University of Virginia Library

LETTER XXXI.

To Henry Colden.

What do you mean, Hal, by such a strain as this? I
wanted no additional causes of disquiet. Yet you tell me
to write cheerfully; I would have written cheerfully; if

these letters, so full of dark forebodings, and rueful prognostics,
had not come to damp my spirits.

And is the destiny that awaits us so very mournful? Is
thy wife necessarily to lose so many comforts, and incur so
many mortifications? are my funds so small, that they will
not secure to me the privilege of a separate apartment, in
which I may pass my time with whom, and in what manner
I please?

Must I huddle with a dozen squalling children and their
notably noisy, or sluttishly indolent dam, round a dirty
hearth, and meagre winter's fire? must sooty rafters, a sorry
truckle bed, and a mud incumbered alley be my nuptial
lot.

Out upon thee, thou egregious painter! Well for thee
thou art not within my arm's length. I should certainly bestow
upon thee a hearty—kiss or two.—My blundering
pen! I recall the word. I meant cuff; but my saucy pen,
pretending to know more of my mind than I did myself,
turned (as its mistress, mayhap, would have done, hadst
thou been near me, indeed) her cuff into a kiss.

What possessed thee, my beloved, to predict so ruefully.
A very good beginning too! more vivacity than common!
But I hardly had time to greet the sunny radiance—'tis a
long time since my cell was gilded by so sweet a beam;—
when a black usurping mist stole it away, and all was dreary
as it is wont to be.

Perhaps thy being in a house of mourning may account
for it. Fitful and versatile, I know thee to be. Changeable
with scene and circumstance. Thy views are just what any
eloquent companion pleases to make them. She, thou
lovest, is thy deity; her lips thy oracle. And hence my
cheerful omens of the future; the confidence I have in the
wholesome efficacy of my government. I that have the will
to make thee happy, have the power too. I know I have;
and hence my promptitude to give away all for thy sake;
to give myself a wife's title to thy company; a conjugal
share in thy concerns; and claim to reign over thee.

Make haste and atone, by the future brightness of thy epistolary
emanations, for the pitchy cloud that overspreads
these sick man's dreams.

How must thou have rummaged the cupboard of thy fancy

for musty scraps and flinty crusts to feed thy spleen withal;
inattentive to the dainties which a blue eyed Hebe had
culled in the garden of Hope, and had poured from out her
basket into thy ungrateful lap.

While thou wast mumbling these refractory and unsavory
bits, I was banqueting on the rosy and delicious products of
that Eden, which love, when not scared away by evil omens,
is always sure (the poet says) to plant around us. I have
tasted nectarines of her raising, and I find her, let me tell
thee, an admirable Horticulturist.

Thou art so far off, there is no sending thee a basket full,
or I would do it. They would wilt and wither ere they
reached thee; the atmosphere thou breathest would strike
a deadly worm into their hearts before thou couldst get them
to thy lips.

But to drop the basket and the bough, and take up a plain
meaning—I will tell thee how I was employed when thy
letter came; but first I must go back a little.

In the autumn of ninety-seven, and when death had spent
his shafts in my own family, I went to see how a family
fared, the father and husband of which kept a shop in Front
street, where every thing a lady wanted was sold, and
where I had always been served with great despatch and
affability.

Being one day (I am going to tell you how our acquaintance
began)—Being one day detained in the shop by a
shower, I was requested to walk into the parlor. I chatted
ten minutes with the good woman of the house, and found
in her so much gentleness and good sense, that, afterwards,
my shopping visits were always, in part, social ones. My
business being finished at the compter, I usually went back,
and found on every interview, new cause for esteeming the
family. The treatment I met with was always cordial and
frank, and though our meetings were thus merely casual, we
seemed, in a short time, to have grown into a perfect knowledge
of each other.

This was in the summer you left us, and the malady
breaking out a few months after, and all shopping being at
an end, and alarm and grief taking early possession of my
heart, I thought but seldom of the Hennings'. A few weeks
after death had bereaved me of my friend, I called these

and others, whose welfare was dear to me, to my remembrance;
and determined to pay them a visit and discover
how it fared with them. I hoped they had left the city,
yet Mrs. Henning had told me that her husband, who was
a devout man, held it criminal to fly on such occasions,
and that she, having passed safely through the pestilence of
former years, had no apprehensions from staying.

Their house was inhabited, but I found the good woman
in great affliction. Her husband had lately died after a
tedious illness, and her distress was augmented by the solitude
in which the flight of all her neighbors and acquaintances
had left her. A friendly visit could at no time have
been so acceptable to her, and my sympathy was not more
needed to console her, than my counsel to assist her in the
new state of her affairs.

Laying aside ceremony, I inquired freely into her condition,
and offered her my poor services. She made me
fully acquainted with her circumstances, and I was highly
pleased at finding them so good. Her husband had always
been industrious and thrifty, and his death left her enough
to support her and her Sally in the way they wished.

Inquiring into their views and wishes, I found them
limited to the privacy of a small but neat house, in some
cleanly and retired corner of the city. Their stock in trade,
I advised them to convert into money, and placing it in
some public fund, live upon its produce. Mrs. Henning
knew nothing of the world. Though an excellent manager
within doors, any thing that might be called business was
strange and arduous to her, and without my direct assistance
she could do nothing.

Happily, at this time, just such a cheap and humble, but
neat, new and airy dwelling as my friend required, belonging
to Mrs. Fielder, was vacant. You know the house.
'Tis that where the Frenchman Catineau lived. Is it not a
charming abode? at a distance from noise, with a green
field opposite, and a garden behind; of two stories; a
couple of good rooms on each floor; with unspoilt water,
and a kitchen, below the ground, indeed, but light, wholesome
and warm.

Most fortunately too that incorrigible creole had deserted
it. He was scared away by the fever, and no other had

put in a claim. I made haste to write to my mother, who,
though angry with me on my own account, could not reject
my application in favor of my good widow.

I even prevailed on her to set the rent forty dollars lower
than she might have gotten from another, and to give a
lease of it at that rate for five years. You can't imagine
my satisfaction in completing this affair, and in seeing my
good woman quietly settled in her new abode, with her
daughter Sally, and her servant Alice, who had come with
her from Europe, and had lived with her the dear knows
how long.

Mrs. Henning is no common woman, I assure you. Her
temper is the sweetest in the world. Not cultivated or enlightened
is her understanding, but naturally correct. Her
life has always been spent under her own roof; and never
saw I a scene of more quiet and order than her little homestead
exhibits. Though humbly born, and perhaps, meanly
brought up, her parlor and chamber add to the purest cleanliness,
somewhat that approaches to elegance.

The mistress and the maid are nearly of the same age,
and though equally innocent and good humored, the former
has more sedateness and reserve than the latter. She is
devout in her way, which is methodism, and acquires from
this source nothing but new motives to charity to her neighbors,
and thankfulness to God.

Much; indeed, all these comforts she ascribes to me;
yet her gratitude is not loquacious. It shews itself less in
words than in the pleasure she manifests on my visits; the
confidence with which she treats me; laying before me all
her plans and arrangements, and entreating my advice in
every thing. Yet she has brought with her, from her native
country, notions of her inferiority to the better born and
the better educated, but too soothing to my pride. Hence
she is always diffident, and never makes advances to intimacy
but when expressly invited and encouraged.

It was a good while before all her new arrangements
were completed. When they were, I told her, I would
spend the day with her, for which she was extremely grateful.
She sent me word, as soon as she was ready to receive
me, and I went.

Artless and unceremonious was the good woman in the

midst of all her anxiety to please. Affectionate, yet discreet
in her behaviour to her Sally and her Alice, and of
me as tenderly observant as possible.

She shewed me all her rooms from cellar to garret, and
every thing I saw delighted me. Two neat beds in the
front room above, belong to her and Sally. The back
room is decked in a more fanciful and costly manner.

Why this, my good friend, said I, on entering it, is quite
superb. Here is carpet and coverlet and curtains that might
satisfy a prince; you are quite prodigal; and for whose accommodation
is all this?

O! any lady that will favor me with a visit. It is a spare
room, and the only one I have, and I thought I would
launch out a little for once. One wishes to set the best
they have before a guest, though indeed, I don't expect
many to visit me, but it is some comfort to think one has it
in one's power to lodge a friend, when it happens so, in a
manner that may not discredit one's intentions. I have no
relations in this country, and the only friend I have in the
world, besides God, is you, madam. But still, it may
sometimes happen, you know, that one may have occasion to
entertain somebody. God be thanked, I have enough, and
what little I have to spare, I have no right to hoard up.

But might you not accommodate a good quiet kind of
body in this room, at so much a year or week?

Why, Ma'am, if you think that's best; but I thought one
might indulge one's self in living one's own way. I have
never been used to strangers, and always have had a small
family. It would be a very new thing to me, to have an
inmate. I am afraid I should not please such a one. And
then, ma'am, if this room's occupied, I have no decent place
to put any accidental person in. It would go hard with me
to be obliged to turn a good body away, that might be here
on a visit, and might be caught by a rain or a snow storm.

Very true. I did not think of that; and yet it seems a
pity that so good a room should be unemployed; perhaps for
a year together.

So it does, ma'am, and I can't but say, if a proper person
should offer, who wanted to be snug and quiet, I should
have no great objection. One that could put up with our

humble ways, and be satisfied with what I could do to make
them comfortable. I think I should like such a one well
enough.

One, said I, who would accept such accommodation as a
favor. A single person for example. A woman; a young
woman. A stranger in the country, and friendless like yourself.

O! very true, madam, said the good woman, with sparkling
benignity, I should have no objection in the world to
such a one. I should like it of all things. And I should
not mind to be hard with such a one. I should not stickle
about terms. Pray, ma'am, do you know any such. If
you do, and will advise me to take her, I would be very
glad to do it.

Now, Hal, what thinkest thou? cannot I light on such a
young, single, slenderly provided woman as this. One whose
heart pants for just such a snug retreat, as Mrs. Henning's
roof would afford her.

This little chamber, set out with perfect neatness; looking
out on a very pretty piece of verdure and a cleanly court
yard; with such a good couple to provide for her; with
her privacy unapproachable but at her own pleasure; Her
quiet undisturbed by a prater, a scolder, a bustler or a
whiner. No dirty children to offend the eye or squalling
ones to wound the ear. With admitted claims to the gratitude,
confidence and affection of her hostess; might not
these suffice to make a lowly, unambitious maiden happy?

One who, like Mrs. Henning, had only one friend upon
earth. Whom her former associates refused to commune
with or look upon. Whose loneliness was uncheered, except
by her own thoughts, and by her books. Perhaps now
and then at times when oceans did not sever her from him,
by that one earthly friend.

Might she not afford him as many hours of her society
as his engagements would allow him to claim. Might she
not, as an extraordinary favor, admit him to partake with her
the comforts of her own little fire, if winter it be; or, in
summer time, to join her at her chamber window, and pass
away the starlight hour in the unwitnessed community of
fond hearts?

Suppose, to obviate unwelcome surmises and too scrupulous

objections, the girl makes herself a wife, but because
their poverty will not enable them to live together, the girl
merely admits the chosen youth on the footing of a visiter.

Suppose her hours are not embittered by the feelings of
dependence. She pays an ample compensation for her
entertainment, and by her occasional company, her superior
strength of mind and knowledge of the world's ways, she
materially contributes to the happiness and safety of her
hostess.

Suppose, having only one visiter, and he sometimes wanting
in zeal and punctuality, much of her time is spent alone.
Happily she is exempt from the humiliating necessity of
working to live; and is not obliged to demand a share of the
earnings of her husband. Her task, therefore, will be to
find amusement. Can she want the means, think'st thou.

The sweet quiet of her chamber; the wholesome airs
from abroad; or the cheerful blaze of her hearth, will invite
her to mental exercise. Perhaps, she has a taste for books,
and besides that pure delight which knowledge on its own
account affords her, it possesses tenfold attractions in her
eyes, by its tendency to heighten the esteem of him whom
she lives to please.

Perhaps, rich as she is in books, she is an economist of
pleasure, and tears herself away from them, to enjoy the
vernal breezes, or the landscape of autumn in a twilight
ramble. Here she communes with bounteous nature, or
lifts her soul in devotion to her God, to whose benignity she
resigns herself as she used to do to the fond arms of that
parent she has lost.

If these do not suffice to fill up her time, she may chance
to reflect on the many ways in which she may be useful to
herself. She may find delight in supplying her own wants;
by maintaining cleanliness and order all about her; by making
up her own dresses, especially as she disdains to be outdone
in taste and expertness at the needle by any female in
the land.

By limiting in this way, and in every other, which her
judgment may recommend, her own expenses, she will be
able to contribute somewhat to relieve the toils of her beloved.
The pleasure will be hers of reflecting, not only
that her love adds nothing to his fatigues and cares; not

only that her tender solicitudes and seasonable counsel,
cherish his hopes and strengthen his courage, but that the
employment of her hands makes his own separate subsistence
an easier task. To work for herself will be no trivial gratification
to her honest pride, but to work for her beloved, will,
indeed, be a cause of exultation.

Twenty things she may do for him which others must be
paid for doing, not in caresses, but in money; and this service,
though not small, is not perhaps the greatest she is able
to perform. She is active and intelligent, perhaps, and may
even aspire to the profits of some trade. What is it that
makes one calling more lucrative than another? Not superior
strength of shoulders or sleight of hand; not the greater
quantity of brute matter that is reduced into form or set into
motion? No. The difference lies in the mental powers
of the artist, and the direction accidentally given to these
powers.

What should hinder a girl like this from growing rich by
her diligence and ingenuity. She has, perhaps, acquired
many arts with no view but her own amusement. Not a
little did her mother pay to those who taught her to draw
and to sing. May she not levy the same tributes upon
others that were levied on her, and make a business of her
sports.

There is, indeed, a calling that may divert her from the
thoughts of mere lucre. She may talk and sing for
another and dedicate her best hours to a tutelage, for
which there is a more precious requital than money can
give.

Dost not see her, Hal. I do—as well as this gushing
sensibility will let me—rocking in her arms and half stifling
with her kisses, or delighting with her lullaby, a precious little
creature—

Why, my friend, do I hesitate? do I not write for thy eye,
and thine only? and what is there but pure and sacred in
the anticipated transports of a mother.

The conscious heart might stifle its throbs in thy presence,
but why not indulge them in thy absence, and tell thee its
inmost breathings, not without a shame confessing glow,
yet not without drops of the truest delight that were ever
shed.

Why, how now, Jane? whence all this interest in the
scene thou portrayest? one would fancy that this happy
outcast, this self dependent wife was no other than thyself.

A shrewd conjecture truly. I suppose, Hal, thou wilt
be fond enough to guess so too. By what penalty shall I
deter thee from so rash a thing? yet thou art not here—I
say it to my sorrow—to suffer the penalty which I might
choose to inflict.

I will not say what it is, lest the fear of it should keep
thee away.

And now that I have finished the history of Mrs. Henning
and her boarder, I will bid thee—good night.