THE OLD STORY OVER AGAIN.
"Mr. Ridgeley," asked Miss Giddings, "what is this delightful little
romance about the rich Judge's beautiful daughter, and the chivalrous
young law student? I declare, if it does not bring back the days of
knight-errantry, and makes me believe in love and heroism." It was
one evening at her father's where Bart had called with his newly found
sister Ida, to whom he was quite attentive.
The young man looked annoyed in spite of his good breeding. "Has he
told you the story?"--to Miss Aikens.
"Not a word of it," said the latter. "You know," she then said to Miss
Giddings, "that some things so pleasant to hear may not be pleasant
for a party concerned to tell about."
"Forgive me, Mr. Ridgeley. It never occurred to me that this could be
of that sort, but as it was so delightful as told to me, I wanted to
know if it was an actual occurrence, in this humdrum world."
"I suppose," said Ida, "that a great many beautiful and heroic events
are very prosy and painful to the actors therein, and they never dream
the world will give them the gloss of romance."
"Ladies," said the young man, with a gay and mocking air, "hear the
romance of the Judge's daughter, and the poor student--certainly a
_very_ poor student. There was a rich, powerful and proud Judge; he
had an only daughter, more beautiful than a painter's dream, and proud
as a princess born. In the neighborhood was a poor and idle youth, who
had been the Judge's secretary, and had been dismissed, and who loved
the proud and beautiful maiden, as idle and foolish youths sometimes
do. The beautiful maiden scorned him with a scorn that banished him
from her sight, for he was prouder than Judge and daughter, both.
While disporting with her damsels among the spring flowers in the
forest, one day, the beautiful maiden wandered away and became lost
in the heart of an interminable wood, more wild and lonely than that
which swallowed up the babes of the old ballad. Day passed and night
came, and in its bosom was hidden a fierce tempest of wind and hail
and snow. The poor maiden wandered on, and on, and on, until she came
upon the banks of a dart, cold river; wild and lost amid tempest and
storm, she wandered down its banks, until, in despair, chilled and
benumbed without heart or hope, she laid her down to die, and the pure
snow covered her. Her father, the proud Judge, and his friends, were
searching for her miles away.
"A little boy told the story to the poor student, who hurried into
the forest, and under the inspiration of his scorned love, ran and ran
until he found the swooning maiden under the snow, took her up in his
arms, placed his garments upon her, and bore her through the cold
and rapid stream, found a shelter under the rocks on the other side,
kindled a fire, gave the maiden, proud no longer, a cordial, warmed
and restored her, made her a couch of moss and dried leaves, and while
she slept he watched over her until the day dawned. Then he conducted
her to a wood-chopper's cabin in the forest, where she was tenderly
cared for. The poor, proud youth would hear no thanks from the maiden.
He sent a note, without his name, to the proud Judge, telling him
where his daughter could be found; and never saw the beautiful maiden,
or proud rich Judge afterwards. This, ladies," with the same gay
banter, "is the romance of the Judge's daughter and the poor student."
"And I suspect," said Miss Giddings, seriously, "that it is about
the literal truth of the affair, and it is more romantic than I had
thought."
* * * * *
"Barton has made the acquaintance of poor Sartliff," said Ida, willing
to introduce a new subject, "and was much struck by him."
"Do you think he is actually shattered?" asked Miss Giddings.
"I really have no opinion. His mind moves in such unaccustomed
channels: we find it in such unusual haunts, that nobody can tell
whether it remains healthy or not. It works logically enough, granting
his premises. Of course he is under delusions--we should call them
mistakes merely, if they occurred in ordinary speculations; but with
him, in his abnormal pursuits, they are to be expressed under the
vapory forms of delusions."
"Oh, it is the saddest sight to see this young man, with a nature so
richly endowed, asking only for light, and the right way; to see
him turning so blindly from the true given light, and searching with
simple earnestness along sterile, rocky byways and thorny hedges, to
find the path or opening that conducts back to a true starting place.
He opens his bosom to sun and air, and bares his feet to the earth,
thinking that inspiration will, through some avenue, reach his senses,
and so inform him. It is the most pitiful spectacle that the eye can
see," said Ida, pathetically.
"Like a kind spirit sent from heaven to earth," said Bart, "who,
having forgotten his message, can never find his way back; but is
doomed to wander up and down the uncongenial region, searching in vain
for the star-beam by which he descended."
"My father has quite given him up," said Miss Giddings; "he says he
passed long since the verge of healthy thought and speculation. I used
to think that possibly some new and powerful stimulus, such as might
spring from some new cause--"
"Love, for instance," suggested Bart.
"Yes, love, for instance. I declare, Mr. Ridgeley, you think as a
woman."
"Do women really think? I thought their minds were so clear and
strong that thought was unnecessary, and they were always blest with
intuitions."
"Well, sir, some of them are obliged to think--when they want to be
understood by men, who don't have intuitions, and can't go at all
without something to hold up by--and a woman would think, perhaps,
that if Sartliff could fall in love--"
"And if he can't he isn't worth the saving," interjected Bart.
"Exactly; and if he could, that through its medium he might be brought
back to a healthy frame of mind, or a healthy walk of mind. There,
Mr. Ridgeley, I have got out with that, though rather limpingly, after
all."
"And a forcible case you have made. Here is a man crazy about Nature;
you propose as a cure for that, to make him mad about a woman. And
what next?"
"Well, love is human--or inhuman," said Miss Giddings; "if the former,
marriage is the specific; if the latter, his lady-love might get lost
in a wood, you know."
"Yes, I see. Poor Sartliff had better remain where he is, winking and
blinking for the lights of Nature," said Bart.
"I remember," interposed Ida, "that he and your brother, among the
matters they used to discuss, disagreed in their estimate of authors.
Sartliff could never endure N.P. Willis, for instance."
"A sign," said Miss Giddings, "that he was sane then, at least.
Willis, in Europe, is called the poet's lap-dog, with his ringlets and
Lady Blessingtons."
"I believe he had the pluck to meet Captain Marryatt," said Bart.
"Was that particularly creditable?" asked Miss Giddings.
"Well, poets' lap-dogs don't fight duels, much; and Miss Giddings, do
you think a lap-dog could have written this?" And taking up a volume
of Willis, he turned from them and read "Hagar." As he read, he seemed
possessed with the power and pathos of the piece, and his deep voice
trembled under its burthen. At the end, he laid the book down, and
walked to a window while his emotion subsided. His voice always had a
strange power of exciting him. After a moment's silence, Miss Giddings
said, with feeling:
"I never knew before that there was half that force and strength
in Willis. As you render it, it is almost sublime. Will you read
another?"
Taking up the book, he read "Jepthah's Daughter:" reading it with less
feeling, perhaps, but in a better manner.
"I give it up," said Miss Giddings, "though I am not certain whether
it is not in you, rather than in Willis, after all."
"Six or seven years ago, when my brother Henry came home and gathered
us up, and rekindled the home fires on the old hearth," said Bart, "he
commenced taking the _New York Mirror_, just established by George
P. Morris, assisted by Fay and Willis. Fay, you know, has recently
published his novel, 'Norman Leslie,' the second volume of which flats
out so awfully. At that time these younger men were in Europe; and
we took wonderfully to them, and particularly to Willis's 'First
Impressions,' and 'Pencillings by the Way.' To me they were authentic,
and opened the inside of English literary society and life, and I came
to like him. The language has a wonderful flexile power and grace in
his hands; and I think he has real poetry in his veins, much more than
John Neal, or Dr. Drake, though certainly less than Bryant. Yet there
is a kind of puppyism about the man that will probably prevent his
ever achieving the highest place in our literature."
"You are a poet yourself, Mr. Ridgeley, I understand," said Miss
Giddings.
"I like poetry, which is a totally different thing from the power to
produce it; this I am sure I have not," was the candid answer.
"You have tried?"
"Most young men with a lively fancy and fervid feelings, write verses,
I believe. Here is Mr. Case, quite a verse writer, and some of his
lines have a tone or tinge of poetry."
"Would you like literature for a pursuit?"
"I like books, as I like art and music, but I somehow feel that our
state of society at the West, and indeed our civilization, is not ripe
enough to reach a first excellence in any of these high branches of
achievement. Our hands are thick and hard from grappling with the
rough savagery of our new rude continent. We can construct the strong
works of utility, and shall meet the demands for the higher and better
work when that demand actually exists."
"But does not that demand exist? Hasn't there been a clamor for
the American novel? A standing advertisement--'Wanted, the American
Novel'--has been placarded ever since I can remember; and I must
forget how long that is," said Miss Giddings.
"Yes, I've heard of that; but that is not the demand that will compel
what it asks for. It will be the craving of millions, stimulating
millions of brains, and some man will arise superior to the herd, and
his achievement will challenge every other man of conscious powers,
and they will educate and ripen each other till the best, who is never
the first, will appear and supply the need. No great man ever appeared
alone. He is the greatest of a group of great men, many of whom
preceded him, and without whom he would have been impossible. Homer,
alone of his group, has reached us; Shakespeare will live alone of his
age, four thousand years hence."
"But, Mr. Ridgeley, our continent and our life, with our fresh, young,
intense natures, seem to me to contain all the elements of poetry, and
the highest drama," said Miss Giddings.
"So they seem to us, and yet how much of that is due to our
egotism--because it is ours--who can tell? Of course there is any
amount of poetry in the raw, and so it will remain until somebody
comes to work it up. There are plenty of things to inspire, but the
man to be inspired is the thing most needed."
"So that, Mr. Ridgeley," said Ida, "we may not in our time hope for
the American novel, the great American epic, or the great American
drama?"
"Well, I don't know that these will ever be. That will depend upon our
luck in acquiring a mode and style, and habit of thought, and power
of expression of our own, which for many reasons we may never have. An
American new writes as much like an Englishman as he can--and the more
servile the imitation, the better we like him--as a woman writes like
a man as nearly as she possibly can, for he is the standard. What
is there in Irving, that is not wholly and purely English? And so of
Cooper; his sturdiness and vigor are those of a genuine Englishman,
and when they write of American subjects, they write as an Englishman
would; and if better, it is because they are better informed."
"Mr. Ridgeley," said Miss Giddings, "can't you give us an American
book?"
"'When the little fishes fly
Like swallows in the sky,'
An American will write an American book," said Bart, laughing. "But
your question is a good answer to my solemn twaddle on literature."
"No, I don't quite rate it as twaddle," said Ida.
"Don't you though?" asked Bart.
"No," seriously. "Now what is the effect of our American literature
upon the general character of English literature? We certainly add to
its bulk."
"And much to its value, I've no doubt," said Bart. "Well, with
increased strength and vigor, we shall begin by imperceptible degrees,
to modify and change the whole, and the whole will ultimately become
Americanized, till the English of this continent, partaking of its
color and character, imparts its tone and flavor finally to the whole
everywhere. I have not much faith in a purely American literature,
notwithstanding Miss Giddings' advertisement."
"Mr. Ridgeley," said Miss Giddings, "your notions are depressing. I
don't believe in them, and will oppose my woman's intuitions to your
man's argument."
"My dear Miss Giddings," said Bart, laughing, "you value my notions
quite as highly as I do; and I wouldn't take the criticisms of a young
man who ran away from the only college he ever saw, and who has only
heard the names of a few authors."
"I wont. They are not American; and yet there seems to be force in
them."