University of Virginia Library

Shakespeare.

DEAR HENRY: You kindly left word for me to write
you. I have little of a cheering nature to say in regard
to myself. We have moved from the house in Fourteenth
Street into a smaller one nearer to the Park and to Mr. Charlton's
business. His complaints of his disappointment in regard
to my means have lately grown more bitter. Your allowance,
liberal as it is, seems to be lightly esteemed. The other day
he twitted me with setting a snare for him by pretending to be
a rich widow. O Henry, what an aggravation of insult! I
knew nothing, and of course said nothing, as to the extent of
your father's wealth. I supposed, as every one else did, that
he left a large property. His affairs proved to be in such a
state that they could not be disentangled by his executors till
two years after his death. Before that time I was married to
Mr. Charlton.

Had I but taken your warning, and seen through his real
feelings! But he made me think he loved me for myself
alone, and he artfully excited my distrust of you and your motives.
He represented his own means as ample; though for
that I did not care or ask. Repeatedly he protested that he
would prefer to take me without a cent of dowry. I was simpleton
enough to believe him, though he was ten years my
junior. I fell foolishly in love, soon, alas! to be rudely roused
from my dream!

It seems like a judgment, Henry. You have always been
as kind to me as if you were my own son. Your father was
so much my senior, that you may well suppose I did not marry
him from love. I was quite young. My notions on the subject

of matrimony were unformed. My heart was free. My
father urged the step upon me as one that would save him
from dire and absolute destitution. What could I do, after
many misgivings, but yield? What could I do? I now well
see what a woman of real moral strength and determination
could and ought to have done. But it is too late to sigh over
the past.

I behaved passably well, did I not? in the capacity of your
step-mother. I was loyal, even in thought, to my husband,
although I loved him only with the sort of love I might have
entertained for my grandfather. You were but two or three
years my junior, but you always treated me as if I were a
dowager of ninety. As I now look back, I can see how nobly
and chivalrously you bore yourself, though at the time I did
not quite understand your over-respectful and distant demeanor,
or why, when we went out in the carriage, you always
preferred the driver's company to mine.

Your father died, and for a year and a half I conducted
myself in a manner not unworthy of his widow and your
mother. At the end of that period Mr. Charlton appeared at
Berwickville. He dressed pretty well, associated with gentlemen,
was rather handsome, and professed a sincere attachment
for myself. Time had dealt gently with me, and I was not
aware of that disparity in years which I afterwards learned
existed between me and my suitor. In an unlucky moment I
was subdued by his importunities. I consented to become his
wife.

The first six months of our marriage glided away smoothly
enough. My new husband treated me with all the attention
which I supposed a man of business could give. If the vague
thought now and then obtruded itself that there was something
to me undefined and unsounded in his character, I thrust the
thought from me, and found excuses for the deficiency which
had suggested it. One trait which I noticed caused me some
surprise. He always discouraged my buying new dresses, and
grew very economical in providing for the household. I am
no epicure, but have been accustomed to the best in articles
of food. I soon discovered that everything in the way of provisions
brought into the house was of a cheap or deteriorated
quality. I remonstrated, and there was a reform.

One bright day in June, two gentlemen, Mr. Ken and Mr.
Turner, connected with the management of your father's estate,
appeared at Berwickville. They came to inform me that my
late husband had died insolvent, and that the house we then
occupied belonged to his creditors, and must be sold at once.
Mr. Charlton received this intelligence in silence; but I was
shocked at the change wrought by it on his face. In that
expression disappointment and chagrin of the intensest kind
seemed concentrated. Nothing was to be said, however. There
were the documents; there were the facts, — the stern, irresistible
facts of the law. The house must be given up.

After these bearers of ill-tidings had gone, Mr. Charlton
turned to me. But I will not pain you by a recital of what he
said. He rudely dispelled the illusions under which I had
been laboring in regard to him. I could only weep. I could
not utter a word of retaliation. Whilst he was in the midst
of his reproaches, a servant brought me a letter. Mr. Charlton
snatched it from my hand, opened, and read it. Either it
had a pacifying effect upon him, or he had exhausted his stock
of objurgations. He threw the letter on the table and quitted
the room.

It was your letter of condolence and dutiful regard, promising
me an allowance from your own purse of a hundred dollars
a month. What coals of fire it heaped on my head! To
please Mr. Charlton I had quarrelled with you, — forbidden
you to visit or write me, — and here was your return! The
communication coming close upon the dropping of my husband's
disguise almost unseated my reason. What a night of
tears that was! I recalled your warnings, and now saw their
truth, — saw how truly disinterested you were in them all.
How generous, how noble you appeared to me! How in contrast,
alas! with him I had taken for better or worse!

I lay awake all night. Of course I could not think of accepting
your offer. In the first place, my past treatment of
you forbade it. And then I knew that your own means were
narrow, and that you had just entered into an engagement of
marriage with a poor girl. But when, the next day, I communicated
my resolve to my husband, he calmly replied: “Nonsense!
Write Mr. Berwick, thanking him for his offer, and

telling him that, small as the sum is, considering your wants,
you accept it.” What a poor thing you must have thought me,
when you got my cold letter of acceptance. Do me the justice
to believe me when I affirm that every word of it was dictated
by my husband. How I have longed to see you in person, to
tell you all that I have endured and felt! But this circumstances
have prevented. And now I am possessed with the
idea that I never shall see you in this life again. And that is
why I make these confessions. Your marriage, your absence
in Europe, your recent return, and your hurried departure
for the West, have kept me uncertain as to where a message
would reach you. Yesterday I got a few affectionate lines
from you, telling me a letter, if mailed at once, would reach
you in Cincinnati, or, if a week later, in New Orleans. And
so I am devoting the forenoon to this review of my past, so
painful and sad.

Let me think of your happier lot, and rejoice in it. So your
affairs have prospered beyond all hope! Through your wife
you are unexpectedly rich in worldly means. Better still, you
are rich in affection. Your little Clara is “the brightest, the
loveliest, the sunniest little thing in the wide world.” So you
write me; and I can well believe it from the photograph and
the lock of hair you send me. Bless her! What would I give
to hug her to my bosom. And you too, Henry, you too I
could kiss with a kiss that should be purely maternal, — a
benediction, — a kiss your wife would approve, for, after all,
you are the only child I have had. Mr. Charlton has always
said he would have no children till he was a rich man. He
and the female physician he employs have nearly killed me
with their terrible drugs. Yes, I am dying, Henry. Even the
breath of this sweet spring morning whispers it in my ear.
Bless you and yours forever! What a mistake my life has
been! And yet, how I craved to love and be loved! You
will think kindly of me always, and teach your wife and child
to have pleasant associations with my name.

All the rich presents your father made me have been sold by
Mr. Charlton; but I have one, that he has not seen, — a costly
and beautiful gold casket for jewels, which I reserve as a present
for your little Clara. I shall to-morrow pack it up carefully,

and take it to a friend, who I know will keep and deliver
it safely. That friend, strange as it may sound to you, is
the venerable old black hair-dresser, Toussaint, who lives in
Franklin Street. Your father used to say he had never met a
man he would trust before Toussaint; and I can say as much.
Toussaint used to dress my mother's hair; he is now my adviser
and friend.

Born a slave in the town of St. Mark in St. Domingo in
1766, Pierre Toussaint was twelve years the junior of that
fellow-slave, the celebrated Toussaint l'Ouverture, born on the
same river, who converted a mob of undrilled, uneducated
Africans into an army with which he successively overthrew
the forces of France, England, and Spain. At the beginning
of the troubles in the island, in 1801, Pierre was taken by his
master, the wealthy Mons. Berard, to New York. Berard,
having lost his immense property in St. Domingo, soon died,
and Pierre, having learnt the business of a hair-dresser, supported
Madame Berard by his labors some eight years till her
death, though she had no legal claim upon his service. Bred
up, as he was, indulgently, Pierre's is one of those exceptional
cases in which slavery has not destroyed the moral sense.

I know of few more truly venerable characters. A pious
Catholic, he is one of the stanchest of friends. One of his
rules through life has been, never to incur a debt, — to pay on
the spot for everything he buys. And yet he is continually
giving away large sums in charity. One day I said, “Toussaint,
you are rich enough; you have more than you want;
why not stop working now?” He answered, “Madame, I
have enough for myself, but if I stop work, I have not enough
for others!” By the great fire of 1835, Toussaint lost by his
investments in insurance companies. The Schuylers and the
Livingstons passed around a subscription-paper to repair his
losses; but he stopped it, saying he would not take a cent from
them, since there were so many who needed help more than he.

An old French gentleman, a white man, once rich, whom
Toussaint had known, was reduced to poverty and fell sick.
For several months Toussaint and his wife, Juliette, sent him a
nicely cooked dinner; but Toussaint would not let him know
from whom it came, “because,” said the negro, “it might hurt
his pride to know it came from a black man.” Juliette once

called on this invalid to learn if her husband could be of any
help. “O no,” said the old Monsieur, “I am well known; I
have good friends; every day they send me a dinner, served up
in French style. To-day I had a charming vol-au-vent, an
omelette, and green peas, not to speak of salmon. I am a person
of some importance, you see, even in this strange land.”
And Juliette would go home, and she and Toussaint would have
a good laugh over the old man's vauntings.[1]

But what has possessed me to enter into all these details! I
know not, unless it is the desire to escape from less agreeable
thoughts.

I have a request to make, Henry. You will think me fanciful,
foolish, perhaps fanatical; and yet I am impelled, by an unaccountable
impression, to ask you to give up the tickets you tell
me you have engaged in the Pontiac, and to take passage for
New Orleans in some other boat. If you ask me why, the
only explanation I can give is, that the thought besets me, but
the reason of it I do not know. Do you remember I once
capriciously refused to let your father go in the cars to Springfield,
although his baggage was on board? Those cars went
through the draw-bridge, and many lives were lost. Write me
that you will heed my request.

And now, Henry, son, nephew, friend, good by! Tell little
Clara she has an aunt or grandmother (which, shall it be?) in
New York who loves to think of her and to picture the fair
forehead over which the little curl you sent me once fell. By the
way, I have examined her photograph with a microscope, and
have conceived a fancy that her eyes are of a slightly different
color; one perhaps a gray and the other a mixed blue. Am I
right? Tell your wife how I grieve to think that circumstances
have not allowed us to meet and become personally acquainted.
You now know all the influences that have kept us
apart, and that have made me seem frigid and ungrateful, even
when my heart was overflowing with affection. What more
shall I say, except to sum up all my love for you and all my gratitude
in the one parting prayer, Heaven bless you and yours!