to an only brother, when they have been permitted to grow up together
untrammelled by the heartless forms of fashion; unrivalled by alien
claimants in their confiding affection; undivided in study, in sport,
and in interest. Some object, that such union renders the boy too
effeminate and the girl too masculine. In our case it did neither. He
was the manliest, the hardiest, most decided, most intrepid character
imaginable; but in manners sweet, gentle, and courteous, as they will be
who are accustomed to look with protecting tenderness on an associate
weaker than themselves. And as for me, though I must plead guilty to the
charge of being more healthy, more active, and perhaps more energetic,
than young ladies are usually expected to be, still I never was
considered unfeminine; and the only peculiarity resulting from this
constant companionship with one of the superior sex, was to give me a
high sense of that superiority, with a habit of deference to man's
judgment and submission to man's authority, which I am quite sure God
intended the woman to yield. Every way has this fraternal tie been a
rich blessing to me. The love that grew with us from our cradles never
knew diminution from time or distance. Other ties were formed, but they
did not supersede or weaken this. Death tore away all that was mortal
and perishable, but this tie he could not sunder. As I loved him while
he was on earth, so do I love him now that he is in heaven; and while I
cherish in his sons the living likeness of what he was, my heart
evermore yearns towards him where he is.
Parents are wrong to check as they do the outgoings of fraternal
affection, by separating those whom God has especially joined as the
offspring of one father and one mother. God has beautifully mingled
them, by sending now a babe of one sex, now of the other, and suiting,
as any careful observer may discern, their various characters to form a
domestic whole. The parents interpose, packing off the boys to some
school where no softer influence exists to round off, as it were, the
rugged points of the masculine disposition, and where they soon lose all
the delicacy of feeling peculiar to a brother's regard, and learn to
look on the female character in a light wholly subversive of the
frankness, the purity, the generous care for which earth can yield no
substitute, and the loss of which only transforms him who ought to be
the tender preserver of woman into her heartless destroyer. The girls
are either grouped at home, with the blessed privilege of a father's eye
still upon them, or sent away in a different direction from their
brothers, exposed through unnatural and unpalatable restraints, to evils
not perhaps so great, but every whit as wantonly incurred as the others.
The shyness, miscalled retiring modesty, with which one young lady
shrinks from the notice of a gentleman as though there were danger in
his approach, and the conscious coquettish air, miscalled ease, with
which another invites his notice, are alike removed from the reality of
either modesty or ease. Both result from a fictitious mode of education
--both are the consequences of nipping in the bud those sisterly feelings
that lay a fair foundation for the right use of those privileges to
which she looks forward as a member of society; and if the subject be
viewed through the clear medium of Christian principle, its lights will
become more brilliant, its shadows more dark, the longer and the closer
we contemplate it.
LETTER IV.
YOUTH.
Hitherto you have not heard of any spiritually minded person connected
with my early life; yet there was one, I feel sure, though my
recollections are confused and imperfect on that point; and one to whose
prayers, if not to her teaching, I surely owe something.
My father's mother was a fine, sprightly, robust old lady, rather small
in stature, and already bending a little under the burden of years at
the time when I first recollect her as mingling in the visions of my
childhood, though I know that even from infancy I was the delight of her
warm honest heart. She was simplicity itself in manners, her blunt
speeches sometimes clashing a little with her son's notions of polish
and refinement, as also did her inveterate antipathy to the reigning
fashion, whatever that might be. I remember her reading me a lecture
upon something novel in the cut of a sleeve, ending by this remark: "I
never wore a gown but of one shape; and because I don't follow the
fashion, the fashion is forced to come to me sometimes by way of a
change. I can't help that, you know, my dear; but I never was
fashionable on purpose." She added some pious remarks on vanity and
folly, which I soon forgot; but the other dwelt on my mind because it
chimed in with my own love of independence--a prominent characteristic
with me; too often carried to the excess of self-willed obstinacy.
However, I dearly loved and exceedingly respected my grand mother, and
used in my heart to glory in her smooth clean locks, half brown, half
grey, combed down from under a snowy cap of homely make, when she had
successfully resisted alike the entreaties and examples of contemporary
dames, who submitted their heads to the curling-irons and powder-puff of
a _frizeur_, preparatory to an evening party. I used to stand
proudly at her knee, admiring the high color of her cheek, and uncommon
brilliancy of her fine dark hazle eye, while her voice, remarkably rich
and clear, involuntarily swelled the chorus parts of our magnificent
music.
She was a Percy, not by name, for that had been lost in the female line
some generations before, but the pedigree in my possession shows how
just was her vaunt in that respect. For vaunt it she did, to us at
least, often bringing it forward to check any tendency to behavior
unbefitting those who claimed descent from
"The stout earl of Northumberland,"
with whom I ought to be well acquainted, for the singing of Chevy Chace
in proper time and tune with her, was the only secular accomplishment in
which my dear grandmother personally labored to perfect me, except
knitting and curious old-fashioned needlework. The pride of ancestry
took strong hold of my mind, and such an ancestry accorded but too well
with my romance, innate and acquired. It stood me, many a time, in the
stead of better things, when nerving myself to endure affliction and
wrong; and therefore I notice it, to warn you against exposing your own
children to the same snare.
Next to the fashion, if not in an equal or superior degree, I think my
grandmother most abhorred the French. Indeed her strongest denunciations
against the reigning modes were usually clinched with the triumphant
assertion that they were "French fashions." No marvel if her spirit was
stirred within her by the horrors of revolutionary France, and her
Protestantism strengthened by the butcheries of "Ninety-eight." I knew
that she was a protester and a tory of no common stamp; and I knew that
she brought her Bible forward in support of every opinion that she
uttered. Rarely did I visit her without finding her buried in the study
of that blessed book; and I know that she strove to teach me much of its
meaning; but our change of residence proved a great bar to personal
intercourse, and she never wrote letters. I sometimes trace impressions
on my mind, made in early life, which I am sure must have been through
her means, and though the good seed died on the ground, while the weeds
took root and flourished, still, here and there a grain might sink below
the surface, to spring up after many days.
And now I must record my first sorrow, although I cannot dwell upon it
as on some other things. My brother had been nearly two years absent, on
service in the Peninsula, when an apoplectic attack arrested my lather
in the midst of life and health and vigor, and every promise of
lengthened years. The premonitory visitations of repeated strokes were
disregarded, for we could not, would not, realize the approach of such
an event, and persisted in believing them nervous; but just when all
cause for alarm seemed at an end, and I was rejoicing in the assurance
of its being so, I was called from my pillow at midnight to see that
tender and beloved parent die. The bereavement was terrible to me: I had
always been his principal companion, because no one else in the family
had a taste for those things in which he delighted--literature and
politics especially--and since my brother's departure, instead of
seeking to replace him by friends of my own age, I had turned wholly to
my father, never desiring to pass an hour out of his society, and
striving to be to him both daughter and son. My mother was a perfect
devotee to household affairs, every thought occupied in seeking to
promote the domestic comforts of her family; while I, indulging a
natural antipathy to all that did not engage the intellectual powers,
gave her no help there, I was truly cumbering the ground, seeking only
my own gratification, and dignifying my selfishness with many fine
names, only because it was best indulged in my own dear home. From the
period of my loss of hearing, music had been wholly banished; my father
seemed to lose all relish for what could no longer minister enjoyment to
me, and deeply I felt the force of that affection which could so
instantly and wholly overcome the ruling passion of his mind,
accompanied as it was with such exquisite skill in that delightful
science as rendered him the admiration of all who came within its
influence. It redoubled my devotion to him, and most bitter was the
anguish of my heart when I beheld him taken away at a stroke.
Was this affliction sanctified to me? Not in the least. I found a luxury
in grieving alone, brooding on the past, and painting the probable
future in any colors but those of reality. My father had enjoyed two
livings with a minor canonry in the cathedral, but the emolument was
very small, and his income had not allowed him, as yet, to make any
provision for us. A small annuity was all that my mother could depend
on, and I resolved to become a novel-writer, for which I was just
qualified, both by nature and habits of thinking, and in which I should
probably have succeeded very well, but it pleased God to save me from
this snare. My brother's unexpected return on leave, with our subsequent
changes of abode, paying visits among friends, and keeping my thoughts
constantly unsettled, hindered the execution of the project; and when my
brother returned to Portugal, we repaired to London, to make a long stay
with some near relations. It was there that I met with the gentleman, an
officer on leave of absence, whose wife, at the end of six months, I
became.
I am longing to arrive at that period when the light of the glorious
gospel of Christ first shone upon me through the darkness of many trying
dispensations; therefore I pass by much that intervened, including my
dear brother's marriage, who returned again to London with his bride and
his mother, to resume his staff situation there; and shall only take you
with me across the Atlantic, for a few Nova Scotian reminiscences,
before proceeding to the scene of my most precious recollections, dear
Ireland. My husband had joined his regiment in Halifax, and sent me a
summons to follow him out without delay; in order to which I was obliged
to embark in a large vessel taken up partially by government for the
conveyance of troops, but in which there was a select party, occupying
the state cabin, and making their own terms with the captain for the
best possible accommodation and provision on the passage. Of this number
was I; and certainly a more select, polished and agreeable party of
highly bred gentlemen could not have been found. I went under the kind
care of one of these, with his wife, who had invited me to travel with
them.
Have you ever been at sea? It is a question the answer to which will
throw very little light on the matter, unless you also state how it
agreed with you: no two races on the earth can be more distinct than
those two are upon the water--the people who are sea-sick and the people
who are not. It was my happy privilege to belong to the latter class; I
never for a moment experienced even an unpleasant sensation from any
marine cause, but on the contrary enjoyed exemption from all physical
annoyances during a five weeks' voyage, excepting that of hunger. An
abundant supply of every thing that was nourishing, in the most
palatable form, left no excuse for remaining hungry; nevertheless the
demand was incessantly kept up; and I appeal to all who have been
similarly affected, whether the munching of hard sea-bread from morning
to night under the pressure of a real sea appetite, is not a greater
luxury than the choicest viands on shore. To me it certainly was; and
surely I had reason to be deeply thankful to the Lord, who, by means of
that delicious voyage, and its bracing exhilarating effects, prepared me
for a trying winter in the singular climate for which I was bound.
Every day, and all day long, be the weather what it might, I was
stationed on deck, generally seated on the highest point of the ship's
stern, directly over the rudder, to enjoy a full view of that most
graceful and exquisite spectacle, a large vessel's course through the
mighty deep. Ours was a splendid one, a West Indiaman, almost rivalling
the sea-palaces of the East India Company, and manned in the first
style. The troops on board, under the command of a field officer,
greatly added to the effect and comfort of the thing, for nothing is so
conducive to the latter as military discipline, well and mildly
maintained. Although our party was perfectly distinct from those who
went out entirely at the charge of government, consisting of several
officers and their wives, yet we too were nearly all military, including
the commandant, and were strictly amenable to martial law. Of course
that soul of domestic and social comfort, punctuality, reigned
paramount; every meal was regulated by beat of drum, subordination
carefully preserved, and decorum, to the most minute particular,
insisted on. No dishabille could appear, in the cabin or on deck; no
litter, not an article of luggage visible. All the sick people, all the
cross people, and all the whimsical people were stowed away in their
respective berths, and such drawing-room elegance, combined with the
utmost freedom of good-humor and the unrestrained frankness that results
from a consciousness of proper restraint, pervaded our little select
coterie, amounting to seventeen gentlemen and two ladies, that it did
not need the miserable contrast which I afterwards experienced on the
homeward passage, to assure me we were among the most favored of ocean
travellers.
How very much do they err who consider the absence of order and method
as supplying greater liberty or removing a sense of restraint. Such
freedom is galling to me; and in my eyes, the want of punctuality is a
want of honest principle; for however people may think themselves
authorized to rob God and themselves of their own time, they can plead
no right to lay a violent hand on the time and duties of their neighbor.
I say it deliberately, that I have been defrauded of hundreds of pounds,
and cruelly deprived of my necessary refreshment in exercise, in sleep,
and even in seasonable food, through this disgraceful want of
punctuality in others, more than through any cause whatsoever besides.
It is also very irritating; for a person who would cheerfully bestow a
piece of gold, does not like to be swindled out of a piece of copper;
and of many an hour have I been ungenerously wronged, to the excitement
of feelings in themselves far from right, when I would gladly have so
arranged my work as to bestow upon the robbers thrice the time they made
me wantonly sacrifice. To say, "I will come to you on such a day,"
leaving the person to expect you early, and then, after wasting her day
in that uncomfortable, unsettled state of looking out for a guest, which
precludes all application to present duties, to come late in the
evening--or to accept an invitation to dinner, and either break the
engagement or throw the household into confusion by making it wait--to
appoint a meeting, and fail of keeping your time--all these, and many
other effects of this vile habit are exceedingly disgraceful, and wholly
opposed to the scriptural rules laid down for the governance of our
conduct one to another. I say nothing of the insult put upon the Most
High, the daring presumption of breaking in upon the devotions of his
worshippers, and involving them in the sin of abstractedness from the
solemn work before them, by entering late into the house of prayer. Such
persons may one day find they have a more serious account to render on
the score of their contempt of punctuality, than they seem willing to
believe.
But I have run away from my ship--yet not so; for as every thing shines
out most by contrast, it was natural to think on the ugly reverse when
recalling the beautiful harmony and order of our regulations on board.
We were favored with most delightful weather, fresh and dry and warm;
with only one day's hard rain, during which the sea "ran mountains," as
the sailors said. I was conducted on deck, "just for one minute, that
you may be able to say you have seen such a sea," remarked the gentleman
who put a military cloak over me, and led me up the stairs. But who
could be satisfied with a momentary sight of any thing so stupendously
grand? I resisted all efforts to persuade me into retreating again, and
it ended in my being lashed to the mizenmast by my friendly conductor,
who declared that his head, the best landsman's head on board, would not
stand the giddy scene; in short, that he should be obliged to report
himself sick, and exchange our agreeable society below for the solitude
of his berth. Of course I dismissed him, and was left among the
mountains, alone, save when a sailor passed me on his duties among the
rigging, and gave me a smile of approval, while the man at the wheel
seemed to regard me as being under his especial patronage. The tars love
one who does not flinch from their own element.
Truly, I saw that day the works of the Lord and his wonders in the great
deep. Imagine yourself in a ship, large among vessels, but a mere cork
upon the waters of that mighty main. On every side, turn where you
would, a huge mountain of irregular form was rising-dark, smooth, of
unbroken surface, but seeming about to burst from over-extension. How
did you come into that strange valley? how should you get out of it? how
avoid the rush of that giant billow that even now overhangs your bark?
These questions would inevitably rush through the mind; but in a second
of time the huge body beside you sunk, you were on its summit, and
another came rolling on. Meanwhile the ship would reel, with a slow
slanting movement that gradually lowered the tall masts till the yards
almost dipped in the brine, and you were either laid back on the frame-
work behind you, or well-nigh suspended, looking down upon the water
over the ship's bulwarks. I soon discovered why my companion had so
carefully buckled the leather strap that held me to the mast; certainly
I cannot recall the scene with such steadiness of nerve as I beheld it
with. Every now and then a small billow would burst upon the vessel's
side, sending its liquid treasure across the deck, and more than one
ablution of the kind was added to the fresh-water drenching bestowed by
the clouds. Can you fancy the discomfort of such a situation? Then you
were never at sea, or at least you left your imagination ashore; for I
defy any person not well inured to it, to look on such a scene with so
negative a feeling as discomfort; it will excite either terror or
delight sufficient to engross the whole mind.
I well remember that, when deeply affected by the grandeur of this and
other aspects assumed by the majestic main, I found the highest flights
of man's sublimity too low. They would not express, would not chime in
with my conceptions; and I was driven to the inspired pages for a
commentary on the glorious scene. It was then that the language of Job,
of Isaiah, of Habakkuk, supplied me with a strain suited to the sublime
accompaniment of God's magnificent work. Sunrise I could not witness,
because at that hour no lady might appear on deck, and my cabin had not
a side-window; but sunset, moonlight, starlight, with the various
phenomena of ocean's ever-varying appearance, these furnished an endless
contemplation with which nothing could accord but the language of Holy
writ. I did not bring forth my Bible, well knowing the bantering remarks
to which it would have exposed me on the score of affectation, but my
memory served me equally well in that as in profane poetry; and many a
precious word of warning, exhortation, and promise did I recite,
enchanted by the sublimity of what, as to its spiritual meaning, was
still an unknown tongue to me. Among these, the thirty-second of
Deuteronomy, the fortieth of Isaiah, and other passages full of the
gospel, were repeatedly called to mind; and above all, in blowing
weather, the forty-sixth Psalm delighted me.
You may suppose that I could not wholly forget the fact of being where,
in the strictest sense, there was but a step between me and death. The
first day of our voyage some one had quoted the expression, "There is
but a plank between us and eternity," not with any serious application,
but as a fine thought. I do not think that I was ever for a moment
unmindful of this; the presence of actual danger was always felt by me:
but concerning eternity I had no fears whatever. A general reliance on
the boundless mercy of God, a recognition of Christ as having suffered
for our sins, and a degree of self-righteousness that easily threw my
sins into the shade, while magnifying my supposed merits, these formed
the staff whereon I leaned; and when the most imminent and appalling
peril overhung us, so that we expected to be ingulfed in the waves
without hope of succor, I looked it boldly in the face, confident in my
false hope. Although just then revelling in enjoyments best suited to my
natural taste, life had in reality no charms for me. From all that had
gilded the sonny hours of youth I was completely severed, and the world
on which I had launched was a wilderness indeed in comparison with the
Eden I had left. I would not have made the slightest effort to escape
from death in any form; and though I was not senseless enough to prefer
an eternity of untried wretchedness to the fleeting sorrows of mortal
life, yet as my conscience was lulled to rest by the self-delusion that
I suffered more than I deserved, and had therefore a claim on divine
justice, and as I was willing to receive the supposed balance of such
debtor and creditor account in the world to come, I was perfectly
content to be summoned to my reward. Blessed be God that I was not taken
away in that hour of blind willingness.