OUR father took us to Richmond the first of October. A stage ran
between Cumberland Court House and the city, going down one day and
coming up the next, taking in Powhatan wayside stations and one or more
in Chesterfield.
We rarely used the public conveyance. This important journey was made
in our own carriage. A rack at the back contained two trunks. Other
luggage had gone down by the stage. We had dinner at a half-way house
of entertainment, leaving home at 9 o’clock A.M., and coming in sight
of the town at five in the afternoon.
That night I was lulled to sleep for the first time by what was to
be forevermore associated in my thoughts with the fair City of Seven
Hills—the song of the river-rapids. It is a song—never a moan. Men
have come and men may go; the pleasant places endeared by history,
tradition, and memory may be, and have been, laid waste; the holy and
beautiful houses in which our fathers worshipped have been burned with
fire, the bridges spanning the rolling river have been broken down,
and others have arisen in their place; but one thing has remained
as unchanged as the heavens reflected in the broad breast of the
stream—that is the sweet and solemn anthem, dear to the heart of one
who has lived long within the sound of it, as the song of the surf to
the homesick exile who asked in the Vale of Tempë, “Where is the sea!”
We were duly entered in the school conducted by Mrs. Nottingham and her
four daughters in an irregularly built frame-house—painted “colonial
yellow”—which stood at the corner of Fifth and Franklin Streets. It was
pulled down long ago to make room for a stately brick residence, built
and occupied by my brother Horace.
The school was Presbyterian, through and through. Mr. Hoge had a
Bible-class there every Monday morning; the Nottingham family,
including boarders, attended Sunday and week-day services in the
chapel, a block farther down Fifth Street. The eloquent curate of the
Old First was rising fast into prominence in city and church. His
chapel was crowded to the doors on Sunday afternoons when there was
no service in the mother-church, and filled in the forenoon with the
colony which, it was settled, should form itself into a corporate and
independent body within a few months.
It spoke well for the drill we had had from our late tutor, and said
something for the obedient spirit in which we had followed the line
of study indicated by him, that Mea and I were, after the preliminary
examination, classed with girls older than ourselves, and who had
been regular attendants upon boarding and day schools of note. If we
were surprised at this, having anticipated a different result from
the comparison of a desultory home-education in the country, with the
“finish” of city methods, we were the more amazed at the manners of
our present associates. They were, without exception, the offspring
of refined and well-to-do parents. The daughters of distinguished
clergymen, of eminent jurists, of governors and congressmen, of wealthy
merchants and rich James River planters, were our classmates in school
sessions and our companions when lessons were over. It was our initial
experience in the arrogant democracy of the “Institution.”
Be it day-school, boarding-school, or college, the story of this
experience is the same the world over. The frank brutality of question
and comment; the violent and reasonless partisanships; the irrational
intimacies, and the short lives of these; the combinations against
lawful authority; the deceptions and evasions to screen offenders from
the consequences of indolence or disobedience—were but a few of the
revelations made to the two country girls in the trial-months of that
winter.
I had my first shock in the course of an examination upon ancient
history conducted by the second and gentlest of the Nottingham
sisters—Miss Sarah. I was unaffectedly diffident in the presence of
girls who were so much more fashionably attired than we in our brown
merino frocks made by “Miss Judy,” and trimmed with velvet of a darker
shade, that I felt more ill at ease than my innate pride would let
me show. But I kept my eyes upon the kind face of the catechist, and
answered in my turn distinctly, if low, trying with all my might to
think of nothing but the subject in hand. I observed that Mea did the
same. I was always sure of her scholarship, and I tingled with pride
at her composure and the refined intonations that rendered replies
invariably correct. Honestly, I had thought far more of her than of
myself, when, after a question from Miss Sarah revealed the fact that I
had read _Plutarch’s Lives_, a tall girl next to me dug her elbow into
my ribs:
“Law, child! you think yourself so smart!”
She was the daughter of one of the eminent professional men I have
alluded to, and three years my senior. I knew her father by reputation,
and had been immensely impressed with a sense of the honor of being
seated beside her in the class.
“Miss Blank!” said Miss Sarah, as stern as she could ever be. “I am
surprised!”
The girl giggled. So did a dozen others. My cheeks flamed hotly, and
my temper followed suit. I made up my mind, then and there, never to
like that “creature.” I have seen the like misbehavior in college girls
who took the highest honors.
Prof. Brander Matthews, of Columbia University, once said to a class in
English literature, of which my son was a member:
“I could go through all of my classes and pick out, with unerring
certainty, the young men who belong to what may be called ‘reading
families.’ Nothing in the college curriculum ever takes the place in
education of a refined early environment and intellectual atmosphere.”
I am inclined to adapt the wise utterance to the cultivation of what
we class, awkwardly, under the head of “manners.” The child, who is
taught, by precept and hourly example in home-life, that politeness
is a religious duty, and sharp speech vulgar, and who is trained to
practise with the members of his family the “small, sweet courtesies
of life” that make the society man and woman elegant and popular, will
suffer many things at the tongues of school and college mates, yet will
not his “manners” depart from him—when he is older!
As home-bred girls, we had to undergo a system of moral and mental
acclimation during that session. I do not regret the ordeal. Quiet,
confidential talks with Cousin Mary, whose tact was as fine as her
breeding, helped me to sustain philosophically what would have made me
miserable but for her tender and judicious ministrations.
“It is always right to do the right thing,” was a maxim she wrought
into my consciousness by many repetitions. “The danger of association
with rude and coarse people is that we may fall into their ways to
protect ourselves. It may be good for you to rough it for a while, so
long as it does not rough_en_ you.”
Little by little we got used to the “roughing.” School-work we
thoroughly enjoyed, and our teachers appreciated this. From each of
them we met with kind and helpful treatment as soon as the routine of
study was fully established.
Our French master supplied the crucial test of philosophy and
diligence. He was a “character” in his way, and he fostered the
reputation. In all my days I have never known a man who could,
at pleasure, be such a savage and so fine a gentleman. He was
six-feet-something in height, superbly proportioned and heavily
mustachioed. Few men curtained the upper lip then. He had received
a university education in France; had been a rich man in New York,
marrying there the daughter of Samuel Ogden, a well-known citizen, the
father of Anna Cora Mowatt, the actress, who afterward became Mrs.
Ritchie.
Isidore Guillet lost wife and fortune in the same year, and, after a
vain effort to recoup his finances at the North, removed to Richmond
with his three sons, and became a fashionable French teacher. He was
fierce in class, and suave outside of the recitation-room. Our late
and now-more-than-ever-lamented tutor had laid a fair foundation for
us in the French language. We were “up” in the verbs to an extent
that excited the rude applause of our classmates. We read French as
fluently as English, and were tolerably conversant with such French
classics as were current in young ladies’ seminaries. These things
were less than vanity when M. Guillet and Manesca took the field. We
were required to copy daily seven or eight foolscap pages-full of that
detestable “System.” Beginning with “_Avez vous le clou?_” and running
the gamut of “_le bon clou_,” “_le mauvais clou_,” and “_le bon clou
de votre père_,” “_le mauvais clou de votre grandmère_,” up to the
maddening discords of “_l’interrogatif et le negatif_”—we were rushed
breathlessly along the lines ordained by the merciless “System” and
more merciless master, until it was a marvel that nerves and health
were not wrecked. I said just now that the lion roared him soft in
general society. Throughout a series of Spanish lessons given to us
two girls through the medium of French, he was the mildest-mannered
monster I ever beheld. One day he went out of his way to account for
the unlikeness to the language-master of the class. The explanation
was a refined version of Mr. Bagnet’s code—“Discipline must be
maintained.” To the pair of girls who read and recited to him in their
private sitting-room, he was the finished gentleman in demeanor, and
in talk delightfully instructive. His family in Paris had known the
present generation of Lafayettes. Lamartine—at that epoch of French
Revolutionary history, the popular idol—was his personal friend. He
brought and read to us letters from the author-statesman, thrilling
with interest, and kept us advised, through his family correspondence,
of the stirring changes going on in his native land. All this was in
the uncovenanted conversational exercise that succeeded the Spanish
lesson. The latter over, he would toss aside the books used in it
with an airy “_Eh, bien donc! pour la conversation!_” and plunge into
the matter uppermost in his mind, chatting brilliantly and gayly in
the most elegant French imaginable, bringing into our commonplace,
provincial lives the flavor and sparkle of the Parisian salon.
To return to our first winter in a city school: The session began
on October 5th. We had ceased to be homesick, and were learning to
sustain, with seeming good-humor, criticisms of our “countrified ways
and old-fashioned talk,” when our mother came to town for her fall
shopping. She arrived on the first of November, my father tarrying
behind to vote on the fourth. We had a glorious Saturday. It was our
very first real shopping expedition, and it has had no equal in our
subsequent experiences. There was a lecture on Saturday morning. Mr.
Richard Sterling, the brother-in-law of our late tutor, and the
head-master of a classical school for boys, lectured to us weekly upon
Natural Philosophy. We were out by eleven o’clock, and on emerging from
the house, we found our mother awaiting us without.
The day was divine, and we had worn our best walking-dresses, in
anticipation of the shopping frolic. Three of the girls had commented
upon our smart attire, one remarking that we “really looked like
folks.” The vocabulary of school-girls usually harmonizes with their
deportment. The tall girl I have spoken of as “Miss Blank,” added to
her patronizing notice of the country girls, the encouraging assurance
that “if we only had bonnets less than a century old, we would be quite
presentable.”
We held our peace, hugging to our souls the knowledge that we were
that day to try on two velvet bonnets—_real_ velvet—the like of which
had never graced our heads before. We could afford to smile superior
to contempt and to patronage—the lowest device of the mean mind, the
favorite tool of the consciously underbred.
I forgot heat and bitterness, and misanthropy died a natural death in
the milliner’s shop. The new hat was a dream of beauty and becomingness
in my unlearned eyes. It was a soft plum-color, and had a tiny marabou
feather on the side. I had never worn a feather. Mea’s was dark-blue
and of uncut velvet. It, too, was adorned with a white feather. I
could have touched the tender blue heavens with one finger when it was
decided that we might wear the new bonnets home, and have the old ones
sent up instead.
“You know I never like to have new clothes worn for the first time to
church,” our mother remarked, aside, to us.
We walked up-town, meeting my father at the foot of Capitol Street.
He was in a prodigious hurry, forging along at a rate that made it
difficult for me to overtake him when my mother told me to “run after
him, and we would all go home together.”
He drew out his watch when I told my errand breathlessly. His eyes were
bright with excitement; as he hurried back to offer his arm to his
wife, he said:
“I must be on Broad Street when the Northern train comes in. We have
just time if you don’t mind walking briskly.”
Mind it! I could have run every step of the way if that would bring
the news to us more quickly. My heart smote me remorsefully. For in
the engrossing event of the new bonnet I had forgotten, for the time,
that decisive news of the election would certainly be received by
the mail-train which ran into Richmond at two o’clock. It must be
remembered that the period of which I write antedated the electric
telegraph. We had but one through mail daily. Election news had
been pouring in heavily, but slowly. We were not quite sure, even
yet, how our own State had gone. The returns from New York and
Pennsylvania would establish the fact of the great Whig victory
beyond a doubt. We said “the Clay victory,” and were confident that
it was an accomplished, established fact. True, my father and Uncle
Carus had spoken rather gravely than apprehensively last night of the
unprecedentedly large Irish vote that had been polled.
We were at the corner of Broad and Tenth Streets, and still at racing
speed, when the train drew slowly into the station. The track lay
in the centre of Broad Street, and the terminus was flush with the
sidewalk. I was on one side of my father; my mother had his other
arm. Mea, never a rapid walker, was some paces in the rear. I felt my
father’s step falter and slacken suddenly. Looking into his face, I saw
it darken and harden. The mobile mouth was a straight, tense line. I
thought that a groan escaped him. Before I could exclaim, a man strode
toward us from the train. He grasped my father’s arm and said something
in his ear. I caught five words of one sentence:
“The Irish vote did it!”
At the same instant the ludicrous touch, never lacking from the supreme
moments of life, was supplied to this by a boy walking down the street,
his young face disfigured by the wrathful disappointment stamped upon
the visages of most of the men thronging the sidewalk. Some ardent
Democrat had nailed a vigorous poke-stalk against the fence, and the
lad stopped to kick it viciously. Even my father smiled at the impotent
fury of the action.
“That’s right, my boy!” he said, and struck the weed into the gutter
with a blow of his cane.
“I wish other evils were as easily disposed of!” was all that escaped
the tightly-closed lips for the next half-hour.
The gloom rested upon face and spirits for twenty-four hours. Richmond
was a Whig city, and the very air seemed oppressed by what we reckoned
as a National woe. It is not easy to appreciate in this century that
the defeat of a Presidential candidate imported so much to the best men
in the country.
“How did you know what had happened, father?” I ventured to ask that
night when the silent meal was over. We had moved and spoken as if the
beloved dead lay under our roof. I stole out to the long back porch
as we arose from table, and stood there, leaning over the railing
and listening to the dirge chanted by the river. The stars twinkled
murkily through the city fogs; a sallow moon hung low in the west. It
was a dolorous world. I wondered how soon the United States Government
would collapse into anarchy. Could—would my father continue to live
here under the rule of Polk? How I loathed the name and the party that
had made it historic! So quietly had my father approached that I was
made aware of his proximity by the scent of his cigar. I was vaguely
conscious of a gleam of gratitude that he had this slight solace. His
cigar meant much to him. I laid my hand on that resting on the railing.
Such strong, capable hands as his were! His fingers were closed
silently upon mine, and I gathered courage to put my question. The blow
had fallen before we met the man who had hissed at “the Irish vote.”
“How did you know what had happened, father?”
No need to speak more definitely. Our minds had room for but one
thought.
“It was arranged with the engineer and conductor that a flag should be
made fast to the locomotive if there were good news. It was to be a
large and handsome flag. Hundreds were on the lookout for it. As soon
as I caught sight of the train I saw that the flag was not there.”
He smoked hard and fast. A choking in my throat held me silent.
For, in a lightning flash of fancy, I had before me the glorious
might-have-been that would have driven the waiting hundreds mad
with joy. I pictured how proudly the “large, handsome flag” would
have floated in the sunshine, and the wild enthusiasm of the crowds
collected upon the sidewalks—the gladness that would have flooded our
hearts and our home.
It was, perhaps, five minutes before I could manage my voice to say:
“How do you suppose Mr. Clay will bear it?”
I was a woman-child, and my whole soul went out in the longing to
comfort the defeated demigod.
“Like the hero that he is, my daughter. _This_”—still not naming the
disaster—“means more to the nation than to him.”
He raised his hat involuntarily, as I had seen him do that bright,
happy May morning when we walked down to Jordan’s Creek to be amused by
the Democratic barbecue.
He removed it entirely a week later, and bowed his bared head silently,
when a fellow-Whig told him, with moist eyes, that the decisive tidings
were brought to the hero as he stood in a social gathering of friends.
Mr. Clay—so ran the tale I have never heard contradicted—was called out
of the room by the messenger, returning in a few minutes to resume the
conversation the summons had interrupted, with unruffled mien and the
perfect courtesy that never failed him in public and in private. It was
said then that he repeated on that evening, in reply to the expressed
sorrow of his companions—if, indeed, it was not said then for the first
time—the immortal utterance:
“I would rather be right than President!”
The inevitable dash of the ludicrous struck across the calamity in the
form of my father’s disapproval of the velvet bonnet I would not have
exchanged on Saturday for a ducal tiara. I had meant to reserve the
appearance of it as a pleasant surprise, and to call his attention to
it when I was dressed for church next day. I did not blame him for not
noticing it in our rapid tramp up Capitol Street on Saturday. He had
weightier matters on his mind. With the honest desire of diverting him
from the train of ideas that had darkened his visage for twenty-four
hours, I donned the precious head-piece ten minutes before it was time
to set out for church, and danced into my mother’s room where he sat
reading. Walking up to him, I swept a marvellous courtesy and bolted
the query full at him:
“How do you like my new bonnet?”
He lowered the book and surveyed me with lack-lustre eyes.
“Not at all, I am sorry to say.”
I fairly staggered back, casting a look of anguished appeal at my
mother. Being of my sex, she comprehended it.
“Why, father! we think it very pretty,” laying her hand on his
shoulder. “And she never had a velvet bonnet before.”
I saw the significant tightening of the small fingers, and he must have
felt it. But the dull eyes did not lighten, the corners of the mouth
did not lift.
“As I said, I do not admire it. Nor do I think it becoming.”
I turned on my heel, as he might have done, and went to my room. When
Mea and I joined our parents in the lower hall, the splendors of the
new bonnets were extinguished by thick barege veils. We had not meant
to wear them in November. They were indispensable for summer noons.
After I had confided my tale of woe to my sister, we hastened to exhume
the veils from our trunks and to bind them over our hats. We walked,
slow and taciturn, behind our elders for five squares. Then my father
turned and beckoned to us. He was actually smiling—a whimsical gleam
that had in it something of shame, and much of humor.
“Take off those veils!” he said, positively, yet kindly. And, as we
hesitated visibly: “I mean what I say! I want to take a good look at
those bonnets.”
It was in a quiet corner of a secluded street, lined with what was once
a favorite shade-tree in Richmond—the Otaheite mulberry. The night had
been cold, and the last russet leaves were ankle-deep on the sidewalk.
They rustled as I moved uneasily in loosening my veil.
I never passed the spot afterward without thinking of the absurd little
episode in the history of those melancholy days.
“I see, now, that they are very pretty and very becoming,” my father
pursued, as they were divested of the ugly mufflers. “I have been very
cross for the past twenty-four hours. I suppose because I have been
horribly upset by the National calamity. We will turn over a new and
cleaner leaf.”
He was often stern, and oftener imperative. It was his nature to be
strong in all that he set his hand or mind unto. I have yet to see
another strong man who was so ready to acknowledge a fault, and who
made such clean work of the act.