 | Pierre, or, The ambiguities |  |
2. BOOK II.
LOVE, DELIGHT, AND ALARM.
I.
On the previous evening, Pierre had arranged with Lucy the
plan of a long winding ride, among the hills which stretched
around to the southward from the wide plains of Saddle-Meadows.
Though the vehicle was a sexagenarian, the animals that
drew it, were but six-year colts. The old phaeton had outlasted
several generations of its drawers.
Pierre rolled beneath the village elms in billowy style, and
soon drew up before the white cottage door. Flinging his reins
upon the ground he entered the house.
The two colts were his particular and confidential friends;
born on the same land with him, and fed with the same corn,
which, in the form of Indian-cakes, Pierre himself was often
wont to eat for breakfast. The same fountain that by one branch
supplied the stables with water, by another supplied Pierre's
pitcher. They were a sort of family cousins to Pierre, those
horses; and they were splendid young cousins; very showy in
their redundant manes and mighty paces, but not at all vain or
arrogant. They acknowledged Pierre as the undoubted head
of the house of Glendinning. They well knew that they were
but an inferior and subordinate branch of the Glendinnings,
bound in perpetual feudal fealty to its headmost representative.
run from Pierre; they were impatient in their paces, but very
patient in the halt. They were full of good-humor too, and
kind as kittens.
“Bless me, how can you let them stand all alone that way,
Pierre,” cried Lucy, as she and Pierre stepped forth from the
cottage door, Pierre laden with shawls, parasol, reticule, and a
small hamper.
“Wait a bit,” cried Pierre, dropping his load; “I will show
you what my colts are.”
So saying, he spoke to them mildly, and went close up to
them, and patted them. The colts neighed; the nigh colt
neighing a little jealously, as if Pierre had not patted impartially.
Then, with a low, long, almost inaudible whistle, Pierre got
between the colts, among the harness. Whereat Lucy started,
and uttered a faint cry, but Pierre told her to keep perfectly
quiet, for there was not the least danger in the world. And
Lucy did keep quiet; for somehow, though she always started
when Pierre seemed in the slightest jeopardy, yet at bottom
she rather cherished a notion that Pierre bore a charmed life,
and by no earthly possibility could die from her, or experience
any harm, when she was within a thousand leagues.
Pierre, still between the horses, now stepped upon the pole
of the phaeton; then stepping down, indefinitely disappeared,
or became partially obscured among the living colonnade of the
horses' eight slender and glossy legs. He entered the colonnade
one way, and after a variety of meanderings, came out another
way; during all of which equestrian performance, the two
colts kept gayly neighing, and good-humoredly moving their
heads perpendicularly up and down; and sometimes turning
them sideways toward Lucy; as much as to say—We understand
young master; we understand him, Miss; never fear,
pretty lady: why, bless your delicious little heart, we played
with Pierre before you ever did.
“Are you afraid of their running away now, Lucy?” said
Pierre, returning to her.
“Not much, Pierre; the superb fellows! Why, Pierre, they
have made an officer of you—look!” and she pointed to two
foam-flakes epauletting his shoulders. “Bravissimo again! I
called you my recruit, when you left my window this morning,
and here you are promoted.”
“Very prettily conceited, Lucy. But see, you don't admire
their coats; they wear nothing but the finest Genoa
velvet, Lucy. See! did you ever see such well-groomed
horses?”
“Never!”
“Then what say you to have them for my groomsmen,
Lucy? Glorious groomsmen they would make, I declare.
They should have a hundred ells of white favors all over their
manes and tails; and when they drew us to church, they
would be still all the time scattering white favors from their
mouths, just as they did here on me. Upon my soul, they
shall be my groomsmen, Lucy. Stately stags! playful dogs!
heroes, Lucy. We shall have no marriage bells; they shall
neigh for us, Lucy; we shall be wedded to the martial sound
of Job's trumpeters, Lucy. Hark! they are neighing now to
think of it.”
“Neighing at your lyrics, Pierre. Come, let us be off.
Here, the shawl, the parasol, the basket: what are you looking
at them so for?”
“I was thinking, Lucy, of the sad state I am in. Not six
months ago, I saw a poor affianced fellow, an old comrade of
mine, trudging along with his Lucy Tartan, a hillock of bundles
under either arm; and I said to myself—There goes a sumpter,
now; poor devil, he's a lover. And now look at me!
Well, life's a burden, they say; why not be burdened cheerily?
But look ye, Lucy, I am going to enter a formal declaration
and protest before matters go further with us. When we are
need; and what is more, when there are any of your young
lady acquaintances in sight, I am not to be unnecessarily
called upon to back up, and load for their particular edification.”
“Now I am really vexed with you, Pierre; that is the first
ill-natured innuendo I ever heard from you. Are there any of
my young lady acquaintances in sight now, I should like to
know?”
“Six of them, right over the way,” said Pierre; “but they
keep behind the curtains. I never trust your solitary village
streets, Lucy. Sharp-shooters behind every clap-board, Lucy.”
“Pray, then, dear Pierre, do let us be off!”
II.
While Pierre and Lucy are now rolling along under the
elms, let it be said who Lucy Tartan was. It is needless to
say that she was a beauty; because chestnut-haired, bright-cheeked
youths like Pierre Glendinning, seldom fall in love
with any but a beauty. And in the times to come, there must
be—as in the present times, and in the times gone by—some
splendid men, and some transcendent women; and how can
they ever be, unless always, throughout all time, here and there,
a handsome youth weds with a handsome maid?
But though owing to the above-named provisions of dame
Nature, there always will be beautiful women in the world; yet
the world will never see another Lucy Tartan. Her cheeks were
tinted with the most delicate white and red, the white predominating.
Her eyes some god brought down from heaven; her
hair was Danae's, spangled with Jove's shower; her teeth were
dived for in the Persian Sea.
If long wont to fix his glance on those who, trudging through
the humbler walks of life, and whom unequal toil and poverty
deform; if that man shall haply view some fair and
gracious daughter of the gods, who, from unknown climes of
loveliness and affluence, comes floating into sight, all symmetry
and radiance; how shall he be transported, that in a world so
full of vice and misery as ours, there should yet shine forth this
visible semblance of the heavens. For a lovely woman is not
entirely of this earth. Her own sex regard her not as such. A
crowd of women eye a transcendent beauty entering a room,
much as though a bird from Arabia had lighted on the window
sill. Say what you will, their jealousy—if any—is but an afterbirth
to their open admiration. Do men envy the gods? And
shall women envy the goddesses? A beautiful woman is born
Queen of men and women both, as Mary Stuart was born Queen
of Scots, whether men or women. All mankind are her Scots;
her leal clans are numbered by the nations. A true gentleman
in Kentucky would cheerfully die for a beautiful woman in Hindostan,
though he never saw her. Yea, count down his heart
in death-drops for her; and go to Pluto, that she might go to
Paradise. He would turn Turk before he would disown an allegiance
hereditary to all gentlemen, from the hour their Grand
Master, Adam, first knelt to Eve.
A plain-faced Queen of Spain dwells not in half the glory a
beautiful milliner does. Her soldiers can break heads, but her
Highness can not crack a heart; and the beautiful milliner might
string hearts for necklaces. Undoubtedly, Beauty made the
first Queen. If ever again the succession to the German Empire
should be contested, and one poor lame lawyer should present
the claims of the first excellingly beautiful woman he chanced
to see—she would thereupon be unanimously elected Empress
of the Holy Roman German Fmpire;—that is to say, if all the
Germans were true, free-hearted and magnanimous gentlemen,
at all capable of appreciating so immense an honor.
It is nonsense to talk of France as the seat of all civility.
Did not those French heathen have a Salique law? Three of
the most bewitching creatures,—immortal flowers of the line
of Valois—were excluded from the French throne by that infamous
provision. France, indeed! whose Catholic millions still
worship Mary Queen of Heaven; and for ten generations refused
cap and knee to many angel Maries, rightful Queens of
France. Here is cause for universal war. See how vilely nations,
as well as men, assume and wear unchallenged the
choicest titles, however without merit. The Americans, and
not the French, are the world's models of chivalry. Our
Salique Law provides that universal homage shall be paid all
beautiful women. No man's most solid rights shall weigh
against her airiest whims. If you buy the best seat in the
coach, to go and consult a doctor on a matter of life and death,
you shall cheerfully abdicate that best seat, and limp away on
foot, if a pretty woman, traveling, shake one feather from the
stage-house door.
Now, since we began by talking of a certain young lady that
went out riding with a certain youth; and yet find ourselves,
after leading such a merry dance, fast by a stage-house window;
—this may seem rather irregular sort of writing. But whither
indeed should Lucy Tartan conduct us, but among mighty
Queens, and all other creatures of high degree; and finally set
us roaming, to see whether the wide world can match so fine a
wonder. By immemorial usage, am I not bound to celebrate
this Lucy Tartan? Who shall stay me? Is she not my hero's
own affianced? What can be gainsaid? Where underneath
the tester of the night sleeps such another?
Yet, how would Lucy Tartan shrink from all this noise and
clatter! She is bragged of, but not brags. Thus far she hath
floated as stilly through this life, as thistle-down floats over
meadows. Noiseless, she, except with Pierre; and even with
him she lives through many a panting hush. Oh, those love-pauses
pauses precede the earthquake, and every other terrible commotion!
But blue be their sky awhile, and lightsome all
their chat, and frolicsome their humors.
Never shall I get down the vile inventory! How, if with
paper and with pencil I went out into the starry night to inventorize
the heavens? Who shall tell stars as teaspoons?
Who shall put down the charms of Lucy Tartan upon paper?
And for the rest; her parentage, what fortune she would
possess, how many dresses in her wardrobe, and how many
rings upon her fingers; cheerfully would I let the genealogists,
tax-gatherers, and upholsterers attend to that. My proper
province is with the angelical part of Lucy. But as in some
quarters, there prevails a sort of prejudice against angels, who
are merely angels and nothing more; therefore I shall martyrize
myself, by letting such gentlemen and ladies into some details
of Lucy Tartan's history.
She was the daughter of an early and most cherished friend
of Pierre's father. But that father was now dead, and she resided
an only daughter with her mother, in a very fine house
in the city. But though her home was in the city, her heart
was twice a year in the country. She did not at all love the
city and its empty, heartless, ceremonial ways. It was very
strange, but most eloquently significant of her own natural
angelhood that, though born among brick and mortar in a
sea-port, she still pined for unbaked earth and inland grass.
So the sweet linnet, though born inside of wires in a lady's
chamber on the ocean coast, and ignorant all its life of any
other spot; yet, when spring-time comes, it is seized with flutterings
and vague impatiences; it can not eat or drink for these
wild longings. Though unlearned by any experience, still the
inspired linnet divinely knows that the inland migrating time
has come. And just so with Lucy in her first longings for the
verdure. Every spring those wild flutterings shook her; every
grant that those other and long after nameless flutterings of
her inmost soul, when all life was become weary to her—God
grant, that those deeper flutterings in her were equally significant
of her final heavenly migration from this heavy earth.
It was fortunate for Lucy that her Aunt Lanyllyn—a pensive,
childless, white-turbaned widow—possessed and occupied
a pretty cottage in the village of Saddle Meadows; and still
more fortunate, that this excellent old aunt was very partial to
her, and always felt a quiet delight in having Lucy near her.
So Aunt Lanyllyn's cottage, in effect, was Lucy's. And now,
for some years past, she had annually spent several months at
Saddle Meadows; and it was among the pure and soft incitements
of the country that Pierre first had felt toward Lucy the
dear passion which now made him wholly hers.
Lucy had two brothers; one her senior, by three years, and
the other her junior by two. But these young men were
officers in the navy; and so they did not permanently live with
Lucy and her mother.
Mrs. Tartan was mistress of an ample fortune. She was,
moreover, perfectly aware that such was the fact, and was
somewhat inclined to force it upon the notice of other people,
nowise interested in the matter. In other words, Mrs. Tartan,
instead of being daughter-proud, for which she had infinite
reason, was a little inclined to being purse-proud, for which she
had not the slightest reason; seeing that the Great Mogul
probably possessed a larger fortune than she, not to speak of
the Shah of Persia and Baron Rothschild, and a thousand
other millionaires; whereas, the Grand Turk, and all their
other majesties of Europe, Asia, and Africa to boot, could not,
in all their joint dominions, boast so sweet a girl as Lucy.
Nevertheless, Mrs. Tartan was an excellent sort of lady, as this
lady-like world goes. She subscribed to charities, and owned five
pews in as many churches, and went about trying to promote the
people of her acquaintance marry one another. In other words,
she was a match-maker—not a Lucifer match-maker—though,
to tell the truth, she may have kindled the matrimonial blues
in certain dissatisfied gentlemen's breasts, who had been wedded
under her particular auspices, and by her particular advice.
Rumor said—but rumor is always fibbing—that there was a
secret society of dissatisfied young husbands, who were at the
pains of privately circulating handbills among all unmarried
young strangers, warning them against the insidious approaches
of Mrs. Tartan; and, for reference, named themselves in cipher.
But this could not have been true; for, flushed with a thousand
matches—burning blue or bright, it made little matter—Mrs.
Tartan sailed the seas of fashion, causing all topsails to lower to
her; and towing flotillas of young ladies, for all of whom she
was bound to find the finest husband harbors in the world.
But does not match-making, like charity, begin at home?
Why is her own daughter Lucy without a mate? But not so
fast; Mrs. Tartan years ago laid out that sweet programme
concerning Pierre and Lucy; but in this case, her programme
happened to coincide, in some degree, with a previous one in
heaven, and only for that cause did it come to pass, that Pierre
Glendinning was the proud elect of Lucy Tartan. Besides, this
being a thing so nearly affecting herself, Mrs. Tartan had, for
the most part, been rather circumspect and cautious in all her
manœuvrings with Pierre and Lucy. Moreover, the thing demanded
no manœuvring at all. The two Platonic particles,
after roaming in quest of each other, from the time of Saturn
and Ops till now; they came together before Mrs. Tartan's own
eyes; and what more could Mrs. Tartan do toward making
them forever one and indivisible? Once, and only once, had a
dim suspicion passed through Pierre's mind, that Mrs. Tartan
was a lady thimble-rigger, and slyly rolled the pea.
In their less mature acquaintance, he was breakfasting with
been poured out by Mrs. Tartan, when she declared she smelt
matches burning somewhere in the house, and she must see
them extinguished. So banning all pursuit, she rose to seek
for the burning matches, leaving the pair alone to interchange
the civilities of the coffee; and finally sent word to them, from
above stairs, that the matches, or something else, had given her
a headache, and begged Lucy to send her up some toast and
tea, for she would breakfast in her own chamber that morning.
Upon this, Pierre looked from Lucy to his boots, and as he
lifted his eyes again, saw Anacreon on the sofa on one side of
him, and Moore's Melodies on the other, and some honey on
the table, and a bit of white satin on the floor, and a sort of
bride's veil on the chandelier.
Never mind though—thought Pierre, fixing his gaze on
Lucy—I'm entirely willing to be caught, when the bait is set in
Paradise, and the bait is such an angel. Again he glanced at
Lucy, and saw a look of infinite subdued vexation, and some
unwonted pallor on her cheek. Then willingly he would have
kissed the delicious bait, that so gently hated to be tasted in
the trap. But glancing round again, and seeing that the music,
which Mrs. Tartan, under the pretense of putting in order,
had been adjusting upon the piano; seeing that this music was
now in a vertical pile against the wall, with—“Love was once a
little boy,” for the outermost and only visible sheet; and thinking
this to be a remarkable coincidence under the circumstances;
Pierre could not refrain from a humorous smile, though
it was a very gentle one, and immediately repented of, especially
as Lucy seeing and interpreting it, immediately arose,
with an unaccountable, indignant, angelical, adorable, and allpersuasive
“Mr. Glendinning?” utterly confounded in him the
slightest germ of suspicion as to Lucy's collusion in her mother's
imagined artifices.
Indeed, Mrs. Tartan's having any thing whatever to do, or
was nothing less than immensely gratuitous and sacrilegious.
Would Mrs. Tartan doctor lilies when they blow? Would Mrs.
Tartan set about match-making between the steel and magnet?
Preposterous Mrs. Tartan! But this whole world is a preposterous
one, with many preposterous people in it; chief among
whom was Mrs. Tartan, match-maker to the nation.
This conduct of Mrs. Tartan, was the more absurd, seeing that
she could not but know that Mrs. Glendinning desired the
thing. And was not Lucy wealthy?—going to be, that is, very
wealthy when her mother died;—(sad thought that for Mrs.
Tartan)—and was not her husband's family of the best; and
had not Lucy's father been a bosom friend of Pierre's father?
And though Lucy might be matched to some one man, where
among women was the match for Lucy? Exceedingly preposterous
Mrs. Tartan! But when a lady like Mrs. Tartan has
nothing positive and useful to do, then she will do just such
preposterous things as Mrs. Tartan did.
Well, time went on; and Pierre loved Lucy, and Lucy,
Pierre; till at last the two young naval gentlemen, her brothers,
happened to arrive in Mrs. Tartan's drawing-room, from
their first cruise—a three years' one up the Mediterranean.
They rather stared at Pierre, finding him on the sofa, and Lucy
not very remote.
“Pray, be seated, gentlemen,” said Pierre. “Plenty of
room.”
“My darling brothers!” cried Lucy, embracing them.
“My darling brothers and sister!” cried Pierre, folding them
together.
“Pray, hold off, sir,” said the elder brother, who had served
as a passed midshipman for the last two weeks. The younger
brother retreated a little, and clapped his hand upon his dirk,
saying, “Sir, we are from the Mediterranean. Sir, permit me
to say, this is decidedly improper! Who may you be, sir?”
“I can't explain for joy,” cried Pierre, hilariously embracing
them all again.
“Most extraordinary!” cried the elder brother, extricating his
shirt-collar from the embrace, and pulling it up vehemently.
“Draw!” cried the younger, intrepidly.
“Peace, foolish fellows,” cried Lucy—“this is your old playfellow,
Pierre Glendinning.”
“Pierre? why, Pierre?” cried the lads—“a hug all round
again! You've grown a fathom!—who would have known
you? But, then—Lucy? I say, Lucy?—what business have
you here in this—eh? eh?—hugging-match, I should call it?”
“Oh! Lucy don't mean any thing,” cried Pierre—“come,
one more all round.”
So they all embraced again; and that evening it was publicly
known that Pierre was to wed with Lucy.
Whereupon, the young officers took it upon themselves to
think—though they by no means presumed to breathe it—that
they had authoritatively, though indirectly, accelerated a before
ambiguous and highly incommendable state of affairs between
the now affianced lovers.
III.
In the fine old robust times of Pierre's grandfather, an American
gentleman of substantial person and fortune spent his time
in a somewhat different style from the green-house gentlemen
of the present day. The grandfather of Pierre measured six
feet four inches in height; during a fire in the old manorial
mansion, with one dash of his foot, he had smitten down an
oaken door, to admit the buckets of his negro slaves; Pierre
had often tried on his military vest, which still remained an
heirloom at Saddle Meadows, and found the pockets below
within its buttoned girth; in a night-scuffle in the wilderness
before the Revolutionary War, he had annihilated two Indian
savages by making reciprocal bludgeons of their heads.
And all this was done by the mildest hearted, and most blue-eyed
gentleman in the world, who, according to the patriarchal
fashion of those days, was a gentle, white-haired worshiper of
all the household gods; the gentlest husband, and the gentlest
father; the kindest of masters to his slaves; of the most wonderful
unruffledness of temper; a serene smoker of his after-dinner
pipe; a forgiver of many injuries; a sweet-hearted,
charitable Christian; in fine, a pure, cheerful, childlike, blue-eyed,
divine old man; in whose meek, majestic soul, the lion
and the lamb embraced—fit image of his God.
Never could Pierre look upon his fine military portrait without
an infinite and mournful longing to meet his living aspect
in actual life. The majestic sweetness of this portrait was truly
wonderful in its effects upon any sensitive and generous-minded
young observer. For such, that portrait possessed the heavenly
persuasiveness of angelic speech; a glorious gospel framed and
hung upon the wall, and declaring to all people, as from the
Mount, that man is a noble, god-like being, full of choicest
juices; made up of strength and beauty.
Now, this grand old Pierre Glendinning was a great lover of
horses; but not in the modern sense, for he was no jockey;—
one of his most intimate friends of the masculine gender was a
huge, proud, gray horse, of a surprising reserve of manner, his
saddle-beast; he had his horses' mangers carved like old trenchers,
out of solid maple logs; the key of the corn-bin hung
in his library; and no one grained his steeds, but himself; unless
his absence from home promoted Moyar, an incorruptible
and most punctual old black, to that honorable office. He said
that no man loved his horses, unless his own hands grained
them. Every Christmas he gave them brimming measures. “I
grand old Pierre always rose at sunrise; washed his face and
chest in the open air; and then, returning to his closet, and being
completely arrayed at last, stepped forth to make a ceremonious
call at his stables, to bid his very honorable friends
there a very good and joyful morning. Woe to Cranz, Kit,
Douw, or any other of his stable slaves, if grand old Pierre
found one horse unblanketed, or one weed among the hay that
filled their rack. Not that he ever had Cranz, Kit, Douw, or
any of them flogged—a thing unknown in that patriarchal time
and country—but he would refuse to say his wonted pleasant
word to them; and that was very bitter to them, for Cranz,
Kit, Douw, and all of them, loved grand old Pierre, as his
shepherds loved old Abraham.
What decorous, lordly, gray-haired steed is this? What
old Chaldean rides abroad?—'Tis grand old Pierre; who, every
morning before he eats, goes out promenading with his saddle-beast;
nor mounts him, without first asking leave. But time
glides on, and grand old Pierre grows old: his life's glorious
grape now swells with fatness; he has not the conscience to
saddle his majestic beast with such a mighty load of manliness.
Besides, the noble beast himself is growing old, and has a
touching look of meditativeness in his large, attentive eyes.
Leg of man, swears grand old Pierre, shall never more bestride
my steed; no more shall harness touch him! Then every
spring he sowed a field with clover for his steed; and at midsummer
sorted all his meadow grasses, for the choicest hay to
winter him; and had his destined grain thrashed out with a
flail, whose handle had once borne a flag in a brisk battle, into
which this same old steed had pranced with grand old Pierre;
one waving mane, one waving sword!
Now needs must grand old Pierre take a morning drive; he
rides no more with the old gray steed. He has a phaeton
built, fit for a vast General, in whose sash three common men
springs; the wheels seem stolen from some mill; the canopied
seat is like a testered bed. From beneath the old archway, not
one horse, but two, every morning now draw forth old Pierre,
as the Chinese draw their fat god Josh, once every year from
out his fane.
But time glides on, and a morning comes, when the phaeton
emerges not; but all the yards and courts are full; helmets
line the ways; sword-points strike the stone steps of the porch;
muskets ring upon the stairs; and mournful martial melodies
are heard in all the halls. Grand old Pierre is dead; and like
a hero of old battles, he dies on the eve of another war; ere
wheeling to fire on the foe, his platoons fire over their old commander's
grave; in A. D. 1812, died grand old Pierre. The
drum that beat in brass his funeral march, was a British kettledrum,
that had once helped beat the vain-glorious march, for
the thirty thousand predestined prisoners, led into sure captivity
by that bragging boy, Burgoyne.
Next day the old gray steed turned from his grain; turned
round, and vainly whinnied in his stall. By gracious Moyar's
hand, he refuses to be patted now; plain as horse can speak,
the old gray steed says—“I smell not the wonted hand; where
is grand old Pierre? Grain me not, and groom me not;—
Where is grand old Pierre?”
He sleeps not far from his master now; beneath the field
he cropt, he has softly lain him down; and long ere this,
grand old Pierre and steed have passed through that grass to
glory.
But his phaeton—like his plumed hearse, outlives the noble
load it bore. And the dark bay steeds that drew grand old
Pierre alive, and by his testament drew him dead, and followed
the lordly lead of the led gray horse; those dark bay
steeds are still extant; not in themselves or in their issue; but
in the two descendants of stallions of their own breed. For
and this bright morning Pierre Glendinning, grandson
of grand old Pierre, now drives forth with Lucy Tartan, seated
where his own ancestor had sat, and reining steeds, whose
great-great-great-grandfathers grand old Pierre had reined before.
How proud felt Pierre: In fancy's eye, he saw the horse-ghosts
a-tandem in the van; “These are but wheelers”—cried
young Pierre—“the leaders are the generations.”
IV.
But Love has more to do with his own possible and probable
posterities, than with the once living but now impossible ancestries
in the past. So Pierre's glow of family pride quickly gave
place to a deeper hue, when Lucy bade love's banner blush out
from his cheek.
That morning was the choicest drop that Time had in his
vase. Ineffable distillations of a soft delight were wafted from
the fields and hills. Fatal morning that, to all lovers unbetrothed;
“Come to your confessional,” it cried. “Behold our
airy loves,” the birds chirped from the trees; far out at sea, no
more the sailors tied their bowline-knots; their hands had lost
their cunning; will they, nill they, Love tied love-knots on
every spangled spar.
Oh, praised be the beauty of this earth, the beauty, and the
bloom, and the mirthfulness thereof! The first worlds made
were winter worlds; the second made, were vernal worlds; the
third, and last, and perfectest, was this summer world of ours.
In the cold and nether spheres, preachers preach of earth, as
we of Paradise above. Oh, there, my friends, they say, they
have a season, in their language known as summer. Then
not in all the land; then a million strange, bright, fragnant
things powder that sward with perfumes; and high, majestic
beings, dumb and grand, stand up with outstretched arms, and
hold their green canopies over merry angels—men and women
—who love and wed, and sleep and dream, beneath the approving
glances of thier visible god and goddess, glad-hearted
sun, and pensive moon!
Oh, praised be the beauty of this earth; the beauty, and the
bloom, and the mirthfulness thereof. We lived before, and
shall live again; and as we hope for a fairer world than this
to come; so we came from one less fine. From each successive
world, the demon Principle is more and more dislodged;
he is the accursed clog from chaos, and thither, by every new
translation, we drive him further and further back again. Hosannahs
to this world! so beautiful itself, and the vestibule to
more. Out of some past Egypt, we have come to this new
Canaan; and from this new Canaan, we press on to some Circassia.
Though still the villains, Want and Woe, followed us
out of Egypt, and now beg in Canaan's streets: yet Circassia's
gates shall not admit them; they, with their sire, the demon
Principle, must back to chaos, whence they came.
Love was first begot by Mirth and Peace, in Eden, when the
world was young. The man oppressed with cares, he can not
love; the man of gloom finds not the god. So, as youth, for
the most part, has no cares, and knows no gloom, therefore,
ever since time did begin, youth belongs to love. Love may
end in grief and age, and pain and need, and all other mode
s of human mournfulness; but love begins in joy. Love's first
sigh is never breathed, till after love hath laughed. Love
laughs first, and then sighs after. Love has not hands, but
cymbals; Love's mouth is chambered like a bugle, and the
instinctive breathings of his life breathe jubilee notes of joy!
That morning, two bay horses drew two Laughs along the
they kept; Pierre Glendinning's young, manly tenor, to Lucy
Tartan's girlish treble.
Wondrous fair of face, blue-eyed, and golden-haired, the
bright blonde, Lucy, was arrayed in colors harmonious with the
heavens. Light blue be thy perpetual color, Lucy; light blue
becomes thee best—such the repeated azure counsel of Lucy
Tartan's mother. On both sides, from the hedges, came to
Pierre the clover bloom of Saddle Meadows, and from Lucy's
mouth and cheek came the fresh fragrance of her violet young
being.
“Smell I the flowers, or thee?” cried Pierre.
“See I lakes, or eyes?” cried Lucy, her own gazing down
into his soul, as two stars gaze down into a tarn.
No Cornwall miner ever sunk so deep a shaft beneath the
sea, as Love will sink beneath the floatings of the eyes. Love
sees ten million fathoms down, till dazzled by the floor of pearls.
The eye is Love's own magic glass, where all things that are
not of earth, glide in supernatural light. There are not so
many fishes in the sea, as there are sweet images in lovers' eyes.
In those miraculous translucencies swim the strange eye-fish
with wings, that sometimes leap out, instinct with joy; moist
fish-wings wet the lover's cheek. Love's eyes are holy things;
therein the mysteries of life are lodged; looking in each other's
eyes, lovers see the ultimate secret of the worlds; and with
thrills eternally untranslatable, feel that Love is god of all.
Man or woman who has never loved, nor once looked deep
down into their own lover's eyes, they know not the sweetest
and the loftiest religion of this earth. Love is both Creator's
and Saviour's gospel to mankind; a volume bound in roseleaves,
clasped with violets, and by the beaks of humming-birds
printed with peach-juice on the leaves of lilies.
Endless is the account of Love. Time and space can not contain
Love's story. All things that are sweet to see, or taste, or
other things were made by Love. Love made not the Arctic
zones, but Love is ever reclaiming them. Say, are not the
fierce things of this earth daily, hourly going out? Where
now are your wolves of Britain? Where in Virginia now, find
you the panther and the pard? Oh, love is busy everywhere.
Everywhere Love hath Moravian missionaries. No Propagandist
like to love. The south wind wooes the barbarous north;
on many a distant shore the gentler west wind persuades the
arid east.
All this Earth is Love's affianced; vainly the demon Principle
howls to stay the banns. Why round her middle wears
this world so rich a zone of torrid verdure, if she be not dressing
for the final rites? And why provides she orange blossoms
and lilies of the valley, if she would not that all men and maids
should love and marry? For every wedding where true lovers
wed, helps on the march of universal Love. Who are brides
here shall be Love's bridemaids in the marriage world to
come. So on all sides Love allures; can contain himself what
youth who views the wonders of the beauteous woman-world?
Where a beautiful woman is, there is all Asia and her Bazars.
Italy hath not a sight before the beauty of a Yankee girl; nor
heaven a blessing beyond her earthly love. Did not the angelical
Lotharios come down to earth, that they might taste of
mortal woman's Love and Beauty? even while her own silly
brothers were pining after the self-same Paradise they left?
Yes, those envying angels did come down; did emigrate; and
who emigrates except to be better off?
Love is this world's great redeemer and reformer; and as all
beautiful women are her selectest emissaries, so hath Love
gifted them with a magnetical persuasiveness, that no youth
can possibly repel. The own heart's choice of every youth,
seems ever as an inscrutable witch to him; and by ten thousand
concentric spells and circling incantations, glides round
import; and summoning up to him all the subterranean
sprites and gnomes; and unpeopling all the sea for naiads to
swim round him; so that mysteries are evoked as in exhalations
by this Love;—what wonder then that Love was aye a
mystic?
V.
And this self-same morning Pierre was very mystical; not
continually, though; but most mystical one moment, and overflowing
with mad, unbridled merriment, the next. He seemed
a youthful Magian, and almost a mountebank together. Chaldaic
improvisations burst from him, in quick Golden Verses,
on the heel of humorous retort and repartee. More especially,
the bright glance of Lucy was transporting to him. Now,
reckless of his horses, with both arms holding Lucy in his embrace,
like a Sicilian diver he dives deep down in the Adriatic
of her eyes, and brings up some king's-cup of joy. All the
waves in Lucy's eyes seemed waves of infinite glee to him. And
as if, like veritable seas, they did indeed catch the reflected irradiations
of that pellucid azure morning; in Lucy's eyes, there
seemed to shine all the blue glory of the general day, and all
the sweet inscrutableness of the sky. And certainly, the blue
eye of woman, like the sea, is not uninfluenced by the atmosphere.
Only in the open air of some divinest, summer day,
will you see its ultramarine,—its fluid lapis lazuli. Then would
Pierre burst forth in some screaming shout of joy; and the
striped tigers of his chestnut eyes leaped in their lashed cages
with a fierce delight. Lucy shrank from him in extreme love;
for the extremest top of love, is Fear and Wonder.
Soon the swift horses drew this fair god and goddess nigh
the wooded hills, whose distant blue, now changed into a variously-shaded
walls, overgrown with verdure; while here and there, at regular
intervals, the scattered peaks seemed mural towers; and
the clumped pines surmounting them, as lofty archers, and
vast, out-looking watchers of the glorious Babylonian City of
the Day. Catching that hilly air, the prancing horses neighed;
laughed on the ground with gleeful feet. Felt they the gay
delightsome spurrings of the day; for the day was mad with
excessive joy; and high in heaven you heard the neighing of
the horses of the sun; and down dropt their nostrils' froth in
many a fleecy vapor from the hills.
From the plains, the mists rose slowly; reluctant yet to quit
so fair a mead. At those green slopings, Pierre reined in his
steeds, and soon the twain were seated on the bank, gazing far,
and far away; over many a grove and lake; corn-crested uplands,
and Herd's-grass lowlands; and long-stretching swales
of vividest green, betokening where the greenest bounty of this
earth seeks its winding channels; as ever, the most heavenly
bounteousness most seeks the lowly places; making green and
glad many a humble mortal's breast, and leaving to his own
lonely aridness, many a hill-top prince's state.
But Grief, not Joy, is a moralizer; and small moralizing
wisdom caught Pierre from that scene. With Lucy's hand in
his, and feeling, softly feeling of its soft tinglingness; he seemed
as one placed in linked correspondence with the summer lightnings;
and by sweet shock on shock, receiving intimating foretastes
of the etherealest delights of earth.
Now, prone on the grass he falls, with his attentive upward
glance fixed on Lucy's eyes. “Thou art my heaven, Lucy; and
here I lie thy shepherd-king, watching for new eye-stars to rise
in thee. Ha! I see Venus' transit now;—lo! a new planet
there;—and behind all, an infinite starry nebulousness, as if
thy being were backgrounded by some spangled vail of mystery.”
Is Lucy deaf to all these ravings of his lyric love? Why
looks she down, and vibrates so; and why now from her overcharged
lids, drops such warm drops as these? No joy now
in Lucy's eyes, and seeming tremor on her lips.
“Ah! thou too ardent and impetuous Pierre!”
“Nay, thou too moist and changeful April! know'st thou
not, that the moist and changeful April is followed by the glad,
assured, and showerless joy of June? And this, Lucy, this day
should be thy June, even as it is the earth's?”
“Ah Pierre! not June to me. But say, are not the sweets
of June made sweet by the April tears?”
“Ay, love! but here fall more drops,—more and more;—
these showers are longer than beseem the April, and pertain
not to the June.”
“June! June!—thou bride's month of the summer,—following
the spring's sweet courtship of the earth,—my June,
my June is yet to come!”
“Oh! yet to come, but fixedly decreed;—good as come,
and better.”
“Then no flower that, in the bud, the April showers have
nurtured; no such flower may untimely perish, ere the June
unfolds it? Ye will not swear that, Pierre?”
“The audacious immortalities of divinest love are in me;
and I now swear to thee all the immutable eternities of joyfulness,
that ever woman dreamed of, in this dream-house of the
earth. A god decrees to thee unchangeable felicity; and to me,
the unchallenged possession of thee and them, for my inalienable
fief.—Do I rave? Look on me, Lucy; think on me,
girl.”
“Thou art young, and beautiful, and strong; and a joyful
manliness invests thee, Pierre; and thy intrepid heart never
yet felt the touch of fear;—But—”
“But what?”
“Ah, my best Pierre!”
“With kisses I will suck thy secret from thy cheek!—but
what?”
“Let us hie homeward, Pierre. Some nameless sadness,
faintness, strangely comes to me. Foretaste I feel of endless
dreariness. Tell me once more the story of that face, Pierre,—
that mysterious, haunting face, which thou once told'st me,
thou didst thrice vainly try to shun. Blue is the sky, oh,
bland the air, Pierre;—but—tell me the story of the face,—the
dark-eyed, lustrous, imploring, mournful face, that so mystically
paled, and shrunk at thine. Ah, Pierre, sometimes I have
thought,—never will I wed with my best Pierre, until the
riddle of that face be known. Tell me, tell me, Pierre;—as a
fixed basilisk, with eyes of steady, flaming mournfulness, that
face this instant fastens me.”
“Bewitched! bewitched!—Cursed be the hour I acted on
the thought, that Love hath no reserves. Never should I have
told thee the story of that face, Lucy. I have bared myself
too much to thee. Oh, never should Love know all!”
“Knows not all, then loves not all, Pierre. Never shalt
thou so say again;—and Pierre, listen to me. Now,—now, in
this inexplicable trepidation that I feel, I do conjure thee,
that thou wilt ever continue to do as thou hast done; so that
I may ever continue to know all that agitatest thee, the airiest
and most transient thought, that ever shall sweep into thee
from the wide atmosphere of all things that hem mortality.
Did I doubt thee here;—could I ever think, that thy heart hath
yet one private nook or corner from me;—fatal disenchanting day
for me, my Pierre, would that be. I tell thee, Pierre—and 'tis
Love's own self that now speaks through me—only in unbounded
confidence and interchangings of all subtlest secrets,
can Love possibly endure. Love's self is a secret, and so feeds
on secrets, Pierre. Did I only know of thee, what the whole
common world may know—what then were Pierre to me?—
Thou must be wholly a disclosed secret to me; Love is vain
I must still be laughing and hugging to myself the thought,—
They know him not;—I only know my Pierre;—none else beneath
the circuit of you sun. Then, swear to me, dear Pierre,
that thou wilt never keep a secret from me—no, never, never;
—swear!”
“Something seizes me. Thy inexplicable tears, falling, falling
on my heart, have now turned it to a stone. I feel icy cold
and hard; I will not swear!”
“Pierre! Pierre!”
“God help thee, and God help me, Lucy. I can not think,
that in this most mild and dulcet air, the invisible agencies are
plotting treasons against our loves. Oh! if ye be now nigh
us, ye things I have no name for; then by a name that should
be efficacious—by Christ's holy name, I warn ye back from her
and me. Touch her not, ye airy devils; hence to your appointed
hell! why come ye prowling in these heavenly perlieus?
Can not the chains of Love omnipotent bind ye, fiends?”
“Is this Pierre? His eyes glare fearfully; now I see layer
on layer deeper in him; he turns round and menaces the air
and talks to it, as if defied by the air. Woe is me, that fairy
love should raise this evil spell!—Pierre?”
“But now I was infinite distances from thee, oh my Lucy,
wandering baffled in the choking night; but thy voice might
find me, though I had wandered to the Boreal realm, Lucy.
Here I sit down by thee; I catch a soothing from thee.”
“My own, own Pierre! Pierre, into ten trillion pieces I
could now be torn for thee; in my bosom would yet hide thee,
and there keep thee warm, though I sat down on Arctic ice-floes,
frozen to a corpse. My own, best, blessed Pierre! Now,
could I plant some poinard in me, that my silly ailings should
have power to move thee thus, and pain thee thus. Forgive
me, Pierre; thy changed face hath chased the other from me;
the fright of thee exceeds all other frights. It does not so
love, that its last trace may pass away. Now I feel almost
whole again; now, 'tis gone. Up, my Pierre; let us up, and
fly these hills, whence, I fear, too wide a prospect meets us.
Fly we to the plain. See, thy steeds neigh for thee—they call
thee—see, the clouds fly down toward the plain—lo, these hills
now seem all desolate to me, and the vale all verdure. Thank
thee, Pierre.—See, now, I quit the hills, dry-cheeked; and
leave all tears behind to be sucked in by these evergreens,
meet emblems of the unchanging love, my own sadness nourishes
in me. Hard fate, that Love's best verdure should feed
so on tears!”
Now they rolled swiftly down the slopes; nor tempted the
upper hills; but sped fast for the plain. Now the cloud hath
passed from Lucy's eye; no more the lurid slanting light forks
upward from her lover's brow. In the plain they find peace,
and love, and joy again.
“It was the merest, idling, wanton vapor, Lucy!”
“An empty echo, Pierre, of a sad sound, long past. Bless
thee, my Pierre!”
“The great God wrap thee ever, Lucy. So, now, we are
home.”
VI.
After seeing Lucy into her aunt's most cheerful parlor, and
seating her by the honeysuckle that half clambered into the
window there; and near to which was her easel for crayon-sketching,
upon part of whose frame Lucy had cunningly
trained two slender vines, into whose earth-filled pots two of
the three legs of the easel were inserted; and sitting down
himself by her, and by his pleasant, lightsome chat, striving to
seemed fully gained; Pierre rose to call her good aunt to her, and
so take his leave till evening, when Lucy called him back, begging
him first to bring her the blue portfolio from her chamber,
for she wished to kill her last lingering melancholy—if any indeed
did linger now—by diverting her thoughts, in a little
pencil sketch, to scenes widely different from those of Saddle
Meadows and its hills.
So Pierre went up stairs, but paused on the threshold of
the open door. He never had entered that chamber but with
feelings of a wonderful reverentialness. The carpet seemed as
holy ground. Every chair seemed sanctified by some departed
saint, there once seated long ago. Here his book of Love was
all a rubric, and said—Bow now, Pierre, bow. But this extreme
loyalty to the piety of love, called from him by such
glimpses of its most secret inner shrine, was not unrelieved betimes
by such quickenings of all his pulses, that in fantasy he
pressed the wide beauty of the world in his embracing arms;
for all his world resolved itself into his heart's best love for
Lucy.
Now, crossing the magic silence of the empty chamber, he
caught the snow-white bed reflected in the toilet-glass. This
rooted him. For one swift instant, he seemed to see in that
one glance the two separate beds—the real one and the reflected
one—and an unbidden, most miserable presentiment thereupon
stole into him. But in one breath it came and went. So
he advanced, and with a fond and gentle joyfulness, his eye
now fell upon the spotless bed itself, and fastened on a snow-white
roll that lay beside the pillow. Now he started; Lucy
seemed coming in upon him; but no—'tis only the foot of one
of her little slippers, just peeping into view from under the narrow
nether curtains of the bed. Then again his glance fixed
itself upon the slender, snow-white, ruffled roll; and he stood
as one enchanted. Never precious parchment of the Greek
longed more to unroll the mystic vellum, than Pierre longed to
unroll the sacred secrets of that snow-white, ruffled thing. But
his hands touched not any object in that chamber, except the
one he had gone thither for.
“Here is the blue portfolio, Lucy. See, the key hangs to its
silver lock;—were you not fearful I would open it?—'twas
tempting, I must confess.”
“Open it!” said Lucy—“why, yes, Pierre, yes; what secret
thing keep I from thee? Read me through and through. I
am entirely thine. See!” and tossing open the portfolio, all
manner of rosy things came floating from it, and a most delicate
perfume of some invisible essence.
“Ah! thou holy angel, Lucy!”
“Why, Pierre, thou art transfigured; thou now lookest as
one who—why, Pierre?”
“As one who had just peeped in at paradise, Lucy;
and—”
“Again wandering in thy mind, Pierre; no more—Come,
you must leave me, now. I am quite rested again. Quick,
call my aunt, and leave me. Stay, this evening we are to look
over the book of plates from the city, you know. Be early;—
go now, Pierre.”
“Well, good-bye, till evening, thou height of all delight.”
VII.
As Pierre drove through the silent village, beneath the vertical
shadows of the noon-day trees, the sweet chamber scene
abandoned him, and the mystical face recurred to him, and
kept with him. At last, arrived at home, he found his mother
absent; so passing straight through the wide middle hall of the
away in reveries down to the river bank.
Here one primeval pine-tree had been luckily left standing
by the otherwise unsparing woodmen, who long ago had cleared
that meadow. It was once crossing to this noble pine, from a
clump of hemlocks far across the river, that Pierre had first
noticed the significant fact, that while the hemlock and the pine
are trees of equal growth and stature, and are so similar in
their general aspect, that people unused to woods sometimes
confound them; and while both trees are proverbially trees of
sadness, yet the dark hemlock hath no music in its thoughtful
boughs; but the gentle pine-tree drops melodious mournfulness.
At its half-bared roots of sadness, Pierre sat down, and
marked the mighty bulk and far out-reaching length of one
particular root, which, straying down the bank, the storms and
rains had years ago exposed.
“How wide, how strong these roots must spread! Sure,
this pine-tree takes powerful hold of this fair earth! Yon
bright flower hath not so deep a root. This tree hath outlived
a century of that gay flower's generations, and will outlive a
century of them yet to come. This is most sad. Hark, now
I hear the pyramidical and numberless, flame-like complainings
of this Eolean pine;—the wind breathes now upon it:—the
wind,—that is God's breath! Is He so sad? Oh, tree! so
mighty thou, so lofty, yet so mournful! This is most strange!
Hark! as I look up into thy high secrecies, oh, tree, the face,
the face, peeps down on me!—`Art thou Pierre? Come to
me'—oh, thou mysterious girl,—what an ill-matched pendant
thou, to that other countenance of sweet Lucy, which also
hangs, and first did hang within my heart! Is grief a pendant
then to pleasantness? Is grief a self-willed guest that will
come in? Yet I have never known thee, Grief;—thou art a
legend to me. I have known some fiery broils of glorious
whence comes sadness; whence all delicious poetic presentiments;—but
thou, Grief! art still a ghost-story to me.
I know thee not,—do half disbelieve in thee. Not that I
would be without my too little cherished fits of sadness now
and then; but God keep me from thee, thou other shape of
far profounder gloom! I shudder at thee! The face!—the
face!—forth again from thy high secrecies, oh, tree! the face
steals down upon me. Mysterious girl! who art thou? by
what right snatchest thou thus my deepest thoughts? Take
thy thin fingers from me;—I am affianced, and not to thee.
Leave me!—what share hast thou in me? Surely, thou lovest
not me?—that were most miserable for thee, and me, and
Lucy. It can not be. What, who art thou? Oh! wretched
vagueness—too familiar to me, yet inexplicable,—unknown,
utterly unknown! I seem to founder in this perplexity. Thou
seemest to know somewhat of me, that I know not of myself,
—what is it then? If thou hast a secret in thy eyes of
mournful mystery, out with it; Pierre demands it; what is
that thou hast veiled in thee so imperfectly, that I seem to see
its motion, but not its form? It visibly rustles behind the
concealing screen. Now, never into the soul of Pierre, stole
there before, a muffledness like this! If aught really lurks
in it, ye sovereign powers that claim all my leal worshipings,
I conjure ye to lift the veil; I must see it face to face. Tread
I on a mine, warn me; advance I on a precipice, hold me
back; but abandon me to an unknown misery, that it shall
suddenly seize me, and possess me, wholly,—that ye will never
do; else, Pierre's fond faith in ye—now clean, untouched—
may clean depart; and give me up to be a railing atheist!
Ah, now the face departs. Pray heaven it hath not only
stolen back, and hidden again in thy high secrecies, oh tree!
But 'tis gone—gone—entirely gone; and I thank God, and I
feel joy again; joy, which I also feel to be my right as man;
with things invisible. Ha! a coat of iron-mail seems to grow
round, and husk me now; and I have heard, that the bitterest
winters are foretold by a thicker husk upon the Indian corn;
so our old farmers say. But 'tis a dark similitude. Quit thy
analogies; sweet in the orator's mouth, bitter in the thinker's
belly. Now, then, I'll up with my own joyful will; and with
my joy's face scare away all phantoms:—so, they go; and
Pierre is Joy's, and Life's again. Thou pine-tree!—henceforth
I will resist thy too treacherous persuasiveness. Thou'lt not
so often woo me to thy airy tent, to ponder on the gloomy
rooted stakes that bind it. Hence now I go; and peace be
with thee, pine! That blessed sereneness which lurks ever at
the heart of sadness—mere sadness—and remains when all
the rest has gone;—that sweet feeling is now mine, and
cheaply mine. I am not sorry I was sad, I feel so blessed
now. Dearest Lucy!—well, well;—'twill be a pretty time
we'll have this evening; there's the book of Flemish prints—
that first we must look over; then, second, is Flaxman's
Homer—clear-cut outlines, yet full of unadorned barbaric
nobleness. Then Flaxman's Dante;—Dante! Night's and
Hell's poet he. No, we will not open Dante. Methinks now
the face—the face—minds me a little of pensive, sweet Francesca's
face—or, rather, as it had been Francesca's daughter's
face—wafted on the sad dark wind, toward observant Virgil
and the blistered Florentine. No, we will not open Flaxman's
Dante. Francesca's mournful face is now ideal to me. Flaxman
might evoke it wholly,—make it present in lines of misery
—bewitching power. No! I will not open Flaxman's Dante!
Damned be the hour I read in Dante! more damned than
that wherein Palola and Francesca read in fatal Launcelot!”
| Pierre, or, The ambiguities | |