their son was, that he was married to an amiable, though a thoughtless
and giddy girl. In a year they heard that he was the father of a sweet
boy. In eighteen months more they heard that he had a sweet daughter.
Not long after, they heard that he made frequent and unaccountable
excursions from home, and presently they heard, that on a steam boat
that ran between the town of Badblood and the Bay of Dissipation, he
had by gambling, lost all his money. What they had heard was true.
Losing his money, he hastened home--made some arrangements for his
family--disposed of as much property as was left--received five
hundred dollars in hand--left two hundred with his wife--and with the
other three hundred set out professedly to visit his parents at the
village of Goodcheer. But the demon of gambling had possessed him--and
Griffith in a few weeks found himself with but one hundred dollars,
remaining at Spendthrift Hotel, in Blockley Row, in the city of
Allvice in the Old Dominion. Here Griffith resolved to retrieve his
fortunes. He sought the faro bank, and in an hour was pennyless. Poor
Griffith was not far from perfect ruin. He spent the night in dreadful
tossings, and in the very room where he had lodged years before. He
fancied that he saw "$3,600" in flaming figures before him. In the
morning he walked the streets. He watched to see whether he could
recognize any old friend among the hundreds he met. He read the names
on the sign-boards; he searched the morning papers; yet no bright
prospect opened before him. In the afternoon he wandered into Purity
Lane, and had hardly entered that street, when he saw on the knocker
at the door, "Amos Kindheart." He asked a servant who was washing down
the white marble steps, whether the "_Reverend_" Mr. Kindheart lived
there, and was answered in the affirmative. Asking to be introduced
into his presence, he was soon shown into the study. "Is this the Rev.
Mr. Kindheart?" said he. "It is," replied the good man, "please to be
seated." "Are you not acquainted with Rev. Mr. Goodnews?" "Yes sir."
"Do you not also know Gregory Griffith?" "Yes sir; I stayed at his
house more than a week some years ago; and if I am not deceived, this
is his son Grayson, who used to exercise my horse night and morning
when I was there." Mr. Kindheart expressed much pleasure at seeing
him, and learned that he had a wife and two children in the town of
Badblood, in the State of Misery; he also learned that he had been a
merchant. Mr. Kindheart treated him very affectionately, gave him a
handsome little present, invited him to dinner next day, and excused
himself for that evening, as he had in a remote part of the city an
engagement that could not be broken. Early next morning a little
ragged servant handed Mr. Kindheart a sealed note from Griffith,
stating that he had been imprudent, and requesting him to send by the
bearer a sum sufficient to meet the expenses of a passage to the
pleasant village of Goodcheer, from which place the amount should be
returned at an early date. Mr. Kindheart replied in a note that he had
not the money then, but would get it before the next evening, when the
first stage would leave, and renewed the invitation to dinner that
day. Dinner came, but no Griffith was there. Several hours before it
was time for the stage to start, Mr. Kindheart called with the money
at Griffith's lodgings, but he was not to be seen. In a short time he
called again, and then again. Still he could not be seen. The truth
was, Griffith's conscience would not let him face a man from whom he
knew he desired money only that he might have the means of gambling.
He had no serious purpose of visiting Goodcheer.
For many days Griffith loitered about the city in perfect
wretchedness, and without one cent of money. At length he went to the
proper city police officer, and told him that there were several
gambling establishments in town, that many persons visited them, and
that he could give important testimony in the case. Then going to
Hardface and Takeall, two gamblers, he told them that unless they
would give him $600, so that he might fairly and speedily escape, he
would be retained as a witness against them at the next sessions. The
gamblers agreed to give him $500, hastened his departure in a private
conveyance, but started after him a man, who overtaking him in the
next post town, horsewhipped him very severely. Griffith bore this
rough treatment like a dog. He squealed, he cried, he howled, he
danced--but he did not resist.
From this time Griffith wandered about, until, in the course of a few
months, he found himself again with his family. At first he seemed
pleased to kiss his babes and embrace his wife; but the next day went
to a faro bank in Badblood, and lost all he had--even his wife's
wardrobe and toilet. At this time he resolved on destroying his own
life. He went to three different shops, and procured laudanum in a
quantity sufficient to take life. He went home, and as he ascended the
first flight of stairs, he emptied the contents of each vial into his
stomach. O woman, what an angel of mercy thou art! His wife met him at
the door, with unwonted demonstrations of love. His little boy
prattled most sweetly; his little girl breathed in her crib as gently
as a May zephyr. His wife told him of several pleasant and smart
things which the children had said and done that day. He began to
weep--then to tremble--then to dislodge the contents of his stomach.
"My dear Nancy," said Griffith, "I shall be dead in a few hours, but
never mind." His wife perceiving that laudanum was in his stomach,
instantly prepared a potent emetic, and mixing it with a large tumbler
of hot water, offered it to her husband, and he consented to drink it,
supposing it could not be improper. In a few minutes, through the
influence of nausea, from the effects of brandy, and from the dose
just given, the stomach was emptied. Poor Griffith suffered much, but
gradually recovered. None save his wife knew of the attempted violence
on his own life.
At length a few benevolent people proposed to him to leave Badblood,
and go into the interior. He consented, and they gave him the
necessary money, as he and his family entered the stage. Griffith was
much affected by their kindness, especially that of one old Baptist
gentleman, who said very tenderly, "God bless you all." They travelled
day and night, until they were two hundred miles from the place of
their recent miseries, when a violent fever and painful dysentery in
{610} their little boy compelled them to stop. The house where they
stopped, though not promising much in outward appearance, was yet neat
and clean. Mr. Felix, the landlord, and his wife, were intelligent,
industrious and pious. They were strict temperance people, and no
liquor could be had for drink within fifteen miles. Griffith of course
became very cool. The first day he was very wretched; he had no
employment--he had no heart to assist in nursing the sick boy. Towards
evening he took a gun and walked into the field, and shot a partridge.
At first he seemed pleased that he might thus promote the comfort of
his little son, but then he remembered that animal food of any kind
would injure him. The next day he was more miserable than ever, until
about noon he saw fishing rods, and on inquiry found that there was a
fish-pond not very distant. He went and angled for hours, but the hot
sun had driven every fish under the banks and tussocks. He sat four
long hours, and had not even a nibble. He returned with a heavy heart;
yet it was pleasant to more than his wife, to observe a growing
earnestness and frequency of inquiry into the health of his child. The
next day, being Friday, a meeting commenced at a church not three
hundred yards distant from the house of their kind landlord, and by a
little persuasion, Griffith was prevailed on to attend. The first
sermon was very animated, and was on that text: Isaiah lii. 3: "Thus
saith the Lord; ye have sold yourselves for naught, and ye shall be
redeemed without money." Griffith sat on the back seat, and paid more
attention than one would have supposed from his appearance. The second
sermon was preached by an old gentleman, on the text, 1 Timothy, i.
15: "This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief."
Returning home, Griffith thought the preachers both affectionate and
able; but he really thought some things must be personal. Indeed, the
young man who had preached first, had a very dark and piercing eye,
which when animated in preaching, made almost every one think he was
looking all the while at him alone. When Griffith came home, he sat by
his sick child, and told his wife what he had seen and heard. That
night he was restless and wakeful. In the morning he took a long walk
before breakfast, and at the usual hour repaired to the church. A
sermon was then preached on the Cities of Refuge, and the preacher
earnestly exhorted his hearers to flee for refuge to the hope set
before them in the gospel. The exercises of Saturday afternoon, were
prayer and singing, accompanied by short and solemn exhortations. In
all these services Griffith manifested deep interest, though he said
nothing, except that he detailed to his wife what he had seen and
heard. He also said, that as their boy was now much improved in
health, and as Mr. Felix's oldest daughter would stay at home next
day, his wife must accompany him to church. Sabbath morning came, and
although there seemed to be many difficulties, yet they were all
surmounted, and Mrs. Griffith and her husband, for the first time in
several years, went in company to the house of God. The text was,
Isaiah liii. 5: "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised
for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and
with his stripes we are healed." During the delivery of this sermon,
Griffith was seen to weep. His wife, however, had two reasons for not
feeling easy. Her apparel was really poor; but she was soon relieved,
by seeing that all the people were plainly attired. She also suffered
much uneasiness about her son. But good Mrs. Felix had directed her
eldest son to return home in an hour after the service should begin,
and bring word whether all was right. Her son came with a message,
which she soon, in a whisper, communicated to Mrs. Griffith. The
message was, that the boy had fallen asleep--that his room had been
made dark--that he seemed to sleep very sweetly, and would perhaps not
wake for an hour or two. Mrs. Griffith got the message just in time to
be entirely composed during the administration of the Lord's Supper,
which service immediately succeeded the first sermon. It was a solemn
scene. There were few dry eyes in the house. At the close of the
communion service, the company of believers rose and sang that
favorite spiritual song--
"How happy are they
Who the Savior obey," &c.
Griffith and his wife both thought "how happy are they." They both
hastened home, as did Mrs. Felix also. Finding their boy much better,
and their kind hostess herself determining to remain at home in the
afternoon, both Mr. and Mrs. Griffith returned to the church. When
they came near the church they heard singing, and just as they entered
the door, the congregation sung, and repeated the closing lines of a
hymn as follows:
"Here, Lord, I give myself away,
'Tis all that I can do."
Griffith sighed, and said to himself--"O that I could give myself
away, and the gift be accepted." They had just taken their seats, when
the preacher announced his text in Revelation xxii. 17: "And the
spirit and the bride say, come: and let him that heareth say, come:
and let him that is athirst, come: and whosoever will, let him take
the water of life freely." The sermon did not exceed forty minutes in
length, yet it was a faithful, tender and solemn entreaty to all
sinners, the least and the most vile, to come to Christ and live.
After service, one of the ministers went home with Mr. Felix, and
having observed Griffith's behavior at church, he said many good
things in his presence and for his benefit. Griffith and his wife
spent most of that night in solemn reflection and silent prayer. On
Monday morning a neighbor called to complete some arrangements with
Mr. Felix, in reference to supplying the place of their teacher, who
had recently died. In an unexpected train of conversation, they were
led to speak of Griffith as perhaps a suitable man. In a few days it
was mutually agreed that Griffith should teach the school for the rest
of that session, which was but three months. His family being provided
for, he commenced his school. Yet for days and weeks, both he and his
wife suffered much pain and darkness of mind. At length they both,
about the same time, hoped that they had found him, of whom Moses in
the law and the prophets did write. After trial of some weeks, they
were admitted to the communion. The day after this event, Griffith
wrote an affecting letter to his venerable parents. This letter was
evidently blessed, not only to the comfort of their hearts, but also
many of the pious people in Goodcheer were much affected by it. {611}
"Great is the grace, the neighbors cried,
And owned the power Divine."
Griffith immediately established the worship of God in his family, and
rejoiced in God with all his heart. Nor was his wife a whit behind in
holy delight at the change. Griffith's conversion led him to inquire
into the lawfulness of gambling. He had three questions to decide. The
first was, whether he should pay a debt of $60 incurred in gambling?
He soon resolved to pay it, as it was the manner of contracting, and
not the payment of the debt, that was the sin. The next question was,
what should he do respecting the $9,000, which he found by estimate he
had lost at different times? To this he could only say, that most of
it was won by strangers, and by men who had long since died in
wretchedness and poverty. He could not get it. By a careful estimate
of what he had won from men whose names and residence he knew, over
and above what they had won from him, and including the $500 extorted
from the gamblers, by threatening to volunteer as witness against
them, he found that he owed in all, rather more than $1,500. Resolving
to pay the whole sum, if spared and prospered, he engaged to teach
school another session of ten months; and although he could not save
much of his earnings, he resolved to save what he could.
How astonished was he, when a few days after he formed this purpose,
as he was going to school in the morning, a gentleman hailed him as
Mr. Griffith, and said: "Sir, I won from you several years ago nearly
$700; there is the money, with some interest. I am a christian. I
cannot keep it; there it is." With these few words, the traveller
proceeded. Griffith was so amazed, that he even forgot to ask his
name, or residence, or the course of his journey. Of the $700,
Griffith sent $200 to the widow of a poor silly drunken man, from whom
he had, not long before his complete downfall, won that amount. He
sent $200 more to a young clerk, whom he had well nigh ruined as to
morals and character, and from whom he had won $180 two years before.
He sent $300 to the father of a little blind girl, from whose deceased
brother he had won that amount, saving the interest, and requesting
that it might be employed to send the blind child to the Asylum for
the blind. By the kindness of Providence, other sums were restored to
him, amounting in all to a few hundreds. His economy and industry, and
good capacity as a teacher, also secured to him a growing income from
his school--so that in a few years he had paid every debt, and
restored all money obtained by gambling. He has since bought a small
tract of land, and built a very neat cabin, with two apartments, upon
it. He calls it the Retreat. He is now forty-three years old--still
keeps a school--has a good income from his own industry--enjoys
tolerable health, and has around him many of the comforts of life. His
wife and children still live, and help to make him happy. His
penitence and humility are deep; yet is thankfulness the reigning
exercise of his heart. The goodness and grace of God, through Jesus
Christ, are themes on which he never tires.
Dryden's genius was of that sort which catches fire by its own motion;
his chariot wheels got hot by driving fast.--_Coleridge_.
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
LINES
Written in Mrs. ----'s Album.
Give me a subject! O! propitious fate!
That by collision with my frigid brain
Shall strike out fire![1] Love? Honor? Friendship? Hate?
The jaded ear doth loathe the hackneyed train!
Give me a subject! thus a Byron sang--
And from the Poet's mind in perfect form
Like brain-born PALLAS, forth Don Juan sprang,
A captivating Demon--fresh and warm.
Give me a subject! Alexander raved,
A world to conquer!--and the red sword swept--
No truant Planet sought to be enslaved,
And bully Ellick disappointed wept!
A theme, ye stars! that with yon clouds bo-peep--
They wink, sweet Madam!--but, alas! are dumb:
"I could call spirits from the vasty deep"
To freeze thy gentle blood! But would they come?
There are no themes in this dull changeless world!
Spinning for aye on its own icy poles--
Forever in the self-same orbit whirled,
A huge TEE-TOTUM with concentric holes!
Ev'n Heaven itself had not poetic been
Though filled with seraph hosts in guiltless revel,
Had not one bright Archangel changed the scene--
Unlucky wight! to play himself the Devil!
Then came the tug of Gods! for rule and life--
The unmasked thunders shook the stable sky--
But MILTON sings of the immortal strife,
And lived much nearer to the times than I.
Prythee! go seek him, if thou would'st be told
A graphic story, pictured to the ear
With matchless art, by one who did behold,
So thou wouldst think--the war storm raging near.
Hast read the Poem, Ma'am? So have not I,
But I have heard that what I say is true--
And by my faith I'm much disposed to try
And give the Devil's bard and Devil his due!
But I am modest--and do not intend
To outsoar Milton in his lofty flight--
Nor would my Muse poor Byron's ghost offend,
He hated rivalry--and so--good night!
[Footnote 1: A familiar suggests that an "_oaken towel_" might produce
the desired effect. No doubt; and hence the expression "cudgel thy
brains."]
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
THE DIAMOND CHAIN.
While Rosa near me sweetly sung,
And I beheld her blue eyes' light,
A chain around my heart was flung,
Its every link a diamond bright.
But now that we are forced to part,
And her loved voice no more I hear,
The chain is withering up my heart--
Its diamonds each a burning tear.
QUESTUS.
{612}
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
WHERE SHALL THE STUDENT REST?
A Parody on Constance's Song in Marmion.
Where shall the student rest
Whom the fates destine
Old law-books to digest,
That baffle all digesting?
Where through tomes deep and dry
Spreads the black letter,
Where endless pages lie
Genius to fetter.
Eleu loro,
Eleu loro,
Toil "sans remitter."
There, while the sun shines bright,
In law-fogs he's buried;
There too by candle light,
On law points he's worried:
There must he sit and read,
Puzzled forever--
When shall his mind be freed?
Never-more, never.
Where shall the _lawyer_ rest?
He the hors-pleader?
With brass and blunders drest--
His client's misleader:
In the lost lawsuit,
Borne down by demurrer,
Or forced to withdraw suit,
Or quaking with terror.
Eleu loro,
Eleu loro,
Fearing writ of error.
His sham-pleas the court shall chide,
Disgusted to see them;
His warm blush the crowd deride
Ere he can flee them;
Blund'ring from bad to worse,
Disgraced forever--
Clients shall fill his purse,
Never! oh, never!
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
THE AGE OF REPTILES.
Poets affect, that when the Earth was young
All Nature's works were beautiful and bright,
That Planets in their spheres harmonious sung
Like Seraphs--joining in celestial flight;
That flowers bloomed in one eternal spring,
Scenting with luscious sweets the ambient air,
That life was luxury, and pain a thing
Not meant for man, but spirits of despair.
Lady! it was not so--the world was rude--
Behold the proof in Mantell's strange narration:[1]
Its form, and elements, and fabric crude,
And REPTILES were the "Lords of the Creation:"
O! ingrate man! bethink thee of thy fate,
Had thy Creator called thee then to being
And left thee to the chances of a fate
Beyond all bearing--hearing--feeling--seeing!
Then lumbered o'er the rugged Earth strange forms,
Misshapen--huge--gigantic--living wonders--
Howling fit chorus to discordant storms,
That, like a thousand Ætnas, crashed in thunders.
Cleaving the dismal sky, with rushing sound
Appalling monsters hurl their cumbrous length,
And through the murky sea, in depths profound,
Gambolled Leviathans in mighty strength.
What thinks Philoclea of the pristine Earth?
Believ'st thou Nature smiled at such beginning?
If those huge occupants inclined to mirth,
Their's was an age of awful ugly grinning!
The seaman's figure of a seventy-four
Showing her teeth--her guns in triple tiers--
Were no hyperbole in days of yore,
Howe'er extravagant it now appears.
[Footnote 1: See the Edinburg Philosophical Journal and the 21st No.
of Silliman's Journal, for some account of the Geological Age of
Reptiles, by Gideon Mantell, Esq. F.R.S. &c. &c.]
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
ANSWER
To Willis's "They may talk of your Love in a Cottage."
You may talk of your sly flirtation
By the light of a chandelier;
With music to play in the pauses,
And nobody over near:
Or boast of your seat on the sofa,
With a glass of especial wine,
And Mamma too blind to discover
The small white hand in thine.
Give _me_ the green turf and the river--
The soul-shine of love-lit eyes--
A breeze and the aspen leaf's quiver,
A sunset and GEORGIAN skies!
Or give me the moon for an astral,
The stars for a chandelier,
And a maiden to warble a past'ral,
With a musical voice in my ear.
Your vision with wine being doubled,
You take twice the liberties due,
And early next morning are troubled
With "Parson or pistols for two!"
Unfit for this world or another,
You're forced to be married or killed--
The lady you choose--or her brother--
And a grave--or a paragraph's filled.
True Love is at home among flowers,
And if he would dine at his ease,
A capon's as good in his bowers
As in rooms heated ninety degrees:
On sighs intermingled he hovers,
He foots it as light as he flies,
His arrows, the glances of lovers,
Are shot to the heart from the eyes!
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
EPIGRAM.
Said a Judge to a culprit he'd known in his youth,
"Well Sandy! What's come of the rest of the fry?"
"Please your worship," said Sandy, "to tell you the truth,
They're every one hanged but your Honor and I."
{613}
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
VISIT TO THE VIRGINIA SPRINGS,
_During the Summer of 1834_.
NO. III.
Whilst at the Salt Sulphur, I found it necessary, for a time, to
exchange that for a water of a somewhat different character; and as
the Blue Sulphur had begun to attract considerable attention, I
determined to resort thither. Accordingly, I took the stage for
Lewisburg, twenty-five miles distant from the Salt Sulphur, and within
thirteen miles of the Blue. We travelled over the White Sulphur road
as far as the splendid Greenbrier bridge on this turnpike, where we
were landed at a hotel, to await the arrival of the Fincastle stage,
to carry us on to Lewisburg. It was already dark before the stage came
up, and although but three miles of our road lay before us, yet the
whole distance was ascending, so that we could not travel out of the
slowest walk. We however reached Lewisburg in time to discuss the
merits of an excellent supper, and get into comfortable lodgings by a
very reasonable bed time.
I was detained at this place for want of a conveyance to the Blue
Sulphur, there being as yet no regular stage. The time, however,
passed off pleasantly. Lewisburg contains about seven or eight hundred
inhabitants; its situation is elevated--the scenery around quite
picturesque; and, if the improvements progress as they have done for
the past few years, it will soon become a very pretty village. This
place is much frequented, during the spring season, by visiters at the
White Sulphur--the distance being only nine miles, over a smooth, and
for the most part, beautiful road.
After two days, I succeeded in obtaining a horse, and on the following
morning set off, in company with a gentleman of the neighborhood, on
the remaining thirteen miles to the Blue Sulphur. The way usually
travelled by carriages is circuitous; consequently, we struck across
through the country, on the most direct route to the Springs. Our road
was exceedingly rough and hilly, without anything peculiarly
interesting. Indeed, we were so completely imbosomed among the hills
and forests, that nothing could be seen except the long ridge of the
Muddy Creek Mountain, which lay before us. Before reaching the base,
the road had dwindled into a blind bridle path, winding amongst the
spurs of the mountain; and on ascending, it became so precipitious,
and so covered with loose and rolling stones, as to render it almost
impassable. We at length succeeded in reaching the summit--not however
without having been obliged to dismount occasionally, and allow our
horses to clamber after us over the worst parts of the way. We then
travelled for two miles along the top of the mountain, over a level
and beautiful road; after which we descended by a rough and rocky
path, similar to that on the opposite side. A few miles more, over a
fertile and cultivated country, brought us into the vicinity of the
Blue Sulphur, or in the language of the country, to the Muddy Creek
settlement.
As the accommodations at the Spring were already occupied, we rode up
to an old fashioned log house, with a long piazza in front, surrounded
by lombardy poplars and apple trees, and screened from the road by an
intervening hill, and obtained accommodations with its kind and
pleasant occupants. No part of my time among the mountains, was
attended with more peculiar or deeper interest than that passed in the
Muddy Creek settlement. Every thing about this region is calculated to
bring one back to the early days of our country. The habits and
customs are all after the unpretending fashion of the pioneers; and
human character is here seen in its native simplicity. Refinement,
with its luxuries and follies, has not yet penetrated this secluded
region, to corrupt the plain and simple customs of its generous,
open-hearted and upright yeomanry. Here too, as a friend remarked, we
realize, to some extent, the amazing and almost startling rapidity
with which our nation has sprung into existence. But a few years ago
this was the undisputed home of the Indian. This identical house was
once the last house on the frontier of civilized America; and one of
the family now alive, was among the little band who first ventured
across the Alleghany mountains, and carried the sounds of civilized
life into these desolate wilds. Hers was the last family on the
western frontier. Not a civilized being stood on the wide waste of
wilderness which stretched far away to the shores of the Pacific. But,
with unexampled rapidity, civilization has transformed the whole face
of the country; and this old lady, who thought she "had gotten to the
end of the world when she got to Greenbrier," has, within her own
recollection, seen a nation springing up west of her, already putting
on the vigor and energy of mature years, and outstripping the nations
of the eastern world.
This interesting old lady, is indeed a complete "chronicler of the
olden time." Her attire is in perfect keeping with her character. She
still preserves the simple style of the by-gone century, uncorrupted
by the supposed improvement of a later generation. The close cut cap,
scarcely concealing the silvered locks of age--the muslin
handkerchief, drawn neatly over the shoulders, covering a part of the
plain tight sleeves, and confined under the girdle of a long-waisted
tea-colored gown, were admirably suited to the bending, yet dignified
and venerable figure which they adorned. Then to sit during the
pensive hours of evening in the old piazza, overlooking the garden a
few feet before us, which was the site of one of the earliest forts,
the fields and the peaks, the scenes of frightful Indian massacres,
and listen to her narratives of the perils and trials of the pioneers
of {614} Greenbrier, is a treat which a few years will probably put it
out of the power of any to enjoy. Her graphic delineations of the
horrors of a frontier life, sometimes excited our imagination to such
a pitch, as to render it difficult to compose the body to repose at
the accustomed time of retirement, or to restrain the mind from
frightful dreams during the sleeping hours. The whole Muddy Creek
settlement abounds with Indian tales. Every mountain, knob and hollow,
is notorious as having been the scene of some bloody deed or memorable
exploit of the red men of the forest, as they made the last struggle,
before giving way to the invaders, and leaving forever their native
wilds.
But our present destination is the Blue Sulphur. The distance thither
from our house is rather more than a mile. The intermediate region is
level low ground, bounded on each side, at some distance, by a ridge
of mountain. These two ridges gradually converge, until they pass the
Spring about one hundred yards, where a third ridge brings a sweep
immediately across the line of their direction, and closes that end of
the valley. The space about the Spring is a perfect level, amply
extensive, and admirably adapted for improvements on a large and
handsome scale.
The Blue Sulphur, like many of the valuable mineral springs of this
state, has heretofore been known only as a place of neighborhood
resort. A few diminutive log cabins had been erected by the farmers of
the adjacent country, who, after the labors of harvest, were
accustomed to bring their families, with a wagon load of goods and
chattels, and take up their residence here during one or two of the
summer months. The virtues of the Muddy Creek Springs have long been
known and esteemed by these visiters. A year or two since the property
was purchased by a company, who are now providing extensive and most
inviting accommodations. I do not know that I can be charged with
disloyalty to my native state, in rejoicing that these Springs have
partly fallen into the hands of northern men. Our own citizens have
generally shown such an astonishing want of energy in carrying on
these valuable watering places, that we believe it to be better that
one of them has come into the possession of those, who are willing, at
any expense, to do it and the public justice; and who, in proportion
to the time they have owned the property, have shown a spirit of
improvement greatly surpassing that of the proprietors of most of the
other Springs. One of the first changes under the auspices of the new
administration, was the substitution of the title of Blue Sulphur for
the more ignoble appellation of Muddy Creek Springs.
The company, immediately after the purchase of the property, commenced
their improvements, and at the period of our visit, were prosecuting
them with a spirit worthy of admiration. These improvements consist of
a long and imposing brick hotel, three stories in height, at the upper
extremity of the valley, and facing the entrance to the Springs. This
is flanked on each side by a row of brick cottages, which at their
outward extremities, unite with similar ranges, running parallel with
the bases of the mountains and each other, until they nearly reach the
Spring, forming together three sides of a hollow square. The
intermediate lawn, can by a little cultivation and exercise of taste,
be rendered very beautiful. A temple, surpassing in appearance that of
any of the other watering places, is to be erected over the Spring,
and the reservoir, &c. to be fitted up in corresponding style. The
Spring is large, discharging a quantity of water nearly equal to the
White Sulphur. The sediment from which the establishment has derived
its modern name, is of a blue or rich dark purple color.
At the time I visited the Blue Sulphur, some of the new buildings were
partly finished, and a tavern keeper from the neighborhood had opened
a boarding house on the ground; and although the accommodations were
quite rough, there were at one time as many as seventy-five visiters.
Most of these were citizens of Charlestown, who had fled from the
cholera, which was then raging on the Kanawha.
The mountains in this vicinity abound with game, and accordingly,
hunting is the favorite amusement of the visiters. Almost every
morning a company started, with hounds and horns, on a "deer drive,"
and they seldom returned without bringing with them one of these noble
animals. On one morning, a fine buck was driven down, and shot within
a few feet of the Spring. Others of the visiters make excursions
through the mountains, to enjoy the attractions which have been
lavished with such profusion on this section of country. Perhaps one
of the most pleasant of these, is a ride of some ten or fifteen miles
to a spring which has lately come to light, and which for a sulphur
spring is rather _sui generis_. It was discovered by an old farmer,
who was engaged in boring for salt water. When he had sunk his shaft
to the depth of some fifty feet, the water bursted up, and rushed from
the opening of the well. But instead of salt, it was sulphur water;
and it has continued to run with unabated freedom to the present time.
Little is as yet known of its peculiar properties. It deposits a white
sediment. The proprietor, I understand, will neither make improvements
himself, nor allow others to do so. Perhaps, however, we can dispense
with his spring. There are enough already improved, among these
mountains, to meet the case of almost any invalid. Among these, the
Blue Sulphur is by no means the least worthy of notice; and we must
not therefore leave it, before we have said something of its medicinal
qualities.
Those who know most of the Blue Sulphur, {615} say that it combines
the valuable properties of the White and Red Sulphur. This is probably
true to some extent. The Blue Sulphur operates upon the liver with
great energy, and at the same time acts as a tonic. These are,
respectively, qualities of the White and Red Sulphur. The White
Sulphur, although it scarcely ever fails to rectify derangements of
the liver, depletes, and generally to some extent, produces debility.
The latter effect, we believe, is never produced by the Blue Sulphur,
owing probably to its tonic properties. We do not know, however, how
far either has claim to preference. As to the similarity between this
Spring and the Red Sulphur, we suppose it ascertained that wherever
there is a derangement of the sanguiferous system, except where the
lungs are affected, the action of the Blue Sulphur is equally, if not
more salutary, than that of the Red. This water is, however, very
exciting; perhaps even more so than the White Sulphur, and should
consequently, like that Spring, be avoided by pulmonary invalids.
There is also an approximation in the action of the Blue and Salt
Sulphur waters. Both of these Springs are efficacious in affections of
the stomach. Where the invalid retains a considerable degree of vigor,
or where the system is irritable, the Salt Sulphur would be decidedly
preferable, as that water occasions very little of the unpleasant, and
in such cases, perhaps injurious excitement caused by the Blue Sulphur
water. Where dyspepsy has advanced so far as to occasion extreme
debility, probably the Blue Sulphur should be resorted to, at least
for a while, as that water would sustain and strengthen the system, at
the same time that it removed the disease. These remarks are the
result of the observation of the practical effects of these waters,
and of the experience of others, without pretension to professional
skill. We believe, however, that they will be found strictly correct.
The similarity between these Springs to which we have alluded, need
not be injurious to either, whilst the probabilities in favor of the
restoration of an individual who comes to these mountains for health,
is increased by this circumstance. It is the opinion of those who have
been most at these watering places, that after two weeks constant use
of any water, it begins to lose its power on the system.[1] If the use
is discontinued for a few days, or if you resort to another Spring for
a short time, a return to the original Spring is attended with the
same effects as when first resorted to. A variety of waters,
therefore, even when their qualities are to some extent similar, is a
decided advantage. The invalid who has gotten his system charged at
one Spring, can resort to another of a sufficiently different
character to secure the object of a change, and yet resembling the
original water sufficiently to suit the necessities of his case. A
turnpike will soon be completed from Lewisburg to the Blue Sulphur,
and again connecting with the Kanawha turnpike, west of the Springs,
which will render this place easily accessible.
[Footnote 1: Perhaps the Red Sulphur is an exception.]
After a sojourn of a week, I again turned my face towards the Salt
Sulphur. I had as a companion an intelligent gentleman, extensively
acquainted with the country; and in accordance with his proposition,
we determined to reach that place by a route somewhat different, and
offering more natural attractions than that by which I had come over.
In the course of the evening, we passed through some of the finest
farms in Western Virginia. I do not believe that the prairies of the
"far West" can exhibit more luxuriant fields of corn than some of
those in this section of Greenbrier. We passed the Muddy Creek
Mountain at a _gap_, and our way, although little more than an
indistinct bridle path, was more pleasant than that by which I had
before crossed. The view from the highest point on this gap, almost
defies description.
From the section of country which we had left behind us, rose Keeny's
Nob, a huge peak upon which the Indians used to light signal fires,
and which derived its name from some romantic circumstance--rearing
its summit far above the adjacent mountains, and spreading out its
swelling sides and the projections of its base over the neighboring
country; from this, and continuing round to the right, before us, were
alternate ridges and vallies, covered with dense forest, as yet
apparently untouched by the woodman's axe, and only broken by the
Greenbrier river, whose high and bleak naked cliffs could be seen at
the distance of some miles. Beyond, was Peter's Mountain, coming down
from the west, and running off to the east, in a straight unbroken
line. Immediately before us, were the variegated fields of a few rich
grazing farms. Farther on, the mountain upon which Lewisburg is
situated, excluding the White Sulphur from the view; and in the
distance, the "back bone" of the Alleghany, which you cross five miles
beyond the White Sulphur on the turnpike, whose line could be
occasionally discerned as it wound among the spurs of the mountain. To
the left lay some cultivated country, terminated by ridges upon ridges
of mountains. The sun was in the last hour of his daily course, and
with his evening rays illumined the hills, giving the varied hues,
from the brightest to the deepest green, to the waste of "silent
wilderness" which stretched far away to that quarter of the horizon.
We were soon, however, obliged to relinquish this scene, combining so
much of the grand, beautiful and sublime, and hasten down the
mountain, in order to get as far as possible through the worst of the
hills and hollows before night should overtake us.
{616} I took the stage at Lewisburg next morning, and by noon arrived
at the Salt Sulphur, which was now thronged, and exhibiting all the
life, and bustle, and fashion, which crowds of the gay and wealthy
bring with them. Every garret and domicil about the establishment,
capable of being slept in, had been called into requisition the night
before. We heard, before reaching the Springs, that the proprietors,
on the previous evening, had sent on to stop visiters bound thither,
in Union, until quarters should be vacated at the Salt Sulphur. All
the crowding, however, could not interfere with the perfect system of
this establishment. Every thing went on with as much regularity, and
in the same comfortable style, as when there were but fifty visiters.
After spending a few days very pleasantly at this place, I secured a
seat in Shank's fine line of coaches for the Sweet Springs, about
twenty-two miles southeast of the Salt Sulphur.
The road was generally good, and the country more beautiful and
picturesque, but less romantic, than any we had seen in this section
of country. Our driver was quite a rapid traveller, and by the aid of
fine teams, he carried us over the ground at very good speed, and
before dinner, had landed us in front of the old white tavern at the
Sweet Springs.
The crowd here surpassed, if possible, that at the Salt Sulphur. On
our arrival, it seemed exceedingly doubtful whether we could remain on
the premises at all. Every room on the ground was full. Many of the
visiters lodged on the bar-room tables, and on the benches of an old
court-house, at present the Spring's church. By dint of perseverance,
and the aid of friends, I at length succeeded in getting a cot
squeezed between two of five or six others, in an old log school-house
on the outskirts of the premises. The accommodations at the Sweet
Springs are generally very good; the fare excellent. The crowd was at
this time so great, as to render it impossible that every one should
be comfortable. The usual dining-room was nothing like large enough
for the company. Two long additional tables were set in the bar-room.
The "Sweet Springs" are considered by some equal in beauty to the
White Sulphur. Nature has perhaps done as much here as at any watering
place among the mountains; but I do not think the improvements or the
arrangement of the buildings at all equal to those at the White
Sulphur. The extensive undulating lawn, and grove of noble oaks--the
cottages on the open green, or peering from amidst the trees, do
indeed present a beautiful scene. But the latter are scattered in rows
or groups over the ground without any regular order, and the lawn has
never undergone any of the operations of art. The Spring rises under
the piazza of a low and long house, at the foot of the hillock on
which the tavern stands, and in a hollow formed by this, with the
small hill on which the cabins are principally built. The reservoir is
a circle of about five feet diameter, surrounded by a railing two or
three feet high. Great quantities of carbonic acid gas are constantly
emitted, which comes bubbling up through the water, giving it somewhat
the appearance of boiling.
The "Sweet Springs" derived its name from the taste of the water. I
thought it, however, a complete misnomer. The taste of the water is
very singular, and at first rather unpleasant--but containing,
according to our perception, very little sweetness. The house
adjoining the Spring contains the baths; the finest cold medicinal
baths, probably, in the country. The water rises from a gravelled
bottom, over perhaps the whole extent of the baths, which are very
spacious.
The Sweet Spring water is a powerful tonic; and after the system has
been thoroughly cleansed at the other Springs, this is an admirable
place for recruiting flesh and strength before leaving the mountains.
The same precaution given to pulmonary invalids, is even more
necessary here than at the White and Blue Sulphur. The water is highly
exciting, and consequently very injurious to such persons.
As soon as possible after arriving here, I obtained a seat in the
stage for Fincastle--and on a fine morning in the latter part of
August, rendered more balmy and delightful by the mountain breezes, we
set off, in company with two other coaches, for the Valley. The press
of passengers in that direction was so great, that notwithstanding the
two extras, our coach carried, including all sizes, fourteen besides
the driver. We commenced ascending the Sweet Spring Mountain, soon
after setting out, and enjoyed the beautiful view of the Valley of the
Springs and the surrounding country, which is afforded from its
summit. Two other mountains still lay in our way. The second of the
three if called the "Seven Mile Mountain," that being the distance
passed in crossing it. On reaching its base, we chartered two
additional horses, and drove "coach and six" to the top, where we left
them, and with the other coaches went rattling and thundering down the
mountain. We soon after passed the last of this formidable trio, and
after a pleasant drive through the flourishing county of Botetourt,
reached Fincastle. At this place we intersected the "Valley Line,"
which carried us over the great Natural Bridge and down the Valley of
Virginia.
The writer did not visit the Warm and Hot Springs, and consequently
does not notice them.
Remark the use which Shakspeare always makes of his bold villains, as
vehicles for expressing opinions and conjectures of a nature too
hazardous for a wise man to put forth directly as his own, or from any
sustained character.--_Coleridge's Table Talk_.
{617}
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
_Extracts from the Auto-biography of Pertinax Placid_.
MY FIRST NIGHT IN A WATCHHOUSE.
CHAP. I.
The title of this narrative intimates to the reader by a natural
inference, that its writer has spent more nights than one in that
abode of the unruly--a watchhouse. I will be candid, and admit the
fact, that twice during a pretty long and not unadventurous life, it
has been my lot to enjoy the security afforded by that refuge of the
vagrant. _Twice_ only--I confess to no more. The first of these
dilemmas I am about to speak of now--the second may form a subject of
future narration.
There are few of my readers who have not heard of the city of
Montreal, in the Province of Lower Canada, and fewer still who know
much of its peculiarities, social, political or architectural, on
which it is my design hereafter, supposing that I can keep on good
terms with Mr. White, to enlighten them--but not at present. Well, it
was my happiness, at an early period of my life, to reside in the good
city of Montreal. What carried me there, is my own affair, and I shall
merely say that I was neither a trader who cheated the poor Indians
out of their pelteries, a smuggler of teas and silks across the
frontier, a tin pedlar, nor a bank-note counterfeiter, all of which
classes often find it convenient to take up a temporary residence in
Canada. I was a wild ungovernable lad, with no parent or guardian to
direct me, left entirely to my own impulses, and unfortunately
enjoying the pecuniary means of assisting those impulses to bring me
into all manner of scrapes, from which it required much ingenuity to
extricate myself.
The long winters in Canada may convey to a southern reader an idea of
dreariness and discomfort, locked up as the people are in enduring
frosts--buried for months in continual snows--with one unvaried
monotony of dazzling white pervading the face of nature--the streams
fast sealed with "thick ribbed ice"--and a thermometer at from twenty
to thirty degrees below zero for weeks together. In short, a southern
fancy paints Old Winter, ruling with despotic sway, unrestrained by
the checks and balances which limit his authority in our more moderate
climate--usurping a portion of the nominal domains of autumn and
spring--and inflicting through his prime minister, Jack Frost, the
most rigorous exactions of a government of force, on the unresisting
people--penetrating into their dwellings at all hours, interfering
even in the mode of their dress, attending all their movements in town
or in country, and invariably assailing the lonely traveller on the
extended prairie or in the dreary forest. Such is undoubtedly the
picture which a southern imagination draws of a Canadian winter. But
social life can modify the worst extremes of nature's inclemency, and
find in the very evils of our condition sources of delight and
enjoyment. So far from suffering during the winters I spent in Canada,
I recall those joyous periods, when I was engaged in the constant
pursuit of gaiety and pleasure, and when care had no control over my
spirits as the brightest spots on the far off waste of memory.
How different were those winters from the fickle, capricious season
through which we have just passed. Poets and tourists have celebrated
the beauty of Italian skies. I have never seen them--but I can fancy
nothing brighter than the heavens in Canada, on a clear frosty night,
when every breath of vapor is absorbed and rarefied by the intensity
of the cold. Never have I realized in other countries the complete
distinctness with which each star comes forth in the azure vault--the
palpable suspension of each body of light in the field of air. In
other skies the stars and planets seem delineated on a ground of blue.
In a Canadian winter night you realize that each orb is in suspension,
moving and twinkling through the surrounding ether. This is difficult
to describe, and some who have not seen and _felt_ the glories of the
northern heavens as I have--aye, felt them in a double sense, gazing
upon them until my soul was wrapt into sublime ecstasy, and my
upturned nose frost bitten into the bargain--may think that I am
talking nonsense.
But the social delights of a Canadian winter are more to my purpose,
in disabusing the fancy of those who shiver when they think of these
hyperborean regions. Such tremors may be justified when we fancy a
winter tramp across the steppe of Russia, or a visit to a Koureen of
Zapojoreskies. But Canada--dear, delightful Canada! The gaieties of
thy long winters--the dancing--the driving--the dining--the
flirtation--the lovemaking, with which thy frosty months abound, might
keep warm the heart of a dweller underneath the tropics.
It was during the winter of 18--, that after a long cessation of
theatrical representations in Montreal, a new theatre, which had
recently been built, was opened under the management of Mr. T----,
with a company principally picked up from the northern theatres of the
United States. Since the performances of Prigmore's old company,
previous to the declaration of war, in which, I believe, George
Barrett, since a favorite in high comedy, was the Roscius, playing
Romeo, Hamlet, &c. and in which Fennel played as a star, there had
been no regular theatrical establishment in Montreal--although the
officers of the garrison gave occasional dramatic exhibitions, and the
young citizens sometimes enacted a play or two during a season. A
regular theatre was a new thing, and excited much attention. The
manager was perhaps the finest specimen of self-conceit that the world
ever saw.[1] He was a short stumpy kind of man, with a face of most
fixed character, which delineated all the passions with the self-same
expression. His smooth pert visage, lit up by two bead-like black
eyes, seemed so entirely contented with its natural expression, as to
render it unnecessary to assume any other. His voice, shrill and
guttural, emulated his face in its uniformity. He had a _game leg_,
about three inches shorter than its brother, which gave him a halt of
so decided a character as not to be disguised. Yet he believed himself
to be a most distinguished actor, and {618} fully competent to the
representation of Richard III, (for which his lameness was often
quoted by him as a _natural_ advantage) and even the more youthful and
well favored heroes of Shakspeare. The vanity of this man might have
been harmless, had he not been the manager. But in that capacity it
interfered most wofully with the well ordering of affairs. The company
was by no means strong. A Mr. Baker played the high tragedy badly
enough. Mc---- and Richards shared the next grade, the former doing
the seconds in tragedy and the ruffians in melo-drama. Of this man I
must say something, as he is connected with my narrative. For some
misconduct, the nature of which I know not, he had been driven from
the stage in England several years before, and enlisted as a foot
soldier in the 40th regiment. As such, he served in Upper Canada
during the war with this country; and when he obtained his discharge
in Montreal, the theatre being about to open, he was engaged to
personate the Cassios, the Horatios, the Baron Steinforts, &c. If his
temper was ever amiable, it had gained nothing by his military
service. He was morose and troublesome; but as the company was
composed, useful and rather a favorite.
[Footnote 1: He was not only an actor, but a dramatist. He was, or
claimed to be, the author of "Rudolph, or the Robbers of Calabria," a
very tedious piece of Brigandism; and "One o'clock, or the Wood
Dæmon," almost a literal version of Monk Lewis's "Wood Dæmon." He used
to accuse Lewis of having stolen his melo-drama, and told a long and
rather incomprehensible story of the manner in which the theft was
perpetrated. He also wrote a play called "Valdemar, or the German
Exiles," which was performed in the new theatre, at the period alluded
to in my story, and possessed, I think, soma little merit. Besides
being actor and play wright, he was a scene-painter, and kept a tavern
in the good city of Montreal.]
Of the females I shall notice but one, as she is to be the heroine of
my story for the present, and as, but for her, (like Mr. Canning's
needy knife-grinder) I should have no story to tell. What shall I call
her? Not by her _real name_ surely--for she has since held a high rank
among the heroines of the stage. I will call her _Fenella_; leaving
the curious to guess her real name, while I assure them that she is an
actual entity, whose performances I doubt not, many of my readers have
frequently admired. She was then an interesting woman of about twenty.
There was something a little mysterious in the circumstances under
which she made her first appearance in Montreal, which rendered her
the more attractive. She had with her an infant child; and yet she was
advertised as a _Miss!_ Shocking inferences were of course drawn among
the censorious; and sensations of a different description encouraged
the loose and licentious young men about town, to suppose that this
living indication of Fenella's frailty was a guarantee of the success
of their unhallowed addresses. Those who knew her, told a curious
story of her adventures in ----, the turn of which had driven her to a
temporary exile in Canada. The substance of the story was this: She
was the daughter of a poor widow, who earned her living by her needle.
Fenella was, when very young, remarkable for the beauty and vivacity
of her countenance, the grace of her figure, and an intelligence
beyond her advantages. An ambition to rise from her humble condition,
tempted her to resort to the stage. She appeared and was applauded,
for she exhibited true signs of talent of no common order. She was
engaged, but filled a subordinate station for two or three years. The
management of the ---- theatre changed during this period, and the old
gentleman who had assumed the duties of manager, was not long in
perceiving the merits of Fenella as an actress, while her personal
attractions awakened within him the remnant of amatory fire which time
had not extinguished, and subjected her to the unseasonable ecstatics
of a sexagenary lover. This part of her good fortune had few charms
for a sprightly girl of seventeen. But the ancient manager had a son,
who, while he equalled the old gentleman in the perception of female
attractions, had far greater charms in the eyes of the females
themselves, being a handsome well built fellow, and having had some
practice in the delicate task of making himself agreeable to the _beau
sexe_. It so turned out, that, while the old gentleman was making an
inquiry into the state of his feelings towards the pretty young
actress, which ultimately induced him to persecute her on all
occasions with his protestations of passion, the young man had
actually made successful advances to the discriminating fair one, and
had so far succeeded as to create a reciprocal sentiment in her
breast. They had betrothed themselves, (or as we tamely say, _were
engaged_,) but the old gentleman's passion for Fenella, was a serious
obstacle to their happiness. His temper was irascible, and he required
submission from all beneath him to his most unreasonable fancies. His
son was naturally desirous of avoiding his anger, and having
discovered the state of his father's feelings, he was desirous of
keeping secret the true state of affairs. In this dilemma, the young
couple decided upon a private marriage. Even after that event, her
husband thought it advisable to avoid a rupture with his father; but
when, in the natural course of things, Fenella was about to become a
mother, the secret could no longer be kept, unless by her absenting
herself from ----. She therefore left her husband, and entered upon a
temporary engagement in Montreal.
Such was the story then told, and believed by all the charitable
portion of Fenella's admirers. I believed it then, and have had some
reason since to think it true, as, after remaining two years in
Canada, she returned to ---- and joined her reputed husband, lived
with him for several years, until his death, and bears his name to
this day.
Like other young men, I was fond of the theatre, and visited it
frequently. I was a great admirer of Fenella as an actress, but had no
acquaintance with her during her first season. Several of my young
friends were enlisted among her adorers, a numerous train, embracing
all ages, from the beardless boy to the bachelor of threescore. As far
as my observation extended, the managed this retinue of lovers with
great adroitness. To the young, she talked sentimentally, and excited
their fancy--with the old, she was prudent, and went just far enough
to retain their homage without committing herself. I had often rallied
Harry Selden, an inflammable young friend of mine, upon his hopeless
passion, for he was desperately enamored of the bewitching actress. He
confessed his lamentable infatuation, but insisted that I was only
secured from a similar fate by the distance which I kept from the
sphere of her attractions. This opinion I combated, and one evening,
when he proposed to test my stoicism by taking me to Fenella's
lodgings after the play was ended, I was too confident that I could
not be caught by the same snare in which he was entangled, to refuse
the challenge, and readily agreed to his proposition. We went to the
theatre, and Selden having presented me to her in the green room, we
accepted Fenella's invitation to see her home, and partake of a _petit
souper_ at her apartments.
It is proper perhaps, that I should here describe the lady, according
to the regular rules of tale writing, although as I have no great
talent in that line of {619} description, I shall undoubtedly make a
bungling business of it. Fenella was rather above the middle height,
uncommonly well made, and her form fully developed that graceful
outline which denotes the full grown woman, in contradistinction to
the more angular symmetry of girlhood. Her face was oval, so much so
that there was something Chinese in its contour, although in nothing
else: her hair was a light chestnut, and so exuberant in its growth as
to contribute materially to her beauty. Her eyes were blue, bright and
sparkling when her fancy was excited, or languid and voluptuous when
at rest. But the mouth of this attractive creature was the prime
beauty of her countenance. It is difficult to imbody in words the
varied charms that played about her ripe and tempting lips. Certainly
I had better not attempt it. I will therefore leave my gentleman
readers to finish the sketch, by imagining the prettiest and most
attractive woman of their acquaintance--not _absolutely_ a beauty--and
I think they will have a correct idea of Fenella.
I was too young to have known much of women, but I was sternly
resolved not to be overcome. Fancy me then _téte à téte_ with Fenella
and my friend Selden, supping on cold tongue, and sipping white
sherry. At first I felt uneasy, but was still sure I should brave all
consequences. Gradually as I looked upon the animated countenance of
my hostess, the ice of my reserve was thawed, for my apparent coldness
seemed to have inspired her with the determination to warm me into
sentiments more complimentary at least to her powers of fascination. I
afterwards learned that Selden had betrayed to her my ridicule of the
devotion of her admirers. It was therefore merely natural that she
should have resolved to rank me in the number. Nor had she misjudged
her power, or the softness of my nature. I melted beneath her smile,
like wax before the flame--and ere we rose from the table I had become
aware of a new and indefinable sensation towards her: all I can say of
it is, that it was not _love_, although it had a close affinity to
that passion.
The freedom and ease of her conversation was new to me. She spoke of
her numerous lovers without embarrassment, and in some instances with
no little sarcasm; but she constantly qualified her raillery by
confessing that they were _good souls_, and alluded to the presents
which they made her in the most amiable terms.
Time rolled on, and a month or two found me a constant visiter at the
lodgings of Fenella. I then flattered myself that I was a favorite. I
gallanted her frequently to the theatre, and waiting in the green room
until she had changed her dress, attended her home, supped with her,
and often prolonged my stay to a late hour. I never talked love to
her--for I did not _know how_--and she had so much experience in that
matter that I feared I should make myself ridiculous. Her power over
me was complete, yet I cannot charge her with having exerted it in a
single instance unfairly. Her whole design against me seemed to have
been confined to the excitement of a degree of admiration commensurate
with her personal attractions. At that point she appeared satisfied;
but as I grew in intimacy with her she shewed herself sincerely my
friend, frequently checking my fool hardy impetuosity, and giving me
good advice, which might have come with a better grace from the less
lovely lips of my aunt Deborah. I soon accommodated my sentiments and
conduct to those of Fenella, and while I became her most devoted
friend, I dropped entirely the character and feelings of a lover. A
tacit understanding soon became established between us; and I was
admitted to liberties in my new character, which I could have enjoyed
in no other. These familiarities were misunderstood by my friends; but
in spite of their firm belief, there was nothing amatory in our
intercourse.
About this time Fenella's benefit at the theatre was announced, an
event of some importance to her, as the second season of the theatre
had been particularly unproductive, and the limping manager had failed
almost entirely to pay the salaries of his performers. I think Douglas
was the play selected by her, in which she was to personate Lady
Randolph; and in order to the effective _cast_ of the piece, it was
essential that Mc---- should perform Glenalvon. He had frequently
treated Fenella with rudeness, and evidently disliked her; he objected
to the part assigned him, and absented himself from the rehearsals of
the tragedy. But as he was notoriously a devotee of the bottle, and
frequently remiss in his duty, little was thought of his absence. The
benefit night arrived; the time came for the curtain to rise; but no
Glenalvon had appeared behind the scenes; and it was soon made known
that Mc---- had not studied the part, and would not appear that night.
The house was crowded; and to Fenella's great mortification, it was
necessary that some other performer should _read the part_. This was
done, and the play came off lamely enough.
Fenella was not destitute of spirit, and she resented this affront in
the proper manner. Mc----'s benefit took place a few weeks after, and
she resolutely refused to play for him. As she was the only actress in
the company possessing any claim to talent, it was impossible to
_cast_ a piece without her; and the consequence of her name being
absent from the bills for Mc----'s benefit was, that no one attended,
or so few as to render it a most irksome task to go through the
performances. The rage of the disappointed beneficiary was boundless:
he vowed that he would be revenged upon Fenella for the injury she had
done him, although in just resentment of an affront for which he
deserved no better treatment.
Mc---- was a good draughtsman, and frequently sketched figures with
great accuracy. He resorted to his pencil as the instrument of his
revenge, and caricatured Fenella with so much skill, that while no one
could mistake the original of the sketch, the incongruities of the
details were such as to render it highly ludicrous.
The chief quality of a caricature seems to be _disproportion_--an
unfitness of parts to each other. Simple exaggeration does not suffice
to produce the effect desired, for if all the details of the picture
be equally exaggerated, it may present a disagreeable likeness, but it
does not produce that deep sense of the ridiculous which arises from
an incongruous classification of the details. This rule is perhaps
better tested than any other, by the _reductio ad absurdum_, and it is
well illustrated by those extravagant French prints, in which heads of
enormous comparative dimensions are placed upon bodies and limbs
ridiculously diminutive, the effect of the {620} disproportion being
heightened by the accessaries of dress, &c. This is perhaps the most
extravagant kind of caricature, but it requires far less skill than
those sketches in which the more minute incongruities of features,
form and costume, are resorted to. These sometimes exhibit much
graphic ability, and it is a curious fact, that in pictures of this
kind, where every feature is distorted, the strongest likenesses are
sometimes preserved.[2] It is _truth_ presented through the medium of
the ludicrous. Like the burlesque in writing, which exhibits an
argument even more forcibly, because it presents the whole matter in a
ridiculous light. But I am forgetting my story.
[Footnote 2: Some striking examples of this have been produced by the
French caricaturists, who, though far inferior to their English
brethren in broad humor, excel them in the subtilty of their
conceptions. I remember a series of prints representing Charles X and
his ministers, in the forms of various beasts. The king was personated
by the _Giraffe_, then exhibiting at the _Jardin des plantes_ in
Paris--the ministers by other animals, whose instinctive qualities
were intended to represent the several characteristics of those
dignitaries. For instance, as well as I remember, the Fox played
Prince Polignac, the Wolf, Count Peyronnet, &c. to indicate the
cunning and rapacity of those ministers. The accuracy of the
likenesses in those prints was remarkable. I believe Louis Phillippe
and his ministers have more recently been shewn up in a similar
manner.]
I had not seen Fenella for several days, when passing along St. Paul
street one morning, I met an acquaintance, who accosted me with,
"Bless me, Pertinax, where have you been so long? I was last evening
at Fenella's, and she actually hinted a suspicion of your defection
from her cause."
"Why to tell you the truth Nichols, I have absented myself with
_malice prepense_."
"She is of that opinion, and takes it unkindly of you, that while she
is suffering so much vexation, you of all others, who neither flatter
nor make love to her, should prove recreant."
"Vexation! what do you mean?"
"Come, come, you will not pretend that you know of nothing which
should annoy her, when the cause of her annoyance is the talk of the
whole town."
"Nothing whatsoever--I know of nothing that could give her uneasiness,
unless that stupid Lord William Lenox[3] has been besieging her again.
I saw him driving a tandem carriole this morning. Perhaps he drove to
her lodgings and worried her with his vapid talk."
[Footnote 3: This sprig of nobility, is the third son of the Duke of
Richmond, who was then Governor of the Canadas. At that early period,
Lord William had made himself notorious by the seduction of a married
woman, whom he kept as a mistress for some time. The people of
Montreal were much scandalized at that affair. He has since become
well known to the world by his marriage with the celebrated singer,
Miss Paton,--by squandering her earnings in the most profligate
manner, and by his divorce from her. The lady is better known in this
country as Mrs. Wood, and under that name her singing has been
universally admired here. Lord William's last enterprise, it appears,
is a theatrical one--as the English newspapers state that he is now
the manager of a provincial theatre.]
"Nonsense! She has not seen Lord William for a week."
"Well, what _is_ the matter then?"
"And you really have not heard?"
"I tell you I have heard nothing of the kind."
"And you have not seen Selden, nor Seymour, nor Marryatt, nor
Cleaveland."
"Neither of them for two days. I have been a perfect hermit, shut up
among my books, during that period."
"And you have heard nothing of a caricature?"
"Out upon you--caricature! No!"
"You surprise me. Well, I must be the first to inform you, that Mc----
has put his threat of revenge into execution, by making our friend the
subject of a caricature, confoundedly well done, and striking in its
resemblance, but so ludicrous that it is impossible to resist laughing
at it. Here it is"--and he produced the sketch.
Fenella's costume was peculiar, although no way extravagant. During
the winter, her street dress was a tight fitting blue cloth pelisse,
trimmed in front with gold buttons, with two or three on the waist
behind; a black fur tippet round the throat, and a black fur bonnet
and feather. The picture did not shew her face, but represented her
moving from the spectator. The dress was a perfect copy, and the
figure could not be mistaken; but the skill of the artist had given to
it the most masculine character, and the posture was so ludicrously
vulgar, as to produce great effect. Indignant as I was at this
dastardly method of casting ridicule on an amiable woman, I could not
but be sensible of the talent which had rendered a mere figure so
extremely ridiculous.
"And where did you get this, Nichols?" said I.
"Oh, they are to be had for money. This is the first that was
exhibited. Passing by the barber's shop just below the City Hotel,
yesterday morning, I saw it in the window, and purchased it for the
modest sum of two crowns. Before night another was exhibited, and
bought by Cleaveland for three crowns; and this morning another copy
appeared, which Selden bought for _five_. The rascal rises in his
price at every repetition, and is in a fair way to make up for the
loss at his benefit. There is another in the window now, and if we
pass that way you may see it. Our object in buying them was to get
them out of the way, for you cannot conceive how much annoyed Fenella
is, at this vulgar representation of her figure. But as long as we
buy, Mc---- will produce copies."
"Come along. I will have some talk with this barber"--and we made our
way to the shop, at the window of which, as Nichols had stated, the
picture hung, while a crowd of idlers were stopping to laugh at this
ridiculous effigy of a popular actress.
We entered the shop and demanded the price of the caricature.
"Ten dollars," was the reply.
"Have you the audacity," said I, "to demand such a sum for a daub like
this?"
"I have."
"And how do you rate its value so high?"
"By the demand for it. I have not an article in my shop that commands
so ready a sale. Those who buy know the intrinsic value of the picture
better than I do. I only judge of it by the price which it will
bring"--said the fellow with a roguish smile, which tempted me to
knock him down.
"Well," said I, "you have killed the golden goose this time, or I am
mistaken. You shall not sell another of them if I can prevent it."
"Oh I have no fear of that. The lady herself will buy {621} them,
rather than allow them to hang long in my window."
"You are an impertinent varlet, and I trust will be chastised as you
deserve."
I should have said more; but Nichols hurried me away, lest my hot
temper should get me into some awkward scrape--and we walked to
Fenella's lodgings.
What happened there and afterwards, must be deferred to another
chapter, when the reader shall be introduced into the watchhouse, and
his curiosity gratified in regard to my sojourn there.
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
DISSERTATION
On the Characteristic Differences between the Sexes.
NO. II.
_Religious Differences_.
In no respect do we find the characteristical differences between the
sexes more marked than in regard to religion; and certainly, we see
woman in no attitude more engaging, more interesting or useful, than
in the quiet, but graceful performance of her duties to her Maker.
The belief in the providence of some superior being or beings, has
ever been a source of obligation to mankind in all ages and countries.
Man may be pronounced to be emphatically a religious being. Every
where, whether savage or civilized, do we behold him looking to the
god or gods of nature, and dreading their punishment, not only in the
world to come, but even in this. It is this spirit of devotion which
"calls forth the hymn of the infant bard, as well as the anthem of the
poet of classic times. It prompts the nursery tale of superstition, as
well as the demonstration of the school of philosophy." "If you search
the world," says Plutarch, "you may find cities without walls, without
letters, without kings, without money; but no one ever saw a city
without a deity, without a temple, or without some form of worship;"
and Maximus Tyrius, another of the ancients, declares that, "in such a
contest, and tumult, and disagreement of opinions on other subjects,
you may see this one law and speech acknowledged by common accord,
that there is one God, the king and father of all, and many gods, the
children of God, and ruling together with him. This the Greek says,
and this the Barbarian says; and the inhabitant of the continent, and
the islander, and the wise and the unwise."
This universal consent in the operation of a superintending and
controlling providence, is one of the most luminous and important
facts of our nature. It rests the evidence of natural religion not
upon the unsteady basis of argument or reason--not upon the sophisms
of philosophers, or the edicts of monarchs, or popes, or councils; but
upon the immoveable basis of nature--upon _instinct_ itself. "There is
no era," says Mr. Allison, "so barbarous, in which man has existed, in
which traces are not to be seen of the alliance which he has felt
between earth and heaven; and amid the wildest as amid the most genial
scenes of an uncultivated world, the rude altar of the barbarian every
where marks the emotions that swelled in his bosom, when he erected it
to the awful or beneficent deities whose imaginary presence it
records."
But although there be that within us which leads directly to the
contemplation of divinity, and of the retribution which awaits us in
another world, yet we are not to conclude that this belief is not
strengthened and confirmed by reason and experience. On the contrary,
the argument in favor of a God and rewards and punishments hereafter,
gains strength, with the increasing age, experience and knowledge of
the world. Religion, in the midst of ignorance and barbarism,
degenerates into gross superstition and revolting idolatry. By means
of reason and knowledge, we are the better enabled to overleap the
vast chasm interposed between us and the divine nature; to
contemplate, in the detail and in the aggregate, both the minute and
the great throughout the universe; to observe their beautiful
arrangement and harmony, and the wondrous unity of design in all the
parts: a unity which at once prostrates all the absurdities and
contradictions of the far famed polytheistical religion of the Greek
and the Roman--the fanciful idolatry and star gazing worship of the
Chaldean Shepherd, and the Magi of Babylon--or the more fearful, more
mysterious, and yet more ridiculous superstition of the Egyptian
priests of old, who at a period far back, when time was yet young, and
the history of other nations was scarce begun, officiated in those
mighty temples upon the banks of the Nile, whose awful ruins, now
scattered through the land of Egypt, tell us of the mighty of the
earth, who have lived, and strutted, and bustled for a season, but at
the appointed hour, have been cut down like the flower of the field.
It is this great, this beautiful unity of design, which we see
manifested throughout the works of creation, which proclaims the
existence of the one indivisible God, "Who hath measured the waters in
the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and
comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the
mountains in a scale, and the hills in a balance." It is this same
unity of design, proclaimed by philosophy and comprehended by reason
alone, which so powerfully supports the monotheistic religion of the
christian, and sustains that beautiful, humane and generous scheme of
salvation foretold by the Jewish prophets of old, and consummated by
the sacrifice on Mount Calvary, of the meek and humble Saviour of the
world.
Again, when we look abroad to animated creation, and see that man
alone has placed within him a principle which guides and directs him,
independently of instinct--a principle which, in spite of all the arts
of sophistry and self-delusion, tells him in language which cannot be
mistaken, that he is responsible for his acts; and when we further see
the immense amount of vice and wickedness in this world which does not
meet with its deserved punishment here, and virtue failing to receive
its reward;--when we behold all this, and reflect, as we cannot fail
to do, that the Creator of the world is a God of justice and
impartiality, we are at once driven into the belief that there must be
a hereafter, where all these things will be equalized. It is when we
see the wicked son, the unnatural father, and the fiendish
mother--when we peruse the histories of such monsters as Nero,
Caligula, Commodus, Louis XI of France, or Richard III of England--of
the Tullias, the Messalinas and the Macbeths, that we are forced to
acknowledge that there must be a _Tartarus_. Again, we meet with {622}
humble virtue and piety in this world, possessed by those who labor
and toil through life, sometimes groaning under the oppression of a
cruel persecutor, who, bloated with vice, is nevertheless wallowing in
apparent luxury and ease, while the victims of his oppression are
overwhelmed with every calamity and misfortune "which flesh is heir
to"--each one of whom, in the hour of death, may truly say, in the
pathetic language of the patriarch of old, "short, but replete with
woe has been my day." When we contemplate this, the mind does not rest
satisfied, without an _elysium_ where the weary are to be at rest, and
the wicked to cease from troubling. "Wherefore do the wicked live,
become old--yea, are mighty in power? Is there no reward for the
righteous? is there no punishment for the workers of iniquity? is
there no God that judgeth in the earth?" It is only the awful
retribution of a hereafter which can satisfactorily explain to all
"Why unassuming worth, in secret lived
And died neglected; why the good man's share
Was gall and bitterness of soul;
Why the lone widow and her orphans pin'd
In starving solitude; while luxury,
In palaces, lay straining her low thought,
To form unreal wants; why heaven-born truth
And moderation fair, wore the red marks
Of superstition's scourge; why licensed pain,
That cruel spoiler, that imbosom'd foe,
Imbitter'd all our bliss."
Not only, however, does our belief in the supreme benevolence and
justice of the deity, force upon us the conviction of a future state
of rewards and punishments; but the very contemplation of the human
mind, with its faculties and passions, points us to another world. We
have faculties which are capable of ranging beyond the sphere in which
we move. We have longings which this world, with all its stores of
provisions, cannot satisfy. These faculties and these longings point
distinctly to another world. Lord Bacon has truly asserted, that if
the child in its mother's womb could reason like a philosopher--could
survey its little hands, mouth, eyes, feet, lungs, &c. and perceive
that they discharged no adequate functions in the womb, he would, if
impressed with the belief of the wisdom and design of creation, come
necessarily to the conclusion that this was not the place of his
permanent abode--that he was ultimately to be ushered into some other
world, where all his physical energies and intellectual powers would
be brought into play, and have an ample field to range in. So
likewise, if I may use the beautiful language of Dugald Stewart, "When
tired and disgusted with this world of imperfections, we delight to
contemplate another, where the charms of nature wear an eternal bloom,
and where new sources of enjoyment are opened, suited to the vast
capacities of the human mind." And thus do we find both instinct and
reason contending alike for the truth of the great principles of
religion.
With these preliminary remarks, I will now proceed to examine into the
differences between the sexes in a religious point of view; and here I
may assert at once, without the fear of contradiction, that woman
always has been, and is now, in almost every country upon the face of
the globe, more religious than man. This difference between the sexes
is still more striking under the christian dispensation, than under
any other religion perhaps, which has ever existed in the world. In
our own country, we all know that the female communicants form an
immense majority in all our churches. "Very many of them (says Timothy
Dwight in the 4th vol. of his Travels, and no one was better qualified
to speak on this subject)--very many of them are distinguished for
moral excellence--are unaffectedly pious, humble, benevolent, patient
and self-denying. In this illustrious sphere of distinction, they put
our own sex to shame. Were the church of Christ stripped of her female
communicants, she would lose many of her brightest ornaments, and I
fear, _two-thirds_ of her whole family."[1]
[Footnote 1: I have no doubt that President Dwight has underrated the
number of female communicants in the United States. From conversations
with the most intelligent of the clergy, I should be disposed to say
they formed three-fourths, or four-fifths of the communicants.]
How then does it happen that woman is more religious than man--that
she is every where found yielding a more ready and more perfect
devotion to the God of nature? We have seen that instinct, feeling and
reason concur in the support of religion. Which of these is the main
impelling cause with woman? I am disposed to say the two former. She
is not so much disposed to skepticism as man; she does not wait for
the slow deductions of reason, before she is willing to yield her
assent. She does not withhold her belief, like man, until she can
contemplate the power, majesty and unity of the deity, in the
countless millions of bright orbs, rolling in harmony and
magnificence, along those complicate and luminous paths which have
been assigned to them in the infinitudes of space. She does not wait
until she can descend from the contemplation of this grand, this
sublime prospect, to the infinitesimally minute parts of nature, and
view with the eye of philosophy, their order, harmony and design,
where she may behold the existence of deity proclaimed in those
countless millions of millions of animalculæ, which escape the
unassisted vision of man--each one displaying a form, a structure, a
complexity of organs as perfect, as beautiful, as well adapted to the
sphere in which he moves, on that little atom of creation, which is a
world to him, as the grandest and most imposing animals of nature. No!
She does not require for the generation of her faith, thus to be able
to range from the bottom to the top of creation--from the infinitely
small to the infinitely great--to behold in the vast and the minute
"The unambitious footsteps of the god
Who gives its lustre to an insect's wing,
And wheels his throne upon the rolling worlds."
She looks into her own heart, and finds there the want of a consoling
religion. She looks into the pages of holy writ, and builds her faith
on the revealed will of her Maker. "Thus saith the Lord," is the
simple but stable foundation on which her hopes are rested. With man,
religion is much more a matter of speculation, of reason and
philosophy, than with woman.
Let us now investigate, if possible, the causes of this very
interesting difference between the sexes.
_Causes.--1st. Education_.
And in the first place, it is in a great measure attributable to the
peculiar education of the sex. I mean the education which woman
receives from her parents and {623} teachers. The education of man is
much more scientific, according to the present custom of society, than
that of woman. Science, as we shall soon see, whilst it enlarges the
powers of comprehension and ratiocination, by leading us into the
mysteries of nature, and teaching us the "_causas rerum_," is
calculated at the same time rather to curb the feelings, and to
control the imagination. The consequence is, that a scientific
education fortifies the mind against the too ready admission of
doctrines, whatever they may be, and prevents us from yielding assent
to truths, when we are not prepared to give a reason for the faith
that is within us. In the education of woman, every thing is done to
preserve her native feelings in all their original purity and
strength. Her studies are of a more light and literary cast, such as
administer to the imagination or warm the sensibilities. In her case
the play of the instincts and of the feelings is not cramped by the
controlling influence of logic and reason; and hence, no doubt, one
cause of the religious differences between the sexes.
For the same reason, the religious enthusiasm of woman, is very apt to
degenerate into superstition--that of man, into dogmatism and
fanaticism. Woman, generally, cares very little for mere creeds and
doctrines, but is apt to believe in miraculous interpositions, and a
special providence. Woman possesses more devotion and more genuine
love for her God--her eye is fixed on heaven, and the ardor of her
religious aspirations always points her to the glorious mansion
prepared on high; where, in the fulness of her devotion and piety,
surrounded by the bright effulgence of the throne of omnipotence, she
may pour forth the torrent of her love in hymns sung to the praise of
her Maker. She looks to this grand, this glorious end, and prays to
her God that it may be hers, and that he will direct her into the
right path.
Man, on the other hand, is so much taken up by the study and
investigation of the circumstances which attend him on his religious
journey through life, that he forgets in the scrupulous study of his
means, the end and object of all his devotion. It is not only
necessary with him, that he should go to heaven, but he is too often
resolved to go there in no other way than his own. And we may almost
assert with the author of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
that by his vain reasonings, and quibbles, and sophisms, he sometimes
so narrows the bridge which is to conduct us to a blissful eternity,
as almost to reduce its width to that of a razor's edge, to be walked
over only by those whose sophisticated intellects can comprehend the
absurd jargon of his theologico-metaphysical creed. It was very
difficult during the middle ages, to engage the females in those
tremendous, but nonsensical disputes between the Realists and
Nominalists, which involved the peace and happiness of whole nations.
What cared they about _universals genera and species_. Little did they
concern themselves with the learned disputes of the Thomists, the
Scotists, and the Occamites. The amors of Peter Abelard, were much
more interesting to them, than his voluminous dissertations upon the
Scholastic Theology. And we can well imagine, that few women would
care to read that mighty production of the _Angelical Doctor_ Saint
Thomas Aquinas, bearing the imposing title of _Summa Totius
Theologiæ_, containing the formidable amount of 1,250 folio pages of
very small print in double columns, with 19 more of errata, and 200 of
index. But enough of this. Some of the other sex even may _now_ sicken
at the idea of encountering a work so formidable as this, although it
be upon the vital subject of theology.
Women are much more superstitious, generally, as I have already
remarked, than men. They much more readily believe in dreams, visions
and miraculous interferences. Women deeply in love, have often been
known to die from the effects of unfavorable dreams about a distant
lover, in a perilous situation. McNish, in his interesting work on the
Philosophy of Sleep, tells us of a young lady, a native of Ross-shire,
who was deeply in love with an officer who accompanied Sir John Moore
in the Peninsular war. The constant danger to which he was exposed,
had, of course, a very great effect on her spirits. One night, after
falling asleep, she imagined she saw her lover pale, bloody, and
wounded in the breast, enter her apartment. He drew aside the curtains
of the bed, and with a look of the utmost mildness, informed her that
he had been slain in battle, desiring her at the same time to comfort
herself, and not take his death too seriously to heart. "It is
needless," says McNish, "to say what influence this vision had upon a
mind so replete with woe. It withered it entirely, and the unfortunate
girl died a few days thereafter." Many such instances as these might
be adduced, where all the explanations and consolations of philosophy
have been rejected, and the unfortunate lady has actually died from
the grief produced by the confident expectation of the realization of
a dream or vision. I can well imagine the eagerness with which the
females of antiquity would crowd around their seers, and their
oracles, to have unveiled to them the mysteries of the future. Even
now, women are much more disposed to consult gypsies and fortune
tellers, than men. But they are most apt to incline to these petty
superstitions, if I may use the expression, when under the influence
of strong passion, such as that of love. We all know, that one deeply
in love, is apt to be a little superstitious; and many there are
besides the Phebe of Irving, who can wander forth in the "stilly
night," when the moon is pouring her silvery radiance over the world,
and kneel upon the "stone in the meadow," and repeat the old
traditional rhyme
"All hail to thee, moon, all hail;
I pray to thee, good moon, now show to me
The youth who my future husband shall be."
_2nd. Religious Wants_.
Another reason, no doubt, of the religious differences of the sexes,
is the greater demand or want, if I may use the phraseology of
political economy, which woman experiences for religion. Her whole
education, physical and moral, and her consequent position in society,
contribute to the creation of these religious wants. There are times
and situations in which we all feel in a very peculiar manner the want
of religion. There are periods when the billows of adversity are
rolling high and threatening to overwhelm us with ruin--when all our
ordinary resources have failed--when there is in this world no arm
that can save, no power that can protect us--then does the voice of
nature whisper to us to turn to him who hath promised to be a father
to the fatherless, and a husband to the widow, and to him in the hour
of our peril do we address the fervent prayer. {624} There is no part
of the Journal of the Landers with which I have been more affected,
than that in which John Lander speaks of the disaster of Kirree, while
descending the Niger. Himself and brother had been separated, they met
again on the river, but in the moment of the most heart-rending peril,
when a savage enemy was upon the point of immolating them, and of
destroying at once all those bright visions of glory and usefulness,
which ever float in the ardent imagination of the traveller, and urge
him over seas, and lands, and mountains, and deserts. "This day (says
John Lander,) I thought was to be my last, when I looked up and saw my
brother at a little distance gazing steadfastly upon me; when he saw
that I observed him, he held up his arm with a sorrowful look, and
pointed his finger to the skies. O! how distinctly and eloquently were
all the emotions of his soul at that moment depicted in his
countenance! Who could not understand him. He would have said 'trust
in God.' I was touched with grief. Thoughts of home and friends rushed
upon my mind, and almost overpowered me. My heart hovered over the
scenes of infancy and boyhood. Recollecting myself, I bade them as I
thought an everlasting adieu; and weaning my heart and thoughts from
all worldly associations, with fervor I invoked the God of my life,
before whose awful throne I imagined we should shortly appear, for
fortitude and consolation in the hour of trial. My heart became
subdued and softened; my mind regained its serenity and composure; and
though there was nothing but tumult and distraction without, within
all was tranquillity and resignation." And thus do we find that
adversity often leads us to pay devotion to our God. When the
treasures of this world in which the heart dwelt are swept away, we
are more disposed to look to the imperishable treasures of another
world. "When there is no object on this side the grave on which to fix
our hopes, we delight to extend them beyond the troubled horizon which
bounds our earthly prospects, to wander unconfined in the regions of
futurity,"
"Where all is calm as night, yet all immortal day
And truth, forever shines; and love forever burns."
On the other hand, how truly dismal and appalling at such hours as
those I have been describing, is the condition of the genuine Atheist.
When the plans, and projects, and schemes of this world have failed
him, and all his earthly hopes are untimely blighted by the sad
strokes of cruel fortune; where is his consolation--where his refuge?
Shall he turn to those whom the world once called his friends? Alas!
they were with him in summer and sunshine, when his flocks were
feeding on a hundred hills--when his indiscriminate and boundless
hospitality was the theme of praise on the tongue of the selfish and
sycophantic sensualist, who delighted in his "glutton meal;" and his
splendid mansion was the scene of music and of revelry. In the hour of
his bereavement they turn from him, and even mock him in his
misfortunes! Shall he attempt again to mend his broken fortunes and
rise once more in the world's thought? Perhaps some insuperable
barrier stands before him; friends have deserted him, and old age may
be fast incapacitating him to run again the race of earthly ambition;
and the base treachery of friends, and the mortifying neglect of a
cold and selfish world, may have implanted in his heart, the deep and
uneradicable feeling of dark and gloomy misanthropy, which may forever
unfit him for wearing the world's honors, or coveting the world's
praise. Shall he throw his thoughts beyond this world's horizon, and
look with the spirit of prayer and supplication to heaven for that
support and consolation which is denied him here? No! no! His fatal
skepticism prevents his hopes from resting on another world. It shuts
him up here amid all the gloom and horror of his terrestrial
mansion--concentrates all his dismal thoughts within his own
overwhelmed soul, and leaves him a prey to misery and despondency.
"A woe stricken being, to whose heart
The visions of earth can no rapture impart,
On whose brow the pale garlands of Hope have all faded,
While his soul by the midnight of sorrow is shaded;
What balm could you bring to his bosom's deep sorrow,
If eternity promised no glorious to-morrow?"
I hope then I have said enough to show that there are times and
seasons when the heart of man turns instinctively to the God of nature
for support; that there are times when philosophy, and science, and
friendship, all must fail to administer consolation to the oppressed
heart:--it is then that religion and religion alone can furnish the
balm that can neutralize woe. Under its benign influence the billows
of adversity may roll on--they may break over our heads, but cannot
overwhelm the soul when sheltered securely under its divine panoply.
Now let us inquire whether woman experiences oftener than man those
moments of sorrow and affliction, which religion alone can assuage;
and this inquiry, I think, must be answered by all, in the
affirmative. The sorrows, and griefs, and trials of woman, are not of
so palpable, conspicuous, and sometimes violent a character as are
those of man. They do not attract so universally the gaze of the
world--their consequences are not so extensive--they do not so much
occupy the pen of the historian, or draw forth the speculations of
philosophy; but they are more numerous, more secret; and for this very
reason more calculated to turn her to her God for consolation. I have
already in the preceding number shown, that woman, from her position
in society, is obliged to conceal more than man. She experiences many
sorrows and afflictions, which like the Viola of Shakspeare, she never
tells to any one, but keeps them locked up in her own bosom to brood
over in solitude. Rousseau says, a man truly happy, neither speaks
much nor laughs much--he hugs, so to speak, the happiness to his
heart. "_Il reserre, pour ainsi dire, le bonheur autour de son
coeur._" The assertion which Rousseau here makes concerning the
happiness of man, is strictly true, when applied to the misery of
woman--especially to that most numerous class of her griefs which
spring from wounded affections. This species of misery, if I may
borrow the pencil of Rousseau "elle reserre autour de son coeur." Her
shrinking modesty dares not confess it to the world; sometimes even
the penetrating scrutiny of an affectionate mother is shunned and
deceived. What then is her resource? She knows there is a God who
inhabiteth the high and lofty places of eternity, who has promised to
turn from none who seek him--she feels that all her sorrows are known
to him. She can truly exclaim in the language of the Psalmist, "thou
hast searched me and known me. Thou knowest my down sitting, mine
uprising: thou {625} understandest my thoughts afar off. Thou
compasseth my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my
ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but lo, O Lord! thou
knowest it altogether." With this being then, who already knows all
her afflictions, does she commune--to him she pours forth the torrent
of her feelings, and tells the tale of her concentrated woe, which no
vulgar ear shall ever hear. This communion becomes sweet to her in the
hour of her afflictions, and she bestows upon him who has promised to
be the friend of the disconsolate and broken-hearted, that love which
perhaps has been slighted and despised by another. "As the dove (says
Irving,) will clasp its wings to its sides, and cover and conceal the
wound that is preying on its vitals--so is it the nature of woman, to
hide from the world the pangs of wounded affection. Even when
fortunate she scarcely breathes it to herself; but when otherwise, she
buries it in the recesses of her bosom, and there lets it cower and
brood among the ruins of her peace."
It is at such times as these she feels the great want of religion; and
accordingly we find that on tracing the history of woman, we often see
her religious career commencing after some great disappointment--after
some cruel stroke which has been inflicted on the feelings and
affections. In Catholic countries we frequently see women, after these
great disappointments, retiring from the world and immuring themselves
for the remainder of their lives within the walls of a nunnery, where
at a distance from the world and free from the rude gaze of an
inquisitive society, they may spend the remainder of their days in
silent and pensive melancholy, softened and ameliorated by sweet
communion with God. You rarely hear of this on the part of man. If he
survives the misfortunes that for a time have oppressed him, he
plunges into the active business and bustle of the world, and in the
midst of his employments he finds new occupation for his mind--he
summons it away from the contemplation of his grief. New feelings are
called into play, and often succeed in banishing the old. How often do
we find _ambition_ becoming the succedaneum of _love_.
But woman has not this opportunity of withdrawing herself from the
scenes of her misfortunes and griefs. Every object around her reflects
back their images upon her mind; and, go where she will, she is still
like those unfortunate beings, laboring under the illusions of
spectral apparitions;--the phantoms are around her still, gazing on
her with lurid glare whilst awake, haunting her whilst asleep. Nothing
but religion can afford her solace, under afflictions so oppressive
and crushing. Without it, she may well exclaim in the language of the
"Dirge,"
"Vain is the boasted force of mind,
When hope has ta'en her flight;
Then memory is most unkind--
And thought is as the dread whirlwind
That works on earth its blight."
In addition to what is said above, it may be observed that the
physical infirmities of woman, are greater than those of man; she is
liable to sudden changes in health, which endanger her life. Every
child which comes into the world, is an admonition to the mother on
the precariousness of human life, and the necessity of living in a
state of constant preparation for another world.
_3d. Dependence and Physical Weakness_.
Another cause, no doubt, of the more religious character of woman, is
her greater feebleness and dependence upon the powers around her, than
that felt by man. When we look to the stupendous mechanism of the
heavens and the earth, and contemplate the mighty powers that are at
work in the universe, the mind naturally turns, in the spirit of
devotion and prayer, to that infinite, incomprehensible, mysterious
being, who guides and directs those powers. When we contemplate, for
example, the globe on which we stand--think of it as moving at the
rate of more than sixty thousand miles per hour, around that luminous
orb, which at the distance of millions of miles, binds it down to its
prescribed orbit; when we think again of this mass on which we stand,
vast and grand to us, but an atom to him who placed it here, rolling
on its axis, carrying us forward with a compound velocity, which if it
could be suddenly arrested by some opposing mass competent to the
resistance, would be sufficient to tear from their bases all the
mountains and hills of the earth, and hurl their scattered fragments
o'er the vallies--a velocity, whose sudden cessation would prostrate
alike the animal and vegetable kingdoms, burying all in one common
chaotic ruin, from which no one being would escape to sing the funeral
dirge of a _dead world_. When we contemplate all this, and know that
there is a hand competent to the control of these mighty powers; that
under its influence, while thus rapidly hurled along through the
illimitable regions of space, the busy operations of men are going
forward; that the grand tower, the enormous pyramid, the slender reed,
and the delicate spire of grass, stand alike unaffected and unshaken
by this velocity; that the slumbers of the infant on its little couch,
and the spider weaving her delicate web in the "autumnal fields," are
alike undisturbed;--when we look again, and contemplate that thin
elastic medium which we breathe, covering the earth like an invisible
mantle, all quiet and calm at the sunset hour, so that even the
thistle-down lies still and motionless on the earth's surface; then
think again of that same medium, lashed into the fearful tempest,
spreading dismay and destruction along its desolating track, and
scattering the mariner and his cargoes over the billows of the sea; or
when we contemplate that principle of heat which pervades the
universe, constituting the great _vis vivica_, or enlivening power of
nature,--so placid, so sweet, and it would scarcely be metaphor to
add, so _tender_, as it exists around us in the mild and bland
atmosphere of a summer's morning, when
"The lark,
Shrill voiced and loud, the messenger of morn,
Calls up the tuneful nations. And ev'ry copse
Deep tangled, tree irregular, and bush
Bending with dewy moisture o'er the heads
Of the coy quiristers that lodge within,
Are prodigal of harmony."
And then think again of this same agent confined in the earth's mass;
by its sudden action laying hold on the globe with the grasp of more
than ten thousand giants, upheaving the dense and mighty stratum which
lies above it, shaking whole continents by its power, and burying the
toppling cities with the accumulated wealth of ages under its fearful
ruins; when we contemplate, I say, all these powers around us, we see
our dependence on _them_, and again _their_ dependence on {626}
omnipotence. The feeling of dependence forced upon the mind, begets a
spirit of devotion and trust towards the God of nature. At first,
overwhelmed by the evidences of mighty power exerted around and over
us, we are almost disposed to cry out in the language of holy writ,
"what is man that thou shouldst be mindful of him, or the son of man
that thou shouldst deign to visit him." But our confidence revives
when we recollect the promise that "if God so clothe the grass of the
field, which to-day is and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he
not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith."
This spirit of dependence, wherever felt, always begets more or less a
religious spirit of devotion. It is this spirit which, in ages of
ignorance and superstition, begets the worship of heroes, of
statesmen, and philanthropists. It is this spirit which has added such
as Hercules, Castor, Pollux, Isis, Osiris, &c. to the vast catalogue
of the gods in the polytheistic religions of antiquity. It is this
same spirit, which makes the subordinate officer and the soldier, look
with awe and the most confident reliance on the successful military
chieftain, who has so often manoeuvred them like a machine, and has
gained victory after victory by those rapid combinations and skilful
evolutions, which to the mind that does not comprehend, appear to be
the result of inspiration rather than the effects of human wisdom.
Wherever in fine, there is a system of dependence, there you will find
always more or less a spirit of reverence. How intensely does this
spirit manifest itself in a father or mother, who has knelt before an
emperor or king, and obtained the pardon of a condemned son. Now, as I
have already observed, woman feels this dependency much more strongly
than man. She is the weaker vessel, and hence there is a devotional
feeling excited by this dependence, which follows the chain of
dependence up, link by link, until it reaches the throne of
omnipotence. Woman does not feel this dependence from a contemplation
of the mighty physical energies exerted around her by the great powers
of nature; but it arises from her greater weakness and dependency when
compared with the other sex.
Do we not all know that there is something much more devotional in the
love of woman than man--a something much more nearly allied to
religion? Do we not know that this same weakness and consequent
dependence, makes woman more confiding, more trusting, more submissive
than man? She feels much greater veneration for the great and the
powerful, and acquiesces much more readily in the tyranny and
oppression of rulers. Even women of the very first order of intellect
feel this reliance and trust on the greater powers around them. Mrs.
Jameson says, in speaking of the Portia of Shakspeare, "I never yet
met in real life, nor ever read in tale or history, of any woman
distinguished for intellect of the highest order, who was not also
remarkable for this _trustingness_ of spirit, this hopefulness and
cheerfulness of temper, which is compatible with the most serious
habits of thought, and the most profound sensibility. Lady Wortley
Montague was one instance; and Madame de Stael furnishes another much
more memorable."
The physical weakness of woman and her consequent dependence on man,
makes religion more necessary to her for another reason. It is her
interest that every restraint should be imposed on the passions of
man; that he should walk in the paths of virtue and morality; that his
superior strength should be subdued and tempered by motives of
humanity. He is then more kind, more attentive, and more loving to
her. He is then a better father, a better economist,--in fine, a
better citizen, fulfilling more perfectly all the relations of life.
The Christian religion, as we shall soon see, is eminently calculated
to produce this happy result, and consequently woman is deeply
interested in its spread. Let no one start forward with the objection,
that in this way she is the better enabled to _govern_ her husband. I
admit this, if, to govern him, means to restrain him from vice and
immorality; but surely this is a government which no honest good
citizen can object to. Every lady has a fearfully deep interest in the
whole character and temperament of her husband's mind and feelings.
Upon them depend, indeed, her weal or woe. Her condition may be
deplorable, and sometimes irremediable, if a wicked husband choose to
oppress her. But that is certainly a holy and a virtuous selfishness,
if selfishness it can possibly be called, which secures our own
welfare and happiness while adding to that of another, by curbing and
controlling his more violent and malignant feelings and passions, and
attuning the whole inner man to harmony and concord.
_4th. Seclusion and Meditation_.
Again, the life of woman, as has been before remarked, is much more
sedentary, more secluded, and consequently more contemplative than
that of man. Solitude and contemplation are very favorable to the
production of religious impressions and the generation of a spirit of
piety and devotion. Man is so constantly occupied amid the busy scenes
of active employment, so much engrossed with his schemes of ambition
and self-aggrandizement, so rapidly whirled forward by the eddying
current of active life, that he scarcely will take time to pause in
the hurry and bustle of existence to contemplate his Maker, and render
to him the homage that is his due. Public devotion even often breaks
in upon his regular routine of life, and frequently mars some little
pet scheme of the day. He is a Sabbath-day worshipper; a worshipper at
spare times and leisure seasons. But the solitary chamber of a woman,
is often by day and by night, the temple from which in her lone hours
she sends her silent prayers to heaven; the temple from which, in her
silent meditations, her thoughts wander forth and hold sweet communion
with the God of nature.
But, let us investigate a little more philosophically, the effects of
this secluded, meditative, contemplative life of woman. And, in the
first place, all will acknowledge that occasional solitude and
consequent meditation are extremely favorable to the cause of virtue
generally. Whilst we are running our dissipated career, under the
excitement of the passions, we rarely have time, leisure, and
reflection sufficient to determine on reform. "It is not in the
madness of intemperate enjoyment," says Dr. Brown, in one of his most
brilliant lectures, "that we see drunkenness in the goblet, or disease
in the feast. Under the actual seduction of the passion we see dimly,
if we see at all, any of the evils to which it leads." It is in the
hour of solitude and reflection, that the remorseful thought of our
errors and vices, comes across the mind; then, in the coolness and
{627} calmness of solitude, can we trace out the blighting evils that
are likely to follow on our career; then, and then alone, can we
dispassionately view, in the vista of the future, our loss of
character, of health and riches, by the course we are pursuing; then
we behold the melancholy consequences, widening out, until they
embrace our family, friends, neighborhood, and state; we then can
summon, in gloomy review before the mind's eye, our wives and
children, dearer to us than life, living in penury and misfortune, and
perhaps dependent for a scanty subsistence upon the cold hand of
charity. When the mind is capable of reflection--of sketching out this
sad picture, there may be hopes of reform. The individual is never
absolutely, hopelessly lost, who indulges in silent meditations on the
past; such an individual may even be saved at the eleventh hour.
Hence, too, there is virtue in mere intelligence, because intelligence
can always think and meditate. Hence, too, the efficacy of solitary
confinement in the gloomy walls of the prison, and the very
deleterious influence of all prison discipline not based on the
principle of solitary confinement.
Again, any scene of distress, any monuments or associations, which
remind us of the instability of the boasted works of man; anything
which forces a comparison in the mind between the transitory character
and nothingness of the things of earth, when compared with the
eternity of ages that are to follow, or with the perfections and
immutability of God; all such reflections as these are calculated to
make a deep religious impression upon the mind. What classic scholar,
for example, can stand upon the Capitol on the Capitoline Mount, in
Modern Rome, and look over the mouldering but still magnificent ruins
of the imperial city, as they lie scattered and confused over the
vallies and the seven hills, and cast a retrospective glance at the
ages which have gone by, without a deep feeling of religious awe and
of veneration towards the God of nature? When he reflects that the
poet of antiquity describes this classic ground, over which the eye of
the traveller is now wandering in pensive and bewildering gaze, as a
solitary wilderness; when Evander, and afterwards when Æneas came to
the Latian Coast; that the brier and the bramble then grew together in
wild luxuriance on the Tarpeian Hill; that the foxes had their holes
and the birds their nests on the Palatine and the Aventine. When he
looks again to the time of the poet, and beholds the proud imperial
city, the mistress of the world, enthroned in all her gorgeous
splendor and costly magnificence upon the seven hills, wielding the
sceptre of her dominion over the earth,
"Until the o'ercanopied horizon fail'd,"
and sees upon the Tarpeian hill, the splendid temple with its golden
ornaments and its stately columns, instead of the brier and the
bramble, and beholds,
"Pretors, proconsuls to their provinces
Hasting, or on return, in robes of state,
Lictors and rods, the ensigns of their power,
Legions and cohorts, turms of horse and wings:
Or embassies from regions far remote,
In various habits on the Appian road,
Or on the Emilian."
And then looks to her again--when in the awful language of the poet,
"The Goth, the Christian, time, war, flood and fire
Have dealt upon the seven hill'd city's pride,"
and sees that the temple upon the Tarpeian mount has been overthrown
and rifled, and the brier and the bramble have come back again, that
owl answers owl upon the Palatine, that the din of arms and the active
bustle and hum of citizens and functionaries of imperial Rome, have
ceased forever on the Appian and Emilian ways, that no stately triumph
mounts the Capitoline hill, to administer to the insatiate ambition of
the rapacious and remorseless Roman, that
"Cypress, and ivy, weed and wall flower grown
Matted and massed together, hillocks heap'd
On what were chambers, arch'd crush'd, columns strown
In fragments, choked up vaults, and frescos steep'd
In subterranean damps,"