_My Dear Miss H----_,--
I fully agree with you in the high character you have given of the
"Southern Literary Messenger,"--some numbers of which I have had the
pleasure of reading, and join most heartily with you in the wish that
it may meet with the success it so eminently deserves. But what shall
I say in reply to your request to write something for its columns? You
are aware that nothing "_mediocre_" can find its way there; and you
are as well aware that I have seldom or never been charged with the
sin of authorship. Your requests however are commands; and although I
may fail to give to the subject I have selected, sufficient interest
to induce the editors to yield it a place in their paper, yet will I
indulge the hope that as it is a true story, it may prove useful to
yourself, for the truths it reveals,--though lacking the ornament to
make them acceptable to the general reader.
It is not necessary to give a "local habitation" to those whose brief
story I am about to record. For all the purposes for which I have
called them up, you may suppose them to have lived in either Albany or
Richmond; for in many respects these cities are very much alike. Each
is situated on a noble river, and is the capital of a state. Each has
in its vicinity, hills and valleys, and landscapes of picturesque
beauty and grandeur, amid whose romantic and love inspiring scenes
many a sigh has been breathed and many a vow offered in vain.
Notwithstanding these places thus resemble each other, I would here
observe that you are not at liberty to be particular in your choice,
because you may have known or heard of persons and events in either of
them similar to those here described. What happens in one place may
happen in another, and he who travels far and wide will find the human
family every where agitated by the same feelings and the same
passions, and that all the elements that enter into the history of the
world, may be found in any one town or village, directing and
controlling the destinies of its inhabitants.
Leaving however, to the historian and the philosopher, the task of
writing the history of the world, and developing the secret springs of
human action, and to sager heads to read them, than that of my fair
correspondent,--I will only ask your attention to what will be more
congenial to your wishes, and a more easily understood subject, a tale
of "Ladye Love," in which some of my younger friends and feelings were
deeply interested.
During our schoolboy days, I became acquainted with George Marley; but
we will pass over his earlier years, until he had arrived at the age
of twenty. As it is not my intention to enter upon a particular
analysis of form and features, mind or manners, I will leave your
imagination to make George whatever you please, not incompatible with
a "marvellously proper" young man, tall and straight, with raven locks
and eagle eye--with all those high intellectual qualities, and that
deep moral rectitude, which wins admiration and commands esteem. Two
years before I have here introduced him to you, George's father was
considered one of the most wealthy merchants in the city, and George's
education and hopes were in accordance with his high expectations. But
a series of disasters to which commercial property is so very liable,
swept away from Mr. Marley every thing he possessed but the honorable
and virtuous character of himself and his family. At the time of his
father's misfortune George was taken from school, and placed in a
merchant's counting house, to qualify him for the active career of
life thus early forced upon him--a career in which he must depend upon
his own exertions for success, and in which he must win for himself,
and by himself, whatever he might obtain of fortune or of fame.
In the particular circumstances of his situation at this time, I am
aware there is nothing to excite your sympathy. Many thousands of
young men enter upon the active scenes of life under more
disadvantages than these--without friends, without a good education,
without early habits of propriety and rectitude, and yet reach to the
highest eminence and renown; and why might not George Marley? The
answer is simply, he _loved!_ and would not love inspire him with
stronger and more powerful motives for exertion and success?
Isabella Barclay was, if ever there was, a perfectly lovely girl. She
was one of those fair creatures that occasionally are seen among us,
but which seem to belong to a higher order of beings than those
inhabiting this lower world. It is not wonderful therefore that George
Marley should love her, or that she should love him. They did love,
truly--devotedly. They were too young to conceal it; there was no
cause for concealment. Every body knew it; their parents knew it, and
sanctioned it--and why should they not? Previously to the failure of
Mr. Marley, they were equal in fortune, in education, and in all that
could give promise of a certain and happy union. Although Mr. Marley
had fallen from affluence to comparative poverty, yet himself and his
family continued to enjoy the respect of all their acquaintance; and
the particular friendship that had existed between Mr. Marley and Mr.
Barclay, and their respective families, to all appearance suffered no
interruption.
The misfortunes of Mr. Marley, although it had blighted the hopes of
George, had no effect on Isabella but to excite her pity and
strengthen her love. She was too young to calculate chances or
consequences--she had not loved George for his father's wealth, but
for himself; and while he remained the same, her affections were
immutable. Thus reasoned this pure and amiable girl; and for the two
years that elapsed from the time of the unfortunate failure of Mr.
Marley, up to that at which we commenced our tale, George was happy in
the expectation of ere long being enabled to raise his own fallen
fortune, and happier in the tried sincerity of his Isabella's love.
I need not stop to tell you of the thousand hopes and fears, pleasures
and pains, our lovers suffered or enjoyed: I suppose they were such as
are common to all the votaries of the fickle God. Their attachment had
commenced at school, and we have continued it until he had arrived at
the age of twenty, and she seventeen, and at no time had any
interruption to its progress taken place. If you have paid any
attention to these love affairs, you will have observed the great
difference there is between those where the attachment commences early
in life, and the parties grow up together, forming and moulding their
feelings, their wishes, their amusements, their tastes, their whole
heart and soul, by the same model; and those "whom accident or blind
chance" bring together, and from some peculiarity of form or mind, for
a while deem themselves in love with each other. With the former, it
is the web of their existence, which, once broken, can never be woven
again; with the latter, it is "like a lady's glove," put off as easily
as it is put on, and with whose last sigh passes away all its
pleasures and its pains, leaving no "wreck behind." As that of George
and Isabella was of the former kind, and as no objection had been made
on the inequality of their fortunes, and as he was about to enter into
business for himself under the fairest prospects, their marriage when
they should arrive at a proper age, was looked for by themselves and
all others as beyond the reach of doubt or contingency. What
contingency could happen? Their known engagement, his constant
attention, and her acknowledged affection for him, formed an
impassable barrier to the advances that otherwise would have been made
by many who admired her. Indeed, you and I would suppose that no one
would attempt to mar their promised happiness, or wish to win hearts
that had so long beat for each other, and each other only. Yet did the
spoiler come! and where will he not come? Since he first found his way
into the Garden of Eden, and blasted the happiness of our common
parents, where is the paradise some spoiler has not entered? where the
scene of love and harmony he has not attempted to break up and
destroy?
In the particular city to which we have alluded, there lived a
bachelor of upwards of double the age of George Marley, although his
appearance was younger than his age would have indicated; with few
personal attractions, he had but little education; and no more of
common sense, or any other kind of sense, than fitted him for the
accumulation of wealth. As he sustained a respectable character, was
called rich, and lived in a style of comparative splendor, he was of
course one of the good society of the city, and a desirable match for
any daughter a mother wished to sell to the highest bidder. If Mr.
Simson, for such was this gentleman's name, ever had had any feelings
of the heart--if he ever was susceptible of a pure and holy love; the
associations, habits, and pursuits of his whole life, had long since
deadened them all, or made them subservient to his will, an article of
trade or commerce, of marketable value, to bestow them on the wife of
his bosom, as a Pacha bestows his on the last fairest slave his wealth
has purchased. But you may ask what Mr. Simson has to do with the
loves of George and Isabella? Ah! my dear girl, old, ignorant and cold
hearted as he may be, he is the arbiter of their fate. It is in his
power to give them years of happiness, or it is in his power to blight
their buds of promise, and send them prematurely to their graves! and
why? because he is _rich!_ I know your young heart rejects the
supposition that such a man would, or could, break their bonds of
mutual love, that thus seemed to have been formed and strengthened
under the auspices of heaven,--that he by any means could "pluck from
the brows of their innocent love, the rose, and place a blister
there." I know you anticipate that he will appropriate a part of his
wealth to establish George in business, or will die and leave it all
to him; that thus he will be enabled to wed his Isabella, and their
lives thenceforth "go merry as a marriage bell." Alas! how little do
we know of ourselves or our destiny! how unseen or mistaken may be the
path that leads to high and happy places, or that which leads to
misery and despair!
Nothing is more painful to my mind, than to witness a beautiful girl
thrown into the alluring and deceptive scenes of life without a
mother's guardianship. No other heart can sympathise with her, no
other hand direct her course. She does not feel for them, and they
cannot feel with her! Others may warn and advise her, but none but a
mother's watchful eye can perceive, and a mother's tender care guard
or direct her young affections. Isabella had a mother. But Mrs.
Barclay was a woman of the world. In early life she may have loved,
and that love may have been successful and happy; or she may have
married for convenience, to gratify some darling passion, and never
have known the deep feelings of a long cherished affection. No matter
what was the history of her younger days, they had passed away, and
with them all their sympathies and all their influence. She was now a
woman of the world--a _fashionable lady_. She loved her daughter, and
to make that daughter happy was the chief object of her care. The
notions of happiness entertained by this worthy matron, was such as
thousands and thousands believe, yet never find true. The show, the
glare of wealth and its attendants, the unsatisfying yet exciting
routine of fashionable life, were to her every thing; and that calm,
pure and virtuous happiness which springs in the heart, and is
cherished by its high and heavenly attributes, were to her unknown, or
as nothing. With such views, it was not to be expected that she would
look upon the attachment of George and Isabella in the most favorable
light, or promote its continuance, when it interfered with any other
more splendid prospect that might offer. Such a prospect did offer;
and that being who of all others should have directed her young and
unsuspecting offspring in the path of truth and rectitude; by a course
of deceptions, endeavored to induce Isabella to forsake her first and
only love, and unite herself to one who was incapable of loving her,
and who she could never love--to Mr. Simson! George was early apprised
of her purpose, and did all a true and noble mind could do, to avert
the blow she was preparing for him. His fears were always lulled by
the unwavering love of Isabella, and her vows of constancy. He
believed her true, and she believed herself true. But the continual
and insidious efforts of her mother and her fashionable friends,
poisoned her mind; and, tired of their importunities, she at length
yielded to their persuasions. George was too proud to let the world
triumph in the prostration of his hopes; as soon therefore as he was
assured of her infidelity, he set sail for South America.
Isabella's abandonment of George, and her affiance to Mr. Simson, were
events soon known, and as soon attracted the attention of their
acquaintance. It was perceptible to every one, that her character had
passed away with him who had so long given it its tone and direction.
Freed from him who had from her infancy been the source and the
companion of all her pleasures, she visited every public and private
amusement or assembly, and was every where remarkable for her vivid
and reckless gaiety. Those who judged by appearances deemed her happy
in her new situation; but those who looked beneath the surface, saw
only in these wild demonstrations of joy, the vain efforts to banish
from her heart "the worm that dyeth not."
Some months after the departure of George, Mr. Simson and Isabella
were married. From the time the latter had broken her vows to George,
all intimacy between her and myself had ceased. I was not therefore at
her wedding, but it was said to be numerous and brilliant--the bride
splendidly decorated, lovely, and the gayest of the gay.
For a few short years after her marriage, although I lived in a
distant part of the country, I could hear of Isabella, now Mrs.
Simson. For sometime she apparently luxuriated in the golden vision,
for which had been sacrificed her earliest and fondest anticipations.
She gave the largest parties, and the most splendid fetes, and the
fashionable world pronounced her marriage _fortunate_. But soon this
illusory existence vanished, and I learned, what nothing can conceal,
that the decay which halteth not had settled itself upon her beautiful
form. A few months and she was confined to her house, and then to her
room, and then to her bed--and then came from her a brief but
thrilling letter, ardently desiring me to come to her before she died.
I did go; and did hear from her dying lips, how a mother's mistaken
love had made her faithless, and of the years of hopeless and bitter
anguish that followed and dragged her down to the grave. I have stood
by the dying bed of friends and relations--I have seen the last
struggle of a father, of brothers and sisters, and for all of these I
have had deep sorrow. But it was in the presence of that broken
hearted sufferer, and from the revealings and monitions of her
departing spirit, I learned that enduring lesson of life, which time
nor circumstance can ever obliterate. Yes! my dear girl; it was there
I received that lesson which I have so often endeavored to impress
upon your mind,--to guard you against the snares that are every where
spread by those who have wrecked their own happiness, to draw the
young and thoughtless into the vortex of their own dazzling but
heartless pleasures. Could you have been in that chamber, and have
seen and known how one so lovely, and whose morning of life was so
fair, had been snatched from the world of her bright
dreams,--prostrating in her fall all the years of earthly bliss that
might have been hers, and all the proud aspirations, the promised
felicity of him, the betrothed of her heart,--you would never again
breathe one sigh, or one wish,--or weaken one chord of pure affection,
for all that wealth and fashion can promise or bestow.
A few days after this interview, she left this world of trouble,--and
the papers of the day, announced in the usual manner,--Died, on the
---- instant, of a "pulmonary complaint," Mrs. Simson, wife of Mr.
---- Simson; and who thought otherwise? who of all that surrounded
her, could deem she had a _heart_ to _break_? Thus she passed away;
and the world, busied with its own little and great schemes, soon
ceased to remember that she had ever lived, or loved, or died.
With Isabella ends our tale. And it is only necessary in conclusion to
say, that George never knew how fully and fearfully she had atoned for
her fatal error. Before I had an opportunity of communicating to him
my last painful interview with her,--and her prayers for his happiness
and forgiveness, he had fallen in the struggle of South America for
liberty and independence. Mrs. Barclay is still alive, and so is Mr.
Simson, though now some ten years older than when he led Isabella a
victim to the altar. I presume he is still in the market; he is ten
years older, he is ten years richer, and thus doubly desirable to
those mothers who _love_ their daughters, and wish to have them _well
married_.
I have endeavored to be as brief as possible, but my letter has
extended itself too long, and yet I fear it is too short to make that
impression I could wish. I cannot but hope, however, that Isabella's
fate will awaken in your breast, as it did in mine, those reflections
that will lead you justly to appreciate how false and empty are the
world's opinions, when compared with the conscientious dictates of our
own calm and unbiassed judgment,--and determine you to choose that
life whence rises and flows the streams of all our earthly happiness.
If I have failed, and that flower which now blooms so fair and
fragrant by the banks of Powhatan, should be plucked by a hand
insensible to its sweets, to ornament some princely hall, and wither
amid all its splendor, then you may recollect the warning voice, and
think of one, though humble, who would have sacrificed every other
hope of happiness to cherish that flower--you may then remember----