DELIGHT AND DUTY.
“According to our living here, we shall hereafter, by a hidden
concatenation of causes, be drawn to a condition answerable to the
purity or impurity of our souls in this life: that silent Nemesis that
passes through the whole contexture of the universe, ever fatally
contriving us into such a state as we ourselves have fitted ourselves
for by our accustomary actions. Of so great consequence is it, while we
have opportunity, to aspire to the best things.”—_Henry More_, A.D.
1659.
It may seem strange that Onslow and Kenrick, differing so widely, should
renew the friendship of their boyhood. We have seen that Onslow,
allowing the æsthetic side of his nature to outgrow the moral, had
departed from the teachings of his father on the subject of slavery.
Kenrick, in whom the moral and devotional faculty asserted its supremacy
over all inferior solicitings, also repudiated _his_ paternal teachings;
but they were directly contrary to those of his friend, and, in
abandoning them, he gave up the prospect of a large inheritance.
To Onslow, these thick-lipped, woolly-headed negroes,—what were they fit
for but to be hewers of wood and drawers of water to the gentle and
refined? It was monstrous to suppose that between such and him there
could be equality of any kind. The ethnological argument was conclusive.
Had not Professor Moleschott said that the brain of the negro contains
less phosphorus than that of the white man? Proof sufficient that Cuffee
was expressly created to pull off my boots and hoe in my cotton-fields,
while I make it a penal offence to teach him to read!
Onslow, too, had been fortunate in his intercourse with slaveholders.
Young, handsome, and accomplished, he had felt the charm of their
affectionate hospitality. He had found taste, culture, and piety in
their abodes; all the graces and all the amenities of life. What wonder
that he should narcotize his moral sense with the aroma of these social
fascinations! Even at the North, where the glamour they cast ought not
to distort the sight, and where men ought healthfully to look the
abstract abomination full in the face, and testify to its deformity,—how
many consciences were drugged, how many hearts shut to justice and to
mercy!
With Kenrick, brought up on a plantation where slavery existed in its
mildest form, meditation on God’s law as written in the enlightened
human conscience, completely reversed the views adopted from upholders
of the institution. Thenceforth the elegances of his home became
hateful. He felt like a robber in the midst of them.
The spectacle of some hideous, awkward, perhaps obscene and depraved
black woman, hoeing in the corn-field, instead of awakening in his mind,
as in Onslow’s, the thought that she was in her proper place, did but
move him to tears of bitter contrition and humiliation. How far there
was sin or accountability on her part, or that of her progenitors, he
could not say; but that there was deep, immeasurable sin on the part of
those who, instead of helping that degraded nature to rise, made laws to
crush it all the deeper in the mire, he could not fail to feel in
anguish of spirit. Through all that there was in her of ugliness and
depravity, making her less tolerable than the beast to his æsthetic
sense, he could still detect those traits and possibilities that allied
her with immortal natures, and in her he saw all her sex outraged, and
universal womanhood nailed to the cross of Christ, and mocked by
unbelievers!
The evening of the day of Clara’s arrival at the St. Charles, Onslow and
Kenrick met by agreement in the drawing-room of the Tremaines. Clara had
told Laura, that, in going out to purchase a few hair-pins, she had been
taken suddenly faint, and that a gentleman, who proved to be Captain
Onslow, had escorted her home.
“Could anything be more apt for my little plot!” said Laura. “But
consider! Here it is eight o’clock, and you’re not dressed! Do you know
how long you’ve been sleeping? This will never do!”
A servant knocked at the door, with the information that two gentlemen
were in the drawing-room.
“Dear me! I must go in at once,” said Laura. “Now tell me you’ll be
quick and follow, Darling.”
Clara gave the required pledge, and proceeded to arrange her hair. Laura
looked on for a minute envying her those thick brown tresses, and then
darted into the next room where the visitors were waiting. Greeting them
with her usual animation of manner, she asked Onslow for the news.
“The news is,” said Onslow, “my friend Charles is undergoing conversion.
We shall have him an out-and-out Secessionist before the Fourth of
July.”
“On what do you base your calculations?” asked Kenrick.
“On the fact that for the last twelve hours I haven’t heard you call
down maledictions on the Confederate cause.”
“Perhaps I conclude that the better part of valor is discretion.”
“No, Charles, yours is not the Falstaffian style of courage.”
“Well, construe my mood as you please. Miss Tremaine, your piano stands
open. Does it mean we’re to have music?”
“Yes. Hasn’t the Captain told you of his meeting a young lady,—Miss
Perdita Brown?”
“I’ll do him the justice to say he _did_ tell me he had escorted such a
one.”
“What did he say of her?”
“Nothing, good or bad.”
“But that’s very suspicious.”
“So it is.”
“Pray who is Miss Perdita Brown?” asked Onslow.
“She’s a daughter of—of—why, of Mr. Brown, of course. He lives in St.
Louis.”
“Is she a good Secessionist?”
“On the contrary, she’s a desperate little Abolitionist.”
“Look at Charles!” said Onslow. “He’s enamored already. I’m sorry she
isn’t secesh.”
“Think of the triumph of converting her!” said Laura.
“That indeed! Of course,” said Onslow, “like all true women, she’ll take
her politics from the man she loves.”
And the Captain smoothed his moustache, and looked handsome as Phœbus
Apollo.
“O the conceit!” exclaimed Laura. “Look at him, Mr. Kenrick! Isn’t he
charming? Where’s the woman who wouldn’t turn Mormon, or even Yankee,
for his sake? Surely one of us weak creatures could be content with one
tenth or even one twentieth of the affections of so superb an Ali. Come,
sir, promise me I shall be the fifteenth Mrs. Onslow when you emigrate
to Utah.”
Onslow was astounded at this fire of raillery. Could the lady have heard
of any disparaging expression he had dropped?
“Spare me, Miss Laura,” he said. “Don’t deprive the Confederacy of my
services by slaying me before I’ve smelt powder.”
“Where’s Miss Brown all this while?” asked Kenrick.
Laura went to the door, and called “Perdita!”
“In five minutes!” was the reply.
Clara was dressing. When, that morning, she came in from her walk, she
thought intently on her situation, and at last determined on a new line
of policy. Instead of playing the humble companion and shy recluse, she
would now put forth all her powers to dazzle and to strike. She would,
if possible, make friends, who should protest against any arbitrary
claim that Ratcliff might set up. She would vindicate her own right to
freedom by showing she was not born to be a slave. All who had known her
should feel their own honor wounded in any attempt to injure hers.
Having once fixed before herself an object, she grew calm and firm. When
her dinner was sent up, she ate it with a good appetite. Sleep, too,
that had been a stranger to her so many hours, now came to repair her
strength and revive her spirits.
No sooner had Laura left to attend to her visitors, than Clara plunged
into the drawers containing the dresses for her choice. With the
rapidity of instinct she selected the most becoming; then swiftly and
deftly, with the hand of an adept and the eye of an artist, she arranged
her toilet. A dexterous adaptation of pins speedily rectified any little
defect in the fit. Where were the collars? Locked up. No matter! There
was a frill of exquisite lace round the neck of the dress; and this
little narrow band of maroon velvet would serve to relieve the bareness
of the throat. What could she clasp it with? Laura had not left the key
of her jewel-box. A common pin would hardly answer. Suddenly Clara
bethought herself of the little coral sleeve-button, wrapped up in the
strip of bunting. That would serve admirably. Yes. Nothing could be
better. It was her only article of jewelry; though round her right wrist
she wore a hair-bracelet of her own braiding, made from that strand
given her by Esha; and from a flower-vase she had taken a small
cape-jasmine, white as alabaster, and fragrant as a garden of
honeysuckles, and thrust it in her hair. A fan? Yes, here is one.
And thus accoutred she entered the room where the three expectants were
seated.
On seeing her, Laura’s first emotion was one of admiration, as at sight
of an imposing _entrée_ at the opera. She was suddenly made aware of the
fact that Clara was the most beautiful young woman of her acquaintance;
nay, not only the most beautiful, but the most stylish. So taken by
surprise was she, so lost in looking, that it was nearly a third of a
minute before she introduced the young gentlemen. Onslow claimed
acquaintance, presented a chair, and took a seat at Clara’s side.
Kenrick stood mute and staring, as if a paradisic vision had dazed his
senses. When he threw off his bewilderment, he quieted himself with the
thought, “She can’t be as beautiful as she looks,—that’s one comfort. A
shrew, perhaps,—or, what is worse, a coquette!”
“When were you last in St. Louis, Miss Brown?” asked Onslow.
“All questions for information must be addressed to Miss Tremaine,” said
Clara. “I shall be happy to talk with you on things I know nothing
about. Shall we discuss the Dahlgren gun, or the Ericsson Monitor?”
“So! She sets up for an eccentric,” thought Onslow. “Perhaps politics
would suit you,” he added aloud. “I hear you’re an Abolitionist.”
“Ask Miss Tremaine,” said Clara.
“O, she has betrayed you already,” replied Onslow.
“Then I’ve nothing to say. I’m in her hands.”
“Is it possible,” said Kenrick, who was irrepressible on the one theme
nearest his heart, “is it possible Miss Brown can’t see it,—can’t see
the loveliness of that divine cosmos which we call slavery? Poor deluded
Miss Brown! I know not what other men may think, but as for me, give me
slavery or give me death! Do you object to woman-whipping, Miss Brown?”
“I confess I’ve my prejudices against it,” replied Clara. “But these
charges of woman-whipping, you know, are Abolition lies.”
“Yes, so Northern conservatives say; but we of the plantations know that
nearly one half the whippings are of women.”[29]
“Come! Sink the shop!” cried Laura. “Are we so dull we can’t find
anything but our horrible _bête noir_ for our amusement? Let us have
scandal, rather; nonsense, rather! Tell us a story, Mr. Kenrick.”
“Well; once on a time—how would you like a ghost-story?”
“Above all things. Charming! Only ghosts have grown so common, they no
longer thrill us.”
“Yes,” said Kenrick,—whose trivial thoughts ever seemed to call up his
serious,—“yes; materialism has done a good work in its day and
generation. It has taught us that the business of this world must go on
just as if there were no ghosts. The supernatural is no longer an
incubus and an oppression. Its phenomena no longer frighten and
paralyze. Let us, then, since we are now freed from their terrors,
welcome the great facts themselves as illumining and confirming all that
there is in the past to comfort us with the assurance of continuous life
issuing from seeming death.”
“Dear Mr. Kenrick, is this a time for a lecture?” expostulated Laura.
“Aren’t you bored, Perdita?”
“On the contrary, I’m interested.”
“What do you think of spiritualism, Miss Brown?”
“I’ve witnessed none of the phenomena, but I don’t see why the testimony
of these times, in regard to them, shouldn’t be taken as readily as that
of centuries back.”
“My father is a believer,” said Onslow; “and I have certainly seen some
unaccountable things,—tables lifted into the air,—instruments of music
floated about, and played on without visible touch,—human hands,
palpable and warm, coming out from impalpable air:—all very queer and
very inexplicable! But what do they prove? _Cui bono?_ What of it all?”
“‘Nothing in it!’ as Sir Charles Coldstream says of the Vatican,”
interposed Laura.
“You demand the use of it all,—the _cui bono_,—do you?” retorted
Kenrick. “Did it ever occur to you to make your own existence the
subject of that terrible inquiry, _cui bono_?”
“Certainly,” replied Onslow, laughing; “my _cui bono_ is to fight for
the independence of the new Confederacy.”
“And for the propagation of slavery, eh?” returned Kenrick. “I don’t see
the _cui bono_. On the contrary, to my fallible vision, the world would
be better off without than with you. But let us take a more extreme
case. These youths—Tom, Dick, and Harry—who give their days and nights,
not to the works of Addison, but to gambling, julep-drinking, and
cigar-smoking,—who hate and shun all useful work,—and are no comfort to
anybody,—only a shame and affliction to somebody,—can you explain to me
the _cui bono_ of their corrupt and unprofitable lives?”
“But how undignified in a spirit to push tables about and play on
accordions!”
“Well, what authority have you for the supposition that there are no
undignified spirits? We know there are weak and wicked spirits _in_ the
flesh; why not _out_ of the flesh? A spirit, or an intelligence claiming
to be one, writes an ungrammatical sentence or a pompous commonplace,
and signs _Bacon_ to it; and you forthwith exclaim, ‘Pooh! this can’t
come from a spirit.’ How do you know that? Mayn’t lies be told in other
worlds than this? Will the ignoramus at once be made a scholar,—the
dullard a philosopher,—the blackguard a gentleman,—the sinner a
saint,—the liar truthful,—by the simple process of elimination from this
husk of flesh? Make me at once altogether other than what I am, and you
annihilate me, and there is no immortality of the soul.”
“But what has the ghost contributed to our knowledge during these
fourteen years, since he appeared at Rochester? Of all he has brought
us, we may say, with Shakespeare, ‘There needs no ghost come from the
grave to tell us that.’”
“I’ll tell you what the ghost has contributed, not at Rochester merely,
but everywhere, through the ages. He has contributed _himself_. You say,
_cui bono?_ And I might say of ten thousand mysteries about us, _cui
bono?_ The lightning strikes the church-steeple,—_cui bono?_ An idiot is
born into the world,—_cui bono?_ It is absurd to demand as a condition
of rational faith, that we should prove a _cui bono_. A good or a use
may exist, and we be unable to see it. And yet grave men are continually
thrusting into the faces of the investigators of these phenomena this
preposterous _cui bono?_”
“Enough, my dear Mr. Kenrick!” exclaimed Laura.
But he was not to be stopped. He rose and paced the room, and continued:
“The _cui bono_ of phenomena must of course be found in the mind that
regards them. ‘I can’t find you both arguments and brains,’ said Dr.
Johnson to a noodle who thought Milton trashy. One man sees an apple
fall, and straightway thinks of the price of cider. Newton sees it, and
it suggests gravitation. One man sees a table rise in the air, and
cries: ‘It can’t be a spirit; ’t is too undignified for a spirit!’
Mountford sees it, and the immortality of the soul is thenceforth to him
a fact as positive as any fact of science.”
“Your story, dear Mr. Kenrick, your story!” urged Laura.
“My story is ended. The ghost has come and vanished.”
“Is that all?” whined Laura. “Are n’t we, then, to have a story?”
“In mercy give us some music, Miss Brown,” said Onslow.
“Play Yankee Doodle, with variations,” interposed Kenrick.
“Not unless you’d have the windows smashed in,” pleaded Onslow; and,
giving his arm, he waited on Clara to the piano.
She dashed into a medley of brilliant airs from operas, uniting them by
extemporized links of melody to break the abruptness of the transitions.
The young men were both connoisseurs; and they interchanged looks of
gratified astonishment.
“And now for a song!” exclaimed Laura.
Clara paused a moment, and sat looking with clasped hands at the keys.
Then, after a delicate prelude, she gave that song of Pestal, already
quoted.[30] She gave it with her whole soul, as if a personal wrong were
adding intensity to the defiance of her tones.
Kenrick, wrought to a state of sympathy which he could not disguise, had
taken a seat where he could watch her features while she sang. When she
had finished, she covered her face with her hands, then, finding her
emotion uncontrollable, rose and passed out of the room.
“What do you think of that, Charles?” asked Onslow.
“It was terrible,” said Kenrick. “I wanted to kill a slaveholder while
she sang.”
“But she has the powers of a _prima donna_,” said Onslow, turning to
Laura.
“Yes, one would think she had practised for the stage.”
Clara now returned with a countenance placid and smiling.
“How long do you stay in New Orleans, Miss Brown?” inquired Onslow.
“How long, Laura?” asked Clara.
“A week or two.”
“We shall have another opportunity, I hope, of hearing you sing.”
“I hope so.”
“I have an appointment now at the armory. Charles, are you ready to
walk?”
“No, thank you. I prefer to remain.”
Onslow left, and, immediately afterwards, Laura’s mother being seized
with a timely hemorrhage, Laura was called off to attend to her. Kenrick
was alone with Clara. Charming opportunity! He drew from her still
another and another song. He conversed with her on her studies,—on the
books she had read,—the pictures she had seen. He was roused by her
intelligence and wit. He spoke of slavery. Deep as was his own
detestation of it, she helped him to make it deeper. What delightful
harmony of views! Kenrick felt that his time had come. The hours slipped
by like minutes, yet there he sat chained by a fascination so new, so
strange, so delightful, he marvelled that life had in it so much of
untasted joy.
Kenrick was not accustomed to be critical in details. He looked at
general effects. But the most trifling point in Clara’s accoutrements
was now a thing to be marked and remembered. The little sleeve-button
dropped from the band round her throat. Kenrick picked it up,—examined
it,—saw, in characters so fine as to be hardly legible, the letters
C.A.B. upon it. (“B. stands for Brown,” thought he.) And then, as Clara
put out her hand to receive it, he noticed the bracelet she wore. “What
beautiful hair!” he said. He looked up at Clara’s to trace a
resemblance. But his glance stopped midway at her eyes. “Blue and gray!”
he murmured.
“Yes, can you read them?” asked Clara.
“What do you mean?”
“Only a dream I had. There’s a letter on them somebody is to open and
read.”
“O, that I were a Daniel to interpret!” said Kenrick.
At last Miss Tremaine returned. Her mother had been dangerously ill. It
was an hour after midnight. Sincerely astounded at finding it so late,
Kenrick took his leave. Heart and brain were full. “Thou art the wine
whose drunkenness is all I can desire, O love!”
And how was it with Clara? Alas, the contrariety of the affections!
Clara simply thought Kenrick a very agreeable young man: handsome, but
not so handsome as Onslow; clever, but not so clever as Vance!
-----
Footnote 27:
General Ullmann writes from New Orleans, June 6, 1863, to Governor
Andrew: “Every man (freed negro) presenting himself to be recruited,
strips to the skin. My surgeons report to me that _not one in fifteen_
is free from marks of severe lashing. More than one half are rejected
because of disability from lashing with whips, and the biting of dogs
on calves and thighs. It is frightful. Hundreds have welts on their
backs as large as one of your largest fingers.”
Footnote 28:
Abercrombie relates an authenticated case of the same kind. A woodman,
while employed with his axe, was hit on the head by a falling tree. He
remained in a semi-comatose state for a whole year. On being
trepanned, he uttered an exclamation which was found to be the
completion of the sentence he had been in the act of uttering when
struck twelve months before.
Footnote 29:
Among the foul records the Rebellion has unearthed is one, found at
Alexandria, La., being a stray leaf from the diary of an overseer in
that vicinity, in the year 1847. It chronicles the whippings of slaves
from April 20 to May 21. Of thirty-nine whippings during that period,
_nineteen were of females_. We give a few extracts from this precious
and authentic document:—
“April 20. Whipped Adam for cutting cotton too wide. Nat, for thinning
cotton.—21. Adaline and Clem, for being behind.—24. Esther, for
leaving child out in yard to let it cry.—27. Adaline, for being slow
getting out of quarters.—28. Daniel, for not having cobs taken out of
horse-trough.—May 1. Anna, Jo, Hannah, Sarah, Jim, and Jane, for not
thinning corn right. Clem, for being too long thinning one row of
corn. Esther, for not being out of quarters quick enough.—10. Adaline,
for being last one out with row.—15. Esther, for leaving grass in
cotton.—17. Peggy, for not hoeing as much cane as she ought to last
week.—18. Polly, for not hoeing faster.—20. Martha. Esther, and Sarah,
for jawing about row, while I was gone.—21. Polly, for not handling
her hoe faster.”
A United States officer from Cambridge, Mass., sent home this stray
leaf, and it was originally published in the Cambridge Chronicle.
Footnote 30:
See Chapter XII. page 112.