sure these are so pretty.”

“What an epithet for a scene like this!” whispered
the painter, almost audibly in my ear. The young
girl, whose admiration, like that of many fashionable
people where the arts are concerned, was artificial,
seemed herself conscious of her faux pas and the
malapropos phrase of which she had been guilty, and
the blush that suffused her cheek, was a sufficient
atonement for the offence. She sidled to an opposite
corner of the room, and I proceeded in my address to
the fair Emily, but to my surprise, discovered, for the
first time, that she was not in hearing, but at the opposite
end of the room, in company and close conversation
with Walton. To be caught and to catch myself
in a soliloquy, as had been the case, so far as she
was concerned—was horrible, and I hastily advanced
to apologise, when suddenly retreating, she left the
room. “Confusion worse confounded!” I turned for

explanation to Walton, who soon satisfied all my enquiries
by the following reply.

“A thousand thanks, my dear fellow. You have
done me a most gracious service. I can well understand
and shall duly appreciate your friendship, in occupying
the ears of the company with that smart speech,
and thus giving me a chance for which you must know
I have been labouring so vainly and so long. In fine,
while you spoke, I spoke. I popped the question, my
dear fellow, to my sweet Emily, and all's well. She
consents to make me happy, and I have nothing more
to say, and indeed can say nothing, but bid you to my
wedding, which is to take place on the evening of the
ensuing Monday, at eight o'clock; and return you many
sincere thanks for the present, long desired, and well
employed, opportunity.”