 | The Virginia comedians, or, Old days in the Old Dominion |  |
PROLOGUE.
The memories of men are full of old romances: but they
will not speak—our skalds. King Arthur lies still wounded
grievously, in the far island valley of Avilyon: Lord Odin
in the misty death realm: Balder the Beautiful, sought long
by great Hermoder, lives beyond Hela's portals, and will
bless his people some day when he comes. But when?
King Arthur ever is to come: Odin will one day wind his
horn and clash his wild barbaric cymbals through the Nordland
pines as he returns, but not in our generation: Balder
will rise from sleep and shine again the white sun god on
his world. But always these things will be: Arthur and
the rest are meanwhile sleeping.
Romance is history: the illustration may be lame—the
truth is melancholy. Because the men whose memories
hold this history will not speak, it dies away with them: the
great past goes deeper and deeper into mist: becomes finally
a dying strain of music, and is no more remembered forever.
Thinking these thoughts I have thought it well to set
and in which an ancestor of my family had no small part:
to write my family romance in a single word, and also,
though following a connecting thread, a leading idea, to
speak briefly of the period to which these memories, as I may
call them, do attach.
That period was very picturesque: illustrated and
adorned, as it surely was, by such figures as one seldom sees
now on the earth. Often in my evening reveries, assisted
by the partial gloom resulting from the struggles of the
darkness and the dying firelight, I endeavor, and not wholly
without success, to summon from their sleep these stalwart
cavaliers, and tender, graceful dames of the far past. They
rise before me and glide onward—manly faces, with clear
eyes and lofty brows, and firm lips covered with the knightly
fringe: soft, tender faces, with bright eyes and gracious
smiles and winning gestures; all the life and splendor of the
past again becomes incarnate! How plain the embroidered
doublet, and the sword-belt, and the powdered hair, and hat
adorned with its wide floating feather! How real are the
ruffled breasts and hands, the long-flapped waistcoats, and
the buckled shoes! And then the fairer forms: they come
as plainly with their looped-back gowns all glittering with
gold and silver flowers, and on their heads great masses of
curls with pearls interwoven! See the gracious smiles and
musical movement—all the graces which made those dead
dames so attractive to the outward eye—as their pure faithful
natures made them priceless to the eyes of the heart.
If fancy needed assistance, more than one portrait hanging
on my walls might afford it. Old family portraits which
I often gaze on with a pensive pleasure. What a tender
maiden grace beams on me from the eyes of Kate Effingham
yonder; smiling from the antique frame and blooming like
a radiant summer—she was but seventeen when it was taken
—under the winter of her snow-like powder, and bright diamond
pendants, glittering like icicles! The canvas is discolored,
and even cracked in places, but the little face laughs
merrily still—the eyes fixed peradventure upon another portrait
hanging opposite. This is a picture of Mr. William
Effingham, the brave soldier of the Revolution, taken in his
younger days, when he had just returned from College. He
ruffles; and his coat is heavy with embroidery in gold
thread: he is a handsome young fellow, and excepting some
pomposity in his air, a simple-looking excellent, honest face.
Over my fireplace, however, hangs the picture which I
value most—a portrait of my ancestor, Champ Effingham, Esq.
The form is lordly and erect; the face clear and pale; the eyes
full of wondrous thought in their far depths. The lips are
chiselled with extraordinary beauty, the brow noble and imaginative—the
whole face plainly giving indication of fiery
passion, and no less of tender softness. Often this face looks
at me from the canvas, and I fancy sometimes that the white
hand, covered as in Vandyke's pictures with its snowy lace,
moves from the book it holds and raises slowly the forefinger
and points toward its owner's breast. The lips then seem to
say, “Speak of me as I was: nothing extenuate: set down
nought in malice!”—then the fire-light leaping up shows
plainly that this all was but a dream, and the fine pale face
is again only canvas, the white hand rests upon its book:—
my dream ends with a smile.
But still I fancy I hear my ancestor calling to me from
the dead past and saying, “Speak!” and other voices, loud
and low, rough, hearty, laughing, tender voices of all possible
descriptions, do command that I speak of them. How can I
resist? Though in that great art of speaking with the pen I
am a mere tyro, still I find myself compelled to speak—to
place here all I know, to write down what is in my memory
and my heart. The serene friendly stars are yonder in the
sky—the nights are still:—my friends look down upon me
from their shelves, and the twigs in the fireplace are crackling
merrily.
Yes, yes! I shall obey that dreamy voice which but now
spoke to me. I shall obey the injunction of the portrait,
whose soft eyes smile on me as I write these lines. Here in
the quiet country with the winds around me I will write it
all:—for I have heard all the family history. It shall be
done honestly at least, and every other portrait shall be painted
with such accuracy and truth as I possess—I trust with perfect
truth. Then some day when I go away, my friend will
find these MSS., and he has my full permission to make them
public.
Now I will begin.
Thus far the author of the MS. The worthy gentleman
gave us his full permission to edit it in such manner as
seemed to us best calculated to present incidents and personages
clearly: and this has been the labor of the last two
months. The sequence of events has been somewhat altered,
to give more artistic point to certain pages—since art is all
in all after honesty—and many moral digressions of the
worthy gentleman have been omitted, as unnecessary and
superfluous. Still a number of these passages have been
retained—but always when they bore directly upon the
narrative.
The work is now given to the world in obedience to his
last request.
| The Virginia comedians, or, Old days in the Old Dominion | |