while ago, when she was about ten years old, and he had become gray and
wrinkled--though he never needed a staff, nor was his eye dim--that he
rowed over one spring afternoon, and requested the men to leave their work
for a few minutes, and hear something that he had to say to them.
Accordingly, they collected 'considerable of a little crowd' around her
father's store. The lawyer stood in the door, while she made her way
through the throng and sat down on the door-step, at his feet. She did not
remember all that he said; only that he talked to them for about half an
hour, in a calm, conversational tone, on the importance of building
school-houses and educating their children. They seemed to be much pleased
with what he said; and after another half hour's free discussion, the
whole village turned out, and went to work felling trees and hewing
timber; and in the course of a few days a substantial school-house was
erected. From that time forth, she and all her brothers and sisters, and
all her play-mates, at stated hours and seasons, were rigidly imprisoned
therein, and diligently instructed in the rudiments of science.
About this time, she and a brother who was about two years older embarked
on a voyage of discovery. They pulled up the river, at least he did, for
she only held the rudder, two miles, till they come in sight of the
residence of the Great Unknown. There stood the old house, as she had
often gazed at it with wondering eyes from the opposite bank, just as
grim, and dark, and gloomy. It had been their intention to make an open
descent upon it, and boldly beat up the premises. But now, the building
was so silent, and deserted, and frowning, their hearts failed them, and
they crept cautiously along up the southern shore till they were concealed
by a bend in the river; then striking across, they floated down, by
accident as it were, close under the northern bank. When they arrived
under the hill, on the top of which the object of their curiosity was
placed, they looked anxiously up at it; but every thing was as silent as
the grave. Seeing it thus unguarded, they took courage, ran the skiff
ashore, and prepared to land. But when on the point of stepping on the
beach, the door of the house opened, the man himself walked out therefrom
and advanced to the brow of the eminence. There he stood; black all over,
except his face, which at that instant appeared to wear a peculiarly
terrible and ferocious aspect. The children were frightened, and hastily
shoved off their little cockle-boat. But the man came down to the edge of
the water, and called them by name to return. _She_ thought how far off
home was, and no one near to afford assistance in case of need; and when
she thought, she would have been glad to have retreated as fast as
possible; but her brother was commander of the expedition, and without
more words he pushed back to land.
They went ashore, neither of them altogether devoid of fear and trembling,
and sat down on the grassy bank, by the side of their venerable friend. He
soon talked away their timidity; and seemed so mild and affectionate, that
in a few minutes they were chatting and laughing as merrily as ever
children could. He showed them his garden, his trees, and flowers, and
fruits. He gave them a little basket, which they filled with strawberries,
some of which he squeezed between his fingers and rubbed on her cheeks, to
see he said, if they could be made any redder. In fine, he amused them so
much with his stories, and was so pleasant and kind, that they fell more
than ever in love with him; and after promising a dozen times to come and
see him every week while it was summer, they returned gaily home.
But the old man died at last. The children went up one sunshiny morning to
pay him a visit, and found the house all still, and the door locked. They
knocked and knocked, but no one answered. They peeped in at the window and
saw him stretched at length on the bed, fully dressed, with a handkerchief
over his face, and his gray hair lying dishevelled on the pillow. They
called to him; but still there was no answer. Then they became alarmed,
and hurried home. Some men came up, broke open the door, and found him
dead. Without sickness, or premonition of any kind, he had calmly passed
away.
They dug his grave by the side of the cottage, and laid him in it, with
his feet to the east and his head to the west; and left him to rest there,
unknown and unnamed in death, as he had been in life. The whole village,
men, and women, and children, mourned for him many days. But when the days
of lamentation were ended, and they saw his face no more, though their
grief abated, his memory did not, and has not yet passed from their
hearts.
I observed the voice of my hostess to falter more than once, while telling
this simple and dream-like story of her childhood. I could see by the
night-lights too that her bright eyes sometimes became brighter and
sometimes dimmer; both of which circumstances made it only the more
pleasant for me to sit and listen to her words.
'There were no letters,' she said, found in his possession from which
they could learn his name. There were no writings of any kind, except a
bundle of old papers, which she had looked into, but they seemed to be
only disconnected thoughts and memoranda of events and feelings, and threw
no light on his history. At my request she produced a lamp and spread out
the papers on the table. I turned over the worn and time-stained
manuscripts; but the leaves were loose, unnumbered, and put together at
random, and it was some time before I could find a place to begin at.
At length, however, I managed to bring a few sheets in juxtaposition,
such, that with a little stretch of the imagination I could discern a
slight connection between them. And thus, by dim lamp-light, alone, with
the silence of night around, and the old house lifting up its dark and
shadowy form in the distance, I read some of the old man's papers.
Those which I read I took the liberty of putting into my portmanteau,
arguing that though they might be of no use to me, they certainly would be
of none to their present possessors. Some of these papers having appeared
in the KNICKERBOCKER, and met with 'acceptance bounteous,' I am induced to
transcribe for the edification of the reader, a portion of the
autobiography of the writer. It is contained in the last chapter, or
sheet, and is written in a different and more aged hand than the rest; and
gives the 'moving why' of the old man, in isolating himself from his kind,
in one of the great green deserts of the West, 'for which the speech of
England hath no name.'
A DREAM OF YOUTH.
Sixty years old! Many sorrows, many storms encountered, both within and
without, and much journeying along the road of life, have left their
traces on my features and on my head; but I am thankful that they have not
touched my heart. I live alone, but not solitary; for I hold daily
communion with the absent and beloved; communion also, sad but sweet, with
the departed. The forms of those once hated too, are ready to rise up at
my bidding; but they are never summoned. For I wish all within me to be
gentleness and repose; and it ill becomes me on this my last failing
foothold on the verge of the grave, to allow thoughts of hatred to stir up
the turbid waters of bitterness which have been slumbering so many years
in my heart.
So I stand up here calmly at the end of my journey, and look back on the
path which I have trodden. And what a path! Far back it runs, growing
fainter and narrower, till I lose sight of it, an indistinct line, in the
distance. I shall not say how many steep hills it crosses, where it might
better have kept in the plains; how many deviations it makes from a
straight course, apparently for the sole purpose of wandering through
difficult places; or how often it runs along over burning sandy deserts,
parallel with, and but a few steps from, the verge of a cool and pleasant
meadow. I shall say nothing of this; for of the million of paths that
intersect this vast plain of Life, there is probably not one which, when
the traveller looks back upon it, does not like mine seem marked out by
the veriest caprice of chance. Each one gropes its way along, like the
crooked track of a blind man; and when it would appear the easier and
almost the only way to keep on up the gentle eminence, whereon might have
been found renown and happiness, by that same constant fatality, it
suddenly turns short off to one side, plunges down into the rocky ravine,
and pants on, for many a weary mile. That man shapes not his own ends, is
a truth which I felt long since, and which each day's experience brings
home to me with the freshness of a new discovery. It is a truth which
rises up and mocks us, when we sit down to calculate or plan for the
future; and it almost staggers our confidence in the connection between
human means and the desired result.
But what a path! Proceeding out of the darkness of morning, it struggles
through a brief day, sometimes in sunshine, and sometimes in shade, and
ends in the darkness of night. I glance along it, and the care-worn faces
of the companions of my manhood rise up, on either side, and farther back,
the speaking countenances of the friends of my youth. It is but a narrow
space, the land of Youth, and soon passed; but pleasant, and full of
images of beauty. The sun is not so bright and hot upon it as on some
other parts of the path; but we do not expect happiness in the garish
light of mid-day and reality. The mellowness of a summer evening sunset
lays on it, and thereby it becomes a faery land, a land of bliss and
dreams. How throng up, as I gaze, the forms of those early and best-loved
friends! How distinct and life-like, even at this distance, are their
characters and features! They are all there; not one name has been erased,
and not one picture dimmed, on the tablet of memory. The same warm smile
of kindling pleasure greets me; the same hands are thrown out, as if to
touch my own; and those bright eyes grow brighter as they are turned
toward me.
It is with such companions that I spend the last days of my earthly
pilgrimage; and thus, as I said before, though alone I am not solitary. Is
not such companionship sweet? When they visit me, I throw off old age, as
a garment. Smiling thoughts come gently over me, and life and happiness,
as of wont, course like the mad blood of fever through my veins. I feel
over again those old feelings, repass through those same scenes, and my
heart beats faster or grows pale in the same places and in the same manner
as it once did. The old fields and houses and roads come up too, clothed
at my command, in the snows of winter, or in the beauty of summer. Old
scenes, but still fresh and young; and I am sometimes tempted to believe
that the intervening years have been the illusion of a dream, and that I
am awakening in their midst.
All this, some will say, is the weakness of age. It seems to me to be
rather its strength. The future in life is nothing; and what is the bare
present to any one? The past, then, alone is left me. And if by living in
it I can keep my affections alive, instead of letting their fires,
according to the course of nature, or rather of custom, die down into cold
ashes, I do not call myself weak if I do as much as possible forget the
present.
I had, when I was young, many dreams; such as I dare say all have. They
seem such to me now, only not at all shadowy. On the contrary, they become
more and more like reality as my distance from them increases, while their
hues are as well marked and distinct as ever. Many and bright; but the
brightest of all, the dream of my youth, is that which flashes across my
recollection, when there comes into my heart the thought of my cousin
Jane!
My cousin JANE! Her form comes up before me, light and elastic and joyous,
as though summoned for the first time, and as though it had not been my
daily visitor for many a long year. Time writes no wrinkle on thy snowy
brow, my first love! That glad smile knows no weariness, and I know no
weariness in gazing on it. Those deep eyes, full of feeling; those soft
words that thrill; I see and hear and feel them now, as I saw and heard
and felt them first. Wilt thou never be tired of looking up to me, with
that sweet, timid, confiding, tearful glance? Will the rising flush of thy
cheek and thy subdued smile, be always fresh as now, and as in that hour
when first we met? Thou hast been my companion, my unmurmuring,
ever-present, unchanging companion, through many a dark time and stormy
scene; and thou and the heart in which thou livest will die together.
We met, my cousin Jane and I, when she was just putting on womanhood; had
begun to find out the depths of her own heart, to doubt whether those
depths ever could be filled, and to feel that unless they were, life would
be but a blank. Not that there were not many willing enough to love her
and be loved; the beauty of her form and character drew around her a crowd
of admirers. But among them all, her nice perception saw that there was
not one, of whom the exterior did not form by far the largest part of the
man. Her admirers were good, honorable men; she respected and esteemed
them; but still, gentle and timid and humble as she was, without knowing
why, she felt that there was an impassable gulf between her and them.
Their thoughts were not like her thoughts. Her social disposition led her
much into their way, and though she tried to avoid it, she was told more
than once, that the happiness or misery of her devoted lover depended on
her smiles. It was a painful situation for one of her retiring and
benevolent disposition, to be sure; and it is doubtful to which of the
two, the lover or the mistress, every such rejection caused the keenest
pang.
But this was not the end of it. Malice soon prefixed to her name the
epithet scornful; and among her school-girl friends there were some who
always passed by on the other side. Poor girl! She wept bitter tears over
these sneers and slights, for she had not studied the world enough to
learn and despise its despicable things. Even then, dear girl! too, she
tried to love all the world, that is, all her native village. And she
succeeded, at least far enough to forgive them all, and thus to feel her
own mind at peace and resigned. But there was a tinge of sadness left on
her Grecian face after all; for to the young, when the out-stretched hand
of kindly feeling is coldly put aside, the grief is as great as though the
repulse were deserved.
And I--I hardly know what I was, when I first saw my cousin. I was without
father or mother; the world seemed wide and rather cheerless; and there
was a settled impression on my mind, that it was my business to glide
along through life, calmly and noiselessly; attach my affections to no
external object; exist without being the cause of joy, and die without
being the cause of tears, to any human being. I came and took up my abode
in the pleasant village where my uncle resided, and set down to gain some
knowledge of that noble science, civil law. I took up the study, not
because I had any intention of engaging in the active duties of the
profession, but for the name's sake, and because I loved it for itself. My
uncle, he was a kind, good man, showed himself a father to me, took me
into his family, tried to encourage and rouse me; and for his kindness,
though it failed of its end, he had at the time, and has always had, my
sincere though unexpressed thanks.
I had hardly become acquainted with my relatives, uncle, aunt, and their
three children, when I entered my office, shut the door, and immersed
myself in books and my own thoughts. That those thoughts were not of the
most joyous nature, I need hardly say. Still, looking back to that period,
from where I stand now, I cannot say they were misanthropic. If I did not
love all my species, it was because I saw nothing lovely in any body; but
I did not hate them. I felt that I was an insignificant, an unnoticeable
drop in the great world; that it was my misfortune to be so constituted as
to be incapable of uniting closely and mingling with other drops; and
that, without offending my neighbors, it would be my duty and pleasure to
keep myself distinct from the rest, and hidden in some obscure corner. In
one word, the prevailing feeling was, that nobody cared for me, and I
cared for nobody.
And yet, strange as it may appear, I was far from being unhappy.
Sometimes, it is true, my in-turned thoughts became weary, and pined for
human fellowship; and I grew sick at heart, as I contemplated the future,
a vast, dry, waste, desolate desert of parched sand, over which I must
toil and thirst, without one single being to speak a word of kindness, or
give me a drop of water. But these were fits, fits of wildness, I called
them, and seldom lasted long. And when they came over me, one attempt to
link my sympathies with others was always sufficient to throw me back into
a state of mind harder and colder than before. For it was so fated, that
all my overtures, and they were not many, were met with open repulse or
wary suspicion. It is true, suspicion is a necessary ingredient in human
character; but I did not think of this then, and so it had the same effect
as though I had found, indeed I thought I _had_ found, that coldness and
insensibility were the prominent characteristics of the race.
And yet, as I said before, I was not unhappy. If there was no happiness,
there was at least no unhappiness, in sitting down for hours, and brooding
over my own idiosyncrasies. It made me proud, to see and despise the
weakness of others; and it gave me stern joy, to walk about and feel that
there was a kind of armed neutrality between them and me. By degrees there
arose, also, a gloomy pleasure in dwelling on, and picturing in deeper
colors, the failings and baseness of my neighbors. Humble and weak as I
knew myself to be, I exulted in my strength, because there were some still
more weak and humble. Far back as my recollection ran, there had never
been any thing in the world that seemed to me worthy of very much exertion
or toil to obtain; but now I first learned to despise others for
possessing feeble energies, as well as for directing them to the
attainment of little objects. I am afraid, if left to myself, I should
have hardened into a genuine hater; but I was not left to myself.
I have mentioned my uncle's kindness; his whole family were not less kind.
My cousin Jane, especially, saw that I was silent, and fancied that I was
unhappy, and tried, by a thousand little devices and arts, to lull me into
forgetfulness of myself, and entice me into a more sociable frame of mind.
I will not say that I was insensible to her enticements; I rather liked
her, she was so gentle and mild and considerate. There was an air of truth
and simplicity about her; she would sit herself down so cheerfully to
amuse me, and there was such a sparkle in her blue eyes when, as she said,
I condescended to interest myself in her little affairs, that I began, at
length, to love to be with her. But proud as I was, when I viewed mankind
at a distance, I no sooner came in contact with any one, who was not
immeasurably beneath me, than I felt myself sinking immeasurably beneath
him; and so, like a fool as I was, I fancied that all my cousin's kindness
was the result of her sense of duty to her relation; or, what was worse,
of pity for his moroseness. This faint suspicion became, in a little
while, a strong certainty; and I confined myself more closely to my books,
and looked into my cousin's guileless, enthusiastic face, with coldness.
I had known her now a year, and yet I hardly knew her at all; for I had
seen her scarcely ever, except when it was impossible to avoid it, and
those occasions were not frequent or long enough to enable me to learn
perfectly her mind and character. From every such meeting, I went away
resolved to see her no more in future; which resolution was sure to be
overruled by second and more bitter thoughts. How I lived during that
year, I scarcely know; or how it was that I grew uneasy away from her, and
frequently surprised myself courting her society. But as time rolled on,
so it was. There was a fascination about her, the magic of which was, that
it charmed to sleep my vigilant suspicion. I did not perceive any change
in myself, when night after night I was with her, talking to her about
poetry, beauty, love, and the thousand themes that interest the
unrestrained youthful heart; or that I was different from what I used to
be, when I listened to her, with a gush of pleasure, as she spoke at once
with lips and eyes, and in speaking, disclosed the unimagined riches of
her mind and heart. So gradual was the change, that I was wholly unaware
of it.
But of one thing I was aware; the face of nature and of man underwent a
strange and sudden change in appearance. I looked into the face of my
neighbor, and lo, he was my brother! The fire of benevolence and sympathy
warmed every vein, and a new life animated every nerve within me. I felt
no longer that I was alone, but that indissoluble cords bound me to the
whole human family, to every being in whose nostrils was the breath of
life; and that for his good, as well as for my own, it was my business to
labor. New motives of action, (or rather motives of action, for there were
none before,) were set before me; and I felt light of heart and wing;
eager to bound forward and lend the strength of my arm to the cause of the
race. The face of nature too was altered. Every part that came within the
range of my vision, her seasons, her vestments in winter and summer, her
sunshine and clouds, each one was a melody, and all together made harmony.
Still, I was scarcely sensible that I was different from what I was a year
ago; for at each period I felt that I was in my natural and proper state
of mind. So slight are the influences necessary to turn the young heart
into the permanent channel of selfishness, hatred and unhappiness, or into
that of love and peace!
It was not long before I found out that I loved my cousin Jane. How I
first discovered it I do not remember; but I do remember a firm and
abiding resolution, even then, that I would not love her. I sat down by
her side, I listened to her music, with that distinct impression. I would
not for the world have had any body suspect my feelings, because I was
ashamed of the weakness. I had persuaded myself, and could not convince
myself to the contrary, that there was no hope of her returning my
passion. And yet, with the words on my lips, 'This is folly--I will not!'
I yielded myself to the delicious current, forgot all the world and
myself, and in the intoxication of the hour, saw visions and dreamed
dreams.
But there came a shock; one which awoke me from a trance like that of the
Opium-eater. It was when I saw that my cousin's smiles and attentions were
not all devoted to me. There was another, a young man of promise and
expectations, a year or two my senior, and far beyond me in the graces and
polish of society, who had lately become intimate in my uncle's family.
Engaged in the same pursuits, and being much with him, I had rather liked
him; in fact I liked him very much. He had seen, admired, and in less than
six months, _loved_ my Cousin Jane: this I knew, for jealousy is
keen-eyed. You will not wonder then that I hated him; not on his own
account--alter his feelings toward her, and I should have felt toward him
as before; but on account of his love--hated him with a deadly hatred.
It would be useless to tell how often I have sat down and watched them,
when my cousin's sensitive countenance would brighten at his bright
thoughts, or burst forth into a merry laugh at his brilliant wit and ready
repartee; or how often the iron has entered into my soul when I have seen
her hang on his arm, and listen in breathless attention to his lightest
word, and testify in a thousand ways her pleasure at his coming, and in
his presence. And _he_, he looked on me with the most immovable
indifference. He did not seem to consider me worthy of his attention; even
as a rival. He went straight forward, calmly and quietly, as though I had
not existed; and if he ever glanced at my pretensions, it was perhaps with
a smile of confident success. I knew he loved her; I fancied that she
loved him, and I hated them both for it.
I went into my office one day--if it were not part of the dream I would
not tell it--in a state of partial insanity. I knew, saw, heard, felt
nothing but one unalterable purpose of revenge. There happened to be a
small pistol lying in the back room; I took it up, and carefully loaded
it; loaded it without the tremor of a single muscle, for my heart was
lead. I put it into my pocket, and walked the streets up and down, an hour
or two, or it may have been four hours. I did not take count of the time.
The heavens reeled above me, and the earth reeled beneath. At last he
came. A thrill, the first that day, a thrill of triumph ran through my
whole frame. When we met I stopped and took hold of the pistol in my
pocket, but had not power to draw my hand out again; the strings of
volition seemed broken. He stopped also; looked at me in some surprise;
made a remark that I 'did not appear to be well,' and passed on. I looked
after him, sick at heart with revenge deferred, and cursed my own
pusillanimity.