University of Virginia Library

21. CHAPTER XXI.
BEING A BRIDGE LONGER THAN THE VICTORIA, AND HAVING
ONLY TEN PIERS.

Often, as we move through an interesting landscape,
crowded with copse and rock and forest, and
crossed by streams and strips of pasture and tilth, we
catch a glimpse of some green hill in the far distance,
and forget the beauty which throngs the passage, in our
desire to reach the eminence that overlooks it, and the
world of beauty in which it lies. We long to drink, at
a single draught, the nectar that hangs on bush and
rock, and vine and tree—to embrace in one emotion the
effect of that exquisite combination of light and shade,
of green and gray, of hill and vale, of stone and stream,
that go to form a completed landscape. We tire with
details; we seek for results.

As in landscapes, so in stories—we come to points,
sometimes, when we long to overleap the incidents of
the life through which we move, and, planting ourselves
upon some sun-crowned year that rises in the distance,
survey at a glance the path we have trod. We are in

haste for events, and do not care to watch the machinery
by which they are evolved.

Precisely at this point has this story now arrived;
and in this brief chapter we propose to take a stand
upon a green hill-top ten years away, and thence look
backward upon the life whose characteristics and whose
issues have interested us so deeply.

We take the ten-years' flight, and here we are!
How easy the imaginary passage, and how soft and
bright the landscape, as we turn to gaze upon it! Yet
these years have been crowded to their brims, every
one, with change, and their contents poured upon the
world!

This is Crampton! Would you know it? Ten
years have revolutionized it. Within that time, a track
of iron has been laid along its border, over which the
engine drags its ponderous burdens. Even now, the
whistle sounds, and the people—a new and peculiar
people—rush to catch the daily papers. Where once
stood the little hotel, so distinguishing a feature of the
social life of the village, stands now a large brick structure,
with a flag run up from its observatory, and a
Chinese gong in the hall. Ten years ago, Crampton
had but one church; now it has five. The railroad has
introduced “the foreign element;” and there is a new
structure, with a cross upon the top, as the result. The
Methodists and Baptists and Episcopalians have all
built churches, for which they are very deeply in debt,
and for which “children yet unborn” will be obliged to
pay. There are new streets cut in all directions, and
there is a flaming row of stores, in which financial ruin
is imminent, if we may judge by the placards in the

windows. One is “selling off to close the concern;”
one is “selling off at less than cost;” one advertises
“goods to be given away;” and another, after
denouncing all its competitors as “slow,” declares its
determination to undersell them to such a degree as to
drive them from the place, the whole of them being,
even now, on the verge of suicidal despair. The smart
and smiling young men behind the counters are evidently
not fully aware of the fate that awaits them, but
that only makes the matter worse.

Hucklebury Run has not been allowed to lie in
ruins, but has passed into the hands of a Boston company,
and many of the old operatives are back in the
old place—the old place made new and comfortable.
The widow Ruggles still resides in her little cottage, in
the enjoyment of the income from her bank stock, which
has been considerably increased by the amount saved
from the wreck of the old proprietor's fortune. The
enterprising woman has failed in her persistent efforts
to secure a man to take the place of her departed
“pardner,” but is by no means discouraged.

Dr. Gilbert and Aunt Catharine are greatly changed.
The little black pony died years ago, and the old gig
passed out of sight with him. The rheumatism has
dealt harshly with the old doctor, but has not so severely
injured his feelings as the young physicians,
assisted by certain homœopathists and eclectics, and
Thompsonians, and Indian doctors, who cut his practice
in a great many pieces, and vex his righteous soul by
their innovations. Still he stumps about upon his
farm; but his hair is gray, and he carries a cane, not as
a matter of habit, but of necessity. He has fought

against his calamities bravely, and the children will tell
you where he has cut a hole in the ice in the winter, for
the bath by which he has tried to rouse his failing constitution
into new vigor. As his strength has declined,
and his business died away, he has turned his thoughts
more and more upon his children, and particularly upon
his boy Fred, now a young man and in college. To see
him shine as the leader of his class, and the star of his
pride, is now his great ambition. Through all his boyhood
and young manhood, he has pushed this favorite
child to the most exhausting effort, and finds his exceeding
great reward in a degree of progress that secures
the enthusiastic praise of the college faculty. The letters
which he receives from the college, he exhibits to
his old friends and neighbors, on all occasions, for he
carries them in his pocket all the time.

Big Joslyn has become quite bald, and there is
no longer any hair to braid upon his temples. His
children are grown up around him. One or two are
away at school. Others are in the employ of the railroad
company. Others still are gone to work upon
farms, where they are to remain until twenty-one. Mr.
Joslyn himself tends the switches at the Crampton station,
and, in his movements among the rails, takes good
care never to waken a sleeping locomotive, always rising
to his toes at the “sh-h-h-h” of the hissing steam.
Mrs. Joslyn has become a smart and well-dressed
woman, and takes care of a snug little house which is
the envy of her neighbors. The family generally has
been getting thrifty in the world. Mr. Joslyn's wages
have improved, the children are earning more than the
cost of their living, and a pair of genteel boarders occupy

a suite of rooms in their modest dwelling. These
latter are no other than Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Lampson.
Mr. Lampson carries a gold watch, with a gold
chain, wears upon his bosom a diamond pin, and ornaments
the third finger of his left hand with an
immense seal-ring. Mr. Lampson is “the popular
and gentlemanly conductor of the Crampton and Londonderry
Railroad,” and was once known familiarly to
the reader as “Cheek.” Before the dawn of this gentleman's
popularity and importance, the old sobriquet
has gradually faded out. The president and superintendent
of the road call him “Tom,” but few approach
him with so much familiarity. Everybody likes him,
and everybody admits his claim to the possession of the
handsomest wife “on the road.” Mrs. Lampson has
“ripened” according to his expectations. She is now
twenty-five, has been married only two years, and is
learning to play upon the piano. She always goes out
to the platform when the train comes in, and the passengers
ask Mr. Lampson who she is; and he takes a
great deal of pride in informing them indefinitely, but
very significantly, that she belongs to a man “about his
size.”

In that neat little dwelling across the common still
reside Mrs. Blague and her two sons, Arthur and Jamie.
We hesitate to unveil the changes that have occurred
there. The widow has become a shadow even of her
former self. She takes a degree of pride in Arthur, but
leans upon him like a child. His will is her law, and
she knows no other—desires to know no other. Ten
years of pain and anxiety and watching have broken her
to the earth, though they have strengthened and purified

her manly son. The sprightly child that sprang from
the window when we last saw him, has, by that accident,
become a helpless, emaciated creature, without the
power to speak a word or move a limb. The neighbors,
as they pass the door, hear the sound of gurgling,
painful breathing—hear it at any time in the day, and
at any time in the night—hear Arthur's words of cheer
and endearment—and they sigh, and say, “Poor boy!
Noble man!” But none go in to see the poor boy and
help the noble man. The noble man does not wish it,
and they shrink from the pain which their sympathy
would excite.

Still subordinate, still nursing, still doing woman's
work! Still the life of Arthur Blague is devoted to the
weak and the suffering. His mates have won their
early honors, established themselves in their callings
and professions, married their wives, and still he lingers
behind, bound by the ties of nature and Christian duty
to those he loves. Yet on the basis of this self-sacrifice
has he been building, almost unconsciously, a character
so sound, so sweet, so symmetrical, that every one who
knows him regards him with a tender respect that
verges upon veneration. Days and weeks and months
and years, has he spent with the invalid brother on his
knee, and a book in his hand. He has seen no college;
but he is educated. He has had no discipline, according
to the formularies of the schools; but he has a mind
which, slowly compacted in its powers, and trained to
labor, by necessity, amid a thousand distractions, is the
marvel of all who come into contact with him. The
years as they have passed over him have added to his
growth. Patiently doing his daily duty, and accomplishing

his daily work, he has left results in the hand
of his Master, and waited for the mission toward which
he has felt for many years that his discipline was leading
him.

Since first, under the influence of the good angel
whom Providence brought into his mother's dwelling,
he devoted himself to Heaven, he has entertained
the desire to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ—the
noblest and most glorious function of a consecrated
human life. This desire shaped itself, as time passed
on, into determination, and determination was merged
at length into definite project. He has seen no theological
school; he has won no laurels; he has embraced
no system. With him, Christianity is a life. It has
grown up in him, it has possessed him. In daily study
of the Bible, and daily contact with human want, as seen
in his own life and in the life around him, he has learned
the secret of religion, and the power of the sacred office
he has chosen. He has learned that the power of
preaching resides not in the defence of creeds and the
maintenance of dogmas, but in the presentation of motives
to purity, and truth, and self-abnegation. He has
learned that the office of Christianity is to import
divine life into human life; and, as a minister of Christianity,
he has learned that sympathy with the suffering,
and service for the weak, and knowledge and love of the
common human life that surrounds him, place him
where he can deal out the Bread of Life as it is needed,
to hearts that recognize his credentials. With a heart
full of charity, and with sympathies that embrace all
the forms of humanity around him—sympathies won by
participation in their trials—every word that falls from

his lips bears the stamp of sincerity, and is redolent of
the true life of which it is the issue.

Already is Arthur Blague licensed to preach. Already
has he preached in Crampton. Already is he
talked about in vacant parishes, as the most promising
man of the region. But still he lingers at home. His
work is not done there yet; and his first duty is for
those who are in his care. The feeble mother is to be
supported, and the poor, misshapen brother is to be attended.
Day and night he watches, yet when he walks
abroad, the smile of a heart at peace with itself, with
God, and with the world, sits upon his countenance.
Up through contumely and suffering and disappointment,
this vigorous life has pushed its way, and they
have fallen to its feet and fed its growth; and henceforth
there is nothing in contumely and suffering and
disappointment to do it harm. Whatever of base material
this life touches, it transforms into nutriment, and
assimilates to the elements of its own vitality.

If we look in upon a New York household, situated
in the most opulent and fashionable quarter of the city,
we shall find in the brown-stone dwelling of Mr. Kilgore
not only Mr. Frank Sargent and his wife, but three
beautiful children, who cling to their grandfather's knee,
or engage in rare frolics with their still boyish father;
while the sweet mother, to whom maternity, and a satisfied
love, have only added a broader, deeper, and tenderer
charm, looks on and smiles in her old delightful
way. Nominally, Mr. Kilgore is still at the head of his
business. He has the seat of honor in the counting-room,
and to him, in terms of respect, Mr. Frank Sargent,
who is his partner as well as his son, always appeals;

and Mr. Kilgore imagines that he manages every
thing as in the old times, when he tells his son to do
just as he thinks best. He walks back and forth to his
place of business, when he does not ride, leaning upon
Frank Sargent's arm. Not a word about the past has
ever been exchanged between them; but gradually, by
respectful assiduity, has the young man won upon the
old man, until he has become the very staff of his life.
The new blood introduced into the firm has increased
its business, and all are very prosperous.

In a little recess, apart from these, sits a queenly
young woman with a pile of newspapers and periodicals
in her lap—Miss Fanny Gilbert—whom ten years have
lifted into the grand beauty and maturity of twenty-seven.
The broad plaits of dark hair sweep back from
her brow, and her full form is rich with the blood of
womanhood. She sees nothing of the pleasant family
group upon which the young mother is gazing so happily
and contentedly. She does not hear the voices
of the children; for before her lie the critiques upon
her last book, which, in memory of her publisher's old
suggestion, she has entitled “Rhododendron.” She
has mingled with life. She has patiently waited until,
in the strength of her powers, she has felt competent to
make the trial which should decide her fate as an authoress.
She has tried, and has abundantly and gloriously
succeeded. She takes up one paper after another, and
all are crowded with praise. Beauties are indicated
that she had not even suspected. Quotations are made,
which, in the light of popular appreciation, glow with
new meaning to her. Her long-thirsting heart is surfeited
with praise. She is famous—she is a notoriety.

She knows that in twenty thousand homes “Rhododendron”
is passed impatiently from hand to hand, and
that in twenty thousand circles her name is spoken.
Every mail brings in applications for her autograph.
Parties are made by lion-lovers, where she may be exhibited.
She is gazed at in church; she is pointed at in
the street; clerks whisper her name to one another whenever
she enters a shop; her name and praise are the
current change of social life.

Miss Fanny Gilbert gathers her papers and pamphlets
in her hand with a sigh; and, bidding the family
group a good evening, ascends to her chamber. She
throws open the blinds of her window, and looks out
upon the street. Carriages with happy freights of men
and women are rolling homeward from their twilight
drives. Lovers are loitering arm in arm along the sidewalks.
She looks abroad over the city, and thinks that
in multitudes of dwellings “Rhododendron” is being
read—that thousands are speaking her name with praise,
and that no one of all those thousands loves her. She
feels, in her innermost consciousness, that she has drunk
every sweet that popular praise can give her—honest,
high-flavored, redundant praise—yet her heart yearns
toward some unattainable good—yearns, and is unsatisfied.
The fruit, that shone like gold high up upon the
boughs, is plucked at last, but it turns to ashes upon
her tongue.

She looks back upon the last ten years of her life,
and traces in memory the outlines of her career. She
has moved in fashionable circles; has been courted and
admired as a brilliant woman; she has clung to the
home of her New York friends, and been rather a visitor

than a resident of her own; she has sought for admiration,
and, with it, has won the ill-will of her own sex;
she has imperiously compelled the attentions of men
who were afraid of her; she has been received as a belle
in gay saloons, and won a multitude of heartless conquests;
yet, in all this time, among all favoring circumstances,
no honest man has come to her with a modest
confession of love, and a manly offer of his hand.

As she thinks of all this, and of the sorry results
that attend the perfect triumph of her plans, there come
back to her words spoken by Mary Kilgore years and
years ago—“Miss Gilbert, the time will come when
even one soul will be more than all the world to you—
when you would give all the praises of the world's thousand
millions—when you would give the sun, moon, and
stars, if they were yours, to monopolize the admiration,
the love, and the praise of one man.” Then she thinks
of those further words—“The great world is fickle, and
must be so. It lifts its idols to their pedestals, and
worships them for an hour; then kicks them off, and
grinds them into ruin, that other and fresher objects of
worship may take their places.” She sees herself the
idol of the hour, and feels in her sad and sickening soul,
that in a year her name will begin to vanish from the
public mind, and another name will be uppermost.
The prize so long toiled for and waited for, not only
fails to content her now, but melts away, even in her
hands, and passes to others.

Never in her life has Fanny Gilbert felt so lonely
as now. The triumph of her life is the great defeat of
her life. She has achieved all she has labored for, and
gained nothing that she really desired. She looks forward,

and her life is a blank. How can it be filled?
What shall she labor for hereafter? Is her life to be a
waste? Is this longing for some satisfying good forever
to remain unrealized? Ah! how the gray, fixed eyes
grow soft and blue once more! How the woman's
nature, kept so long in abeyance, asserts itself! How
ambition fades away, and love of freedom dies in the
desire for bondage, and self-sufficient independence longs
to lean upon, and hide its head, in some great nature!
She begins to comprehend the magnitude of a manly
soul, and the worth of a permanent, never-dying affection
that survives all changes, and blossoms sweetest
when the fickle world frowns darkest. She gets a
glimpse of that world of the affections in which one
heart outgrows a world and outweighs a universe.

The newspapers and reviews fall from her hands.
They have ceased, for the time at least, to be of value.
She descends the stairs again, and, in her altered mood,
the queenly Fanny seats herself upon a bench by the
side of Mary, and lays her head upon her lap. She
comes back to her whose life has been a daily lesson of
satisfied love and Christian duty. The children are
gone to bed. Mr. Kilgore has retired to his room, and
Mr. Frank Sargent is out upon an errand. Mary says
not a word, but leans over and kisses Miss Gilbert's
cheek, and is startled to find tears upon it. Then they
rise, and, with their arms around each other, as in the
old times in Mary's little chamber in Crampton, they
walk the spacious parlor and talk. Somehow, in this
embrace and the interchanges of affection that accompany
it, Fanny is soothed, and she retires to her bed at

last, thinking that there is something left to live for,
after all.

If we walk down Broadway, where the crowd is
thickest and the Babel voices are loudest, we shall, in
passing a certain door, hear a loud, harsh voice, going
on in a sing-song, professional way—uttering something,
we know not what—a coarse “blab-blab-blab,” that arrests
us, because we imagine we have heard the voice
before. We look in, and a square, red-faced man stands
upon a bench behind a counter, in a little box of a room
that is large enough to contain hardly more than the
half-dozen loafers assembled around the speaker. In
one hand the master of ceremonies holds elevated a
little gavel, and in the other a showy gold watch, which
he is making extraordinary efforts to dispose of at auction.
He engages our attention and addresses himself
to us; and, as we catch the wink of his eye, and read
the puffy outlines of his brazen face, we recognize our
old acquaintance, Mr. Dan Buck—the most notorious
Peter Funk in the city.

As we do not care to renew our acquaintance with
the reprobate, we turn and retrace our steps. The
hotels and saloons are ablaze with light, and here and
there we meet the painted creatures that prowl for prey
at this hour. On a corner, under the light of a street-lamp,
we see one of these, chatting with two or three
sailors. She is intoxicated, and is saying that which
makes her brutal audience laugh. As we come to
where the light falls full upon her face, we behold the
wreck of what was once the pride of the old proprietor
of Hucklebury Run. Poor Leonora!

Do you care to go back to the country and look

further? We have met others, but they have little interest
for us. Rev. Dr. Bloomer has been “settled”
three times since we saw him, but that is not remarkable.
Rev. Jonas Sliter has injured his voice, and become
an agent for a society which he started himself,
and which contemplates nothing less than the restoration
of the Jews to Jerusalem. In this way he proposes to
usher in the millennium. Thus far, he has only been
able to support himself upon his collections, but thinks
there is “great encouragement for prayer.” Rev. J.
Desilver Newman is not yet married. He has always
been a beau, but somehow none of the young women
love him. He has the name of being a fortune-hunter,
so that all the rich shun him from fear, and the poor
from spite. He dresses very well indeed, and is supposed
to be vain.

Thus we have our characters again. Some of them
we have seen for the last time, and we bid them farewell
without regret, glad to drop the burden, and commune
alone with those whom we love.