I was born in New Orleans. I had very bad health there in my early
childhood, and “My Aunt Betsey,” of whom I have before spoken, took a
voyage by sea from Baltimore to the “crescent city,” for the purpose of
returning with me to a climate which the physicians had said would
strengthen my constitution.
She brought me up with the greatest kindness, or rather, I should say
she kept me comparatively feeble by her over-care of my health. When I
was about fourteen years of age, my father brought my mother and my
little sister Virginia on from New Orleans to see me. My meeting with my
kind mother I shall never forget. She held me at arms’ length for an
instant, to see if she could recognise, in the chubby, healthy boy
before her, the puny, sickly child with whom she had parted with such
fond regret on board the Carolina, but a few years before; and when, in
memory and in heart, she recognized each lineament, she clasped me to
her bosom with a wild hysteric joy which compensated her, more than
compensated her, she said, for all the agony which our separation had
caused her. I loved my mother devotedly, yet I wondered at the emotion
which she exhibited at our meeting, and, child though I was, a sense of
unworthiness came over me, possibly because my affections could not
sound the depths of hers.
My father’s recognition was kinder than I had expected, from what I
remembered of our parting in New Orleans. He felt prouder of me than at
our parting, I presume, from my improved health and looks, and this made
him feel that my being tied to the apron strings of my good old aunt
would not improve my manliness. A gentleman whom he had met at a dinner
party, who was the principal of an academy, a kind of miniature college,
some thirty miles from Baltimore, had impressed my father, by his
disquisitions, with a profound respect for such a mode of education.
“William,” said my father, in speaking on the subject to Mr. Stetson,
“will be better there than here among the women; he’ll be a baby forever
here. No, I must make a man of him. I shall take him next week with me,
and leave him in the charge of Mr. Sears.” My mother insisted upon it
that I should stay awhile longer, that she might enjoy my society, and
that my sister and myself might become attached to each other ere they
returned to New Orleans. But my father said, “No, my dear; you know it
was always agreed between us that you should bring up Virginia as you
pleased, and that I would bring up William as I pleased.”
“Let us take him, then, back to New Orleans,” exclaimed my mother; “he
is healthy enough now.”
“But he would not be healthy long there, my dear. No, I have made
inquiry: Mr. Sears is an admirable man, and under his care, which I am
satisfied will be paternal, William will improve in mind, and learn to
be a man—will you not, William?”