"Come, come; deal justly with me; come,
Come; nay, speak!"
Hamlet.
"Madam, the guests are come, supper served up, you called, my
young lady asked for, the nurse cursed in the pantry, and
everything in extremity."
Romeo and Juliet.
{William Shakespeare, "Hamlet", II.ii.275-276; "Romeo and
Juliet", I.iii.100-102}
OF course, nothing interfered with the party at Colonnade Manor.
Thanks to Mrs. Taylor, the coachman and the little girl of
twelve--quite a womanly, precocious, little thing,
by-the-way--all went off very well. Some curious person,
uninitiated in similar domestic mysteries, may wish to know how
things were managed at such a trying crisis. Well, in the first
place, Mrs. Taylor congratulated herself that her guests had been
asked to 'spend the evening,' and not invited 'to tea.' This was
a piece of good luck, which diminished her cares, and prevented
the deep mortification she must have felt had the tea and coffee
been cold. The coachman, of course, officiated as footman; a duty
to which he was already somewhat accustomed. The little girl of
twelve began the evening as ladies'-maid, appearing in the
dressing-room in that capacity, helping the ladies to take off
their shawls and smooth the folds of their dresses, before they
made their entrance in the drawing-rooms. The company soon
collected--about fifty or sixty persons, altogether--and in party
dress; each having been invited quite sociably, by Miss Adeline.
They were not at all surprised to see each other, however, for
they had often already practised the same agreeable deception,
themselves. The company once assembled, the little girl of twelve
rolled up her sleeves, and took her station in the pantry, where
she replenished the cake-baskets, the lemonade and
sangaree-glasses handed about by her father, the coachman. A
supper table was already spread in the dining-room; it had been
very prettily ornamented with flowers by Adeline, and her
Saratoga friends; and a plentiful supply of fruits, ices,
jellies, syllabubs, creams, and other delicacies for a light
supper, had been prepared, in the course of the morning, by Mrs.
Taylor and her coadjutors, the coachman and the little girl of
twelve. The talkative old friend had been admitted behind the
scenes so far, as to learn that the mistress of the house would
be obliged to make all the good things herself; and she had shown
that, besides telling a long story, she could make very excellent
sponge-cake; for, unfortunately, it was discovered that it would
be necessary to increase the supply of that delicacy. Adeline did
her share; while her Saratoga friends were taking a morning
siesta, with a novel in their hands, she had made the syllabub,
and prepared the fruit. These arrangements having been made, the
little girl of twelve had received orders to station herself near
at hand, where she could be sent of {sic} errands up and down
stairs. The coachman was told to take his place by the
side-table, ready to be called upon, if necessary. Mrs. Taylor
herself--alas! that we should be obliged to reveal the fact,
expected to slip out of the drawing-room at about half-past ten,
and superintend the delicate operation of removing the jellies
from their moulds; this would require ten minutes to do, and she
hoped to make her exit and ingress unnoticed; a matter easily
managed, in summer, when the doors and windows are all open, and
couples arm-in-arm, are loitering about, in and out in all
directions. This task performed, when she had returned to the
public notice, some ten minutes after having seen everything in
its place, the coachman was expected to appear at the
drawing-room door, with composed manner, to announce that supper
was ready--a fact she was prepared to hear with the expression of
sublime indifference, required by etiquette. From that moment,
everything would become easy; for, of course, the gentlemen
would, as usual, take care of the ladies first, and then help
themselves. The gallant way in which these light, standing
suppers are always managed, among us, is, by-the-bye, a pleasant
and sensible arrangement; nothing better could be devised, under
the circumstances. The plan of operations thus sketched, we may
as well say, at once, that everything succeeded to admiration.
{"sangaree" = a cold drink of flavored, diluted wine; "syllabub"
= a drink of milk and wine}
The evening was pronounced very pleasant; and, as several of our
friends were present, we shall follow them. There was a great
deal of talking and laughing; a reasonable quantity of
flirtation; and, once or twice, some romping in the corner of the
room where Miss Adeline happened to be at the time. Among those
who had excused themselves from accepting the invitation, were
Mr. and Mrs. Robert Hazlehurst, who disliked the idea of going so
far, and Mr. and Mrs. Graham, the lady being detained at home by
a headach {sic}, the gentleman by a particular dislike to Mr.
Taylor, who, he thought, had behaved in an ungentlemanly manner
about a mortgage, in which they both happened to be interested.
Mr. Graham was a man of a violent temper, and unsocial habits,
generally taking little pains to conceal his feelings; and
accordingly, his manner to Mr. Taylor was anything but
flattering, though their acquaintance, at best, was but trifling.
Mrs. Graham also disliked the whole family; and yet the intimacy
between Jane and Adeline was allowed to continue, as a sort of
matter of course, between school companions.
Miss Wyllys accompanied her niece to the party--she generally
made it a point to go with Elinor; for, she had old-fashioned
notions on the subject, and thought that the presence of their
elders was an advantage and a protection that well-educated young
girls have a right to expect from their friends. She seldom spoke
on the matter, however, but contented herself with giving, what
she thought, a good example. Both Miss Agnes and Elinor were
rather surprised to find that Jane's partiality for her giddy
friend Adeline, had not been in the least diminished, by her
visit to Europe. Miss Wyllys disapproved of the intimacy; but, as
Jane's mother had no objections, she herself could say nothing.
The two young ladies were a great deal together, in the course of
the evening, as became bosom-friends after a long separation.
Mrs. Taylor's old friend, the talkative lady, was introduced to
several of the elder portion of the company, and was thus happily
provided with listeners. Miss Adeline's fashionable acquaintances
from Saratoga, were also supplied, each with a couple of
attendant beaux, upon whom to try the effect of their charms.
Everything thus happily arranged, Miss Adeline proposed a 'march'
which was managed as usual. Young Van Horne, who had some musical
capabilities, was placed at the piano, and played Washington's
March, when the young people paired off in a line, and began to
walk, moving in time up and down the two drawing-rooms, through
the folding-doors--each gentleman, of course, offering his arm to
a lady; chaque chacun, avec sa chacune. Adeline was not quite
satisfied with her cavalier, Charlie Hubbard; she did not care
much about him, at any time; and, on the present occasion, he
seemed less interested in listening to her own conversation, than
in watching the movements of some one else; who it was, she could
not say. She reproached him with this inattention.
{"chaque chacun, avec sa chacune" = each one with his own
(French)}
"I declare, I don't believe you hear half I say. I never saw
anybody like you."
"Charlie blushed a little, rallied, and devoted himself more
exclusively to the duty of being entertained. After the second or
third turn in the march, Adeline discovered Hazlehurst, who,
instead of being in motion with the rest, was leaning in a
door-way. As she passed him, she snapped her embroidered
handkerchief in that direction, and summoned him to join the
'promenade.' Harry excused himself by saying, he was afraid he
could not find any one to walk with him.
"How can you talk so! There is Miss Wyllys, I declare; I had not
seen her before."--And Adeline crossed the room to a window where
Elinor was sitting quietly as a looker-on, having just escaped
from a long conversation with the talkative old friend.
"Now, Miss Wyllys, I am sure you must wish to promenade!"
"Would you like to walk?" quietly asked Hazlehurst, who had
followed Miss Taylor.
"No, indeed," said Elinor, smiling and shaking her head
good-naturedly. "I have had one long walk, already, this
afternoon, and much prefer sitting still, just now."
"You should follow Jane's example; you see, she is promenading,
and, I dare say, she took the walk with you, too," said Adeline.
"Did you ever know Jane take a long walk, when she could help
it?" asked Elinor, smiling. "I had really rather sit still, Miss
Taylor."
Adeline, finding that on this occasion she could not succeed in
setting all her friends in motion, which she generally
endeavoured to do, returned to the ranks; leaving Elinor to do as
she chose. Hazlehurst took a seat by her, and made some inquiries
about several of their old acquaintances in the room.
"Don't you think those two young ladies both very pretty, Mr.
Hazlehurst," said Dr. Van Horne, approaching the spot where Harry
was standing near Elinor, after having given up his chair to one
of the Saratoga belles, when the march was finished.
"Which do you mean, sir?" asked Harry.
"Miss Taylor and Miss Graham, who are standing together near the
piano."
"Yes," replied Hazlehurst, "Miss Taylor is even prettier than I
had supposed she would be."
"She will not compare, however, with Miss Jane. To my mind, Miss
Graham answers the idea of perfect beauty. In all your travels,
did you meet with a face that you thought more beautiful?"
"I believe not," said Harry, laconically, and slowly colouring at
the same time.
"Is it Jane you were speaking of, Doctor?" inquired Elinor,
turning towards him. "Don't you think she has come back twice as
beautiful as she was last year? It is really a pleasure to look
at a face like hers."
"I am afraid, it will prove rather a dangerous pleasure, Miss
Elinor, to some of the beaux, this winter."
"No doubt she will be very much admired; but she takes it all
very quietly. I don't believe your great beauties as much
disposed to vanity as other people."
"Perhaps not;" replied the doctor, drawing near her. "A great
deal depends on education. But what do the travellers tell you
about the sights they have seen, Miss Elinor?"
"Oh, we have only gone as far as the first chapter of their
travels," she replied. "They have not half said their say yet."
"Well, I should like to have a talk with you on the subject, Mr.
Hazlehurst. I was in hopes of meeting your brother here,
to-night, but he has not come, I find; I shall have to bore you
with my questions, unless you want to dance this jig, or whatever
it is, they are beginning."
"Not at all, my dear sir; I shall be glad to answer any questions
of yours."
"Thank you. Suppose we improve the opportunity, Miss Elinor, and
give him a sharp cross-examination; do you think he would bear
it?"
"I hope so," said Elinor, smiling quietly, as if she felt very
easy on the subject.
"Don't trust him too far. I dare say you have not been half
severe enough upon him," said Dr. Van Horne, who had a very high
opinion of Harry. "But to speak seriously, Mr. Hazlehurst, I
don't at all like a notion my son Ben has of going to Europe."
"What is your objection?"
"I doubt if it is at all an advantage to send most young men to
Europe. I've seen so many come back conceited, and dissatisfied,
and good-for-nothing, that I can't make up my mind to spoil Ben
by the same process. He tries very hard to persuade me, that
now-a-days, no doctor is fit to be trusted who has not finished
off in Paris; but we managed without it thirty years ago."
"You must know much more than I do on that subject, doctor," said
Hazlehurst, taking a seat on the other side of Elinor.
"Of course, I know more about the hospitals. But as I have never
been abroad myself, I don't know what effect a sight of the Old
World has on one. It seems to me it ruins a great many young
fellows."
"And it improves a great many," said Hazlehurst.
"I am by no means so sure of that. It improves some, I grant you;
but I think the chances are that it is an injury. We have
happened to see a great deal, lately, of two young chaps, nephews
of mine, who came home last spring. Three years ago they went
abroad, sober, sensible, well-behaved lads enough, and now they
have both come back, worse than good-for-nothing. There was
Rockwell, he used to be a plain, straight-forward, smooth-faced
fellow; and now he has come home bristling with whiskers, and
beard, and moustaches, and a cut across the forehead, that he got
in a duel in Berlin. Worse than all, his brain is so befogged,
and mystified, that he can't see anything straight to save his
life; and yet, forsooth, my gentleman is going to set the nation
to rights with some new system of his own."
"I know nothing of the German Universities, doctor, from my own
observation; but I should think it might be a dangerous thing to
send a young man there unless he was well supplied with sound
common sense of his own."
"Well, there is Bill Hartley, again, who staid all the time in
Paris. He has come back a regular grumbler. If you would believe
him, there is not a single thing worth having, from one end of
the Union to the other. He is disgusted with everything, and only
last night said that our climate wants fog! Now, I think it is
much better to go plodding on at home, than to travel for the
sake of bringing back such enlarged views as make yourself and
your friends uncomfortable for the rest of your days."
"But it is a man's own fault, my dear sir, if he brings back more
bad than good with him. The fact is, you will generally find the
good a man brings home, in proportion to the good he took
abroad."
"I'm not so sure of that. I used to think Rockwell was quite a
promising young man at one time. But that is not the question.
If, after all, though it does sharpen a man's wits, it only makes
him discontented for the rest of his life, I maintain that such a
state of improvement is not to be desired. If things are really
better and pleasanter in Europe, I don't want to know it. It
would make me dissatisfied, unless I was to be a renegade, and
give up the country I was born in; would you have a man do that?"
"Never!" said Harry. "I hold that it is a sort of desertion, to
give up the post where Providence has placed us, unless in
extreme cases; and I believe a man can live a more useful and
more honourable life there than elsewhere. But I think travelling
a very great advantage, nevertheless. The very power of
comparison, of which you complain, is a source of great
intellectual pleasure, and must be useful if properly employed,
since it helps us to reach the truth."
The doctor shook his head. "I want you just to tell me how much
of this grumbling and fault-finding is conceit, and how much is
the natural consequence of travelling? Is everything really
superior in Europe to what we have here?"
"Everything? No;" said Harry, laughing. But you would seem to
think a man dissatisfied, doctor, if he did not, on the contrary,
proclaim that everything is immeasurably better in this country
than in any other on the globe. Now, confess, is not that your
standard of patriotism?"
"Ah, you are shifting your ground, young gentleman. But we shall
bring you to the point presently. Now tell us honestly, were you
not disappointed with the looks of things when you came back?"
"If by disappointed, you mean that many things as I see them now,
strike me as very inferior to objects of the same description in
Europe, I do not scruple to say they do. When I landed, I said to
myself,
"'The streets are narrow and the buildings mean;
Did I, or fancy, have them broad and clean?'"
{George Crabbe (English poet, 1754-1832), "Posthumous Tales: Tale
VI--The Farewell and Return", Part II, lines 79-80}
"I feared so!" and the doctor looked much as a pious Mahometan
might be supposed to do, if he were to see a Frank seize the
Grand Turk by the beard. "I should have thought better of you,"
he added.
{"Frank" = a European Christian; "Grand Turk" = Ottoman Emperor}
"My dear sir," said Harry, laughing, "how could I help it! I must
defend myself from any desire to be disappointed, I assure you.
On the contrary, I wish very sincerely that everything in my
native country were as good as possible in its way; that the
architecture of the public buildings were of the noblest kind;
the private houses the most pleasant and convenient; the streets
the best paved, and best lighted in the world. But I don't
conceive that the way to bring this about is to maintain le
pistolet a la gorge, that perfection has already been attained in
all these particulars. To speak frankly, it strikes me as the
height of puerility to wish to deceive oneself upon such
subjects. On the contrary, I think it is the duty of every man,
so far as he has the opportunity, to aim at correct notions on
everything within his reach."
{"le pistolet a la gorge" = the pistol to the throat (French)}
"Well," remarked the doctor, "you only confirm me in my opinion.
I shall be more unwilling than ever to let Ben go; since even
you, Harry Hazlehurst, who are a good deal better than most young
men, confess the harm travelling has done you."
"But, my dear sir, I confess no such thing. I'm conscious that
travelling has been a great benefit to me in many ways. I shall
be a happier and better man for what I have seen, all my life, I
trust, since many of my opinions are built on a better foundation
than they were before."
"If I were you, I would not let him say so, Miss Elinor. His
friends won't like to hear it; and I, for one, am very sorry that
you are not as good an American as I took you for."
"It is quite a new idea to me, doctor," said Hazlehurst, "that
mental blindness and vanity are necessary parts of the American
character. We, who claim to be so enlightened! I should be sorry
to be convinced that your view is correct. I have always believed
that true patriotism consisted in serving one's country, not in
serving oneself by flattering one's countrymen. I must give my
testimony on these subjects, when called for, as well as on any
other, honestly, and to the best of my ability."
"Do you know, doctor," said Elinor, "poor Harry has had to fight
several battles on this subject already. Mrs. Bernard attacked
him the other evening, because he said the mountains in
Switzerland were higher than the White Mountains. Now we have
only to look in a geography to see that they are so."
"But one don't like to hear such things, Miss Elinor."
"Mrs. Bernard asked him if he had seen anything finer than the
White Mountains; what could he say! It seems to me just as
possible for a man to love his country, and see faults in it, as
it does for him to love his wife and children, without believing
them to be the most perfect specimens of the human family, in
body and mind, that ever existed. You will allow that a man may
be a very good and kind husband and father, without maintaining
everywhere that his wife and daughters surpass all their sex, in
every possible particular?"
"You will not, surely, deny, doctor," said Hazlehurst, "that it
is reasonable to suppose that Europe possesses some advantages of
an advanced state of civilization, that we have not yet attained
to? We have done much for a young people, but we have the means
of doing much more; and it will be our own fault if we don't
improve."
"We shall improve, I dare say."
"Do you expect us to go beyond perfection, then?"
"I can't see the use of talking about disagreeable subjects."
"But even the most disagreeable truths have their uses."
"That may be; and yet I believe you would have been happier if
you had staid at home. While he was away from you, Miss Elinor, I
am afraid he learned some of those disagreeable truths which it
would have been better for him not to have discovered."
Harry stooped to pick up a glove, and remained silent for a
moment.
Shortly after, supper was announced; and, although the coachman
was not quite as much at home in the pantry as in the stable, yet
everything was very successfully managed.
"It is really mortifying to hear a man like Dr. Van Horne, fancy
it patriotic to foster conceited ignorance and childish vanity,
on all national subjects," exclaimed Harry, as he took his seat
in the carriage, after handing the ladies in. "And that is not
the worst of it; for, of course, if respectable, independent men
talk in that tone, there will be no end to the fulsome,
nauseating, vulgar flatteries that will be poured upon us by
those whose interest it is to flatter!"
"I heard part of your conversation, and, I must confess, the
doctor did not show his usual good sense," observed Miss Agnes.
"You are really quite indignant against the doctor," said Elinor.
"Not only against him, but against all who are willing, like him,
to encourage such a miserable perversion of truth. Believe them,
and you make patriotism anything, and everything, but a virtue."