About half-way between Martinsville and Liberty Corner, Pennsylvania,
hidden from inquisitive eyes by tall trees and dense-growing shrubs,
stands a neatly built house of ancient date; the home of a pair of
lovers of a quiet life, who, the world forgetting, by the world forgot,
have dwelt there in a semi-hermit way for nigh upon forty years.
Samuel and Joseph Pooley, brothers in mind as well as in blood, claim
kindred on their mother's side with one of England's wealthiest nobles,
and boast direct descent paternally from a follower of the Norman,
who settled in Kent. In 1828 they set up in business together in New
York; and in the same year Samuel, the elder of the two, coming over
to England, fell in love with a beautiful girl, and wooed and won her;
at least it was settled that she should become Mrs Pooley so soon as
the success of the New York establishment was assured. A second visit
to the old country in 1834 proved less happy in result. Samuel was not
prepared to take a bride home with him; and tired of living upon hope
deferred, the lady declared off; and not very long afterwards put the
renewal of the engagement beyond possibility by marrying a readier
suitor.
From that time Samuel Pooley became another man. The brisk man of
business, the ardent politician, the lively companion, lost all liking
for society, politics, and trade. His brother sympathised with his
altered mood; and when, a few years later, a legacy fell to them, they
resolved to retire far from the busy city and its restless crowd, and
live as men whom man delighted not, nor women either.
Four thousand dollars made the Pennsylvanian homestead and its hundred
and five acres their own; and there they have abided ever since, never,
except when necessity compelled, finding their way even so far as the
neighbouring village. Twenty years ago a sister-in-law spent a day
or two at the farm; but from that time to this no woman's foot has
crossed its threshold. A New York reporter describes Joseph Pooley
as a ruddy-complexioned merry man, with large round wide-open eyes,
a long pointed white beard, and snow-white locks bristling up nearly
three inches from his scalp. Samuel, better known as 'the Squire,' is
seventy-three years old--two years older than his brother, and not so
stoutly built. He sports a short tuft of iron-gray beard, jutting out
abruptly between his chin and throat.
As the inquisitive caller came upon the pair enjoying the cool evening
air in the garden, the raggedness of their raiment struck him as
something simply perfect. Joseph was arrayed in a woollen shirt (or
rather enough of one to suggest what it once had been), a considerable
portion of a jacket, and a very fair representation of the leading
features of a pair of pantaloons; a pair of stout shoes and a gray felt
hat of no particular shape completing his costume. As to the Squire's
outfit, the facilities for ventilation were even greater than those
enjoyed by his brother. His skin gleamed through innumerable rips and
rents, to the great convenience of the mosquitoes, which he did not
seem to notice; and his black felt hat was a more antique effort of the
hatter's art than the gray one decking Joseph's head.
'It is unjust to say of them,' writes the note-taking visitor, 'as some
do say, that they have not washed their faces or hands for ten years;
they wash themselves when they feel like doing it. But seeing them, one
would not find it difficult to believe that they had not felt like it
for five years. At all events, this does not seem to be their year for
ablutions.'
The consumption of water at the hermitage is not calculated to cause
a scarcity of that article. 'On the table were standing a number of
dishes of coarse yellow and blue and white delf, which had evidently
just been used for supper. They always stand there, and they always
have evidently just been used. Dish-washing is looked upon as a
superfluous frivolity and waste of exertion. If perchance a sudden
freak takes one of the hermits, just as he is sitting down to eat,
that he would like to put on a little extra style, he wipes his plate
with a bunch of grass or a piece of paper. But they are men of settled
habits and seldom have freaks.' These Pennsylvanian disciples of
Zimmerman would be at home among the dirt-loving Eastern Christians,
whose domestic arrangements lately wrung from a special correspondent
the declaration, that he would rather dine off a Turkish floor than a
Bulgarian plate.
Like recluses in general, the Pooleys seem to be physically none the
worse for contemning cleanliness, being troubled with fewer infirmities
than most men at their time of life; while, unlike the common run of
solitarians, they have kept their mental faculties in working order by
the constant use of a first-rate collection of books, their library
counting up eight hundred volumes. Neither miserly by nature, nor
compelled to be so by poverty, they are by no means anchorites; and
if they do go raggedly clad, it is not from economical motives, but
because they are comfortable in their tatters, and have no reason to
study appearances, since those who know them care not how they are
dressed; and for the opinion of those who do not know them they care
nothing.
Said Joseph to the New Yorker: 'It may seem strange to you that we
should exile ourselves in this way from the life of the big town, after
such a busy life as ours used to be; but I assure you we see enough of
life to content us here. The life of the birds, the bees, the waving
branches over our heads, the flowers blooming about us, and the grass
beneath our feet--all these fill our hearts with a quiet content; and
here we are truly happy.' It is something to know that two men in the
world have succeeded in attaining this degree of contentment, though
not quite to be generally admired.
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and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH.
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