Miss Clare, we may be sure, made her brother very happy, when she
told him of the engagement she had made for the morrow, and how
delighted she had been with his handsome friend.
Allan, I believe, got little sleep that night. I know not, whether
joy be not a more troublesome bedfellow than grief--hope keeps a body
very wakeful, I know.
Elinor Clare was the best good creature--the least selfish human
being I ever knew--always at work for other people's good, planning
other people's happiness--continually forgetful to consult for her
own personal gratifications, except indirectly, in the welfare of
another; while her parents lived, the most attentive of
daughters--since they died, the kindest of sisters--I never knew but
_one_ like her. It happens that I have some of this young lady's
_letters_ in my possession--I shall present my reader with one of
them. It was written a short time after the death of her mother, and
addressed to a cousin, a dear friend of Elinor's, who was then on the
point of being married to Mr. Beaumont, of Staffordshire, and had
invited Elinor to assist at her nuptials. I will transcribe it with
minute fidelity.
ELINOR CLARE TO MARIA LESLIE.
Widford, July the --, 17--.
Health, Innocence, and Beauty, shall be thy bride-maids, my sweet
cousin. I have no heart to undertake the office. Alas! what have I to
do in the house of feasting?
Maria! I fear lest my griefs should prove obtrusive. Yet bear with me
a little--I have recovered already a share of my former spirits.
I fear more for Allan than myself. The loss of two such parents,
within so short an interval, bears very heavy on him. The boy _hangs_
about me from morning till night. He is perpetually forcing a smile
into his poor pale cheeks--you know the sweetness of his smile,
Maria.
To-day, after dinner, when he took his glass of wine in his hand, he
burst into tears, and would not, or could not then, tell me the
reason--afterwards he told me--"he had been used to drink Mamma's
health after dinner, and _that_ came into his head and made him cry."
I feel the claims the boy has upon me--I perceive that I am living to
_some end_--and the thought supports me.
Already I have attained to a state of complacent feelings--my
mother's lessons were not thrown away upon her Elinor.
In the visions of last night her spirit seemed to stand at my
bedside--a light, as of noonday, shone upon the room--she opened my
curtains--she smiled upon me with the same placid smile as in her
lifetime. I felt no fear. "Elinor," she said, "for my sake take care
of young Allan,"--and I awoke with calm feelings.
Maria! shall not the meeting of blessed spirits, think you, he
something like this?--I think, I could even now behold my mother
without dread--I would ask pardon of her for all my past omissions of
duty, for all the little asperities in my temper, which have so often
grieved her gentle spirit when living. Maria! I think she would not
turn away from me.
Oftentimes a feeling, more vivid than memory, brings her before me--I
see her sit in her old elbow-chair--her arms folded upon her lap--a
tear upon her cheek, that seems to upbraid her unkind daughter for
some inattention--I wipe it away and kiss her honored lips.
Maria! when I have been fancying all this, Allan will come in, with
his poor eyes red with weeping, and taking me by the hand, destroy
the vision in a moment.
I am prating to you, my sweet cousin, but it is the prattle of the
heart, which Maria loves. Besides, whom have I to talk to of these
things but you?--you have been my counsellor in times past, my
companion, and sweet familiar friend. Bear with me a little--I mourn
the "cherishers of my infancy."
I sometimes count it a blessing that my father did not prove the
_survivor_. You know something of his story. You know there was a
foul tale current--it was the busy malice of that bad man, S----,
which helped to spread it abroad--you will recollect the active
good-nature of our friends W---- and T----; what pains they took to
undeceive people--with the better sort their kind labors prevailed;
but there was still a party who shut their ears. You know the issue
of it. My father's great spirit bore up against it for some time--my
father never was a _bad_ man--but that spirit was broken at the
last--and the greatly-injured man was forced to leave his old
paternal dwelling in Staffordshire--for the neighbors had begun to
point at him. Maria! I have _seen_ them _point_ at him, and have been
ready to drop.
In this part of the country, where the slander had not reached, he
sought a retreat--and he found a still more grateful asylum in the
daily solicitudes of the best of wives.
"An enemy hath done this," I have heard him say--and at such times my
mother would speak to him so soothingly of forgiveness, and
long-suffering, and the bearing of injuries with patience; would heal
all his wounds with so gentle a touch;--I have seen the old man weep
like a child.
The gloom that beset his mind, at times betrayed him into
skepticism--he has doubted if there be a Providence! I have heard him
say, "God has built a brave world, but methinks he has left his
creatures to bustle in it _how they may_."
At such times he could not endure to hear my mother talk in a
religious strain. He would say, "Woman, have done--you confound, you
perplex me, when you talk of these matters, and for one day at least
unfit me for the business of life."
I have seen her look at him--O GOD, Maria! such a _look_! it plainly
spake that she was willing to have shared her precious hope with the
partner of her earthly cares--but she found a repulse--
Deprived of such a wife, think you, the old man could long have
endured his existence? or what consolation would his wretched
daughter have had to offer him, but silent and imbecile tears?
My sweet cousin, you will think me tedious--and I am so--but it does
me good to talk these matters over. And do not you be alarmed for
me--my sorrows are subsiding into a deep and sweet resignation. I
shall soon be sufficiently composed, I know it, to participate in my
friend's happiness.
Let me call her, while yet I may, my own Maria Leslie! Methinks, I
shall not like you by any other name. Beaumont! Maria Beaumont! it
hath a strange sound with it--I shall never be reconciled to this
name--but do not you fear--Maria Leslie shall plead with me for Maria
Beaumont.
And now, my sweet Friend,
God love you, and your
ELINOR CLARE.
I find in my collection several letters, written soon after the date
of the preceding, and addressed all of them to Maria Beaumont.--I am
tempted to make some short extracts from these--my tale will suffer
interruption by them--but I was willing to preserve whatever
memorials I could of Elinor Clare.
FROM ELINOR CLARE TO MARIA BEAUMONT.
(AN EXTRACT.)
"----I have been strolling out for half an hour in the fields; and my
mind has been occupied by thoughts which Maria has a right to
participate. I have been bringing my _mother_ to my recollection. My
heart ached with the remembrance of infirmities, that made her
closing years of life so sore a trial to her.
"I was concerned to think that our family differences have been one
source of disquiet to her. I am sensible that _this last_ we are apt
to exaggerate after a person's death--and surely, in the main, there
was considerable harmony among the members of our little
family--still I was concerned to think that we ever gave her gentle
spirit disquiet.
"I thought on years back--on all my parents' friends--the H----s, the
F----s, on D---- S----, and on many a merry evening, in the fireside
circle, in that comfortable back parlor--it is never used now.--
"O ye _Matravises_[1] of the age, ye know not what ye lose in
despising these petty topics of endeared remembrance, associated
circumstances of past times;--ye know not the throbbings of the
heart, tender yet affectionately familiar, which accompany the dear
and honored names of _father_ or of _mother_.
[Footnote 1: This name will be explained presently.]
"Maria! I thought on all these things; my heart ached at the review
of them--it yet aches, while I write this--but I am never so
satisfied with my train of thoughts, as when they run upon these
subjects--the tears they draw from us, meliorate and soften the
heart, and keep fresh within us that memory of dear friends dead,
which alone can fit us for a readmission to their society hereafter."
FROM ANOTHER LETTER.
"----I had a bad dream this morning--that Allan was dead--and who, of
all persons in the world do you think, put on mourning for him?
Why--_Matravis_. This alone might cure me of superstitious thoughts,
if I were inclined to them; for why should Matravis _mourn_ for us,
or our family?--Still it was pleasant to awake, and find it but a
dream.--Methinks something like an awaking from an ill dream shall
the Resurrection from the Dead be.--Materially different from our
accustomed scenes, and ways of life, the _World to come_ may possibly
not be--still it is represented to us under the notion of a _Rest_, a
_Sabbath_, a state of bliss."
FROM ANOTHER LETTER.
"----Methinks, you and I should have been born under the same roof,
sucked the same milk, conned the same horn-book, thumbed the same
Testament, together:--for we have been more than sisters, Maria!
"Something will still be whispering to me, that I shall one day be
inmate of the same dwelling with my cousin, partaker with her in all
the delights which spring from mutual good offices, kind words,
attentions in sickness and in health,--conversation, sometimes
innocently trivial, and at others profitably serious;--books read and
commented on, together; meals ate, and walks taken, together,--and
conferences, how we may best do good to this poor person or that, and
wean our spirits from the world's _cares_, without divesting
ourselves of its _charities_. What a picture I have drawn, Maria! and
none of all these things may ever come to pass."
FROM ANOTHER LETTER.
"----Continue to write to me, my sweet cousin. Many good thoughts,
resolutions, and proper views of things, pass through the mind in the
course of the day, but are lost for want of committing them to paper.
Seize them, Maria, as they pass, these Birds of Paradise, that show
themselves and are gone,--and make a grateful present of the precious
fugitives to your friend.
"To use a homely illustration, just rising in my fancy,--shall the
good housewife take such pains in pickling and preserving her
worthless fruits, her walnuts, her apricots, and quinces--and is
there not much _spiritual housewifery_ in treasuring up our mind's
best fruits--our heart's meditations in its most favored moments?
"This sad simile is much in the fashion of the old Moralizers, such
as I conceive honest Baxter to have been, such as Quarles and Wither
were with their curious, serio-comic, quaint emblems. But they
sometimes reach the heart, when a more elegant simile rests in the
fancy.
"Not low and mean, like these, but beautifully familiarized to our
conceptions, and condescending to human thoughts and notions, are all
the discourses of our LORD--conveyed in parable, or similitude, what
easy access do they win to the heart, through the medium of the
delighted imagination! speaking of heavenly things in fable, or in
simile, drawn from earth, from objects _common_, _accustomed_.
"Life's business, with such delicious little interruptions as our
correspondence affords, how pleasant it is!--why can we not paint on
the dull paper our whole feelings, exquisite as they rise up?"
FROM ANOTHER LETTER.
"----I had meant to have left off at this place; but looking back, I
am sorry to find too gloomy a cast tincturing my last page--a
representation of life false and unthankful. Life is _not_ all vanity
and disappointment--it hath much of evil in it, no doubt; but to
those who do not misuse it, it affords comfort, _temporary_ comfort,
much--much that endears us to it, and dignifies it--many true and
good feelings, I trust, of which we need not be ashamed--hours of
tranquillity and hope. But the morning was dull and overcast, and my
spirits were under a cloud. I feel my error.
"Is it no blessing that we two love one another so dearly--that Allan
is left me--that you are settled in life--that worldly affairs go
smooth with us both--above all that our lot hath fallen to us in a
Christian country? Maria! these things are not little. I will
consider life as a long feast, and not forget to say grace."
FROM ANOTHER LETTER.
"----Allan has written to me--you know, he is on a visit at his old
tutor's in Gloucestershire--he is to return home on Thursday--Allan
is a dear boy--he concludes his letter, which is very affectionate
throughout, in this manner--
"'Elinor, I charge you to learn the following stanza by heart--
"'The monarch may forget his crown,
That on his head an hour hath been;
The bridegroom may forget his bride
Was made his wedded wife yestreen;
"'The mother may forget her child,
That smiles so sweetly on her knee:
But I'll remember thee, Glencairn,
And all that thou hast done for me."
"'The lines are in Burns--you know, we read him for the first time
together at Margate--and I have been used to refer them to you, and
to call you, in my mind, _Glencairn_,--for you were always very good
to me. I had a thousand failings, but you would love me in spite of
them all. I am going to drink your health.'"
I shall detain my reader no longer from the narrative.
* * * * *