University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.
CLAYTON.

The curtain rises on our next scene, and discovers a
tranquil library, illuminated by the slant rays of the afternoon's
sun. On one side the room opened by long glass
windows on to a garden, from whence the air came in perfumed
with the breath of roses and honeysuckles. The
floor covered with white matting, the couches and sofas
robed in smooth glazed linen, gave an air of freshness
and coolness to the apartment. The walls were hung
with prints of the great master-pieces of European art,
while bronzes and plaster-casts, distributed with taste and
skill, gave evidence of artistic culture in the general arrangement.
Two young men were sitting together near
the opened window at a small table, which displayed an
antique coffee-set of silver, and a silver tray of ices and
fruits. One of these has already been introduced to the
notice of our readers, in the description of our heroine in
the last chapter.

Edward Clayton, the only son of Judge Clayton, and
representative of one of the oldest and most distinguished
families of North Carolina, was in personal appearance
much what our lively young friend had sketched — tall,
slender, with a sort of loose-jointedness and carelessness of
dress, which might have produced an impression of clownishness,
had it not been relieved by a refined and intellectual
expression on the head and face. The upper part
of the face gave the impression of thoughtfulness and
strength, with a shadowing of melancholy earnestness; and

there was about the eye, in conversation, that occasional
gleam of troubled wildness which betrays the hypochondriac
temperament. The mouth was even feminine in the delicacy
and beauty of its lines, and the smile which sometimes
played around it had a peculiar fascination. It seemed to
be a smile of but half the man's nature; for it never rose
as high as the eyes, or seemed to disturb the dark stillness
of their thoughtfulness.

The other speaker was in many respects a contrast; and
we will introduce him to our readers by the name of Frank
Russel. Furthermore, for their benefit, we will premise
that he was the only son of a once distinguished and
wealthy, but now almost decayed family, of Virginia.

It is supposed by many that friendship is best founded
upon similarity of nature; but observation teaches that it
is more common by a union of opposites, in which each
party is attracted by something wanting in itself. In Clayton,
the great preponderance of those faculties which draw
a man inward, and impair the efficiency of the outward life,
inclined him to over-value the active and practical faculties,
because he saw them constantly attended with a kind of
success which he fully appreciated, but was unable to
attain. Perfect ease of manner, ready presence of mind
under all social exigencies, adroitness in making the most
of passing occurrences, are qualities which are seldom the
gift of sensitive and deeply-thoughtful natures, and which
for this very reason they are often disposed to over-value.
Russel was one of those men who have just enough of all the
higher faculties to appreciate their existence in others, and
not enough of any one to disturb the perfect availability of
his own mind. Everything in his mental furnishing was
always completely under his own control, and on hand for
use at a moment's notice. From infancy he was noted for
quick tact and ready reply. At school he was the universal
factotum, the “good fellow” of the ring, heading all the
mischief among the boys, and yet walking with exemplary
gravity on the blind side of the master. Many a scrape

had he rescued Clayton from, into which he had fallen from
a more fastidious moral sense, a more scrupulous honor,
than is for worldly profit either in the boy's or man's
sphere; and Clayton, superior as he was, could not help
loving and depending on him.

The diviner part of man is often shame-faced and self-distrustful,
ill at home in this world, and standing in awe
of nothing so much as what is called common sense; and
yet common sense very often, by its own keenness, is able
to see that these unavailable currencies of another's mind
are of more worth, if the world only knew it, than the
ready coin of its own; and so the practical and the ideal
nature are drawn together.

So Clayton and Russel had been friends from boyhood;
had roomed together their four years in college; and, tho'
instruments of a vastly different quality, had hitherto played
the concerts of life with scarce a discord.

In person, Russel was of about the medium size, with a
well-knit, elastic frame, all whose movements were characterized
by sprightliness and energy. He had a frank, open
countenance, clear blue eyes, a high forehead shaded by
clusters of curling brown hair; his flexible lips wore a
good-natured yet half-sarcastic smile. His feelings, though
not inconveniently deep, were easily touched; he could be
moved to tears or to smiles, with the varying humor of a
friend; but never so far as to lose his equipoise — or, as he
phrased it, forget what he was about.

But we linger too long in description. We had better let
the reader hear the dramatis personœ, and judge for himself.

“Well, now, Clayton,” said Russel, as he leaned back in
a stuffed leather chair, with a cigar between his fingers,
“how considerate of them to go off on that marooning party,
and leave us to ourselves, here! I say, old boy, how goes
the world now? — Reading law, hey? — booked to be Judge
Clayton the second! Now, my dear fellow, if I had the
opportunities that you have — only to step into my father's
shoes — I should be a lucky fellow.”

“Well, you are welcome to all my chances,” said Clayton,
throwing himself on one of the lounges; “for I begin
to see that I shall make very little of them.”

“Why, what 's the matter? — Don't you like the study?”

“The study, perhaps, well enough — but not the practice.
Reading the theory is always magnificent and grand.
`Law hath her seat in the bosom of God; her voice is the
harmony of the world.' You remember we used to declaim
that. But, then, come to the practice of it, and what do
you find? Are legal examinations anything like searching
after truth? Does not an advocate commit himself to one-sided
views of his subject, and habitually ignore all the
truth on the other side? Why, if I practised law according
to my conscience, I should be chased out of court in a
week.”

“There you are, again, Clayton, with your everlasting
conscience, which has been my plague ever since you were
a boy, and I have never been able to convince you what
a humbug it is! It 's what I call a crotchety conscience —
always in the way of your doing anything like anybody
else. I suppose, then, of course, you won 't go into political
life. — Great pity, too. You 'd make a very imposing
figure as senator. You have exactly the cut for a conscript
father — one of the old Viri Romæ.”

“And what do you think the old Viri Romæ would do in
Washington? What sort of a figure do you think Regulus,
or Quintus Curtius, or Mucius Seævola, would make, there?”

“Well, to be sure, the style of political action has altered
somewhat since those days. If political duties were what
they were then, — if a gulf would open in Washington, for
example, — you would be the fellow to plunge in, horse and
all, for the good of the republic; or, if anything was to be
done by putting your right hand in the fire and burning it
off — or, if there were any Carthaginians who would cut off
your eyelids, or roll you down hill in a barrel of nails, for
truth and your country's sake, — you would be on hand for
any such matter. That 's the sort of foreign embassy that

you would be after. All these old-fashioned goings on would
suit you to a T; but as to figuring in purple and fine linen,
in Paris or London, as American minister, you would make
a dismal business of it. But, still, I thought you might
practise law in a wholesome, sensible way, — take fees, make
pleas with abundance of classical allusions, show off your
scholarship, marry a rich wife, and make your children
princes in the gates — all without treading on the toes of
your too sensitive moral what-d'-ye-call-ems. But you 've
done one thing like other folks, at least, if all 's true that
I 've heard.”

“And what is that, pray?”

“What 's that? Hear the fellow, now! How innocent
we are! I suppose you think I have n't heard of your campaign
in New York — carrying off that princess of little flirts,
Miss Gordon.”

Clayton responded to the charge only with a slight shrug
and a smile, in which not only his lips but his eyes took part,
while the color mounted to his forehead.

“Now, do you know, Clayton,” continued Russel, “I like
that. Do you know I always thought I should detest the
woman that you should fall in love with? It seemed to me
that such a portentous combination of all the virtues as you
were planning for would be something like a comet — an
alarming spectacle. Do you remember (I should like to know,
if you do) just what that woman was to be? — was to have
all the learning of a man, all the graces of a woman (I think
I have it by heart); she was to be practical, poetical, pious,
and everything else that begins with a p; she was to be
elegant and earnest; take deep and extensive views of life;
and there was to be a certain air about her, half Madonna,
half Venus, made of every creature's best. Ah, bless us!
what poor creatures we are! Here comes along our little
coquette, flirting, tossing her fan; picks you up like a great,
solid chip, as you are, and throws you into her chip-basket
of beaux, and goes on dancing and flirting as before. Are n't
you ashamed of it, now?”

“No. I am really much like the minister in our town,
where we fitted for college, who married a pretty Polly
Peters in his sixtieth year, and, when the elders came to
inquire if she had the requisite qualifications for a pastor's
lady, he told them that he did n't think she had. `But the
fact is, brethren,' said he, `though I don't pretend she is a
saint, she is a very pretty little sinner, and I love her.'
That 's just my case.”

“Very sensibly said; and, do you know, as I told you
before, I 'm perfectly delighted with it, because it is acting
like other folks. But, then, my dear fellow, do you think
you have come to anything really solid with this little Venus
of the sea-foam? Is n't it much the same as being engaged
to a cloud, or a butterfly? One wants a little streak of reality
about a person that one must take for better or for worse.
You have a deep nature, Clayton. You really want a wife
who will have some glimmering perception of the difference
between you and the other things that walk and wear coats,
and are called men.”

“Well, then, really,” said Clayton, rousing himself, and
speaking with energy, “I 'll tell you just what it is: Nina
Gordon is a flirt and a coquette — a spoiled child, if you will.
She is not at all the person I ever expected would obtain any
power over me. She has no culture, no reading, no habits
of reflection; but she has, after all, a certain tone and quality
to her, a certain `timbre,' as the French say of voices, which
suits me. There is about her a mixture of energy, individuality,
and shrewdness, which makes her, all uninformed as she
is, more piquant and attractive than any woman I ever fell in
with. She never reads; it is almost impossible to get her to
read; but, if you can catch her ear for five minutes, her literary
judgments have a peculiar freshness and truth. And so
with her judgment on all other subjects, if you can stop her
long enough to give you an opinion. As to heart, I think she
has yet a wholly unawakened nature. She has lived only
in the world of sensation, and that is so abundant and so
buoyant in her that the deeper part still sleeps. It is only

two or three times that I have seen a flash of this under
nature look from her eyes, and color her voice and intonation.
And I believe — I 'm quite sure — that I am the only
person in the world that ever touched it at all. I 'm not at
all sure that she loves me now; but I 'm almost equally sure
that she will.”

“They say,” said Russel, carelessly, “that she is generally
engaged to two or three at a time.”

“That may be also,” said Clayton, indolently. “I rather
suspect it to be the case now, but it gives me no concern.
I 've seen all the men by whom she is surrounded, and I
know perfectly well there 's not one of them that she cares
a rush for.”

“Well, but, my dear fellow, how can your extra fastidious
moral notions stand the idea of her practising this system
of deception?”

“Why, of course, it is n't a thing to my taste; but, then,
like the old parson, if I love the `little sinner,' what am I to
do? I suppose you think it a lover's paradox; yet I assure
you, though she deceives, she is not deceitful; though she
acts selfishly, she is not selfish. The fact is, the child has
grown up, motherless and an heiress, among servants. She
has, I believe, a sort of an aunt, or some such relative, who
nominally represents the head of the family to the eye of the
world. But I fancy little madam has had full sway. Then
she has been to a fashionable New York boarding-school,
and that has developed the talent of shirking lessons, and
evading rules, with a taste for side-walk flirtation. These
are all the attainments that I ever heard of being got at a
fashionable boarding-school, unless it be a hatred of books,
and a general dread of literary culture.”

“And her estates are —”

“Nothing very considerable. Managed nominally by an
old uncle of hers; really by a very clever quadroon servant,
who was left her by her father, and who has received an
education, and has talents very superior to what are common
to those in his class. He is, in fact, the overseer of her

plantation, and I believe the most loyal, devoted creature
breathing.”

“Clayton,” said his companion, “this affair might not be
much to one who takes the world as I do, but for you it may
be a little too serious. Don't get in beyond your depth.”

“You are too late, Russel, for that — I am in.”

“Well, then, good luck to you, my dear fellow! And
now, as we are about it, I may as well tell you that I 'm in
for it, too. I suppose you have heard of Miss Benoir, of
Baltimore. Well, she is my fate.”

“And are you really engaged?”

“All signed and sealed, and to be delivered next Christmas.”

“Let 's hear about her.”

“Well, she is of a good height (I always said I should n't
marry a short woman), — not handsome, but reasonably
well-looking — very fine manners — knows the world —
plays and sings handsomely — has a snug little fortune.
Now, you know I never held to marrying for money and
nothing else; but, then, as I 'm situated, I could not have
fallen in love without that requisite. Some people call this
heartless. I don't think it is. If I had met Mary Benoir,
and had known that she had n't anything, why, I should
have known that it would n't do for me at all to cultivate
any particular intimacy; but, knowing she had fortune, I
looked a little further, and found she had other things, too.
Now, if that 's marrying for money, so be it. Yours, Clayton,
is a genuine case of falling in love. But, as for me, I
walked in with my eyes wide open.”

“And what are you going to do with yourself in the world,
Russel?”

“I must get into practice, and get some foothold there,
you know; and then, hey for Washington! — I 'm to be president,
like every other adventurer in these United States.
Why not I, as well as another man?”

“I don't know, certainly,” said Clayton, “if you want
it, and are willing to work hard enough and long enough,

and pay all the price. I would as soon spend my life walking
the drawn sword which they say is the bridge to Mahomet's
paradise.”

“Ah! ah! I fancy I see you doing it! What a figure
you 'd make, my dear fellow, balancing and posturing on
the sword-blade, and making horrid wry faces! Yet I know
you 'd be as comfortable there as you would in political life.
And yet, after all, you are greatly superior to me in every
respect. It would be a thousand pities if such a man as
you could n't have the management of things. But our
national ship has to be navigated by second-rate fellows,
Jerry-go-nimbles, like me, simply because we are good in
dodging and turning. But that 's the way. Sharp 's the
word, and the sharpest wins.”

“For my part,” said Clayton, “I shall never be what the
world calls a successful man. There seems to be one inscription
written over every passage of success in life, as
far as I 've seen, — `What shall it profit a man if he gain
the whole world, and lose his own soul?'”

“I don't understand you, Clayton.”

“Why, it seems to me just this. As matters are going
on now in our country, I must either lower my standard of
right and honor, and sear my soul in all its nobler sensibilities,
or I must be what the world calls an unsuccessful man.
There is no path in life, that I know of, where humbuggery
and fraud and deceit are not essential to success — none
where a man can make the purity of his moral nature the first
object. I see Satan standing in every avenue, saying, `All
these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship
me.'”

“Why don't you take to the ministry, then, Clayton, at
once, and put up a pulpit-cushion and big Bible between you
and the fiery darts of the devil?”

“I 'm afraid I should meet him there, too. I could not
gain a right to speak in any pulpit without some profession
or pledge to speak this or that, that would be a snare to
my conscience, by and by. At the door of every pulpit I

must swear always to find truth in a certain formula; and
living, prosperity, success, reputation, will all be pledged
on my finding it there. I tell you I should, if I followed
my own conscience, preach myself out of pulpits quicker
than I should plead out at the bar.”

“Lord help you, Clayton! What will you do? Will
you settle down on your plantation, and raise cotton and
sell niggers? I 'm expecting to hear, every minute, that
you 've subscribed for the Liberator, and are going to turn
Abolitionist.”

“I do mean to settle down on my plantation, but not to
raise cotton or negroes as a chief end of man. I do take
the Liberator, because I 'm a free man, and have a right to
take what I have a mind to. I don't agree with Garrison,
because I think I know more about the matter, where I
stand, than he does, or can, where he stands. But it 's his
right, as an honest man, to say what he thinks; and I
should use it in his place. If I saw things as he does, I
should be an Abolitionist. But I don't.”

“That 's a mercy, at least,” said Russel, “to a man
with your taste for martyrdom. But what are you going
to do?”

“What any Christian man should do who finds four hundred
odd of his fellow men and women placed in a state of
absolute dependence on him. I 'm going to educate and fit
them for freedom. There is n't a sublimer power on earth
than God has given to us masters. The law gives us absolute
and unlimited control. A plantation such as a plantation
might be would be `a light to lighten the gentiles.'
There is a wonderful and beautiful development locked up
in this Ethiopian race, and it is worth being a life-object to
unlock it. The raising of cotton is to be the least of the
thing. I regard my plantation as a sphere for raising men
and women, and demonstrating the capabilities of a race.”

“Selah!” said Russel.

Clayton looked angry.

“I beg your pardon, Clayton. This is all superb, sublime!

There is just one objection to it — it is wholly impossible.”

“Every good and great thing has been called impossible
before it is done.”

“Well, let me tell you, Clayton, just how it will be. You
will be a mark for arrows, both sides. You will offend all
your neighbors by doing better than they do. You will
bring your negroes up to a point in which they will meet
the current of the whole community against them, and
meanwhile you will get no credit with the Abolitionists.
They will call you a cut-throat, pirate, sheep-stealer, and all
the rest of their elegant little list of embellishments, all the
same. You 'll get a state of things that nobody can manage
but yourself, and you by the hardest; and then you 'll
die, and it 'll all run to the devil faster than you run it up.
Now, if you would do the thing by halves, it would n't be
so bad; but I know you of old. You won't be satisfied with
teaching a catechism and a few hymns, parrot-wise, which I
think is a respectable religious amusement for our women.
You 'll teach 'em all to read, and write, and think, and
speak. I should n't wonder to hear of an importation of
black-boards and spelling-books. You 'll want a lyceum
and debating society. Pray, what does sister Anne say to
all this? Anne is a sensible girl now, but I 'll warrant
you 've got her to go in for it.”

“Anne is as much interested as I, but her practical tact
is greater than mine, and she is of use in detecting difficulties
that I do not see. I have an excellent man, who enters
fully into my views, who takes charge of the business
interests of the plantation, instead of one of these scoundrel
overseers. There is to be a graduated system of work
and wages introduced — a system that shall teach the
nature and rights of property, and train to habits of industry
and frugality, by making every man's acquirements
equal to his industry and good conduct.”

“And what sort of a support do you expect to make out

of all this? Are you going to live for them, or they for
you?”

“I shall set them the example of living for them, and
trust to awaken the good that is in them, in return. The
strong ought to live for the weak — the cultivated for the
ignorant.”

“Well, Clayton, the Lord help you! I 'm in earnest now
— fact! Though I know you won't do it, yet I wish you
could. It 's a pity, Clayton, you were born in this world. It
is n't you, but our planet and planetary ways, that are in
fault. Your mind is a splendid store-house — gold and gems
of Ophir — but they are all up in the fifth story, and no
staircase to get 'em down into common life. Now, I 've just
enough appreciation of the sort of thing that 's in you, not to
laugh at you. Nine out of ten would. To tell you the truth,
if I were already set up in life, and had as definite a position
as you have, — family, friends, influence, and means, — why,
perhaps I might afford to cultivate this style of thing. But,
I tell you what it is, Clayton, such a conscience as yours is
cursedly expensive to keep. It 's like a carriage — a fellow
must n't set it up unless he can afford it. It 's one of the
luxuries.”

“It 's a necessary of life, with me,” said Clayton, dryly.

“Well, that 's your nature. I can't afford it. I 've got
my way to make. I must succeed, and with your ultra
notions I could n't succeed. So there it is. After all, I
can be as religious as dozens of your most respectable
men, who have taken their seats in the night-train for
Paradise, and keep the daylight for their own business.”

“I dare say you can.”

“Yes, and I shall get all I aim at; and you, Clayton, will
be always an unhappy, dissatisfied aspirant after something
too high for mortality. There 's just the difference between
us.”

The conversation was here interrupted by the return of
the family party.