Wolfert's roost and other papers, now first collected |
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MOUNTJOY:
OR SOME PASSAGES OUT OF THE LIFE OF A
CASTLE-BUILDER. |
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 | Wolfert's roost |  |
MOUNTJOY:
OR SOME PASSAGES OUT OF THE LIFE OF A
CASTLE-BUILDER.
I was born among romantic scenery, in one of the wildest parts
of the Hudson, which at that time was not so thickly settled as
at present. My father was descended from one of the old Huguenot
families, that came over to this country on the revocation
of the Edict of Nantz. He lived in a style of easy, rural independence,
on a patrimonial estate that had been for two or three generations
in the family. He was an indolent, good-natured man,
took the world as it went, and had a kind of laughing philosophy,
that parried all rubs and mishaps, and served him in the
place of wisdom. This was the part of his character least to my
taste; for I was of an enthusiastic, excitable temperament, prone
to kindle up with new schemes and projects, and he was apt to
dash my sallying enthusiasm by some unlucky joke; so that
whenever I was in a glow with any sudden excitement, I stood in
mortal dread of his good-humor.
Yet he indulged me in every vagary; for I was an only son,
and of course a personage of importance in the household. I had
educated at New York, under the eye of a maiden aunt; the latter
remained at home, and was my cherished playmate, the companion
of my thoughts. We were two imaginative little beings,
of quick susceptibility, and prone to see wonders and mysteries in
every thing around us. Scarce had we learned to read, when our
mother made us holiday presents of all the nursery literature of
the day; which at that time consisted of little books covered with
gilt paper, adorned with “cuts,” and filled with tales of fairies,
giants, and enchanters. What draughts of delightful fiction did
we then inhale! My sister Sophy was of a soft and tender nature.
She would weep over the woes of the Children in the Wood,
or quake at the dark romance of Blue-Beard, and the terrible
mysteries of the blue chamber. But I was all for enterprise and
adventure. I burned to emulate the deeds of that heroic prince,
who delivered the white cat from her enchantment; or he of no
less royal blood, and doughty emprise, who broke the charmed
slumber of the Beauty in the Wood!
The house in which we lived, was just the kind of place to
foster such propensities. It was a venerable mansion, half villa,
half farm-house. The oldest part was of stone, with loopholes for
musketry, having served as a family fortress, in the time of the
Indians. To this there had been made various additions, some
of brick, some of wood, according to the exigencies of the moment;
so that it was full of nooks and crooks, and chambers of
all sorts and sizes. It was buried among willows, elms, and cherry
trees, and surrounded with roses and hollyhocks, with honey-suckle
and sweetbrier clambering about every window. A brood
of hereditary pigeons sunned themselves upon the roof; hereditary
hereditary bees hummed about the flower-beds.
Under the influence of our story-books, every object around us
now assumed a new character, and a charmed interest. The wild
flowers were no longer the mere ornaments of the fields, or the
resorts of the toilful bee; they were the lurking-places of fairies.
We would watch the humming-bird, as it hovered around the
trumpet creeper at our porch, and the butterfly as it flitted up
into the blue air, above the sunny tree tops, and fancy them some
of the tiny beings from fairy land. I would call to mind all that
I had read of Robin Goodfellow, and his power of transformation.
O how I envied him that power! How I longed to be able to
compress my form into utter littleness; to ride the bold dragonfly;
swing on the tall bearded grass; follow the ant into his subterraneous
habitation, or dive into the cavernous depths of the
honeysuckle!
While I was yet a mere child, I was sent to a daily school,
about two miles distant. The school-house was on the edge of a
wood, close by a brook overhung with birches, alders, and dwarf
willows. We of the school who lived at some distance, came with
our dinners put up in little baskets. In the intervals of school
hours, we would gather round a spring, under a tuft of hazel-bushes,
and have a kind of picnic; interchanging the rustic
dainties with which our provident mothers had fitted us out.
Then, when our joyous repast was over, and my companions were
disposed for play, I would draw forth one of my cherished story-books,
stretch myself on the greensward, and soon lose myself in
its bewitching contents.
I became an oracle among my school-mates, on account of my
infected fancy. Often in the evening, after school hours, we
would sit on the trunk of some fallen tree in the woods, and vie
with each other in telling extravagant stories, until the whip-poor-will
began his nightly moaning, and the fire-flies sparkled in the
gloom. Then came the perilous journey homeward. What delight
we would take in getting up wanton panics, in some dusky
part of the wood; seampering like frightened deer; pausing to
take breath; renewing the panic, and scampering off again, wild
with fictitious terror!
Our greatest trial was to pass a dark, lonely pool, covered
with pond-lilies, peopled with bull-frogs and water snakes, and
haunted by two white cranes. Oh! the terrors of that pond!
How our little hearts would beat, as we approached it; what
fearful glances we would throw around! And if by chance a
plash of a wild duck, or the guttural twang of a bull-frog, struck
our ears, as we stole quietly by—away we sped, nor paused until
completely out of the woods. Then, when I reached home, what
a world of adventures, and imaginary terrors, would I have to relate
to my sister Sophy!
As I advanced in years, this turn of mind increased upon me,
and became more confirmed. I abandoned myself to the impulses
of a romantic imagination, which controlled my studies, and gave
a bias to all my habits. My father observed me continually with
a book in my hand, and satisfied himself that I was a profound
student; but what were my studies? Works of fiction; tales of
chivalry; voyages of discovery; travels in the east; every thing,
in short, that partook of adventure and romance. I well remember
with what zest I entered upon that part of my studies which
deities. Then indeed my school-books became dear to me. The
neighborhood was well calculated to foster the reveries of a mind
like mine. It abounded with solitary retreats, wild streams,
solemn forests, and silent valleys. I would ramble about for a whole
day, with a volume of Ovid's Metamorphoses in my pocket, and
work myself into a kind of self-delusion, so as to identify the surrounding
scenes with those of which I had just been reading. I
would loiter about a brook that glided through the shadowy depths
of the forest, picturing it to myself the haunt of Naiades. I would
steal round some bushy copse that opened upon a glade, as if I
expected to come suddenly upon Diana and her nymphs; or to
behold Pan and his satyrs bounding, with whoop and halloo,
through the woodland. I would throw myself, during the panting
heats of a summer noon, under the shade of some wide-spreading
tree, and muse and dream away the hours, in a state of mental
intoxication. I drank in the very light of day, as nectar, and my
soul seemed to bathe with ecstasy in the deep blue of a summer
sky.
In these wanderings, nothing occurred to jar my feelings, or
bring me back to the realities of life. There is a repose in our
mighty forests, that gives full scope to the imagination. Now
and then I would hear the distant sound of the wood-cutter's axe,
or the crash of some tree which he had laid low; but these noises,
echoing along the quiet landscape, could easily be wrought by fancy
into harmony with its illusions. In general, however, the woody
recesses of the neighborhood were peculiarly wild and unfrequented.
I could ramble for a whole day, without coming upon
any traces of cultivation. The partridge of the wood scarcely
would gaze at me for an instant, with sparkling eye, as if wondering
at the unwonted intrusion.
I cannot help dwelling on this delicious period of my life;
when as yet I had known no sorrow, nor experienced any worldly
care. I have since studied much, both of books and men, and of
course have grown too wise to be so easily pleased; yet with all
my wisdom, I must confess I look back with a secret feeling of
regret to the days of happy ignorance, before I had begun to be a
philosopher.
It must be evident that I was in a hopeful training, for one
who was to descend into the arena of life, and wrestle with the
world. The tutor, also, who superintended my studies, in the
more advanced stage of my education, was just fitted to complete
the fata morgana which was forming in my mind. His name
was Glencoe. He was a pale, melancholy-looking man, about
forty years of age; a native of Scotland, liberally educated, and
who had devoted himself to the instruction of youth, from taste
rather than necessity; for, as he said, he loved the human heart,
and delighted to study it in its earlier impulses. My two elder
sisters, having returned home from a city boarding-school, were
likewise placed under his care, to direct their reading in history
and belles-lettres.
We all soon became attached to Glencoe. It is true, we were
at first somewhat prepossessed against him. His meagre, pallid
countenance, his broad pronunciation, his inattention to the little
forms of society, and an awkward and embarrassed manner, on
that under this unpromising exterior existed the kindest urbanity;
the warmest sympathies; the most enthusiastic benevolence.
His mind was ingenious and acute. His reading had
been various, but more abstruse than profound: his memory was
stored, on all subjects, with facts, theories, and quotations, and
crowded with crude materials for thinking. These, in a moment
of excitement, would be, as it were, melted down, and poured
forth in the lava of a heated imagination. At such moments, the
change in the whole man was wonderful. His meagre form would
acquire a dignity and grace; his long, pale visage would flash
with a hectic glow; his eyes would beam with intense speculation;
and there would be pathetic tones and deep modulations in his
voice, that delighted the ear, and spoke movingly to the heart.
But what most endeared him to us, was the kindness and
sympathy with which he entered into all our interests and wishes.
Instead of curbing and checking our young imaginations with the
reins of sober reason, he was a little too apt to catch the impulse,
and be hurried away with us. He could not withstand the excitement
of any sally of feeling or fancy; and was prone to lend
heightening tints to the illusive coloring of youthful anticipation.
Under his guidance, my sisters and myself soon entered upon
a more extended range of studies; but while they wandered, with
delighted minds, through the wide field of history and belles-lettres,
a nobler walk was opened to my superior intellect.
The mind of Glencoe presented a singular mixture of philosophy
and poetry. He was fond of metaphysics, and prone to indulge
in abstract speculations, though his metaphysics were somewhat
fine spun and fanciful, and his speculations were apt to partake
my part, I delighted in them, and the more especially, because
they set my father to sleep, and completely confounded my sisters.
I entered, with my accustomed eagerness, into this new
branch of study. Metaphysics were now my passion. My sisters
attempted to accompany me, but they soon faltered, and gave out
before they had got half way through Smith's Theory of Moral
Sentiments. I, however, went on, exulting in my strength.
Glencoe supplied me with books, and I devoured them with appetite,
if not digestion. We walked and talked together under the
trees before the house, or sat apart, like Milton's angels, and
held high converse upon themes beyond the grasp of ordinary intellects.
Glencoe possessed a kind of philosophic chivalry, in imitation
of the old peripatetic sages, and was continually dreaming
of romantic enterprises in morals, and splendid systems for the
improvement of society. He had a fanciful mode of illustrating
abstract subjects, peculiarly to my taste; clothing them with the
language of poetry, and throwing round them almost the magic
hues of fiction. “How charming,” thought I, “is divine philosophy;”
not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose,
Where no crude surfeit reigns.”
I felt a wonderful self-complacency at being on such excellent
terms with a man whom I considered on a parallel with the sages
of antiquity, and looked down with a sentiment of pity on the
feebler intellects of my sisters, who could comprehend nothing of
metaphysics. It is true, when I attempted to study them by myself
I was apt to get in a fog; but when Glencoe came to my aid,
beauty of his words; my imagination was dazzled with the splendor
of his illustrations. It caught up the sparkling sands of poetry
that glittered through his speculations, and mistook them for
the golden ore of wisdom. Struck with the facility with which I
seemed to imbibe and relish the most abstract doctrines, I conceived
a still higher opinion of my mental powers, and was convinced
that I also was a philospher.
I was now verging toward man's estate, and though my education
had been extremely irregular—following the caprices of my
humor, which I mistook for the impulses of my genius—yet I was
regarded with wonder and delight by my mother and sisters, who
considered me almost as wise and infallible as I considered myself.
This high opinion of me was strengthened by a declamatory habit,
which made me an oracle and orator at the domestic board.
The time was now at hand, however, that was to put my philosophy
to the test.
We had passed through a long winter, and the spring at length
opened upon us, with unusual sweetness. The soft serenity of the
weather; the beauty of the surrounding country; the joyous notes
of the birds; the balmy breath of flower and blossom, all combined
to fill my bosom with indistinct sensations, and nameless
wishes. Amid the soft seductions of the season, I lapsed into a
state of utter indolence, both of body and mind.
Philosophy had lost its charms for me. Metaphysics—faugh!
I tried to study; took down volume after volume, ran my eye vacantly
over a few pages, and threw them by with distaste. I loitered
of complete vacancy. Something was necessary to make me happy;
but what was that something! I sauntered to the apartments
of my sisters, hoping their conversation might amuse me.
They had walked out, and the room was vacant. On the table
lay a volume which they had been reading. It was a novel. I
had never read a novel, having conceived a contempt for works of
the kind, from hearing them universally condemned. It is true,
I had remarked they were universally read; but I considered
them beneath the attention of a philosopher, and never would
venture to read them, lest I should lessen my mental superiority
in the eyes of my sisters. Nay, I had taken up a work of the
kind, now and then, when I knew my sisters were observing me,
looked into it for a moment, and then laid it down, with a slight
supercilious smile. On the present occasion, out of mere listlessness,
I took up the volume, and turned over a few of the first
pages. I thought I heard some one coming, and laid it down. I
was mistaken; no one was near, and what I had read, tempted my
curiosity to read a little farther. I leaned against a window-frame,
and in a few minutes was completely lost in the story. How
long I stood there reading, I know not, but I believe for nearly
two hours. Suddenly I heard my sisters on the stairs, when I
thrust the book into my bosom, and the two other volumes, which
lay near, into my pockets, and hurried out of the house to my
beloved woods. Here I remained all day beneath the trees, bewildered,
bewitched; devouring the contents of these delicious
volumes; and only returned to the house when it was too dark to
peruse their pages.
This novel finished, I replaced it in my sister's apartment, and
home all that were current in the city; but my appetite demanded
an immense supply. All this course of reading was carried on
clandestinely, for I was a little ashamed of it, and fearful that my
wisdom might be called in question; but this very privacy gave it
additional zest. It was “bread eaten in secret;” it had the charm
of a private amour.
But think what must have been the effect of such a course of
reading on a youth of my temperament and turn of mind; indulged,
too, amidst romantic scenery, and in the romantic season of
the year. It seemed as if I had entered upon a new scene of existence.
A train of combustible feelings were lighted up in me,
and my soul was all tenderness and passion. Never was youth
more completely love-sick, though as yet it was a mere general
sentiment, and wanted a definite object. Unfortunately, our
neighborhood was particularly deficient in female society, and I
languished in vain for some divinity, to whom I might offer up
this most uneasy burthen of affections. I was at one time seriously
enamored of a lady whom I saw occasionally in my rides,
reading at the window of a country-seat; and actually serenaded
her with my flute; when, to my confusion, I discovered that she
was old enough to be my mother. It was a sad damper to my
romance; especially as my father heard of it, and made it the
subject of one of those household jokes, which he was apt to serve
up at every meal-time.
I soon recovered from this check, however, but it was only to
relapse into a state of amorous excitement. I passed whole days
in the fields, and along the brooks; for there is something in the
tender passion that makes us alive to the beauties of nature. A
I flung open my arms, like the Grecian youth in Ovid, as if I
would take in and embrace the balmy atmosphere.[1] The song
of the birds melted me to tenderness. I would lie by the side of
some rivulet, for hours, and form garlands of the flowers on its
banks, and muse on ideal beauties, and sigh from the crowd of
undefined emotions that swelled my bosom.
In this state of amorous delirium, I was strolling one morning
along a beautiful wild brook which I had discovered in a glen.
There was one place where a small water-fall, leaping from among
rocks into a natural basin, made a scene such as a poet might
have chosen as the haunt of some shy Naiad. It was here I
usually retired to banquet on my novels. In visiting the place
this morning, I traced distinctly, on the margin of the basin,
which was of fine clear sand, the prints of a female foot, of the
most slender and delicate proportions. This was sufficient for an
imagination like mine. Robinson Crusoe himself, when he discovered
the print of a savage foot on the beach of his lonely
island, could not have been more suddenly assailed with thick-coming
fancies.
I endeavored to track the steps, but they only passed for a
few paces along the fine sand, and then were lost among the herbage.
I remained gazing in reverie upon this passing trace of
loveliness. It evidently was not made by any of my sisters, for
they knew nothing of this haunt; besides, the foot was smaller
than theirs; it was remarkable for its beautiful delicacy.
My eye accidentally caught two or three half-withered wild
dropped them from her bosom! Here was a new document of
taste and sentiment. I treasured them up as invaluable relies.
The place, too, where I found them, was remarkably picturesque,
and the most beautiful part of the brook. It was overhung with
a fine elm, entwined with grape-vines. She who could select such
a spot, who could delight in wild brooks, and wild flowers, and
silent solitudes, must have fancy, and feeling, and tenderness;
and with all these qualities, she must be beautiful!
But who could be this Unknown, that had thus passed by, as
in a morning dream, leaving merely flowers and fairy footsteps, to
tell of her loveliness! There was a mystery in it that bewildered
me. It was so vague and disembodied, like those “airy tongues
that syllable men's names” in solitude. Every attempt to solve
the mystery was vain. I could hear of no being in the neighborhood
to whom this trace could be ascribed. I haunted the spot,
and became more and more enamored. Never, surely, was passion
more pure and spiritual, and never lover in more dubious
situation. My case could only be compared with that of the
amorous prince, in the fairy tale of Cinderella; but he had a
glass slipper on which to lavish his tenderness. I, alas! was in
love with a footstep!
The imagination is alternately a cheat and a dupe; nay more,
it is the most subtle of cheats, for it cheats itself, and becomes
the dupe of its own delusions. It conjures up “airy nothings,”
gives to them a “local habitation and a name,” and then bows to
their control as implicitly as if they were realities. Such was
persuaded himself that the nymph Egeria hovered about her
sacred fountain, and communed with him in spirit, than I had
deceived myself into a kind of visionary intercourse with the airy
phantom fabricated in my brain. I constructed a rustic seat at
the foot of the tree where I had discovered the footsteps. I made
a kind of bower there, where I used to pass my mornings, reading
poetry and romances. I carved hearts and darts on the tree,
and hung it with garlands. My heart was full to overflowing,
and wanted some faithful bosom into which it might relieve itself.
What is a lover without a confidante? I thought at once of my
sister Sophy, my early playmate, the sister of my affections. She
was so reasonable, too, and of such correct feelings, always listening
to my words as oracular sayings, and admiring my scraps of
poetry, as the very inspirations of the muse. From such a devoted,
such a rational being, what secrets could I have?
I accordingly took her, one morning, to my favorite retreat.
She looked around, with delighted surprise, upon the rustic seat,
the bower, the tree carved with emblems of the tender passion.
She turned her eyes upon me to inquire the meaning.
“Oh, Sophy,” exclaimed I, clasping both her hands in mine,
and looking earnestly in her face, “I am in love!”
She started with surprise.
“Sit down,” said I, “and I will tell you all.”
She seated herself upon the rustic bench, and I went into a
full history of the footstep, with all the associations of idea that
had been conjured up by my imagination.
Sophy was enchanted; it was like a fairy tale: She had read
of such mysterious visitations in books, and the loves thus conceived
happy. She caught the illusion, in all its force; her cheek glowed;
her eye brightened.
“I dare say she's pretty,” said Sophy.
“Pretty!” echoed I, “she is beautiful!” I went through all
the reasoning by which I had logically proved the fact to my own
satisfaction. I dwelt upon the evidences of her taste, her sensibility
to the beauties of nature; her soft meditative habit, that
delighted in solitude; “oh,” said I, clasping my hands “to have
such a companion to wander through these scenes; to sit with her
by this murmuring stream; to wreathe garlands round her brows;
to hear the music of her voice mingling with the whisperings of
these groves; —”
“Delightful! delightful!” cried Sophy; “what a sweet creature
she must be! She is just the friend I want. How I shall dote
upon her! Oh, my dear brother! you must not keep her all to
yourself. You must let me have some share of her!”
I caught her to my bosom: “You shall—you shall!” cried I,
“my dear Sophy; we will all live for each other!”
The conversation with Sophy heightened the illusions of my
mind; and the manner in which she had treated my day-dream,
identified it with facts and persons, and gave it still more the
stamp of reality. I walked about as one in a trance, heedless of
the world around, and lapped in an elysium of the fancy.
In this mood I met, one morning, with Glencoe. He accosted
me with his usual smile, and was proceeding with some general observations,
but paused and fixed on me an inquiring eye.
“What is the matter with you?” said he; “you seem agitated;
has any thing in particular happened?”
“Nothing,” said I, hesitating; “at least nothing worth communicating
to you.”
“Nay, my dear young friend,” said he, “whatever is of sufficient
importance to agitate you, is worthy of being communicated to me.”
“Well; but my thoughts are running on what you would
think a frivolous subject.”
“No subject is frivolous, that has the power to awaken strong
feelings.”
“What think you,” said I, hesitating, “what think you of love?”
Glencoe almost started at the question. “Do you call that a
frivolous subject?” replied he. “Believe me, there is none fraught
with such deep, such vital interest. If you talk, indeed, of the
capricious inclination awakened by the mere charm of perishable
beauty, I grant it to be idle in the extreme; but that love which
springs from the concordant sympathies of virtuous hearts; that
love which is awakened by the perception of moral excellence, and
fed by meditation on intellectual as well as personal beauty; that
is a passion which refines and ennobles the human heart. Oh,
where is there a sight more nearly approaching to the intercourse
of angels, than that of two young beings, free from the sins and
follies of the world, mingling pure thoughts, and looks, and feelings,
and becoming as it were soul of one soul, and heart of one
heart! How exquisite the silent converse that they hold; the
soft devotion of the eye, that needs no words to make it eloquent!
Yes, my friend, if there be any thing in this weary world worthy
of heaven, it is the pure bliss of such a mutual affection!”
The words of my worthy tutor overcame all farther reserve.
“Mr. Glencoe,” cried I, blushing still deeper, “I am in love!”
“And is that what you were ashamed to tell me? Oh, never
seek to conceal from your friend so important a secret. If your
passion be unworthy, it is for the steady hand of friendship to
pluck it forth; if honorable, none but an enemy would seek to
stifle it. On nothing does the character and happiness so much
depend, as on the first affection of the heart. Were you caught
by some fleeting and superficial charm—a bright eye, a blooming
cheek, a soft voice, or a voluptuous form—I would warn you to
beware; I would tell you that beauty is but a passing gleam of
the morning, a perishable flower; that accident may becloud
and blight it, and that at best it must soon pass away. But were
you in love with such a one as I could describe; young in years,
but still younger in feelings; lovely in person, but as a type of
the mind's beauty; soft in voice, in token of gentleness of spirit;
blooming in countenance, like the rosy tints of morning kindling
with the promise of a genial day; an eye beaming with the benignity
of a happy heart; a cheerful temper, alive to all kind impulses,
and frankly diffusing its own felicity; a self-poised mind,
that needs not lean on others for support; an elegant taste, that
can embellish solitude, and furnish out its own enjoyments—”
“My dear sir,” cried I, for I could contain myself no longer,
“you have described the very person!”
“Why then, my dear young friend,” said he, affectionately
pressing my hand, “in God's name, love on!”
For the remainder of the day, I was in some such state of
dreamy beatitude as a Turk is said to enjoy, when under the influence
of opium. It must be already manifest, how prone I was
them with existing realities. In the present instance, Sophy and
Glencoe had contributed to promote the transient delusion. Sophy,
dear girl, had as usual joined with me in my castle-building,
and indulged in the same train of imaginings, while Glencoe, duped
by my enthusiasm, firmly believed that I spoke of a being I had
seen and known. By their sympathy with my feelings, they in a
manner became associated with the Unknown in my mind, and
thus linked her with the circle of my intimacy.
In the evening, our family party was assembled in the hall, to
enjoy the refreshing breeze. Sophy was playing some favorite
Scotch airs on the piano, while Glencoe, seated apart, with his
forehead resting on his hand, was buried in one of those pensive
reveries, that made him so interesting to me.
“What a fortunate being I am!” thought I, “blessed with
such a sister and such a friend! I have only to find out this
amiable Unknown, to wed her, and be happy! What a paradise
will be my home, graced with a partner of such exquisite refinement!
It will be a perfect fairy bower, buried among sweets
and roses. Sophy shall live with us, and be the companion of all
our enjoyments. Glencoe, too, shall no more be the solitary being
that he now appears. He shall have a home with us. He shall
have his study, where, when he pleases, he may shut himself up
from the world, and bury himself in his own reflections. His retreat
shall be held sacred; no one shall intrude there; no one
but myself, who will visit him now and then, in his seclusion,
where we will devise grand schemes together for the improvement
of mankind. How delightfully our days will pass, in a round of
rational pleasures and elegant employments! Sometimes we will
through the flower-garden, when I will smile with complacency on
every flower my wife has planted; while in the long winter evenings,
the ladies will sit at their work and listen, with hushed attention,
to Glencoe and myself, as we discuss the abstruse doctrines
of metaphysics.”
From this delectable reverie, I was startled by my father's
slapping me on the shoulder: “What possesses the lad?” cried
he: “here have I been speaking to you half a dozen times, without
receiving an answer.”
“Pardon me, sir,” replied I; “I was so completely lost in
thought, that I did not hear you.”
“Lost in thought! And pray what were you thinking of?
Some of your philosophy, I suppose.”
“Upon my word,” said my sister Charlotte, with an arch laugh,
“I suspect Harry's in love again.”
“And if I were in love, Charlotte,” said I, somewhat nettled,
and recollecting Glencoe's enthusiastic eulogy of the passion, “if
I were in love, is that a matter of jest and laughter? Is the tenderest
and most fervid affection that can animate the human
breast, to be made a matter of cold-hearted ridicule?”
My sister colored. “Certainly not, brother!—nor did I mean
to make it so, nor to say any thing that should wound your feelings.
Had I really suspected that you had formed some genuine
attachment, it would have been sacred in my eyes; but—but,”
said she, smiling, as if at some whimsical recollection, “I thought
that you—you might be indulging in another little freak of the
imagination.”
“I'll wager any money,” cried my father, “he has fallen in love
again with some old lady at a window!”
“Oh no!” cried my dear sister Sophy, with the most gracious
warmth; “she is young and beautiful.”
“From what I understand,” said Glencoe, rousing himself,
“she must be lovely in mind as in person.”
I found my friends were getting me into a fine scrape. I began
to perspire at every pore, and felt my ears tingle.
“Well, but,” cried my father, “who is she?—what is she?
Let us hear something about her.”
This was no time to explain so delicate a matter. I caught
up my hat, and vanished out of the house.
The moment I was in the open air, and alone, my heart upbraided
me. Was this respectful treatment to my father—to such
a father too—who had always regarded me as the pride of his
age—the staff of his hopes? It is true, he was apt, sometimes,
to laugh at my enthusiastic flights, and did not treat my philosophy
with due respect; but when had he ever thwarted a wish of
my heart? Was I then to act with reserve toward him, in a
matter which might affect the whole current of my future life?
“I have done wrong,” thought I; “but it is not too late to
remedy it. I will hasten back, and open my whole heart to my
father!”
I returned accordingly, and was just on the point of entering
the house, with my heart full of filial piety, and a contrite speech
upon my lips, when I heard a burst of obstreperous laughter from
my father, and a loud titter from my two elder sisters.
“A footstep!” shouted he, as soon as he could recover himself;
“in love with a footstep! why, this beats the old lady at
the window!” And then there was another appalling burst of
laughter. Had it been a clap of thunder, it could hardly have
heart, had told all, and had set my father's risible propensities in
full action.
Never was poor mortal so thoroughly crest-fallen as myself.
The whole delusion was at an end. I drew off silently from the
house, shrinking smaller and smaller at every fresh peal of laughter;
and wandering about until the family had retired, stole
quietly to my bed. Scarce any sleep, however, visited my eyes
that night! I lay overwhelmed with mortification, and meditating
how I might meet the family in the morning. The idea of ridicule
was always intolerable to me; but to endure it on a subject
by which my feelings had been so much excited, seemed worse
than death. I almost determined, at one time, to get up, saddle
my horse, and ride off, I knew not whither.
At length I came to a resolution. Before going down to
breakfast, I sent for Sophy, and employed her as ambassador to
treat formally in the matter. I insisted that the subject should
be buried in oblivion; otherwise, I would not show my face at
table. It was readily agreed to; for not one of the family would
have given me pain for the world. They faithfully kept their
promise. Not a word was said of the matter; but there were
wry faces, and suppressed titters, that went to my soul; and
whenever my father looked me in the face, it was with such a tragic-comical
leer—such an attempt to pull down a serious brow
upon a whimsical mouth—that I had a thousand times rather he
had laughed outright.
For a day or two after the mortifying occurrence mentioned, I
kept as much as possible out of the way of the family, and wandered
tune: my feelings were all jarred and unstrung. The birds sang
from every grove, but I took no pleasure in their melody; and
the flowers of the field bloomed unheeded around me. To be
crossed in love, is bad enough; but then one can fly to poetry for
relief; and turn one's woes to account in soul-subduing stanzas.
But to have one's whole passion, object and all, annihilated, dispelled,
proved to be such stuff as dreams are made of—or, worse
than all, to be turned into a proverb and a jest—what consolation
is there in such a case?
I avoided the fatal brook where I had seen the footstep. My
favorite resort was now the banks of the Hudson, where I sat
upon the rocks, and mused upon the current that dimpled by, or
the waves that laved the shore; or watched the bright mutations
of the clouds, and the shifting lights and shadows of the distant
mountain. By degrees, a returning serenity stole over my feelings;
and a sigh now and then, gentle and easy, and unattended
by pain, showed that my heart was recovering its susceptibility.
As I was sitting in this musing mood, my eye became gradually
fixed upon an object that was borne along by the tide. It
proved to be a little pinnace, beautifully modelled, and gaily
painted and decorated. It was an unusual sight in this neighborhood,
which was rather lonely: indeed, it was rare to see any
pleasure-barks in this part of the river. As it drew nearer, I
perceived that there was no one on board; it had apparently
drifted from its anchorage. There was not a breath of air: the
little bark came floating along on the glassy stream, wheeling
about with the eddies. At length it ran aground, almost at the
foot of the rock on which I was seated. I descended to the margin
and elegant proportions, and the taste with which it was fitted
up. The benches were covered with cushions, and its long
streamer was of silk. On one of the cushions lay a lady's glove,
of delicate size and shape, with beautifully tapered fingers. I
instantly seized it and thrust it in my bosom: it seemed a match
for the fairy footstep that had so fascinated me.
In a moment, all the romance of my bosom was again in a
glow. Here was one of the very incidents of fairy tale: a bark
sent by some invisible power, some good genius, or benevolent
fairy, to waft me to some delectable adventure. I recollected
something of an enchanted bark, drawn by white swans, that conveyed
a knight down the current of the Rhine, on some enterprise
connected with love and beauty. The glove, too, showed that
there was a lady fair concerned in the present adventure. It
might be a gauntlet of defiance, to dare me to the enterprise.
In the spirit of romance, and the whim of the moment, I
sprang on board, hoisted the light sail, and pushed from shore.
As if breathed by some presiding power, a light breeze at that
moment sprang up, swelled out the sail, and dallied with the silken
streamer. For a time I glided along under steep umbrageous
banks, or across deep sequestered bays; and then stood out over
a wide expansion of the river, toward a high rocky promontory.
It was a lovely evening: the sun was setting in a congregation of
clouds that threw the whole heavens in a glow, and were reflected
in the river. I delighted myself with all kinds of fantastic fancies,
as to what enchanted island, or mystic bower, or necromantic
palace, I was to be conveyed by the fairy bark.
In the revel of my fancy, I had not noticed that the gorgeous
fact a gathering thunder-gust. I perceived the truth too late.
The clouds came hurrying on, darkening as they advanced. The
whole face of nature was suddenly changed, and assumed that baleful
and livid tint, predictive of a storm. I tried to gain the shore,
but before I could reach it, a blast of wind struck the water, and
lashed it at once into foam. The next moment it overtook the
boat. Alas! I was nothing of a sailor; and my protecting fairy
forsook me in the moment of peril. I endeavored to lower the
sail: but in so doing, I had to quit the helm; the bark was over-turned
in an instant, and I was thrown into the water. I endeavored
to cling to the wreck, but missed my hold: being a
poor swimmer, I soon found myself sinking, but grasped a light
oar that was floating by me. It was not sufficient for my support:
I again sank beneath the surface; there was a rushing and
bubbling sound in my ears, and all sense forsook me.
How long I remained insensible, I know not. I had a confused
notion of being moved and tossed about, and of hearing
strange beings and strange voices around me; but all was like a
hideous dream. When I at length recovered full consciousness
and perception, I found myself in bed, in a spacious chamber,
furnished with more taste than I had been accustomed to. The
bright rays of a morning sun were intercepted by curtains of a
delicate rose color, that gave a soft, voluptuous tinge to every
object. Not far from my bed, on a classic tripod, was a basket
of beautiful exotic flowers, breathing the sweetest fragrance.
“Where am I? How came I here?”
I tasked my mind to catch at some previous event, from which
I might trace up the thread of existence to the present moment.
By degrees I called to mind the fairy pinnace, my daring embarcation,
my adventurous voyage, and my disastrous shipwreck.
Beyond that, all was chaos. How came I here? What unknown
region had I landed upon? The people that inhabited it must be
gentle and amiable, and of elegant tastes, for they loved downy
beds, fragrant flowers, and rose-colored curtains.
While I lay thus musing, the tones of a harp reached my ear.
Presently, they were accompanied by a female voice. It came
from the room below; but in the profound stillness of my chamber,
not a modulation was lost. My sisters were all considered good
musicians, and sang very tolerably; but I had never heard a voice
like this. There was no attempt at difficult execution, or striking
effect; but there were exquisite inflexions, and tender turns, which
art could not reach. Nothing but feeling and sentiment could
produce them. It was soul breathed forth in sound. I was always
alive to the influence of music: indeed, I was susceptible of voluptuous
influences of every kind—sounds, colors, shapes, and
fragrant odors. I was the very slave of sensation.
I lay mute and breathless, and drank in every note of this
siren strain. It thrilled through my whole frame, and filled my
soul with melody and love. I pictured to myself, with curious
logic, the form of the unseen musician. Such melodious sounds
and exquisite inflexions could only be produced by organs of the
most delicate flexibility. Such organs do not belong to coarse,
vulgar forms; they are the harmonious results of fair proportions
and admirable symmetry. A being so organized, must be
lovely.
Again my busy imagination was at work. I called to mind
the Arabian story of a prince, borne away during sleep by a good
genius, to the distant abode of a princess, of ravishing beauty. I
do not pretend to say that I believed in having experienced a similar
transportation; but it was my inveterate habit to cheat myself
with fancies of the kind, and to give the tinge of illusion to surrounding
realities.
The witching sound had ceased, but its vibrations still played
round my heart, and filled it with a tumult of soft emotions. At
this moment, a self-upbraiding pang shot through my bosom.
“Ah, recreant!” a voice seemed to exclaim, “is this the stability
of thine affections? What! hast thou so soon forgotten the
nymph of the fountain? Has one song, idly piped in thine ear,
been sufficient to charm away the cherished tenderness of a whole
summer?”
The wise may smile—but I am in a confiding mood, and must
confess my weakness. I felt a degree of compunction at this
sudden infidelity, yet I could not resist the power of present fascination.
My peace of mind was destroyed by conflicting claims.
The nymph of the fountain came over my memory, with all the
associations of fairy footsteps, shady groves, soft echoes, and wild
streamlets; but this new passion was produced by a strain of
soul-subduing melody, still lingering in my ear, aided by a downy
bed, fragrant flowers, and rose-colored curtains. “Unhappy
youth!” sighed I to myself, “distracted by such rival passions,
and the empire of thy heart thus violently contested by the sound
of a voice, and the print of a footstep!”
I had not remained long in this mood, when I heard the door
of the room gently opened. I turned my head to see what inhabitant
of this enchanted palace should appear; whether page in
green, hideous dwarf, or haggard fairy. It was my own man
Scipio. He advanced with cautious step, and was delighted, as
he said, to find me so much myself again. My first questions
were as to where I was, and how I came there? Scipio told me a
long story of his having been fishing in a canoe, at the time of my
hare-brained cruise; of his noticing the gathering squall, and my
impending danger; of his hastening to join me, but arriving just
in time to snatch me from a watery grave; of the great difficulty
in restoring me to animation; and of my being subsequently conveyed,
in a state of insensibility, to this mansion.
“But where am I?” was the reiterated demand.
“In the house of Mr. Somerville.”
“Somerville—Somerville!” I recollected to have heard that
a gentleman of that name had recently taken up his residence at
some distance from my father's abode, on the opposite side of the
Hudson. He was commonly known by the name of “French
Somerville,” from having passed part of his early life in France,
and from his exhibiting traces of French taste in his mode of
living, and the arrangements of his house. In fact, it was in
his pleasure-boat, which had got adrift, that I had made my fanciful
and disastrous cruise. All this was simple straight-forward
matter of fact, and threatened to demolish all the cobweb romance
I had been spinning, when fortunately I again heard the tinkling
of a harp. I raised myself in bed, and listened.
“Scipio,” said I, with some little hesitation, “I heard some one
singing just now. Who was it?”
“Oh, that was Miss Julia.”
“Julia! Julia! Delightful! what a name! And, Scipio—is
she—is she pretty?”
Scipio grinned from ear to ear. “Except Miss Sophy, she was
the most beautiful young lady he had ever seen.”
I should observe, that my sister Sophia was considered by all
the servants a paragon of perfection.
Scipio now offered to remove the basket of flowers; he was
afraid their odor might be too powerful; but Miss Julia had given
them that morning to be placed in my room.
These flowers, then, had been gathered by the fairy fingers of
my unseen beauty; that sweet breath which had filled my ear with
melody, had passed over them. I made Scipio hand them to me,
culled several of the most delicate, and laid them on my bosom.
Mr. Somerville paid me a visit not long afterward. He was
an interesting study for me, for he was the father of my unseen
beauty, and probably resembled her. I scanned him closely. He
was a tall and elegant man, with an open, affable manner, and
an erect and graceful carriage. His eyes were bluish-gray, and,
though not dark, yet at times were sparkling and expressive.
His hair was dressed and powdered, and being lightly combed up
from his forehead, added to the loftiness of his aspect. He was
fluent in discourse, but his conversation had the quiet tone of polished
society, without any of those bold flights of thought, and
picturings of fancy, which I so much admired.
My imagination was a little puzzled, at first, to make out of this
assemblage of personal and mental qualities, a picture that should
harmonize with my previous idea of the fair unseen. By dint,
however, of selecting what it liked, and rejecting what it did not
out a satisfactory portrait.
“Julia must be tall,” thought I, “and of exquisite grace and
dignity. She is not quite so courtly as her father, for she has
been brought up in the retirement of the country. Neither is
she of such vivacious deportment; for the tones of her voice are
soft and plaintive, and she loves pathetic music. She is rather pensive—yet
not too pensive; just what is called interesting. Her
eyes are like her father's, except that they are of a purer blue,
and more tender and languishing. She has light hair—not exactly
flaxen, for I do not not like flaxen hair, but between that and
auburn. In a word, she is a tall, elegant, imposing, languishing,
blue-eyed, romantic-looking beauty.” And having thus finished
her picture, I felt ten times more in love with her than ever.
I felt so much recovered, that I would at once have left my
room, but Mr. Somerville objected to it. He had sent early word
to my family of my safety; and my father arrived in the course
of the morning. He was shocked at learning the risk I had run,
but rejoiced to find me so much restored, and was warm in his
thanks to Mr. Somerville for his kindness. The other only required,
in return, that I might remain two or three days as his
guest, to give time for my recovery, and for our forming a closer
acquaintance; a request which my father readily granted. Scipio
accordingly accompanied my father home, and returned with a supply
of clothes, and with affectionate letters from my mother and
sisters.
The next morning, aided by Scipio, I made my toilet with
rather more care than usual, and descended the stairs, with some
trepidation, eager to see the original of the portrait which had
been so completely pictured in my imagination.
On entering the parlor, I found it deserted. Like the rest of
the house, it was furnished in a foreign style. The curtains were
of French silk; there were Grecian couches, marble tables, pier-glasses,
and chandeliers. What chiefly attracted my eye, were
documents of female taste that I saw around me; a piano, with
an ample stock of Italian music; a book of poetry lying on the
sofa; a vase of fresh flowers on a table, and a portfolio open with
a skilful and half-finished sketch of them. In the window was a
Canary bird, in a gilt cage, and near by, the harp that had been
in Julia's arms. Happy harp! But where was the being that
reigned in this little empire of delicacies?—that breathed poetry
and song, and dwelt among birds and flowers, and rose-colored
curtains?
Suddenly I heard the hall door fly open, the quick pattering
of light steps, a wild, capricious strain of music, and the shrill
barking of a dog. A light frolic nymph of fifteen came tripping
into the room, playing on a flageolet, with a little spaniel ramping
after her. Her gypsy hat had fallen back upon her shoulders;
a profusion of glossy brown hair was blown in rich ringlets about
her face, which beamed through them with the brightness of smiles
and dimples.
At sight of me, she stopped short, in the most beautiful confusion,
stammered out a word or two about looking for her father,
glided out of the door, and I heard her bounding up the stair-case,
like a frightened fawn, with the little dog barking after her.
When Miss Somerville returned to the parlor, she was quite a
different being. She entered, stealing along by her mother's side
with noiseless step, and sweet timidity: her hair was prettily adjusted,
and a soft blush mantled on her damask cheek. Mr. Somerville
accompanied the ladies, and introduced me regularly to
them. There were many kind inquiries, and much sympathy expressed
on the subject of my nautical accident, and some remarks
upon the wild scenery of the neighborhood, with which the ladies
seemed perfectly acquainted.
“You must know,” said Mr. Somerville, “that we are great
navigators, and delight in exploring every nook and corner of the
river. My daughter, too, is a great hunter of the picturesque,
and transfers every rock and glen to her portfolio. By the way,
my dear, show Mr. Mountjoy that pretty scene you have lately
sketched.” Julia complied, blushing, and drew from her portfolio
a colored sketch. I almost started at the sight. It was my
favorite brook. A sudden thought darted across my mind. I
glanced down my eye, and beheld the divinest little foot in the
world. Oh, blissful conviction! The struggle of my affections
was at an end. The voice and the footstep were no longer at variance.
Julia Somerville was the nymph of the fountain!
What conversation passed during breakfast, I do not recollect,
and hardly was conscious of at the time, for my thoughts
were in complete confusion. I wished to gaze on Miss Somerville,
but did not dare. Once, indeed, I ventured a glance. She was
at that moment darting a similar one from under a covert of ringlets.
through the natural modesty of her sex, mine through a bashfulness
produced by the previous workings of my imagination. That
glance, however, went like a sunbeam to my heart.
A convenient mirror favored my diffidence, and gave me the
reflection of Miss Somerville's form. It is true it only presented
the back of her head, but she had the merit of an ancient statue;
contemplate her from any point of view, she was beautiful. And yet
she was totally different from every thing I had before conceived
of beauty. She was not the serene, meditative maid that I had pictured
the nymph of the fountain; nor the tall, soft, languishing,
blue-eyed, dignified being, that I had fancied the minstrel of the
harp. There was nothing of dignity about her: she was girlish
in her appearance, and scarcely of the middle size; but then there
was the tenderness of budding youth; the sweetness of the half-blown
rose, when not a tint or perfume has been withered or exhaled;
there were smiles and dimples, and all the soft witcheries
of ever-varying expression. I wondered that I could ever have
admired any other style of beauty.
After breakfast, Mr. Somerville departed to attend to the concerns
of his estate, and gave me in charge of the ladies. Mrs.
Somerville also was called away by household cares, and I was
left alone with Julia! Here then was the situation which of all
others I had most coveted. I was in the presence of the lovely
being that had so long been the desire of my heart. We were
alone; propitious opportunity for a lover! Did I sieze upon it?
Did I break out in one of my accustomed rhapsodies? No such
thing! Never was being more awkwardly embarrassed.
“What can be the cause of this?” thought I. “Surely I cannot
in intellect, and am never embarrassed in company with my tutor
notwithstanding all his wisdom.”
It was passing strange. I felt that if she were an old woman,
I should be quite at my ease; if she were even an ugly woman, I
should make out very well; it was her beauty that overpowered
me. How little do lovely women know what awful beings they
are, in the eyes of inexperienced youth! Young men brought up
in the fashionable circles of our cities will smile at all this. Accustomed
to mingle incessantly in female society, and to have the
romance of the heart deadened by a thousand frivolous flirtations,
women are nothing but women in their eyes; but to a susceptible
youth like myself, brought up in the country, they are perfect
divinities.
Miss Somerville was at first a little embarrassed herself; but,
somehow or other, women have a natural adroitness in recovering
their self-possession; they are more alert in their minds, and
graceful in their manners. Besides, I was but an ordinary personage
in Miss Somerville's eyes; she was not under the influence
of such a singular course of imaginings as had surrounded her,
in my eyes, with the illusions of romance. Perhaps, too, she saw
the confusion in the opposite camp, and gained courage from the
discovery. At any rate, she was the first to take the field.
Her conversation, however, was only on common-place topics,
and in an easy, well-bred style. I endeavored to respond in the
same manner; but I was strangely incompetent to the task. My
ideas were frozen up; even words seemed to fail me. I was excessively
vexed at myself, for I wished to be uncommonly elegant.
I tried two or three times to turn a pretty thought, or to utter a
mawkish, that I was ashamed of it. My very voice sounded discordantly,
though I sought to modulate it into the softest tones.
“The truth is,” thought I to myself, “I cannot bring my mind
down to the small talk necessary for young girls; it is too masculine
and rebust for the mincing measure of parlor gossip. I am
a philosopher—and that accounts for it.”
The entrance of Mrs. Somerville at length gave me relief. I
at once breathed freely, and felt a vast deal of confidence come
over me. “This is strange,” thought I, “that the appearance of
another woman should revive my courage; that I should be a
better match for two women than one. However, since it is so, I
will take advantage of the circumstance, and let this young lady
see that I am not so great a simpleton as she probably thinks me.”
I accordingly took up the book of poetry which lay upon the
sofa. It was Milton's Paradise Lost. Nothing could have been
more fortunate; it afforded a fine scope for my favorite vein of
grandiloquence. I went largely into a discussion of its merits, or
rather an enthusiastic eulogy of them. My observations were addressed
to Mrs. Somerville, for I found I could talk to her with
more ease than to her daughter. She appeared perfectly alive to
the beauties of the poet, and disposed to meet me in the discussion;
but it was not my object to hear her talk; it was to talk
myself. I anticipated all she had to say, overpowered her with
the copiousness of my ideas, and supported and illustrated them
by long citations from the author.
While thus holding forth, I cast a side glance to see how Miss
Somerville was affected. She had some embroidery stretched on
a frame before her, but had paused in her labor, and was looking
but I recollected, at the same time, with a kind of pique, the advantage
she had enjoyed over me in our tête-à-tête. I determined to
push my triumph, and accordingly kept on with redoubled ardor,
until I had fairly exhausted my subject, or rather my thoughts.
I had scarce come to a full stop, when Miss Somerville raised
her eyes from the work on which they had been fixed, and turning
to her mother, observed: “I have been considering, mamma,
whether to work these flowers plain, or in colors.”
Had an ice-bolt been shot to my heart, it could not have chilled
me more effectually. “What a fool,” thought I, “have I been
making myself—squandering away fine thoughts, and fine language,
upon a light mind, and an ignorant ear! This girl knows nothing
of poetry. She has no soul, I fear, for its beauties. Can any one
have real sensibility of heart, and not be alive to poetry? However,
she is young: this part of her education has been neglected:
there is time enough to remedy it. I will be her preceptor. I
will kindle in her mind the sacred flame, and lead her through the
fairy land of song. But after all, it is rather unfortunate that I
should have fallen in love with a woman who knows nothing of
poetry.”
I passed a day not altogether satisfactory. I was a little disappointed
that Miss Somerville did not show more poetical feeling.
“I am afraid, after all,” said I to myself, “she is light and girlish,
and more fitted to pluck wild flowers, play on the flageolet,
and romp with little dogs, than to converse with a man of my turn.”
I believe, however, to tell the truth, I was more out of humor
with myself. I thought I had made the worst first appearance
all patience, when I called to mind my awkward attempts at ease
and elegance, in the tête-á-tête. And then my intolerable long
lecture about poetry, to catch the applause of a heedless auditor!
But there I was not to blame. I had certainly been eloquent; it
was her fault that the eloquence was wasted. To meditate upon
the embroidery of a flower, when I was expatiating on the beauties
of Milton! She might at least have admired the poetry, if she
did not relish the manner in which it was delivered; though that
was not despicable, for I had recited passages in my best style,
which my mother and sisters had always considered equal to a
play. “Oh, it is evident,” thought I, “Miss Somerville has very
little soul!”
Such were my fancies and cogitations, during the day, the
greater part of which was spent in my chamber, for I was still
languid. My evening was passed in the drawing-room, where I
overlooked Miss Somerville's portfolio of sketches. They were
executed with great taste, and showed a nice observation of the
peculiarities of nature. They were all her own, and free from
those cunning tints and touches of the drawing-master, by which
young ladies' drawings, like their heads, are dressed up for company.
There was no garish and vulgar trick of colors, either; all
was executed with singular truth and simplicity.
“And yet,” thought I, “this little being, who has so pure an
eye to take in, as in a limpid brook, all the graceful forms and
magic tints of nature, has no soul for poetry!”
Mr. Somerville toward the latter part of the evening, observing
my eye to wander occasionally to the harp, interpreted and
met my wishes with his accustomed civility.
“Julia, my dear,” said he, “Mr. Mountjoy would like to hear
a little music from your harp; let us hear, too, the sound of your
voice.”
Julia immediately complied, without any of that hesitation
and difficulty, by which young ladies are apt to make the company
pay dear for bad music. She sang a sprightly strain, in a
brilliant style, that came trilling playfully over the ear; and the
bright eye and dimpling smile showed that her little heart danced
with the song. Her pet Canary bird, who hung close by, was
wakened by the music, and burst forth into an emulating strain.
Julia smiled with a pretty air of defiance, and played louder.
After some time, the music changed, and ran into a plaintive
strain, in a minor key. Then it was, that all the former witchery
of her voice came over me; then it was, that she seemed to sing
from the heart and to the heart. Her fingers moved about the
chords as if they scarcely touched them. Her whole manner and
appearance changed; her eyes beamed with the softest expression;
her countenance, her frame, all seemed subdued into tenderness.
She rose from the harp, leaving it still vibrating, with
sweet sounds, and moved toward her father, to bid him good night.
His eyes had been fixed on her intently, during her performance.
As she came before him, he parted her shining ringlets with
both his hands, and looked down with the fondness of a father
on her innocent face. The music seemed still lingering in its lineaments,
and the action of her father brought a moist gleam in
her eye. He kissed her fair forehead, after the French mode of
parental caressing: “Good night, and God bless you,” said he,
“my good little girl!”
Julia tripped away, with a tear in her eye, a dimple in her
picture of paternal and filial affection I had ever seen.
When I retired to bed, a new train of thoughts crowded into
my brain. “After all,” said I to myself, “it is clear this girl
has a soul, though she was not moved by my eloquence. She has
all the outward signs and evidences of poetic feeling. She paints
well, and has an eye for nature. She is a fine musician, and
enters into the very soul of song. What a pity that she knows
nothing of poetry! But we will see what is to be done. I am
irretrievably in love with her; what then am I to do? Come
down to the level of her mind, or endeavor to raise her to some
kind of intellectual equality with myself? That is the most generous
course. She will look up to me as a benefactor. I shall
become associated in her mind with the lofty thoughts and harmonious
graces of poetry. She is apparently docile: besides, the
difference of our ages will give me an ascendency over her. She
cannot be above sixteen years of age, and I am full turned of
twenty.” So, having built this most delectable of air-castles, I
fell asleep.
The next morning, I was quite a different being. I no longer
felt fearful of stealing a glance at Julia; on the contrary, I contemplated
her steadily, with the benignant eye of a benefactor.
Shortly after breakfast, I found myself alone with her, as I had
on the preceding morning; but I felt nothing of the awkwardness
of our previous tête-à-tête. I was elevated by the consciousness
of my intellectual superiority, and should almost have felt a sentiment
of pity for the ignorance of the lovely little being, if I had
“But it is time,” thought I, “to open school.”
Julia, was occupied in arranging some music on her piano.
I looked over two or three songs; they were Moore's Irish
melodies.
“These are pretty things,” said I, flirting the leaves over
lightly, and giving a slight shrug, by way of qualifying the opinion.
“Oh, I love them of all things!” said Julia, “they 're so
touching!”
“Then you like them for the poetry,” said I, with an encouraging
smile.
“Oh yes; she thought them charmingly written.”
Now was my time. “Poetry,” said I, assuming a didactic
attitude and air, “poetry is one of the most pleasing studies that
can occupy a youthful mind. It renders us susceptible of the
gentle impulses of humanity, and cherishes a delicate perception
of all that is virtuous and elevated in morals, and graceful and
beautiful in physics. It—”
I was going on in a style that would have graced a professor
of rhetoric, when I saw a light smile playing about Miss Somerville's
mouth, and that she began to turn over the leaves of a
music book. I recollected her inattention to my discourse of the
preceding morning. “There is no fixing her light mind,” thought
I, “by abstract theory; we will proceed practically.” As it happened,
the identical volume of Milton's Paradise Lost was lying
at hand.
“Let me recommend to you, my young friend,” said I, in one
of those tones of persuasive admonition, which I had so often
loved in Glencoe—“let me recommend to you this admirable
superior to those songs which have delighted you.” Julia looked
at the book, and then at me, with a whimsically dubious air.
“Milton's Paradise Lost?” said she; “oh, I know the greater
part of that by heart.”
I had not expected to find my pupil so far advanced; however,
the Paradise Lost is a kind of school book, and its finest passages
are given to young ladies as tasks.
“I find,” said I to myself, “I must not treat her as so complete
a novice; her inattention, yesterday, could not have proceeded
from absolute ignorance, but merely from a want of poetic
feeling. I'll try her again.”
I now determined to dazzle her with my own erudition, and
launched into a harangue that would have done honor to an institute.
Pope, Spenser, Chaucer, and the old dramatic writers, were
all dipped into, with the excursive flight of a swallow. I did not
confine myself to English poets, but gave a glance at the French
and Italian schools: I passed over Ariosto in full wing, but
paused on Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered. I dwelt on the character
of Clorinda: “There's a character,” said I, “that you will find
well worthy a woman's study. It shows to what exalted heights
of heroism the sex can rise; how gloriously they may share even
in the stern concerns of men.”
“For my part,” said Julia, gently taking advantage of a
pause—“for my part, I prefer the character of Sophronia.”
I was thunderstruck. She then had read Tasso! This girl
that I had been treating as an ignoramus in poetry! She proceeded,
with a slight glow of the cheek, summoned up perhaps by
a casual glow of feeling:
“I do not admire those masculine heroines,” said she, “who
aim at the bold qualities of the opposite sex. Now Sophronia
only exhibits the real qualities of a woman, wrought up to their
highest excitement. She is modest, gentle, and retiring, as it
becomes a woman to be; but she has all the strength of affection
proper to a woman. She cannot fight for her people, as Clorinda
does, but she can offer herself up, and die, to serve them. You
may admire Clorinda, but you surely would be more apt to love
Sophronia; at least,” added she, suddenly appearing to recollect
herself, and blushing at having launched into such a discussion,
“at least, that is what papa observed, when we read the poem
together.”
“Indeed,” said I, dryly, for I felt disconcerted and nettled at
being unexpectedly lectured by my pupil—“indeed, I do not exactly
recollect the passage.”
“Oh,” said Julia, “I can repeat it to you;” and she immediately
gave it in Italian.
Heavens and earth!—here was a situation! I knew no more
of Italian than I did of the language of Psalmanazar. What a
dilemma for a would-be-wise man to be placed in! I saw Julia
waited for my opinion.
“In fact,” said I, hesitating, “I—I do not exactly understand
Italian.”
“Oh,” said Julia, with the utmost naïveté, “I have no doubt
it is very beautiful in the translation.”
I was glad to break up school, and get back to my chamber,
full of the mortification which a wise man in love experiences on
finding his mistress wiser than himself. “Translation! translation!”
muttered I to myself, as I jerked the door shut behind
the modern languages. They are all-important. What is the use
of Latin and Greek? No one speaks them; but here, the moment
I make my appearauce in the world, a little girl slaps Italian in
my face. However, thank Heaven, a language is easily learned.
The moment I return home, I'll set about studying Italian; and to
prevent future surprise, I will study Spanish and German at the
same time; and if any young lady attempts to quote Italian upon
me again, I'll bury her under a heap of High Dutch poetry!”
I felt now like some mighty chieftain, who has carried the war
into a weak country, with full confidence of success, and been repulsed
and obliged to draw off his forces from before some inconsiderable
fortress.
“However,” thought I, “I have as yet brought only my light
artillery into action; we shall see what is to be done with my
heavy ordnance. Julia is evidently well versed in poetry; but
it is natural she should be so; it is allied to painting and music,
and is congenial to the light graces of the female character. We
will try her on graver themes.”
I felt all my pride awakened; it even for a time swelled higher
than my love. I was determined completely to establish my
mental superiority, and subdue the intellect of this little being:
it would then be time to sway the sceptre of gentle empire, and
win the affections of her heart.
Accordingly, at dinner I again took the field, en potence. I
now addressed myself to Mr. Somerville, for I was about to enter
upon topics in which a young girl like her could not be well versed.
I led, or rather forced, the conversation into a vein of historical
erudition, discussing several of the most prominent facts of ancient
Mr. Somerville listened to me with the air of a man receiving
imformation. I was encouraged, and went on gloriously from
theme to theme of school declamation. I sat with Marius on the
ruins of Carthage; I defended the bridge with Horatius Cocles;
thrust my hand into the flame with Martius Scævola, and plunged
with Curtius into the yawning gulf; I fought side by side with
Leonidas, at the straits of Thermopylæ; and was going full drive
into the battle of Platæa, when my memory, which is the worst in
the world, failed me, just as I wanted the name of the Lacedemonian
commander.
“Julia, my dear,” said Mr. Somerville, “perhaps you may
recollect the name of which Mr. Mountjoy is in quest?”
Julia colored slightly: “I believe,” said she, in a low voice,
—“I believe it was Pausanias.”
This unexpected sally, instead of reinforcing me, threw my
whole scheme of battle into confusion, and the Athenians remained
unmolested in the field.
I am half inclined, since, to think Mr. Somerville meant this
as a sly hit at my school-boy pedantry; but he was too well bred
not to seek to relieve me from my mortification. “Oh!” said he,
“Julia is our family book of reference for names, dates, and distances,
and has an excellent memory for history and geography.”
I now became desperate; as a last resource, I turned to metaphysics.
“If she is a philosopher in petticoats,” thought I, “it
is all over with me.”
Here, however, I had the field to myself. I gave chapter and
verse of my tutor's lectures, heightened by all his poetical illustrations:
plunged into such depths of metaphysics, that I was in danger of
sticking in the mire at the bottom. Fortunately, I had auditors
who apparently could not detect my flounderings. Neither Mr.
Somerville nor his daughter offered the least interruption.
When the ladies had retired, Mr. Somerville sat some time
with me; and as I was no longer anxious to astonish, I permitted
myself to listen, and found that he was really agreeable. He was
quite communicative, and from his conversation I was enabled to
form a juster idea of his daughter's character, and the mode in
which she had been brought up. Mr. Somerville had mingled
much with the world, and with what is termed fashionable society.
He had experienced its cold elegancies, and gay insincerities; its
dissipation of the spirits, and squanderings of the heart. Like
many men of the world, though he had wandered too far from
nature ever to return to it, yet he had the good taste and good
feeling to look back fondly to its simple delights, and to determine
that his child, if possible, should never leave them. He had superintended
her education with scrupulous care, storing her mind
with the graces of polite literature, and with such knowledge as
would enable it to furnish its own amusement and occupation,
and giving her all the accomplishments that sweeten and enliven
the circle of domestic life. He had been particularly sedulous to
exclude all fashionable affectations; all false sentiment, false sensibility,
and false romance. “Whatever advantages she may possess,”
said he, “she is quite unconscious of them. She is a capricious
little being, in every thing but her affections; she is,
however, free from art: simple, ingenuous, innocent, amiable, and,
I thank God! happy.”
Such was the eulogy of a fond father, delivered with a tenderness
that touched me. I could not help making a casual inquiry,
whether, among the graces of polite literature, he had included a
slight tincture of metaphysics. He smiled, and told me he had
not.
On the whole, when, as usual, that night, I summed up the
day's observations on my pillow, I was not altogether dissatisfied.
“Miss Somerville,” said I, “loves poetry, and I like her the better
for it. She has the advantage of me in Italian: agreed; what
is it know a variety of languages, but merely to have a variety
of sounds to express the same idea? Original thought is the ore
of the mind; language is but the accidental stamp and coinage,
by which it is put into circulation. If I can furnish an original
idea, what care I how many languages she can translate it into?
She may be able, also, to quote names, and dates, and latitudes,
better than I; but that is a mere effort of the memory. I admit
she is more accurate in history and geography than I; but then
she knows nothing of metaphysics.”
I had now sufficiently recovered, to return home; yet I
could not think of leaving Mr. Somerville's, without having a
little farther conversation with him on the subject of his daughter's
education.
“This Mr. Somerville,” thought I, “is a very accomplished,
elegant man; he has seen a good deal of the world, and, upon the
whole, has profited by what he has seen. He is not without information,
and, as far as he thinks, appears to think correctly;
but after all, he is rather superficial, and does not think profoundly.
He seems to take no delight in those metaphysical
abstractions, that are the proper aliment of masculine minds. I
in metaphysical discussions, but could recollect no instance where
I had been able to draw him out. He had listened, it is true,
with attention, and smiled as if in acquiescence, but had always
appeared to avoid reply. Besides, I had made several sad blunders
in the glow of eloquent declamation; but he had never interrupted
me, to notice and correct them, as he would have done had he
been versed in the theme.
“Now it is really a great pity,” resumed I, “that he should
have the entire management of Miss Somerville's education.
What a vast advantage it would be, if she could be put for a little
time under the superintendence of Glencoe. He would throw
some deeper shades of thought into her mind, which at present is
all sunshine; not but that Mr. Somerville has done very well, as
far as he has gone; but then he has merely prepared the soil for
the strong plants of useful knowledge. She is well versed in the
leading facts of history, and the general course of belles-lettres,”
said I; “a little more philosophy would do wonders.”
I accordingly took occasion to ask Mr. Somerville for a few
moments' conversation in his study, the morning I was to depart.
When we were alone, I opened the matter fully to him. I commenced
with the warmest eulogium of Glencoe's powers of mind,
and vast acquirements, and ascribed to him all my proficiency in
the higher branches of knowledge. I begged, therefore, to recommend
him as a friend calculated to direct the studies of Miss
Somerville; to lead her mind, by degrees to the contemplation of
abstract principles, and to produce habits of philosophical analysis;
“which,” added I, gently smiling, “are not often cultivated
by young ladies.” I ventured to hint, in addition, that he would
himself; one who would stimulate and evolve the powers of his
mind; and who might open to him tracts of inquiry and speculation,
to which perhaps he had hitherto been a stranger.
Mr. Somerville listened with grave attention. When I had
finished, he thanked me in the politest manner for the interest I
took in the welfare of his daughter and himself. He observed
that, as regarded himself, he was afraid he was too old to
benefit by the instructions of Mr. Glencoe, and that as to his
daughter, he was afraid her mind was but little fitted for the
study of metaphysics. “I do not wish,” continued he, “to strain
her intellects with subjects they cannot grasp, but to make her
familiarly acquainted with those that are within the limits of her
capacity. I do not pretend to prescribe the boundaries of female
genius, and am far from indulging the vulgar opinion, that women
are unfitted by nature for the highest intellectual pursuits. I speak
only with reference to my daughter's taste and talents. She will
never make a learned woman; nor in truth do I desire it; for
such is the jealousy of our sex, as to mental as well as physical
ascendency, that a learned woman is not always the happiest. I
do not wish my daughter to excite envy, nor to battle with the
prejudices of the world; but to glide peaceably through life, on
the good will and kind opinion of her friends. She has ample
employment for her little head, in the course I have marked out
for her; and is busy at present with some branches of natural
history, calculated to awaken her perceptions to the beauties and
wonders of nature, and to the inexhaustible volume of wisdom
constantly spread open before her eyes. I consider that woman
most likely to make an agreeable companion, who can draw topics
be cheerful and contented, who is continually sensible of the order,
the harmony, and the invariable beneficence, that reign throughout
the beautiful world we inhabit.”
“But,” added he, smiling, “I am betraying myself into a
lecture, instead of merely giving a reply to your kind offer. Permit
me to take the liberty, in return, of inquiring a little about
your own pursuits. You speak of having finished your education;
but of course you have a line of private study and mental occupation
marked out; for you must know the importance, both in
point of interest and happiness, of keeping the mind employed.
May I ask what system you observe in your intellectual exercises?”
“Oh, as to system,” I observed, “I could never bring myself
into any thing of the kind. I thought it best to let my genius
take its own course, as it always acted the most vigorously when
stimulated by inclination.”
Mr. Somerville shook his head. “This same genius,” said he,
“is a wild quality, that runs away with our most promising young
men. It has become so much the fashion, too, to give it the
reins, that it is now thought an animal of too noble and generous
a nature to be brought to the harness. But it is all a mistake.
Nature never designed these high endowments to run riot through
society, and throw the whole system into confusion. No, my dear
sir: genius, unless it acts upon system, is very apt to be a useless
quality to society; sometimes an injurious, and certainly a very
uncomfortable one, to its possessor. I have had many opportunities
of seeing the progress through life of young men who were
accounted geniuses, and have found it too often end in early exhaustion
that these effects might be traced to a total want of system.
There were no habits of business, of steady purpose, and regular
application, superinduced upon the mind; every thing was left to
chance and impulse, and native luxuriance, and every thing of
course ran to waste and wild entanglement. Excuse me, if I am
tedious on this point, for I feel solicitous to impress it upon
you, being an error extremely prevalent in our country, and one
into which too many of our youth have fallen. I am happy, however,
to observe the zeal which still appears to actuate you for
the acquisition of knowledge, and augur every good from the elevated
bent of your ambition. May I ask what has been your
course of study for the last six months?”
Never was question more unluckily timed. For the last six
months I had been absolutely buried in novels and romances.
Mr. Somerville perceived that the question was embarrassing,
and with his invariable good breeding, immediately resumed the
conversation, without waiting for a reply. He took care, however,
to turn it in such a way as to draw from me an account of the
whole manner in which I had been educated, and the various currents
of reading into which my mind had run. He then went on
to discuss briefly, but impressively, the different branches of
knowledge most important to a young man in my situation; and
to my surprise I found him a complete master of those studies on
which I had supposed him ignorant, and on which I had been descanting
so confidently.
He complimented me, however, very graciously, upon the progress
I had made, but advised me for the present to turn my attention
to the physical rather than the moral sciences. “These
the same time repress self-confidence, by letting him know how
boundless are the realms of knowledge, and how little we can possibly
know. Whereas metaphysical studies, though of an ingenious
order of intellectual employment, are apt to bewilder some
minds with vague speculations. They never know how far they
have advanced, or what may be the correctness of their favorite
theory. They render many of our young men verbose and declamatory,
and prone to mistake the aberrations of their fancy for
the inspirations of divine philosophy.”
I could not but interrupt him, to assent to the truth of these
remarks, and to say that it had been my lot, in the course of my
limited experience, to encounter young men of the kind, who had
overwhelmed me by their verbosity.
Mr. Somerville smiled. “I trust,” said he, kindly, “that you
will guard against these errors. Avoid the eagerness with which
a young man is apt to hurry into conversation, and to utter the
crude and ill-digested notions which he has picked up in his recent
studies. Be assured that extensive and accurate knowledge
is the slow acquisition of a studious lifetime; that a young man,
however pregnant his wit, and prompt his talent, can have mastered
but the rudiments of learning, and, in a manner, attained the
implements of study. Whatever may have been your past assiduity,
you must be sensible that as yet you have but reached the
threshold of true knowledge; but at the same time, you have the
advantage that you are still very young, and have ample time to
learn.”
Here our conference ended. I walked out of the study, a very
different being from what I was on entering it. I had gone in
like a student, who had failed in his examination, and been degraded
in his class.
“Very young,” and “on the threshold of knowledge!” This
was extremely flattering, to one who had considered himself an
accomplished scholar, and profound philosopher!
“It is singular,” thought I; “there seems to have been a spell
upon my faculties, ever since I have been in this house. I certainly
have not been able to do myself justice. Whenever I
have undertaken to advise, I have had the tables turned upon me.
It must be that I am strange and diffident among people I am
not accustomed to. I wish they could hear me talk at home!”
“After all,” added I, on farther reflection,—“after all, there is
a great deal of force in what Mr. Somerville has said. Some
how or other, these men of the world do now and then hit upon
remarks that would do credit to a philosopher. Some of his
general observations came so home, that I almost thought they
were meant for myself. His advice about adopting a system of
study, is very judicious. I will immediately put it in practice.
My mind shall operate henceforward with the regularity of clock-work.”
How far I succeeded in adopting this plan, how I fared in the
farther pursuit of knowledge, and how I succeeded in my suit to
Julia Somerville, may afford matter for a farther communication
to the public, if this simple record of my early life is fortunate
enough to excite any curiosity.
| Wolfert's roost | |