THE MORGESONS
A Novel
BY ELIZABETH STODDARD
1901
"Time is a clever devil,"--BALZAC
[Illustration: Portrait of Elizabeth Stoddard from a Daguerreotype.]
PREFACE.
I suppose it was environment that caused me to write these novels;
but the mystery of it is, that when I left my native village I did
not dream that imagination would lead me there again, for the simple
annals of our village and domestic ways did not interest me; neither
was I in the least studious. My years were passed in an attempt to
have a good time, according to the desires and fancies of youth. Of
literature and the literary life, I and my tribe knew nothing; we had
not discovered "sermons in stones." Where then was the panorama of
my stories and novels stored, that was unrolled in my new sphere? Of
course, being moderately intelligent I read everything that came in
my way, but merely for amusement. It had been laid up against me as a
persistent fault, which was not profitable; I should peruse moral,
and pious works, or take up sewing,--that interminable thing, "white
seam," which filled the leisure moments of the right-minded. To
the _personnel_ of writers I gave little heed; it was the hero they
created that charmed me, like Miss Porter's gallant Pole, Sobieski, or
the ardent Ernest Maltravers, of Bulwer.
I had now come to live among those who made books, and were interested
in all their material, for all was for the glory of the whole.
Prefaces, notes, indexes, were unnoticed by me,--even Walter Scott's
and Lord Byron's. I began to get glimpses of a profound ignorance, and
did not like the position as an outside consideration. These mental
productive adversities abased me. I was well enough in my way, but
nothing was expected from me in their way, and when I beheld their
ardor in composition, and its fine emulation, like "a sheep before her
shearers," I was dumb. The environment pressed upon me, my pride was
touched; my situation, though "tolerable, was not to be endured."
Fortunate or not, we were poor. It was not strange that I should
marry, said those who knew the step I had taken; but that I should
follow that old idyl; and accept the destiny of a garret and a
crust with a poet, was incredible! Therefore, being apart from the
diversions of society, I had many idle hours. One day when my husband
was sitting at the receipt of customs, for he had obtained a modest
appointment, I sat by a little desk, where my portfolio lay open.
A pen was near, which I took up, and it began to write, wildly like
"Planchette" upon her board, or like a kitten clutching a ball of yarn
fearfully. But doing it again--I could not say why--my mind began upon
a festival in my childhood, which my mother arranged for several poor
old people at Thanksgiving. I finished the sketch in private, and gave
it the title of "A Christmas Dinner," as one more modern. I put in
occasional "fiblets" about the respectable guests, Mrs. Carver
and Mrs. Chandler, and one dreadful little girl foisted upon me to
entertain. It pleased the editor of _Harper's Magazine_, who accepted
it, and sent me a check which would look wondrous small now. I wrote
similar sketches, which were published in that magazine. Then I
announced my intention of writing a "long story," and was told by him
of the customs that he thought I "lacked the constructive faculty."
I hope that I am writing an object lesson, either of learning how, or
not learning how, to write.
I labored daily, when alone, for weeks; how many sheets of foolscap I
covered, and dashed to earth, was never told. Since, by my "infinite
pains and groans," I have been reminded of Barkis, in "David
Copperfield," when he crawled out of his bed to get a guinea from
his strong box for David's dinner. Naturally, I sent the story to
_Harper's Magazine_, and it was curtly refused. My husband, moved by
pity by my discouragement, sent it to Mr. Lowell, then editor of the
_Atlantic Monthly_. In a few days I received a letter from him, which
made me very happy. He accepted the story, and wrote me then, and
afterwards, letters of advice and suggestion. I think he saw through
my mind, its struggles, its ignorance, and its ambition. Also I got my
guinea for my pains. The _Atlantic Monthly_ sent me a hundred dollars.
I doubt but for Mr. Lowell's interest and kindness I should ever have
tried prose again. I owe a debt of gratitude to him which I shall
always give to his noble memory.
My story did not set the river on fire, as stories are apt to do
nowadays. It attracted so little notice from those I knew, and
knew of, that naturally my ambition would have been crushed.
Notwithstanding, and saying nothing to anybody, I began "The
Morgesons," and everywhere I went, like Mary's lamb, my MS. was sure
to go. Meandering along the path of that family, I took them much to
heart, and finished their record within a year. I may say here, that
the clans I marshaled for my pages had vanished from the sphere
of reality--in my early day the village Squire, peerless in blue
broadcloth, who scolded, advised, and helped his poorer neighbors; the
widows, or maidens, who accepting service "as a favor," often remained
a lifetime as friend as well as "help;" the race of coast-wise
captains and traders, from Maine to Florida, as acute as they were
ignorant; the rovers of the Atlantic and the Pacific, were gone not
to return. If with these characters I have deserved the name of
"realist," I have also clothed my skeletons with the robe of romance.
"The Morgesons" completed, and no objections made to its publication,
it was published. As an author friend happened to be with us, almost
on the day it was out, I gave it to him to read, and he returned it to
me with the remark that there were "a good many _whiches_ in it." That
there were, I must own, and that it was difficult to extirpate them. I
was annoyed at their fertility. The inhabitants of my ancient dwelling
place pounced upon "The Morgesons," because they were convinced it
would prove to be a version of my relations, and my own life. I think
one copy passed from hand to hand, but the interest in it soon blew
over, and I have not been noticed there since.
"Two Men" I began as I did the others, with a single motive; the
shadow of a man passed before me, and I built a visionary fabric round
him. I have never tried to girdle the earth; my limits are narrow; the
modern novel, as Andrew Lang lately calls it,--with its love-making,
disquisition, description, history, theology, ethics,--I have
no sprinkling of. My last novel, "Temple House," was personally
conducted, so far that I went to Plymouth to find a suitable abode for
my hero, Angus Gates, and to measure with my eye the distance between
the bar in the bay and the shore, the scene of a famous wreck before
the Revolution. As my stories and novels were never in touch with my
actual life, they seem now as if they were written by a ghost of
their time. It is to strangers from strange places that I owe the most
sympathetic recognition. Some have come to me, and from many I have
had letters that warmed my heart, and cheered my mind. Beside the name
of Mr. Lowell, I mention two New England names, to spare me the
fate of the prophet of the Gospel, the late Maria Louise Pool, whose
lamentable death came far too early, and Nathaniel Hawthorne, who
lived to read "The Morgesons" only, and to write me a characteristic
letter. With some slight criticism, he wrote, "Pray pardon my
frankness, for what is the use of saying anything, unless we say what
we think?... Otherwise it seemed to me as genuine and lifelike as
anything that pen and ink can do. There are very few books of which
I take the trouble to have any opinion at all, or of which I
could retain any memory so long after reading them as I do of 'The
Morgesons.'"
Could better words be written for the send-off of these novels?
ELIZABETH STODDARD. New York, May 2nd, 1901.
TO MRS. KATHARINE HOOKER
OF LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
THESE NOVELS ARE DEDICATED IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE OF A KIND DEED
ELIZABETH STODDARD
CHAPTER I.
"That child," said my aunt Mercy, looking at me with indigo-colored
eyes, "is possessed."
When my aunt said this I was climbing a chest of drawers, by its
knobs, in order to reach the book-shelves above it, where my favorite
work, "The Northern Regions," was kept, together with "Baxter's
Saints' Rest," and other volumes of that sort, belonging to my mother;
and those my father bought for his own reading, and which I liked,
though I only caught a glimpse of their meaning by strenuous study.
To this day Sheridan's Comedies, Sterne's Sentimental Journey, and
Captain Cook's Voyages are so mixed up in my remembrance that I am
still uncertain whether it was Sterne who ate baked dog with Maria, or
Sheridan who wept over a dead ass in the Sandwich Islands.
After I had made a dash at and captured my book, I seated myself with
difficulty on the edge of the chest of drawers, and was soon lost in
an Esquimaux hut. Presently, in crossing my feet, my shoes, which were
large, dropped on the painted floor with a loud noise. I looked at my
aunt; her regards were still fixed upon me, but they did not interfere
with her occupation of knitting; neither did they interrupt her habit
of chewing cloves, flagroot, or grains of rice. If these articles were
not at hand, she chewed a small chip.
"Aunt Merce, poor Hepburn chewed his shoes, when he was in Davis's
Straits."
"Mary, look at that child's stockings."
Mother raised her eyes from the _Boston Recorder_, and the article
she had been absorbed in the proceedings of an Ecclesiastical Council,
which had discussed (she read aloud to Aunt Merce) the conduct of
Brother Thaddeus Turner, pastor of the Congregational Church of
Hyena. Brother Thaddeus had spoken lightly of the difference between
Sprinkling and Immersion, and had even called Hyena's Baptist minister
"_Brother_." He was contumacious at first, was Brother Thaddeus, but
Brother Boanerges from Andover finally floored him.
"Cassandra," said mother, presently, "come here."
I obeyed with reluctance, making a show of turning down a leaf.
"Child," she continued, and her eyes wandered over me dreamily, till
they dropped on my stockings; "why will you waste so much time on
unprofitable stories?"
"Mother, I hate good stories, all but the Shepherd of Salisbury Plain;
I like that, because it makes me hungry to read about the roasted
potatoes the shepherd had for breakfast and supper. Would it make me
thankful if you only gave me potatoes without salt?"
"Not unless your heart is right before God."
"'_The Lord my Shepherd is_,'" sang Aunt Merce.
I put my hands over my ears, and looked defiantly round the room.
Its walls are no longer standing, and the hands of its builders have
crumbled to dust. Some mental accident impressed this picture on the
purblind memory of childhood.
We were in mother's winter room. She was in a low, chintz-covered
chair; Aunt Merce sat by the window, in a straight-backed chair, that
rocked querulously, and likewise covered with chintz, of a red and
yellow pattern. Before the lower half of the windows were curtains of
red serge, which she rattled apart on their brass rods, whenever she
heard a footstep, or the creak of a wheel in the road below. The walls
were hung with white paper, through which ran thread-like stripes of
green. A square of green and chocolate-colored English carpet covered
the middle of the floor, and a row of straw chairs stood around it,
on the bare, lead-colored boards. A huge bed, with a chintz top shaped
like an elephant's back, was in one corner, and a six-legged mahogany
table in another. One side of the room where the fireplace was set
was paneled in wood; its fire had burned down in the shining Franklin
stove, and broken brands were standing upright. The charred backlog
still smoldered, its sap hissed and bubbled at each end.
Aunt Merce rummaged her pocket for flagroot; mother resumed her paper.
"May I put on, for a little while, my new slippers?" I asked, longing
to escape the oppressive atmosphere of the room.
"Yes," answered mother, "but come in soon, it will be supper-time."
I bounded away, found my slippers, and was walking down stairs on
tiptoe, holding up my linsey-woolsey frock, when I saw the door of my
great-grandfather's room ajar. I pushed it open, went in, and saw a
very old man, his head bound with a red-silk handkerchief, bolstered
in bed. His wife, grandmother-in-law, sat by the fire reading a great
Bible.
"Marm Tamor, will you please show me Ruth and Boaz?" I asked.
She complied by turning over the leaves till she came to the picture.
"Did Ruth love Boaz dreadfully much?"
"Oh, oh," groaned the old man, "what is the imp doing here? Drive her
away. Scat."
I skipped out by a side door, down an alley paved with blue pebbles,
swung the high gate open, and walked up and down the gravel walk which
bordered the roadside, admiring my slippers, and wishing that some
acquaintance with poor shoes could see me. I thought then I would
climb the high gateposts, which had a flat top, and take there the
position of the little girl in "The Shawl Dance." I had no sooner
taken it than Aunt Merce appeared at the door, and gave a shriek at
the sight, which tempted me to jump toward her with extended arms. I
was seized and carried into the house, where supper was administered,
and I was put to bed.