 | CHAPTER XI. Westward ho! |  |
11. CHAPTER XI.
A touch of scholarship, an elopement, and a discussion
on equality.
It was one laughing morn in the merry
month of June, when the redbirds sung, the
grasshoppers chirped—we mean the crickets
chirped, the grasshoppers flitted their circumscribed
flights, the little yellow butterflies were
solacing themselves in the moisture of the road-side,
and the luxurious swine, the sole aristocracy
of this republic, since they enjoy every
thing without labour, banquet on the fat of the
land, and are marvellously short-lived, were
wallowing in the very mire of sentiment. It
was on such a morning, for ever hallowed in
our remembrance as the season of luxurious
abstractions, delicious languors, and visionary
flights of fancy,—it was on such a morning
that the veritable Zeno Paddock and his wife
were sitting at breakfast, sipping tea and
politics. Zeno exchanged with one paper at
least in each of the twenty-two states at
that time in being, and read them all, every
soul of them; by reason of which he had so
many errors to correct, so many recreants to
chastise, and such a mass of political heresies
to expose to the world, that he hardly knew
which way to turn himself. He was at this
the Eastern Star, when all at once he
jumped from his chair, as if a Chinese cracker
had exploded under his nose. Mrs. Judith was
smitten with a tender curiosity, and inquired
what was the matter; he handed her the
paper, pointing at the same time to a certain
article, and exclaiming,—
“There, there—he, he! Judy, what do you
think of that? I'm a stunted pedant! I don't
know a B from a bull's foot!—he, he!”—and
he fluttered about in a paroxysm of wounded
vanity.
It seems this learned Theban had in an evil
hour essayed, in the triumph of his heart, to
enact the critic on divers occasions, having been
so successful in detecting the falsehoods of the
new court almanac concerning the weather.
He undertook to write an article on a volume
of poetry published by a young man at Lexington,
as we believe, in the which he made a desperate
plunge into the bowels of antiquity. He
first compared Aristotle and the Stagyrite in
philosophy, giving it as his opinion that the
latter was the deeper of the two by all odds.
From thence he sallied out into the regions
of “crack-sculled Parnassus,” where he committed
great ravages among the laurels and
other evergreens. He asserted roundly that,
whatever might be said to the contrary, there
was no comparison between Homer and the
great Melesigenes; that Virgil could not hold a
candle to Maro; and that the Mantuan swain,
who was a self-taught shepherd, was superior
inimitable, and far more spirited than those of
his great rivals Quintus and Flaccus; and concluded
by pronouncing a certain pope of Rome,
whose name he had forgot, though he believed
it was Pope Alexander, the first poet among the
moderns, partly because he was so easy on man,
one of the most difficult of all subjects; and
partly because he wrote a beautiful poem on a
fellow stealing the lock of a door.
For all these multifarious offences his great
antagonist of the Eastern Star did take him up
roundly, denying all his positions, and pronouncing
him “a stunted pedant,” the most opprobrious
of all epithets to a man of function
like Zeno. He denied in toto that the Stagyrite,
or Stageright, as he called him, was any way
equal to Aristotle, who discovered the immortality
of the soul; or that either Melesigenes, or
Maro, or the Mantuan swain, or Quintus, or
Flaccus could any way compare with Homer,
Virgil, Horace, or even Mecænas. As for Pope
Alexander, he never heard of but one pope
who made verses, and that was Pope Joan. He
concluded by saying he thought Mæonides,
upon the whole, the first poet of antiquity,
though most of the critics preferred Homer.
Mercy on us! how Zeno did fume, and how
sincerely and with what fervour Mrs. Judith
sympathized with him! True, she had called
the profound Zeno a blockhead and pedant a
thousand times; but that was altogether a different
affair from other people calling him so.
For that wife must be more or less than woman
sides with her good man against all the world,
though she may fully agree with it in her own
private opinion. There is no saying what
would have been the result of this holy alliance
of the high contracting powers; for before they
could agree upon the protocol they were interrupted
by the entrance of Leonard Dangerfield,
who came to inquire into the state and condition
of poor Rainsford.
The room occupied by this unfortunate young
gentleman was at the extremity and in the rear
of the house, and, though not actually in durance,
the door was kept carefully locked, and
one of the villagers employed in watching outside
during the night. It seemed to have escaped
the notice of his friends, or perhaps they did
not think it material, that there was a window
not five feet from the ground, which, though
nailed down, yet was not impassable to a desperate
man. The person appointed to mount
guard slept as soundly as most watchmen do in
some great cities which shall be nameless, and
with such a quiet conscience, that nothing less
than the last trumpet would have roused him
before his time.
Under these circumstances, it does not altogether
amount to a miracle that when the door
was opened the prisoner was non est inventus.
On examination, it was found that the nails
which fastened the window had been removed
by some one of those cunning expedients so
common with people in his situation, and that
he had escaped in that way; but at what time
of the night there were no means of judging,
the course he had pursued. All traces of him
were lost, and all subsequent inquiries proved
fruitless in this remote quarter, where people
lived at a distance from each other, and held
little communication with the rest of the world.
The new-born hope awakened in the bosom of
Virginia was thus for ever blighted; and the
bow that had for a moment been forced into
elasticity became more relaxed than before. It
was, indeed, almost a mortal blow; and it is
not surprising if, after so many trials, she sank
into a state of almost hopeless depression.
But the sun rose and set as usual, the people
of the village continued their daily occupations,
and the people of the world followed their example.
What was it to them if a hair-brained
wanderer was let loose upon the surface of that
slippery bubble called life, to scramble his way
in beggary, and perish haply by the road-side?
or that a tender-hearted girl was mourning his
fate in the silence of despair? Men must eat and
die, and worms must eat them; the world must
go on; and, happily for the race of insects that
crawl upon it, the sum total of the woes of life
amounts to no more than that which falls to the
share of each single individual; and that is
enough in all conscience.
Zeno continued to fire his paper pellets
briskly at the head of his antagonist, who blazed
away in turn; and it came to pass at length,
that according to the good old way of the world,
they were miraculously reconciled by the interposition
of a third party in the war of criticism,
who most unceremoniously knocked their pates
blockheads, so equally ignorant that none but the
great mathematician who subtracted nothing
from nothing, and found to his astonishment
that nothing remained, could decide between
these two incomprehensible nonentities. From
that moment they united their forces against
the common enemy, and were ever after held
together by the cement of a common enmity.
But the condition of Mrs. Judith after the
departure of Rainsford, and the total seclusion
of Virginia, was most to be deplored;
for now she had scarcely a peg on which to
hang even a shred of curiosity. Not to speak
irreverently of the divinity of woman, she might
be likened unto a hound at fault; she tripped
about the village this way and that, in all directions,
poking her nose here, and there, and
everywhere, with a wistful look of inquiry, an
anxious, business-like air, exceedingly edifying.
It happened, by a miraculous interposition, as
cruel as it was unaccountable, that there was
not a single secret to be had in all the village.
Such a dearth, such a famine was never known
within the memory of the oldest gossip; and
there is reason to fear that it would have been
all over with Mrs. Judith Paddock, had she not
most providentially, on the sixth day of her abstinence,
detected a stranger riding into the
town with an umbrella over his head. What
he could want of an umbrella, when it neither
rained nor did the sun shine, puzzled her to the
quick. But when he stopped at the house of
Colonel Dangerfield, which was now renewed
in more than its pristine glories, to the great
exultation of that pillar of the aristocracy Pompey
of women; for she was sure there was a secret
in embryo, if not already in being. In addition
to this, Leonard Dangerfield departed about this
time to take his seat in the Assembly; and next
to an arrival in a village is a departure from
it. Altogether, Mrs. Judith became quite comfortable;
and in this state of salubrity we shall
leave her for the present.
The stranger, whose oppertune arrival had
given such absolute content to Mrs. Judith, was
a stout, well-made, ruddy-faced man, it may be
about five-and-forty, who wore a pair of fancy
cord breeches, a pair of white-top boots, and a
gray coat with covered buttons. On the top
of his head was his hair, and on the top of his
hair his hat, which was a beaver of most respectable
dimensions as to brim, if not as to
crown. His hair consisted of a profusion of
short stiff curls, resembling what the illustrious
Manuel, now figuring in the dressing-room of
Death, whilom did call “everlasting,” baked—
yea, by this light, baked!—like a brown loaf in
the oven! Whether it was a wig, or whether
his own crop, whether a work of nature or of
art, we must leave to Mrs. Judith Paddock to
ferret out; solemnly pledging ourselves to the
curious reader, who doth inordinately dote on
these man-milliner matters, that if she ever at
any future period penetrates this important
affair, we will forthwith apprize him of it by a
telegraphic despatch. Altogether, this remarkable
stranger, who looked out of his eyes just
like other people, had that about him which we
call respectable; and if we might judge from
he was a native of what the old bards once
called “merry England.”
Such as he was, he rode up to the door of
Colonel Dangerfield, and was detected by Mrs.
Judith in the very act of delivering a letter;
the reception of which was immediately followed
by his dismounting from his horse, and
entering the hospitable door, which, as in poor
old Ireland, they say always opens in Kentucky
of itself on the arrival of a stranger.
“I'll lay my life,” exclaimed Mrs. Judith, clapping
her hands, “he brings news of the runaway.”
But Mrs. Judith was mistaken for once
in her life.
He was described in the letter to Colonel Dangerfield
as an English country gentleman of
easy fortune, who, having three or four months
to spare previous to the hunting season, had
taken a voyage across the Atlantic to see the
Falls of Niagara, and satisfy himself, by a close
and minute investigation of the true state of the
country, by riding through it as fast as a comet.
He was a scholar, a liberal, and a sensible man;
but, like all his countrymen, he was ever in
a desperate hurry when he travelled. In a
stage, he scolded, or bribed the driver to get on;
and he was once nearly annihilated by being
obliged to travel twenty miles on a canal. In
this we profess to sympathize with him most
heartily. He had been spoiled by whirling on
railroads; and more than once astounded our
whips, who thought they were doing wonders,
by exclaiming, in all the impatience of incurable
languor,—
“Zounds! my good fellow, how slow you
travel!”
A steamboat of eight or ten miles an hour
was intolerable; and if haply he had got
hold of the tail of a comet, he would have
bribed the driver to go a little faster. Never
man was in such a hurry to get to a place except
this selfsame gentleman, when he got
there, to get away from it. He had made the
grand tour in five weeks; and on being questioned
by Colonel Dangerfield how he could
“make tracks,” as Bushfield would say, at such
a rate, his reply was perfectly characteristic.
“Why, sir, you must know, I always had a
courier in advance to order my meals, so that
they were sure to be ready on my arrival, and
allowed myself only an hour to eat them. In
this way I found it very delightful; for I always
had a good dinner, and escaped the horrors
of being detained in a French or Italian town.”
Yet with this foible, which, we believe, is
common to all your islanders, whose insular
situation generates a feeling of “circumscription
and confine,” and instigates a desire of escaping,
as it were, Mr. Barham was a man of
estimable qualities, of an enlarged mind and
liberal spirit.
If ever an American and an Englishman got
together in this world, old or new, without talking
politics, and disagreeing about them, it
was not in our presence. It happened in the
course of the evening of the arrival of Mr. Barham,
that a neighbour, a tradesman, brought
home a pair of shoes, or something of that sort,
for one of the family; and was, as usual, asked
was sure to be treated by the family of Colonel
Dangerfield. He was invited to sit down, to
“take something.” And after talking about the
news, the crops, and the election, quietly took
his leave. Mr. Barham felt as if a pig had run
against him, and soiled his white-top boots,
and could not refrain from shrugging his shoulders
a little, as the colonel shook him kindly by
the hand and bade good night. Dangerfield saw
and comprehended the shrug, and determined
to have a bout with the stranger the first opportunity.
This is never wanting to two men
ready cocked and primed, especially an American
and an Englishman. Mr. Barham soon
took occasion to utter the word equality, with a
certain equivocal sarcastic tone, which is sufficiently
expressive to apprehensive ears; and
the colonel snapped his rifle directly.
“You don't approve of our system of equality,
I perceive, Mr. Barham.”
“To be frank, for you know we Englishmen
always speak our minds, I do not.”
“Why so, sir?”
“Why, because I don't like the intrusive familiarities
of the vulgar; nor do I believe any
system of government can subsist for a length
of time without a decided broad distinction of
ranks.”
“Why so, sir?”
“Because my own reading, reflection, and
experience have satisfied me that equality in any
respect, either as to rank or fortune, is an impracticable,
ruinous theory, which never can be
realized.”
“I differ with you, Mr. Barham. As to you
reading and reflection, I will say nothing, for
my maxim is, to appeal to experience, wherever
resort can be had to it. May I ask whence you
derive your conviction of the impossibility of a
system of equality as far as ranks are concerned?”
“From England, sir, from my own country.”
“I don't exactly see how your experience can
have any application to England, because she
has never tried the system of equality, and can
therefore know nothing of its impracticability,
or its ruinous effects, if it were practicable.”
“Why, sir, don't we every day see the consequences
of the mob getting uppermost; destruction
of property and lives?”
“That is just because there is no equality
among you, and not because there is. It is the
sense of inequality, and its attendant wants
and mortifications, that produce these violent
eruptions of popular discontent. If you choose
to call the people of this country all equal, very
good. You don't see any mobs in Kentucky,
nor anywhere else, except among those who
bring with them from abroad those habits, and
feelings, and old antipathies generated by the
very absence of equality.”
“But how is it possible for one man to have
a proper respect for another, without some feeling
of inferiority on his part? Without this,
society must become a perfect bear-garden, and
the intercourse between people essentially vulgar
and indiscriminate,” said Mr. Barham.
“That does not necessarily follow; nay, it
you cannot believe that courtesy, respect, and a
due regard to the claims and feelings of others
cannot be maintained without a sense of inferiority
on one part, and of superiority on the
other. Is there no such sentiment in the human
mind as that of veneration for superior
virtue, or talents; no kindly feeling of one fellow-being
for another, that he should require a
man to be called a lord, and to possess privileges
of which he is denied a share, before he can
properly respect him? If you come to the
other sex, is there not beauty, virtue, the natural
desire to please, and the universal passion of
love to ensure them due tenderness and consideration,
without their being called ladies? So
far indeed as I am acquainted with the countries
where these distinctions of ranks prevail, that
respect which the sacred institution of marriage
requires from man to woman, and from woman
to man, is not the most striking feature in
the character of the higher ranks.”
“But really now, Colonel Dangerfield, you
have travelled, and seen the world; do you
think it possible to introduce equality into England,
without overturning every thing venerable
and sacred there?”
“I don't know exactly what you mean, Mr.
Barham, by every thing venerable and sacred.
If you mean abuses that have grown sacred by
long proscription; follies consecrated by time,
and institutions that have become venerable,
like ruined edifices, because they no longer answer
the end of their creation; if you refer to
these, I don't believe that they can or will survive
of equality. I admit the difficulty and
danger of abolishing the distinction of ranks
in countries where it has long prevailed; where
every step and stage in life is graduated by the
ladder of precedence; and where the people,
from education and long habit, have lost all
other criterion of respect or reverence, but
that of mere rank and title. Here, however,
in this country it is quite different; habit and
education have prepared them to estimate other
claims; and though they may still retain some
vestiges of the ancient delusion in respect to
these things, there is nothing on the face of the
earth which they would so soon resist as a person
who should come and demand as a right
any privilege or precedence, merely on the
score of his title.”
“Very well, very well, sir, but you will yet
live to see the futility of these notions, that all
men are equally wise, equally virtuous, equally
brave; and that therefore they must of necessity
be made equally rich, equally honourable,
and equal in all respects to their rulers.”
“Why do you not add, equally tall, equally
fat, equally strong, and equally active?” asked
the colonel, smiling at this absurd view of
equality, which is either ignorantly or wilfully
made to represent the rational system of this
country. “My dear sir, our policy is not founded
on the complete overthrow, but the establishment
of the system of Providence, which
hath ordained that there shall ever subsist a
difference in the activity and capacity of mankind,
as well as in the opportunity, and the results
that it is impossible to regulate the consequences
of all these, and that one will be
wiser, richer, and happier than another, in spite
of all laws to make them equal; and in defiance
of all efforts to regulate their course of
action. Such is not our absurd system of
equality, which consists simply in an equality of
social and civil rights, granted and guarantied by
the laws, over which we ourselves have a control,
each in his primitive character of a citizen, a
portion of the government. There is not here,
as in many, I may say in all parts of the Old
World, one law for the king, another for the
noble; one law for the noble, another for the
commoner; one law for the freeholder, another
for the copyholder; one law for the bishop, another
for his curate. No, sir; all the people are
peers to each other; peers of the Republic;
and you might as well assert that because
every member of your House of Lords is the
peer of the others, that, therefore, they must all
be equally wise, rich, and noble; that there
can be no distinction between them; that the
idiot lawgiver must be held everywhere, and at
all times equal to the wisest; the poorest as rich
as the Marquis of Stafford; and that among
the nobles of England nothing but beastly familiarity
and rank vulgarism can possibly prevail
in their intercourse with each other.”
Mr. Barham discovered some little impatience
at this long harangue. He himself spoke very
quick, like a majority of his countrymen of the
same class; while the colonel, like most Americans,
delivered himself with great deliberation.
Washington to learn patience by attending the
debates in Congress; he yawned more than once
before he replied,—
“Well, you have made out a pretty strong
case. I think I could match it with a stronger
if there were time. You will excuse me, Colonel
Dangerfield, if I ask permission to retire;
but I cannot, I fear, excuse myself to this lady
for being accessory to keeping her listening so
long. Good night. I must be up betimes in
the morning, and will take my leave now; for
I have arranged to meet the steamboat at New
Madrid. I must be in New Orleans in a week,
at New York in a fortnight after, and in England
a month after that, or I shall lose my
chance of killing the first pheasant in the good
county of Kent. So good night, good night,
and thanks for your lecture and your hospitality.”
Thus they parted, and thus endeth the chapter
of equality. We feel, however, bound in
honour to apprize the curious reader that Mrs.
Judith Paddock never discovered whether the
curls of the stranger were natural or “everlasting,”
and he must be content to remain in condign
ignorance for the time to come. For we
grieve to say, it appears by the latest accounts
that Mr. Barham not long since lost his breath
on the Manchester railroad in an attempt to
travel at the rate of sixty miles an hour, and
never recovered it again.
| CHAPTER XI. Westward ho! | |