"I am not deceived," she continued; "you have not forgotten nature. It
draws you more powerfully than anything else in the world. Whenever
you speak of it, you say the right thing, you find the right word, you
get the right meaning. With nature alone you are perfectly natural.
Towards society you show your shabby, awkward, trivial, uncomfortable
side. But these drawings, these notes--there lies your power, your
gift, your home. You truly belong to the woodsmen."
Never used to study myself, I listened, to this as to fresh talk about
a stranger.
"Do you not foresee what will happen?" she went on, with emotion.
"After we have been married a while you will begin to wander off--at
first for part of a day, then for a day, then for a day and a night,
then for days and nights together. That was the way with Audubon, that
was the way with Wilson, that is the way with Thoreau, that will be the
way with all whom nature draws as it draws you. And, me--think of
me--at home! A woman not able to go with you! Not able to wade the
creeks and swim the rivers! Not able to sleep out in the brown leaves,
to endure the rain, the cold, the travel! And, so I shall never be
able to fill your life with mine as you fill mine with yours. As time
passes, I shall fill it less and less. Every spring nature will be
just as young to you; I shall be always older. The water you love
ripples, never wrinkles. I shall cease rippling and begin wrinkling.
No matter what happens, each summer the birds get fresh feathers; only
think how my old ones will never drop out. I shall want you to go on
with your work. If I am to be your wife, I must be wings to you. But
think of compelling me to furnish you the wings with which to leave me!
What is a little book on Kentucky birds in comparison with my
happiness!"
She was so deeply moved that my one desire was to uproot her fears on
the spot.
"Then there shall be no little book on Kentucky birds!" I cried. "I'll
throw these things into the fire as soon as I go home. Only say what
you wish me to be, Georgiana," I continued, laughing, "and I'll be
it--if it's the town pump."
"Then if I could only be the town well," she said, with a poor little
effort to make a heavy heart all at once go merrily again.
Bent on making it go merrily as long as I shall live, the following day
I called out to her at the window:
"Georgiana, I'm improving. I'm getting along."
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"Well, in town this morning they chose me as one of the judges of
vegetables at the fair next month. I said, 'Gentlemen, I expect to be
married before that time, and I do not intend to be separated from my
wife. Will she have the privilege of accompanying me among these
competing vegetables? And last month they made me director of a
turnpike company--I suppose because it runs through my farm. To-day at
a meeting of the directors I said, 'Gentlemen, how far is this turnpike
to run? I will direct it to the end of my farm and not a step farther.
I do not wish to be separated from my wife.'"
Georgiana has teased me a good deal in my life. It is well to let a
woman taste of the tree of knowledge whose fruit she is fond of
dispensing.
"You'd better be careful!" she said, archly.
"Remember, I haven't married you yet."
"I _am_ careful," I replied. "I haven't married _you_ yet, cither! My
idea, Georgiana," I continued, "is to plant a grove and raise cocoons.
That would gratify my love of nature and your fancy for silk dresses.
I could have my silk woven and spun in our manufactory at Newport,
Kentucky; and you know that we couldn't possibly lose each other among
the mulberry-trees."
"You'd better take care!" she repeated. "Do you expect to talk to me
in this style after we are married?"
"That will all depend upon how you talk to me," I answered. "But I
have always understood married life to be the season when the worm
begins to turn."
Despite my levity, I have been secretly stricken with remorse at the
monstrous selfishness that lay coiled like a canker in my words. I was
really no better than those men who say to their wives:
"While I was trying to win you, the work of my life was secondary--you
were everything. Now that I have won you, it will be everything, and
you must not stand in the way."
But the thought is insupportable that Georgiana should not be happy
with me at any cost. I divine now the reason of the effort she has
long been making to win me from nature; therefore of my own free will I
have privately set about changing the character of my life with the
idea of suiting it to some other work in which she too may be content.
And thus it has come about that during the August now ended--always the
month of the year in which my nature will go its solitary way and seek
its woodland peace--I have hung about the town as one who is offered
for hire to a master whom he has never seen and for a work that he
hates to do. Many of the affairs that engage the passions of my
fellow-beings are to me as the gray stubble through which I walk in the
September fields--the rotting wastage of harvests long since gathered
in. At other times I drive myself upon their sharp and piercing
conflicts as a bird is blown uselessly again and again by some too
strong a wind upon the spikes of the thorn. I hear the angry talk of
our farmers and merchants, I listen to the fiery orations of our
statesmen and the warning sermons of our divines. (Think of a human
creature calling himself a divine.) The troubled ebb and flow of
events in Kentucky, the larger movements of unrest throughout the great
republic--these have replaced for me the old communings with nature
that were full of music and of peace.
Evening after evening now I turn my conversations with Georgiana as
gayly as I can upon some topic of the time. She is not always pleased
with what I style my researches into civilized society. One evening in
particular our talk was long and serious, beginning in shallows and
then steering for deep waters.
"Well, Georgiana," I had said, "Miss Delia Webster has suddenly
returned to her home in Vermont."
"And who is Miss Delia Webster?" she had inquired, with unmistakable
acidity.
"Miss Delia Webster is the lady who was sentenced to the State
penitentiary for abducting our silly old servants into Ohio. But the
jury of Kentucky noblemen who returned the verdict--being married men,
and long used to forgiving a woman anything--petitioned the governor to
pardon Miss Delia on the ground that she belongs to the sex that can do
no wrong--and be punished for it. Whereupon the governor, seasoned to
the like large experience, pardoned the lady. Whereupon Miss Webster,
having passed a few weeks in the penitentiary, left, as I stated, for
her home in Vermont, followed by her father, who does not, however,
seem to have been able to overtake her."
"If she'd been a man, now," suggested Georgiana.
"If she'd been a man she would have shared the fortunes of her
principal, the Reverend Mr. Fairbanks, who has _not_ returned to his
home in Ohio, and will not--for fifteen years."
"Do you think it an agreeable subject of conversation?" inquired
Georgiana.
"Then I will change it," I said. "The other day the editor of the
Smithland _Bee_ was walking along the street with his little daughter
and was shot down by a doctor."
"Horrible!" exclaimed Georgiana. "Why?"
"Self-defence," I answered. "And last week in the court-room in Mount
Sterling a man was shot by his brother-in-law during the sitting of
court."
"And why did _he_ kill _him_?"
"Self-defence!" I answered. "And in Versailles a man down in the
street was assassinated with a rifle fired from the garret of a tavern.
Self-defence. And in Lexington a young man shot and killed another for
drawing his handkerchief from his pocket. Self-defence!--the sense of
the court being that whatever such an action might mean in other
civilized, countries, in Kentucky and under the circumstances--the
young fellows were quarrelling--it naturally betokened the reaching for
a revolver. Thus in Kentucky, Georgiana, and during a heated
discussion, a man cannot blow his nose but at the risk of his life."
"I'll see that you never carry a handkerchief," said Georgiana. "So
remember--don't you ever reach for one!"
"And the other day in Eddysville," I went on, "two men fought a duel by
going to a doctor's shop and having him open a vein in the arm of each.
Just before they fainted from exhaustion they made signs that their
honor was satisfied, so the doctor tied up the veins. I see that you
don't believe it, but it's true."
"And why did they fight a duel in that way?"
"I give it up," I said, "unless it was in self-defence. We are a most
remarkable society of self-defenders. But if every man who fights in
Kentucky is merely engaged in warding off a murderous attack upon his
life, who does all the murderous attacking? You know the seal of our
commonwealth: two gentlemen in evening dress shaking hands and with one
voice declaring, 'United we stand, divided we fall.' So far as the
temper of our time goes, these two gentlemen might well be represented
as twenty paces apart, and as calling out, 'United, we stood; divided,
_you_ fall!' Killings and duels! Killings and duels! Do you think we
need these as proofs of courage? Do you suppose that the Kentuckians
of our day are braver than the pioneers? Do you suppose that any
people ever elevated its ideal of courage in the eyes of the world by
all the homicides and all the duels that it could count? There is only
one way in which any civilized people has ever done that, there is only
one way in which any civilized people has ever been able to impress the
world very deeply with a belief in the reality and the nobility of its
ideal of courage: it is by the warlike spirit of its men in times of
war, and by the peaceful spirit of its men in times of peace. Only,
you must add this: that when those times of peace have come on, and it
is no longer possible for such a people to realize its ideal of courage
in arms, it is nevertheless driven to express the ideal in other
ways--by monuments, arches, inscriptions, statues, literature,
pictures, all in honor of those of their countrymen who lived the ideal
before the world and left it more lustrous in their dying. That is the
full reason why we know how brave a people the Greeks were--by their
peaceful ways of honoring valor in times of peace. And that in part is
why no nation in the world doubts the courage of the English, because
when the English are not fighting they are forever doing something to
honor those who have fought well. So that they never have a peace but
they turn it into preparation for the next war.
"And that is why, as the outside world looks in upon us to-day and
sifts the evidence of whether or not we are a brave people, it does not
find the proof of this in our homicides and duels, but in the spirit of
our forefathers of the Revolution, in the soldiers of the wilderness
and of Indian warfare, of the war of 1812, of the war with Mexico, at
Cerro Gordo, at Buena Vista, at Palo Alto, at Resaca de la Palma.
Wherever the Kentuckians have fought as soldiers, many or few, on
whatever battle-field, in whatsoever cause, there you may see whether
they know what it is to be men, and whether they have an ideal of
courage that is worth the name.
"Then a few years ago in Frankfort twenty thousand people followed to
the grave the bodies of the men who had fallen in Mexico. The State
has raised a monument to them, to the soldiers of 1812, to those who
fought at the river Raisin. The Legislature has ordered a medal to be
struck in honor of a boy who had defended his ensign. No man can make
a public speech in Kentucky without mention of Encancion and Monterey,
or of the long line of battles in which every generation of our people
has fought. This is the other proof that in times of peace we do not
forget. It is not much, but it is of the right kind--it is the
soldier's monument, it is the soldier's medal, it is the soldier's
funeral oration, it is the recognition by the people of its ideal of
courage in times of peace. And with every other brave people this
proof passes as the sign universal. But our homicides and our duels,
nearly all of them brought about in the name--even under the fear--of
courage, what effect have they had in giving us abroad our reputation
as a community? I ask myself the question, what if all the men who
have killed their personal enemies or been killed by them in Kentucky,
and if all the men who have killed their personal friends or been
killed by them in Kentucky, had spent their love of fighting and their
love of courage upon a monument to the Pioneers--such a monument as
stands nowhere else in the world, and might fitly stand in this State
to commemorate the winning of the West? Would the world think the
better or the worse of the Kentucky ideal of bravery?
"I had not meant to talk to you so long on this subject," I added, in
apology, "but I have been thinking of these things lately since I have
been so much in town."
"I am interested," said Georgiana; "but as I agree with you we need not
both speak." But she looked pained, and I sought to give a happier
turn to the conversation.
"There is only one duel I ever heard of that gave me any pleasure, and
that one never came off. A few years ago a Kentuckian wrote a
political satire on an Irishman in Illinois--wrote it as a widow. The
Irishman wished to fight. The widow offered to marry the Irishman, if
such a sacrifice would be accepted as satisfactory damages. The
Irishman sent a challenge, and the Kentuckian chose cavalry broadswords
of the largest size. He was a giant; he had the longest arms of any
man in Illinois; he could have mowed Erin down at a stroke like a green
milkweed; he had been trained in duelling with oak-trees. You never
heard of him: his name is Abraham Lincoln."
"I have heard of him, and I have seen him--in Union County before I
came here," said Georgiana, with enthusiasm.
"He came here once to hear Mr. Clay speak," I resumed; "and I saw them
walking together one day under the trees at Ashland--the two most
remarkable-looking men that I ever beheld together or in human form."
My few acres touch the many of the great statesman. Georgiana and I
often hear of the movements of his life, as two little boats in a quiet
bay are tossed by the storms of the ocean. Any reference to him always
makes us thoughtful, and we fell silent now.
"Georgiana," I said at length, softly. "It's all in self-defence. I
believe you promised to marry me in self-defence."
"I did!" she said, promptly.
"Well, I certainly asked you in self-defence, Miss Cobb," I replied.
"And now in a few days, according to the usage of my time, I am going
to take your life--even at the peril of my own. If you desire, it is
your privilege to examine the deadly weapons before the hour of actual
combat," and I held out my arms to her appealingly.
She bent her body delicately aside, as always. "I am upset," she said,
discouragingly. "You have been abusing Kentucky."
"Ah, that is the trouble!" I answered. "You wish me to become more
interested in my fellow-creatures. And then you will not let me speak
of what they do. And the other day you told me that I am not perfectly
natural with anything but nature. Nature is the only thing that is
perfectly natural with me. When I study nature there are no delicate
or dangerous or forbidden subjects. The trees have no evasions. The
weeds are honest. Running water is not trying to escape. The sunsets
are not colored with hypocrisy. The lightning is not revenge.
Everything stands forth in the sincerity of its being, and nature
invites me to exercise the absolute liberty of my mind upon all life.
I am bidden to master and proclaim whatsoever truth she has fitted me
to grasp. If I am worthy to investigate, none are offended; if I
should be wise enough to discover any law of creation, the entire world
would express its thanks. Imagine my being assassinated because I had
published a complete report upon the life and habits of the
field-mouse!"
"If one mouse published a report on the life and habits of another,
there'd be a fight all over the field," said Georgiana.
"A ridiculous extreme," I replied. "But after you have grown used to
study nature with absolute freedom and absolute peace, think how human
life repels you. You may not investigate, you may not speak out, you
may not even think, you may not even feel. You are not allowed to
reveal what is concealed, and you are required to conceal what is
revealed. Natural! Have you ever known any two men to be perfectly
natural with each other except when they were fighting? As for the men
that I associate with every day, they weigh their words out to one
another as the apothecary weighs his poisons, or the grocer his
gunpowder."
"You forget," said Georgiana, "that we are living in a very
extraordinary time, when everybody is sensitive and excited."
"It is so always and everywhere," I replied. "You may never study life
as you study nature. With men you must take your choice: liberty for
your mind and a prison for your body; liberty for your body and a
prison for your mind. Nearly all people choose the latter; we know
what becomes of the few who do not."
But this reference to the times led us to speak slowly and solemnly of
what all men now are speaking--war that must come between the North and
the South. We agreed that it would come from each side as a blazing
torch to Kentucky, which lies between the two and is divided between
the two in love and hate--to Kentucky, where the ideal of a soldier's
life is always the ideal of a man's duty and utmost glory.
At last I felt that my time had come.
"Georgiana," I said, "there is one secret I have never shared with you.
It is the only fear I have ever felt regarding our future. But, if
there should be a war--you'd better know it now--leave you or not leave
you, I am going to join the army."
She grew white and faint with the thought of a day to come. But at
last she said:
"Yes; you must go."
"I know one thing," I added, after a long silence; "if I could do my
whole duty as a Kentuckian--as an American citizen--as a human being--I
should have to fight on both sides."
I have thus set down in a poor way a part of the only talk I ever had
with Georgiana on these subjects during the year 1851.
Yesterday, about sunset, the earth and sky were beautiful with that
fulness of peace which things often attain at the moment before they
alter and end. The hour seemed to me the last serene loveliness of
summer, soon to be ruffled by gales and blackened by frosts.
Georgiana stood at her window looking into the west. The shadows of
the trees in my yard fell longer and longer across the garden towards
her. Darkest among these lay the shapes of the cedars and the pines in
which the redbird had lived. Her whole attitude bespoke a mood
surrendered to memory; and I felt sure that we two were thinking of the
same thing.
As she has approached that mystical revelation of life which must come
with our marriage, Georgiana's gayety has grown subtly overcast. It is
as if the wild strain in her were a little sad at having to be captured
at last; and I too experience an indefinable pain that it has become my
lot to subdue her in this way. The thought possesses me that she
submits to marriage because she cannot live intimately with me and
lavish her love upon me in any other relation; and therefore I draw
back with awe from the idea of taking such possession of her as I will
and must.
As she stood at her window yesterday evening she caught sight of me
across the yard and silently beckoned. I went over and looked up at
her, waiting and smiling.
"Well, what is it?" I asked at length, as her eyes rested on me with
the fulness of affection.
"Nothing. I wanted to see you standing down there once more. Haven't
you thought of it? This is the last time--the last of the window, the
last of the garden, the end of the past. Everything after this will be
so different. Aren't you a little sorry that you are going to marry
me?"
"Will you allow me to fetch the minister this instant?"
In the evening they put on her bridal dress and sent over for me, and,
drawing the parlor doors aside, blinded me with the sight of her
standing in there, as if waiting in duty for love to claim its own. As
I saw her then I have but to close my eyes to see her now. I scarce
know why, but that vision of her haunts my mind mysteriously.
I see a fresh snow-drift in a secret green valley between dark
mountains. The sun must travel far and be risen high to reach it; but
when it does, its rays pour down from near the zenith and are most
powerful and warm; then in a little while the whole valley is green
again and a white mist, rising from it, muffles the face of the sun.
Oh, Georgiana! Georgiana! Do not fade away from me as I draw you to
me.
My last solitary candle flickers in the socket: it is in truth the end
of the past.