 | AUNT MARY. The Mayflower, or, Sketches of scenes and
characters among the descendants of the Pilgrims |  |
AUNT MARY.
Since sketching character is the mode, I too
take up my pencil, not to make you laugh,
though peradventure it may be—to get you to
sleep.
I am now a tolerably old gentleman—an old
bachelor, moreover—and, what is more to the
point, an unpretending and sober-minded one.
Lest, however, any of the ladies should take
exceptions against me in the very outset, I will
merely remark, en passant, that a man can some
times become an old bachelor because he has
too much heart as well as too little.
Years ago—before any of my readers were
born—I was a little good-for-naught of a boy,
of precisely that unlucky kind who are always
in everybody's way, and always in mischief. I
had, to watch over my uprearing, a father and
mother, and a whole army of older brothers and
sisters. My relatives bore a very great resemblance
to other human beings, neither good
angels nor the opposite class, but, as mathematicians
say, “in the mean proportion.”
As I have before insinuated, I was a sort of
family scapegrace among them, and one on
whose head all the domestic trespasses were
regularly visited, either by real actual desert
or by imputation.
For this order of things, there was, I confess,
a very solid and serious foundation, in the constitution
of my mind. Whether I was born under
some cross-eyed planet, or whether I was
fairy-smitten in my cradle, certain it is that I
was, from the dawn of existence, a sort of “Murad
the Unlucky;” an out-of-time, out-of-place,
out-of-form sort of a boy, with whom nothing
prospered.
Who always left open doors in cold weather?
it was Henry. Who was sure to upset his coffee-cup
at breakfast, or to knock over his tumbler
at dinner, or to prostrate salt-cellar, pepper-box,
and mustard-pot, if he only happened
to move his arm? why, Henry. Who was
plate-breaker general for the family? it was
Henry. Who tangled mamma's silks and cottons,
and tore up the fast newspaper for papa,
or threw down old Phoebe's clothes'-horse, with
all her clean ironing thereupon? why, Henry.
Now all this was no “malice prepense” in
me, for I solemnly believe that I was the best-natured
boy in the world; but something was
the attraction of gravitation—with the general
dispensation of matter around me, that, let me
do what I would, things would fall down, and
break, or be torn and damaged, if I only came
near them; and my unluckiness seemed in exact
proportion to my carefulness in any matter.
If anybody in the room with me had a headache,
or any manner of nervous irritability,
which made it particularly necessary for others
to be quiet, and if I was in an especial desire
unto the same, I was sure, while stepping
around on tiptoe, to fall headlong over a chair,
which would give an introductory push to the
shovel, which would fall upon the tongs, which
would animate the poker, and all together would
set in action two or three sticks of wood, and
down they would come, with just that hearty,
sociable sort of racket, which showed that they
were disposed to make as much of the opportunity
as possible.
In the same manner, everything that came
into my hand, or was at all connected with me,
was sure to lose by it. If I rejoiced in a clean
apron in the morning, I was sure to make a
full-length prostration thereupon on my way to
school, and come home nothing better, but
rather worse. If I was sent on an errand, I
my purchases in returning; and on these occasions
my mother would often comfort me with
the reflection, that it was well that my ears
were fastened to my head, or I should lose
them too. Of course, I was a fair mark for the
exhortatory powers, not only of my parents,
but of all my aunts, uncles, and cousins, to the
third and fourth generation, who ceased not
to reprove, rebuke, and exhort with all long-suffering
and doctrine.
All this would have been very well if Nature
had not gifted me with a very unnecessary and
uncomfortable capacity of feeling, which, like
a refined ear for music, is undesirable, because,
in this world, one meets with discord ninety-nine
times where it meets with harmony once.
Much, therefore, as I furnished occasion to be
scolded at, I never became used to scolding, so
that I was just as much galled by it the forty
first time as the first. There was no such thing
as philosophy in me: I had just that unreasonable
heart which is not conformed unto the nature
of things, neither indeed can be. I was
timid, and shrinking, and proud; I was nothing
to any one around me but an awkward, unlucky
boy; nothing to my parents but one of
half a dozen children, whose faces were to be
If I was very sick, I had medicine
and the doctor; if I was a little sick, I was exhorted
unto patience; and if I was sick at
heart, I was left to prescribe for myself.
Now all this was very well: what should a
child need but meat, and drink, and room to
play, and a school to teach him reading and
writing, and somebody to take care of him
when sick? certainly, nothing.
But the feelings of grown-up children exist
in the mind of little ones oftener than is supposed;
and I had, even at this early day, the
same keen sense of all that touched the heart
wrong; the same longing for something which
should touch it aright; the same discontent
with latent, matter-of-course affection, and the
same craving for sympathy, which has been
the unprofitable fashion of this world in all
ages. And no human being possessing such
constitutionals has a better chance of being
made unhappy by them than the backward, uninteresting,
wrong-doing child. We can all
sympathize, to some extent, with men and women;
but how few can go back to the sympathies
of childhood; can understand the desolate
insignificance of not being one of the
grown-up people; of being sent to bed, to be
be out of the way in the morning; of manifold
similar grievances and distresses, which the
child has no elocution to set forth, and the
grown person no imagination to conceive.
When I was seven years old, I was told one
morning, with considerable domestic acclamation,
that Aunt Mary was coming to make us a
visit; and so, when the carriage that brought
her stopped at our door, I pulled off my dirty
apron, and ran in among the crowd of brothers
and sisters to see what was coming. I shall
not describe her first appearance, for, as I think
of her, I begin to grow somewhat sentimental,
in spite of my spectacles, and might, perhaps,
talk a little nonsense.
Perhaps every man, whether married or unmarried,
who has lived to the age of fifty or
thereabout, has seen some woman who, in his
mind, is the woman in distinction from all others.
She may not have been a relative; she
may not have been a wife; she may simply
have shone on him from afar; she may be remembered
in the distance of years as a star
that is set, as music that is hushed, as beauty
and loveliness faded forever; but remembered
she is with interest, with fervour, with enthusiasm;
with all that heart can feel, and more
than words can tell.
To me there has been but one such, and that
is she whom I describe. Was she beautiful?
you ask. “I also will ask you one question:”
If an angel from heaven should dwell in human
form, and animate any human face, would not
that face be lovely? It might not be beautiful,
but would it not be lovely? She was not
beautiful except after this fashion.
How well I remember her, as she used sometimes
to sit thinking, with her head resting on
her hand, her face mild and placid, with a quiet
October sunshine in her blue eyes, and an ever-present
smile over her whole countenance. I
remember the sudden sweetness of look when
any one spoke to her; the prompt attention,
the quick comprehension of things before you
uttered them; the obliging readiness to leave
for you whatever she was doing.
To those who mistake occasional pensiveness
for melancholy, it might seem strange to say
that my Aunt Mary was always happy. Yet
she was so. Her spirits never rose to buoyancy,
and never sunk to despondency. I know that
it is an article in the sentimental confession
of faith that such a character cannot be interesting.
For this impression there is some
ground. The placidity of a medium commonplace
mind is uninteresting, but the placidity of
sublime. Mutability of emotion characterizes
inferior orders of being; but he who combines
all interest, all excitement, all perfection, is
“the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.”
And if there be anything sublime in the idea
of an Almighty mind, in perfect peace itself,
and, therefore, at leisure to bestow all its energies
on the wants of others, there is at least a
reflection of the same sublimity in the character
of that human being who has so quieted and
governed the world within, that nothing is left
to absorb sympathy or distract attention from
those around.
Such a woman was my Aunt Mary. Her placidity
was not so much the result of temperament
as of choice. She had every susceptibility
of suffering incident to the noblest and most
delicate construction of mind; but they had
been so directed, that, instead of concentrating
thought on self, they had prepared her to understand
and feel for others.
She was, beyond all things else, a sympathetic
person, and her character, like the green
in a landscape, was less remarkable for what it
was in itself than for its perfect and beautiful
harmony with all the colouring and shading
around it.
Other women have had talents, others have
been good; but no woman that ever I knew
possessed goodness and talent in union with
such an intuitive perception of feelings, and
such a faculty of instantaneous adaptation to
them. The most troublesome thing in this
world is to be condemned to the society of a
person who can never understand anything you
say without you say the whole of it, making
your commas and periods as you go along;
and the most desirable thing in the world is to
live with a person who saves you all the trouble
of talking, by knowing just what you mean to
say before you begin.
Something of this kind of talent I began to
feel, to my great relief, when Aunt Mary came
into the family. I remember the very first
evening, as she sat by the hearth, surrounded
by all the family, her eye glanced on me with
an expression that let me know she saw me;
and when the clock struck eight, and my mother
proclaimed that it was my bedtime, my
countenance fell as I moved sorrowfully from
the back of her rocking-chair, and thought how
many beautiful stories Aunt Mary would tell
after I was gone to bed. She turned towards
me with such a look of real understanding,
such an evident insight into the case, that I
ever I did before. How very contrary is the
obstinate estimate of the heart to the rational
estimate of worldly wisdom. Are there not
some who can remember when one word, one
look, or even the withholding of a word, has
drawn their heart more to a person than all
the substantial favours in the world? By ordinary
acceptation, substantial kindness respects
the necessaries of animal existence;
while those wants which are peculiar to mind,
and will exist with it forever, by equally correct
classification, are designated as sentimental
ones, the supply of which, though it will
excite more gratitude in fact, ought not to in
theory. Before Aunt Mary had lived with us
a month, I loved her beyond anybody in the
world, and a utilitarian would have been amused
in ciphering out the amount of favours
which produced this result. It was a look—a
word—a smile: it was that she seemed pleased
with my new kite; that she rejoiced with
me when I learned to spin a top; that she
alone seemed to estimate my proficiency in
playing ball and marbles; that she never looked
at all vexed when I upset her workbox
upon the floor; that she received all my awkward
gallantry and mal-adroit helpfulness as if
when she was sick, she insisted on letting me
wait on her, though I made my customary havoc
among the pitchers and tumblers of her
room, and displayed, through my zeal to please,
a more than ordinary share of insufficiency for
the station. She also was the only person that
ever I conversed with, and I used to wonder
how anybody who could talk all about matters
and things with grown-up persons, could
talk so sensibly about marbles, and hoops, and
skates, and all sorts of little-boy matters; and
I will say, by-the-by, that the same sort of
speculation has often occurred to the minds of
older people in connexion with her. She knew
the value of varied information in making a
woman, not a pedant, but a sympathetic, companionable
being, and such she was to almost
every class of mind.
She had, too, the faculty of drawing others
up to her level in conversation, so that I would
often find myself going on in most profound
style while talking with her, and would wonder,
when I was through, whether I was really
a little boy still.
When she had enlightened us many months,
the time came for her to take leave, and she
besought my mother to give me to her for
could find to like in Henry; but if she did like
me, it was no matter, and so was the case disposed
of.
From that time I lived with her—and there
are some persons who can make the word live
signify much more than it commonly does—and
she wrought on my character all those miracles
which benevolent genius can work. She
quieted my heart, directed my feelings, unfolded
my mind, and educated me, not harshly or
by force, but as the blessed sunshine educates
the flower, into full and perfect life; and when
all that was mortal of her died to this world,
her words and deeds of unutterable love shed
a twilight around her memory that will fade
only in the brightness of heaven.
| AUNT MARY. The Mayflower, or, Sketches of scenes and
characters among the descendants of the Pilgrims | |