RACHEL DYER:
A NORTH AMERICAN STORY.
BY JOHN NEAL.
PORTLAND:
PUBLISHED BY SHIRLEY AND HYDE.
1828.
DISTRICT OF MAINE.... TO WIT:
_DISTRICT CLERK’S OFFICE._
BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the eighth day of October, A.D. 1828, and
in the fifty-third year of the Independence of the United States
of America, Shirley & Hyde of said District, have deposited in
this office, the title of a book, the right whereof they claim as
proprietors, in the words following, _to wit_.
“Rachel Dyer: A North American Story. By John Neal. Portland.”
In conformity to the act of the Congress of the United States, entitled
“An Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of
maps, charts and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies,
during the times therein mentioned;” and also, to an act, entitled “An
Act supplementary to an act, entitled An Art for the encouragement
of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts and books, to
the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein
mentioned; and for extending the benefits thereof to the arts of
designing, engraving and etching historical and other prints.”
J. MUSSEY, _Clerk of the District of Maine_.
A true copy as of record,
Attest, J. MUSSEY, _Clerk D. C. Maine_.
PREFACE.
I have long entertained a suspicion, all that has been said by the
novel-writers and dramatists and poets of our age to the contrary
notwithstanding, that personal beauty and intellectual beauty, or
personal beauty and moral beauty, are not inseparably connected with,
nor apportioned to each other. In ERRATA, a work of which _as_ a work,
I am heartily ashamed now, I labored long and earnestly to prove this.
I made _my_ dwarf a creature of great moral beauty and strength.
Godwin, the powerful energetic and philosophizing Godwin, saw a
shadow of this truth; but he saw nothing more--the substance escaped
him. He taught, and he has been followed by others, among whom are
Brown, Scott and Byron, (I observe the chronological order) that a
towering intellect may inhabit a miserable body; that heroes are not
of necessity six feet high, nor of a godlike shape, and that we may
be deceived, if we venture to judge of the inward by the outward man.
But they stopped here. They did not perceive, or perceiving, would not
acknowledge the whole truth; for if we consider a moment, we find that
all their _great_ men are scoundrels. Without one exception I believe,
their heroes are hypocrites or misanthropes, banditti or worse; while
their good men are altogether subordinate and pitiable destitute of
energy and wholly without character.
Now believing as I do, in spite of such overwhelming authority, that a
man may have a club-foot, or a hump-back, or even red hair and yet be a
good man--peradventure a great man; that a dwarf with a distorted shape
may be a giant in goodness of heart and greatness of temper; and that
moral beauty _may_ exist where it appears not to have been suspected by
the chief critics of our age, and of past ages--namely, in a deformed
body (like that of Æsop,) I have written this book.
Let me add however that although such was my principal, it was not my
only object. I would call the attention of our novel-writers and our
novel-readers to what is undoubtedly native and peculiar, in the early
history of our Fathers; I would urge them to believe that though there
is much to lament in that history, there is nothing to conceal; that if
they went astray, as they most assuredly did in their judgments, they
went astray conscientiously, with what they understood to be the law
of God in their right hands. The “_Salem Tragedie_” is in proof--that
is the ground-work of my story; and I pray the reader to have patience
with the author, if he should find this tale rather more serious in
parts, and rather more argumentative in parts, than stories, novels and
romances generally are.
I do not pretend to say that the book I now offer to my countrymen, is
altogether such a book as I would write now, if I had more leisure,
nor altogether such a book as I hope to write before I die; but as I
cannot afford to throw it entirely away, and as I believe it to be much
better, because more evidently prepared for a healthy good purpose,
than any other I have written, I have concluded to publish it--hoping
it may be regarded by the wise and virtuous of our country as some sort
of atonement for the folly and extravagance of my earlier writing.
The skeleton of this tale was originally prepared for Blackwood, as
the first of a series of North-American Stories: He accepted it, paid
for it, printed it, and sent me the proofs. A misunderstanding however
occurred between us, about other matters, and I withdrew the story and
repaid him for it. It was never published therefore; but was put aside
by me, as the frame-work for a novel--which novel is now before the
reader.
JOHN NEAL.
Portland, October 1, 1828.
P.S. After some consideration, I have concluded to publish a preface,
originally intended for the NORTH AMERICAN STORIES alluded to above.
It was never published, nor has it ever been read by any body but
myself. Among those who are interested for the encouragement of our
native literature, there may be some who will not be sorry to see what
my ideas _were_ on the subject of novel-writing, as well as what they
_are_. Changes have been foretold in my views--and I owe it to our
people to acknowledge, that in a good degree, the prediction has been
accomplished I do not feel now as I did, when I wrote Seventy-Six,
Randolph, and the rest of the works published in America; nor even
as I did, when I wrote those that were published over seas. The mere
novel-reader had better skip the following pages and go directly to the
story. The introductory chapter in all human probability will be too
much for him.
J. N.
UNPUBLISHED PREFACE
TO THE NORTH-AMERICAN STORIES, ALLUDED TO IN PAGE V.
The author of this work is now under the necessity of bidding the
novel-readers of the day, on both sides of the water, farewell, and
in all probability, forever. By them it may be considered a trivial
affair--a time for pleasantry, or peradventure for a formal expression
of what are called good wishes. But by him, who does not feel like
other men--or does not understand their language, when they talk in
this way, it will ever be regarded as a very serious thing. He would
neither conceal nor deny the truth--he would not so affront the feeling
within him--and he says therefore without affectation or ceremony, that
it goes to his heart even to bid the novel-readers of the age, the few
that have read his novels, it were better to say--farewell.
These volumes are the last of a series which even from his youth up,
he had been accustomed to meditate upon as a worthy and affectionate
offering to his family and to those who have made many a long winter
day in a dreary climate, very cheerful and pleasant to him--the
daughters of a dear friend--of one who, if his eye should ever fall
upon this page, will understand immediately more than a chapter could
tell, of the deep wayward strange motives that have influenced the
author to say thus much and no more, while recurring for the last time
to the bright vision of his youth. And the little that he does say
now, is not said for the world;--for what care they about the humble
and innocent creatures, whose gentleness and sincerity about their own
fire-side, were for a long time all that kept a man, who was weary and
sick of the great world, from leaving it in despair? No, it is not said
for them; but for any one of that large family who may happen to be
alive now, and in the way of remembering “the stranger that was within
their gates”--when to the world he may be as if he never had been. Let
them not be amazed when they discover the truth; nor afraid nor ashamed
to see that the man whom they knew only as the stranger from a far
country, was also an author.
In other days, angels were entertained in the shape of travellers
and way-faring men; but ye--had ye known every stranger that knocked
at your door to be an angel, or a messenger of the Most High, could
not have treated him more like an immortal creature than ye did that
unknown man, who now bears witness to your simplicity and great
goodness of heart. With you it was enough that a fellow-creature was
unhappy--you strove to make him happy; and having done this, you sent
him away, ignorant alike of his people, his country and his name.
* * * * *
This work is the last of the sort I believe--the very last I shall ever
write. Reader--stop!--lay down the book for a moment and answer me. Do
you feel no emotion at the sight of that word? You are surprised at
the question. Why should you feel any, you ask. Why should you?--let
us reason together for a moment. Can it be that you are able to bear
of the final consummation of a hope which had been the chief stay of
a fellow-creature for many--many years?--Can it be that you feel no
sort of emotion at hearing him say, Lo! I have finished the work--it
is the last--no sensation of inquietude? Perhaps you now begin to see
differently; perhaps you would now try to exculpate yourself. You are
willing to admit now that the affair is one of a graver aspect than you
first imagined. You are half ready to deny now that you ever considered
it otherwise. But mark me--out of your own mouth you are condemned.
Twice have I said already--three times have I said already, that this
was the last work of the sort I should ever write, and you have read
the declaration as you would, the passing motto of a title-page. You
neither cared for it, nor thought of it; and had I not alarmed you
by my abruptness, compelled you to stop and think, and awed you by
steadfastly rebuking your inhumanity, you would not have known by
to-morrow whether I had spoken of it as my last work or not. Consider
what I say--is it not the truth?--can you deny it? And yet you--_you_
are one of the multitude who dare to sit in judgment upon the doings
of your fellow men. It is on what you and such as you say, that authors
are to depend for that which is of more value to them than the breath
of life--character. How dare you!--You read without reflection, and you
hear without understanding. Yet upon the judgment of such as you--so
made up, it is that the patient and the profound, the thoughtful and
the gifted, are to rely for immortality.
To return to what I was about saying--the work now before you, reader,
is the last of a series, meditated as I have already told you, from my
youth. It was but a dream at first--a dream of my boyhood, indefinite,
vague and shadowy; but as I grew up, it grew stronger and braver and
more substantial. For years it did not deserve the name of a plan--it
was merely a breathing after I hardly knew what, a hope that I should
live to do something in a literary way worthy of my people--accompanied
however with an inappeasable yearning for the time and opportunity
to arrive. But so it was, that, notwithstanding all my anxiety and
resolution, I could not bring myself to make the attempt--even the
attempt--until it appeared no longer possible for me to do what for
years I had been very anxious to do. The engagement was of too sacred a
nature to be trifled with--perhaps the more sacred in my view for being
made only with myself, and without a witness; for engagements having
no other authority than our moral sense of duty to ourselves, would
never be performed, after they grew irksome or heavy, unless we were
scrupulous in proportion to the facility with which we might escape if
we would.
This indeterminate, haunting desire to do what I had so engaged to do,
at last however began to give way before the serious and necessary
business of life, and the continually augmenting pressure of duties
too solemn to be slighted for any--I had almost said for any earthly
consideration. Yea more, to confess the whole truth, I had begun to
regard the enterprise itself--so prone are we to self-deception, so
ready at finding excuses where we have a duty to perform--as hardly
worthy of much power, and as altogether beneath an exalted ambition.
But here I was greatly mistaken; for I have an idea now, that a great
novel--such a novel as might be made--if all the powers that could
be employed upon it were found in one man, would be the greatest
production of human genius. It is a law and a history of itself--to
every people--and throughout all time--in literature and morals--in
character and passion--yea--in what may be called the fire-side
biography of nations. It would be, if rightly managed, a picture of
the present for futurity--a picture of human nature, not only here
but every where--a portrait of man--a history of the human heart--a
book therefore, written not only in a universal, but in what may be
considered as an everlasting language--the language of immortal,
indistructable spirits. Such are the parables of Him who spoke that
language best.
Again however, the subject was revived. Sleeping and waking, by night
and by day, it was before me; and at last I began to perceive that if
the attempt were ever to be made, it must be made by one desperate,
convulsive, instantaneous effort. I determined to deliberate no
longer--or rather to stand no longer, shivering like a coward, upon
the brink of adventure, under pretence of deliberation; and therefore,
having first carefully stopped my ears and shut my eyes, I threw myself
headlong over the precipice. Behold the result! If I have not brought
up the pearls, I can say at least that I have been to the bottom--and
I might have added--of the human heart sometimes--but for the perverse
and foolish insincerity of the world, which if I had so finished the
sentence, would have set their faces forever against my book; although
that same world, had I been wise enough--no, not wise enough but
cunning enough, to hold my peace, might have been ready to acknowledge
that I had been sometimes, even where I say--to the very bottom of the
human heart.
I plunged. But when I did, it was rather to relieve my own soul from
the intolerable weight of her own reproach, than with any hope of
living to complete the design, except at a sacrifice next in degree
to that of self-immolation. Would you know what more than any other
thing--more than all other things determined me at last? I was an
American. I had heard the insolent question of a Scotch Reviewer,
repeated on every side of me by native Americans--“_Who reads an
American Book?_” I could not bear this--I could neither eat nor sleep
till my mind was made up. I reasoned with myself--I strove hard--but
the spirit within me would not be rebuked. Shall I go forth said I, in
the solitude of my own thought, and make war alone against the foe--for
alone it must be made, or there will be no hope of success. There must
be but one head, one heart in the plan--the secret must not even be
guessed at by another--it must be single and simple, one that like the
wedge in mechanics, or in the ancient military art, must have but one
point, and that point must be of adamant. Being so it may be turned
aside: A thousand more like itself, may be blunted or shivered; but if
at last, any one of the whole should make any impression whatever upon
the foe, or effect any entrance whatever into the sanctity and strength
of his tremendous phalanx, then, from that moment, the day is our own.
Our literature will begin to wake up, and our pride of country will
wake up with it. Those who follow will have nothing to do but _keep_
what the forlorn hope, who goes to irretrievable martyrdom if he fail,
has _gained_.
Moreover--who was there to stand by the native American that should
go out, haply with a sling and a stone, against a tower of strength
and the everlasting entrenchments of prejudice? Could he hope to find
so much as one of his countrymen, to go with him or even to bear his
shield? Would the Reviewers of America befriend him? No--they have not
courage enough to fight their own battles manfully.[1] No--they would
rather flatter than strike. They negociate altogether too much--where
blows are wanted, they give words. And the best of our literary
champions, would they? No; they would only bewail his temerity, if he
were the bold headlong creature he should be to accomplish the work;
and pity his folly and presumption, if he were any thing else.
[1] Or had not before this was written. Look to the North-American
Review before 1825, for proof.
After all however, why should they be reproached for this? They
have gained their little reputation hardly. “It were too much to
spend that little”--so grudgingly acquiesced in by their beloved
countrymen--“rashly.” No wonder they fight shy. It is their
duty--considering what they have at stake--their little all.
There is Washington Irving now; he has obtained the reputation of
being--what?--why at the best, of being only the American Addison, in
the view of Englishmen. And is this a title to care much for? Would
such a name, though Addison stood far higher in the opinion of the
English themselves, than he now does, or ever again will, be enough to
satisfy the ambition of a lofty minded, original thinker? Would such a
man falter and reef his plumage midway up the altitude of his blinding
and brave ascent, to be called the American Addison, or even what in
my view were ten thousand times better, the American Goldsmith.[2]
No--up to the very key stone of the broad blue firmament! he would
say, or back to the vile earth again: ay, lower than the earth first!
Understand me however. I do not say this lightly nor disparagingly. I
love and admire Washington Irving. I wish him all the reputation he
covets, and of the very kind he covets. Our paths never did, never will
cross each other. And so with Mr. Cooper; and a multitude more, of whom
we may rightfully be proud. They have gained just enough popular favor
to make them afraid of hazarding one jot or tittle of it, by stepping
aside into a new path. No one of these could avail me in my design.
They would have everything to lose, and nothing to gain by embarking
in it. While I--what had I to lose--nay what _have_ I to lose? I am
not now, I never have been, I never shall be an author by trade. The
opinion of the public is not the breath of life to me; for if the truth
must be told, I have to this hour very little respect for it--so long
as it is indeed the opinion of the public--of the mere multitude, the
careless, unthinking judgment of the mob, unregulated by the wise and
thoughtful.
[2] I speak here of Goldsmith’s prose, not of his poetry. Heaven forbid!
To succeed as I hoped, I must put everything at hazard. It would
not do for me to imitate anybody. Nor would it do for my country.
Who would care for the _American_ Addison where he could have the
English by asking for it? Who would languish, a twelvemonth after they
appeared, for Mr. Cooper’s imitations of Sir Walter Scott, or Charles
Brockden Brown’s imitations of Godwin? Those, and those only, who
after having seen the transfiguration of Raphael, (or that of Talma,)
or Dominichino’s St. Jerome, would walk away to a village painting
room, or a provincial theatre, to pick their teeth and play the critic
over an imitation of the one or a copy of the other. At the best,
all such things are but _imitations_. And what are imitations? Sheer
mimicry--more or less exalted to be sure; but still mimicry--wherever
the _copies_ of life are copied and not life itself: a sort of
high-handed, noon-day plagiarism--nothing more. People are never
amazed, nor carried away, nor uplifted by imitations. They are pleased
with the ingenuity of the artist--they are delighted with the closeness
of the imitation--but that is all. The better the work is done, the
worse they think of the workman. He who can paint a great picture,
cannot copy--David Teniers to the contrary notwithstanding; for David
never painted a great picture in his life, though he has painted small
ones, not more than three feet square, which would sell for twenty-five
thousand dollars to day.
Yes--to succeed, I must imitate nobody--I must _resemble_ nobody; for
with your critic, resemblance in the unknown to the known, is never
anything but adroit imitation. To succeed therefore, I must be unlike
all that have gone before me. That were no easy matter; nor would be
it so difficult as men are apt to believe. Nor is it necessary that I
should do _better_ than all who have gone before me. I should be more
likely to prosper, in the long run, by worse original productions--with
a poor story told in poor language, (if it were original in spirit and
character) than by a much better story told in much better language, if
after the transports of the public were over, they should be able to
trace a resemblance between it and Walter Scott, or Oliver Goldsmith,
or Mr. Addison.
So far so good. There was, beyond a doubt, a fair chance in the great
commonwealth of literature, even though I should not achieve a miracle,
nor prove myself both wiser and better than all the authors who had
gone before me. And moreover, might it not be possible--_possible_ I
say--for the mob are a jealous guardian of sepulchres and ashes, and
high-sounding names, particularly where a name will save them the
trouble of judging for themselves, or do their arguments for them in
the shape of a perpetual demonstration, whatever may be the nature of
the controversy in which they are involved--might it not be possible
then, I say, that, as the whole body of mankind have been growing
wiser and wiser, and better and better, since the day when these
great writers flourished, who are now ruling “our spirits from their
urns,” that authors may have improved with them?--that they alone
of the whole human race, by some possibility, may not have remained
altogether stationary age after age--while the least enquiring and the
most indolent of human beings--the very multitude--have been steadily
advancing both in knowledge and power? And if so, might it not be
_possible_ for some improvements to be made, some discoveries, even yet
in style and composition, by lanching forth into space. True, we might
not be certain of finding a new world, like Columbus, nor a new heaven,
like Tycho Brahe; but we should probably encounter some phenomena in
the great unvisited moral sky and ocean; we should at least find out,
after a while--which would of itself be the next greatest consolation
for our trouble and anxiety, after that of discovering a new world
or a new system,--that there remained no new world nor system to be
discovered; that they who should adventure after us, would have so much
the less to do for all that we had done; that they must follow in our
steps; that if our health and strength had been wasted in a prodigious
dream, it would have the good effect of preventing any future waste of
health and strength on the part of others in any similar enterprize.
Islands and planets may still be found, we should say, and they that
find them, are welcome to them; but continents and systems cannot be
beyond where we have been; and if there be any within it, why--they are
neither continents nor systems.
But then, after all, there was one plain question to be asked, which no
honest man would like to evade, however much a mere dreamer might wish
to do so. It was this. After all my fine theory--what are my chances of
success? And if successful, what have I to gain? I chose to answer the
last question first. Gain!--of a truth, it were no easy matter to say.
Nothing _here_, nothing _now_--certainly nothing in America, till my
bones have been canonized; for my countrymen are a thrifty, calculating
people--they give nothing for the reputation of a man, till they are
sure of selling it for more than they give. Were they visited by saints
and prophets instead of gifted men, they would never believe that they
were either saints or prophets, till they had been starved to death--or
lived by a miracle--by no visible means; or until their cast-off
clothes, bones, hair and teeth, or the furniture of the houses wherein
they were starved, or the trees under which they had been chilled to
death, carved into snuff-boxes or walking-sticks, would sell for as
much as that sympathy had cost them, or as much as it would come to,
to build a monument over--I do not say over their unsheltered remains,
for by that time there would be but little or no remains of them to be
found, unmingled with the sky and water, earth and air about them, save
perhaps in here and there a museum or college where they might always
be bought up, however, immortality and all--for something more than
compound interest added to the original cost--but to build a monument
or a shed over the unappropriated stock, with certain privileges to
the manufacturer of the walking-sticks and snuff-boxes aforesaid, so
long as any of the material remained; taking care to provide with all
due solemnity, perhaps by an act of the legislature, for securing the
monopoly to the sovereign state itself.
Thus much perhaps I might hope for from my own people. But what from
the British? They were magnanimous, or at least they would bear to be
told so; and telling them so in a simple, off-hand, ingenuous way, with
a great appearance of sincerity, and as if one had been carried away
by a sudden impulse, to speak a forbidden truth, or surprised into a
prohibited expression of feeling by some spectacle of generosity, in
spite of his constitutional reserve and timidity and caution, would be
likely to _pay well_. But I would do no such thing. I would flatter
nobody--no people--no nation. I would be to nobody--neither to my own
countrymen, nor to the British--unless I were better paid for it, than
any of my countrymen were ever yet paid either at home or abroad.
No--I choose to see for myself, by putting the proof touch like a hot
iron to their foreheads, whether the British are indeed a magnanimous
people. But then, if I do all this, what are my chances of reward,
even with the British themselves? That was a fearful question to be
sure. The British are a nation of writers. Their novel-writers are as a
cloud. True--true--but they still want something which they have not.
They want a real American writer--one with courage enough to write
in his native tongue. _That_ they have not, even at this day. _That_
they never had. Our best writers are English writers, not American
writers. They are English in every thing they do, and in every thing
they say, as authors--in the structure and moral of their stories, in
their dialogue, speech and pronunciation, yea in the very characters
they draw. Not so much as one true Yankee is to be found in any of our
native books: hardly so much as one true Yankee phrase. Not so much as
one true Indian, though you hardly take up a story on either side of
the water now, without finding a red-man stowed away in it; and what
sort of a red-man? Why one that uniformly talks the best English the
author is capable of--more than half the time perhaps out-Ossianing
Ossian.
I have the modesty to believe that in some things I am unlike all the
other writers of my country--both living and dead; although there are
not a few, I dare say who would be glad to hear of my bearing a great
resemblance to the latter. For my own part I do not pretend to write
English--that is, I do not pretend to write what the English themselves
call English--I do not, and I hope to God--I say this reverently,
although one of their Reviewers may be again puzzled to determine
“whether I am swearing or praying” when I say so--that I never shall
write what is now worshipped under the name of _classical_ English. It
is no natural language--it never was--it never will be spoken alive
on this earth: and therefore, ought never to be written. We have dead
languages enough now; but the deadest language I ever met with or heard
of, was that in use among the writers of Queen Anne’s day.
At last I came to the conclusion--that the chances were at least a
thousand to one against me. A thousand to one said I, to myself, that
I perish outright in my headlong enterprise. But then, if I do not
perish--if I triumph, what a triumph it will be! If I succeed, I shall
be rewarded well--if the British _are_ what they are believed to be--in
fair proportion to the toil and peril I have encountered. At any rate,
whether I fail or not, I shall be, and am willing to be, one of the
first hundred to carry the war into the very camp, yea among the very
household gods of the enemy. And if I die, I will die with my right arm
consuming in the blaze of their altars--like Mutius Scævola.
But enough on this head. The plan took shape, and you have the
commencement now before you, reader. I have had several objects in
view at the same time, all subordinate however to that which I first
mentioned, in the prosecution of my wayward enterprise. One was to
show to my countrymen that there are abundant and hidden sources of
fertility in their own beautiful brave earth, waiting only to be broken
up; and barren places to all outward appearance, in the northern,
as well as the southern Americas--yet teeming below with bright
sail--where the plough-share that is driven through them with a strong
arm, will come out laden with rich mineral and followed by running
water: places where--if you but lay your ear to the scented ground,
you may hear the perpetual gush of innumerable fountains pouring their
subterranean melody night and day among the minerals and rocks, the
iron and the gold: places where the way-faring man, the pilgrim or the
wanderer through what he may deem the very deserts of literature, the
barren-places of knowledge, will find the very roots of the withered
and blasted shrubbery, which like the traveller in Peru, he may have
accidentally uptorn in his weary and discouraging ascent, and the
very bowels of the earth into which he has torn his way, heavy with a
brightness that may be coined, like the soil about the favorite hiding
places of the sunny-haired Apollo.
Another, was to teach my countrymen, that these very Englishmen,
to whom as the barbarians of ancient story did by their gods when
they would conciliate them, we are accustomed to offer up our own
offspring, with our own hands, whenever we see the sky darkening over
the water--the sky inhabited of them; ay, that these very Englishmen,
to whom we are so in the habit of immolating all that is beautiful
and grand among us--the first born of our youth--our creatures of
immortality--our men of genius, while in the fever and flush of
their vanity, innocence and passion--ere they have had time to put
out their first plumage to the sky and the wind, all above and about
them--that they, these very Englishmen, would not love us the less,
nor revere us the less, if we loved and revered ourselves, and the
issue of our blood and breath, and vitality and power, a little more.
No--the men of England _are_ men. They love manhood. They may smile
at our national vanity, but their smile would be one of compassionate
benevolence and encouragement, if we were wise enough to keep our young
at home, till their first molting season were well over--and then,
offer to pair them, even though there would be a little presumption
in it, high up in the skies, and the strong wind--with their bravest
and best: not, as we do now, upon the altars of the earth--upon the
tables of our money-changers--half fledged and untrained--with their
legs tied, and wings clipped; or, peradventure, with necks turned, and
heads all skewered under their tails--a heap of carrion and garbage
that the braver birds, even among their enemies, would disdain to
stoop at. Such would be their behavior, if we dealt as we ought with
our own; there would be no pity nor disdain with them. They would
cheer us to the conflict--pour their red wine down our throats if we
were beaten; and if their birds were beaten, they would bear it with
temper--knowing that their reputation could well afford an occasional
trumph, to the young of their favorite brood. The men of England are
waiting to do us justice: but there is a certain formality to be
gone through with, before they will do it. We must claim it. And why
should we not? I do not mean that we should claim it upon our knees
as the condemned of their courts of justice are compelled to claim
that _mercy_, which the very law itself, has predetermined to grant
to him--but will not, unless that idle and unworthy formality has
been submitted to; no--I mean no such thing. We do not want mercy:
and I would have my countrymen, when they are arraigned before any
mere _English_ tribunal--not acting under the _law of nations_ in the
world of literature, to go at once, with a calm front and untroubled
eye, and plead to their jurisdiction, with a loud clear voice, and
with their right hand upon the great book of English law, and set them
at defiance. This, they have the right, and the power to do; and why
should they not, when some of the inferior courts, of mere _English_
criticism, have the audacity at every little interval, to call upon
a sovereign people, to plead before them--without counsel--and be
tried for some infringement of some paltry municipal provision of
their statute book--some provincialism of language--or some heresy
in politics--or some plagiarism of manner or style; and abide the
penalty of forgery--or of ecclesiastical censure--or the reward of
petit-larceny; re-transportation--or re-banishment to America.
It is high time now, that we should begin to do each other justice. Let
us profit by their good qualities; and let them, by ours. And in time,
we shall assuredly come to feel like brothers of the same parentage--an
elder and a younger--different in temper--but alike in family
resemblance--and alike proud of our great ancestry, the English giants
of olden time. We shall revere _our_ brother; and he will love his. But
when shall this be?--not, I am sorely afraid--till we have called home
all our children, from the four corners of the earth; from the east and
from the west; from the north and from the south--and held a congress
of the dead--of their fathers, and of our fathers--and published
to the world, and to posterity--appealing again to Jehovah for the
rectitude of our intentions--another DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, in
the great REPUBLIC OF LETTERS. And, yet this may soon be. The time is
even now at hand. Our representatives are assembling: the dead Greek,
and the Roman; the ancient English, and the fathers of literature,
from all the buried nations of all the earth, and holding counsel
together, and choosing their delegates. And the generation is already
born, that shall yet hear the heavens ringing with acclamations to
their decree--that another state has been added to the everlasting
confederacy of literature!
And now the author repeats to the people of America, one and all,
farewell; assuring them that there is very little probability of his
ever appearing before them again as a novel-writer. His object has
been, if not wholly, at least in a great degree accomplished. He has
demonstrated that a bold and direct appeal to the manhood of any
people will never be made in vain. Others may have been already, or
may hereafter be incited to a more intrepid movement; and to a more
confident reliance upon themselves and their resources, by what he
has now accomplished--where it is most difficult to accomplish any
thing--among his own countrymen: and most devoutly does he pray, that
if they should, they may be more fortunate, and far more generously
rewarded, than he has ever been; and if they should not, he advises
them to go where he has been already--and trust to another people
for that, which his own have not the heart to give him, however well
he may deserve it. Abroad--if he do not get a chaplet of fire and
greenness--he will, at least, get a cup of cold water,--and it may be,
a tear or two of compassion, if nothing of encouragement--whatever he
may do. At home--he may wear himself out--like one ashamed of what he
is doing, in secrecy and darkness--exhaust his own heart of all its
power and vitality, by pouring himself into the hearts of others--with
a certainty that he will be called a madman, a beggar and a fool, for
his pains--unless he persevere, in spite of a broken heart, and a
broken constitution, till he shall have made his own countrymen ashamed
of themselves, and afraid of him.
It is a sad thing to say good by’e, even for an author. If you mean
what you say--it is a prayer as well as a blessing, an audible
breathing of the heart. And if you do not--it is a wicked profanation.
So far, reader, you have been the familiar companion of the author;
and you may be one of those, who have journied with him before, for
many a weary day, through much of his wandering and meditation:--that
is, you may be one of those who, having been admitted before, to touch
his heart with a naked hand--have felt in one pulsation--in one single
hour’s fellowship with it, all that he had felt and thought for many
a weary year. You have been _with_ him to a more holy place than the
fire-side; _to_ him, more like the invisible creatures--for he hath
never seen your face, and peradventure never may, though you have been
looking into his very soul--that hover about the chamber of prayer--the
solitude of the poet--or the haunted place under the shadow of great
trees, where the wearied man throws himself down, to muse upon the face
of his Creator, which he sees in the sky over him, or beneath the vast
blue water before him. Is it wonderful therefore that there should be
a little seriousness about his brow--although ye _are_ invisible to
him--when he is about to say farewell to you--farewell forever--without
having once heard the tone of your voice--nor one of the many tears,
that you may have dropped over him, when you thought yourself
altogether alone:--
Nor can he look back, without some emotion, upon the labour that he
has undergone, even within that flowery wilderness, where he hath been
journeying with you, or lying and ruminating all alone, for so long
a time; and out of which, he is now about to emerge--forever--with a
strong tread, to the broad blue sky and the solid earth; nor without
lamenting that he cannot go barefooted--and half-naked among men;--and
that the colour and perfume--the dim enchantment, and the sweet,
breathing, solemn loneliness of the wild-wood path, that he is about to
abandon, for the broad dusty highway of the world, are so unpropitious
to the substantial reputation of a man: nor, without grieving that the
blossom-leaves, and the golden flower-dust, which now cover him, from
head to foot, _must_ be speedily brushed away;--and that the scent
of the wilderness may not go with him--wherever he may go--wandering
through the habitation of princes--the courts of the living God--or,
the dwelling places of ambition--yea, even into the grave.
* * * * *
I have but one other request to make. Let these words be engraven
hereafter on my tomb-stone: “WHO READS AN AMERICAN BOOK?”
RACHEL DYER.
The early history of New-England, or of Massachusetts Bay, rather;
now one of the six New-England States of North America, and that on
which the Plymouth settlers, or “Fathers” went ashore--the shipwrecked
men of mighty age, abounds with proof that witchcraft was a familiar
study, and that witches and wizards were believed in for a great
while, among the most enlightened part of a large and well-educated
religious population. The multitude of course had a like faith; for
such authority governs the multitude every where, and at all times.
The belief was very general about a hundred years ago in every
part of British America, was very common fifty years ago, when the
revolutionary war broke out, and prevails now, even to this day in
the wilder parts of the New-England territory, as well as in the new
States which are springing up every where in the retreating shadow
of the great western wilderness--a wood where half the men of Europe
might easily hide from each other--and every where along the shores
of the solitude, as if the new earth were full of the seed of empire,
as if dominion were like fresh flowers or magnificent herbage, the
spontaneous growth of a new soil wherever it is reached by the warm
light or the cheerful rain of a new sky.
It is not confined however, nor was it a hundred and thirty five
years ago, the particular period of our story, to the uneducated and
barbarous, or to a portion of the white people of North-America, nor
to the native Indians, a part of whose awful faith, a part of whose
inherited religion it is to believe in a bad power, in witchcraft
spells and sorcery. It may be met with wherever the Bible is much read
in the spirit of the New-England Fathers. It was rooted in the very
nature of those who were quite remarkable in the history of their
age, for learning, for wisdom, for courage and for piety; of men who
fled away from their fire-sides in Europe to the rocks of another
world--where they buried themselves alive in search of truth.
We may smile now to hear witchcraft spoken seriously of; but we forget
perhaps that a belief in it is like a belief in the after appearance
of the dead among the blue waters, the green graves, the still starry
atmosphere and the great shadowy woods of our earth; or like the
beautiful deep instinct of our nature for worship,--older than the
skies, it may be, universal as thought, and sure as the steadfast hope
of immortality.
We may turn away with a sneer now from the devout believer in witches,
wondering at the folly of them that have such faith, and quite
persuading ourselves in our great wisdom, that all who have had it
heretofore, however they may have been regarded by ages that have gone
by, were not of a truth wise and great men; but we forget perhaps
that we are told in the Book of Books, the Scriptures of Truth, about
witches with power to raise the dead, about wizards and sorcerers that
were able to strive with Jehovah’s anointed high priest before the
misbelieving majesty of Egypt, with all his court and people gathered
about his throne for proof, and of others who could look into futurity
with power, interpret the vision of sleep, read the stars, bewitch and
afflict whom they would, cast out devils and prophesy--false prophets
were they called, not because that which they said was untrue, but
because that which they said, whether true or untrue, was not from
above--because the origin of their preternatural power was bad or
untrue. And we forget moreover that laws were made about conjuration,
spells and witchcraft by a body of British lawgivers, renowned for
their sagacity, deep research, and grave thoughtful regard for truth,
but a few years ago--the other day as it were--and that a multitude
of superior men have recorded their belief in witchcraft--men of
prodigious power--such men as the great and good Sir Matthew Hale,
who gave judgment of death upon several witches and wizards, at a
period when, if we may believe a tithe of what we hear every day of
our lives, from the mouth of many a great lawyer, there was no lack of
wit or wisdom, nor of knowledge or faithful enquiry; and such men too
as the celebrated author of the Commentaries on the Laws of England,
which are, “as every body knows, or should know, and a man must be
exceedingly ignorant not to know” the pride of the British empire and
a pillar of light for the sages of hereafter; and that within the last
one hundred and fifty or two hundred years, a multitude of men and
women have been tried and executed by authority of British law, in the
heart of England, for having dealt in sorcery and witchcraft.
We may smile--we may sneer--but would such things have occurred in
the British Parliament, or in the British courts of law, without
some proof--whatever, it was--proof to the understandings of people,
who in other matters are looked up to by the chief men of this age
with absolute awe--that creatures endowed with strange, if not with
preternatural power, did inhabit our earth and were able to work
mischief according to the popular ideas of witchcraft and sorcery?
We know little or nothing of the facts upon which their belief was
founded. All that we know is but hearsay, tradition or conjecture.
They who believed were eye-witnesses and ear witnesses of what they
believed; we who disbelieve are neither. They who believed knew all
that we know of the matter and much more; we who disbelieve are not
only ignorant of the facts, but we are living afar off, in a remote
age. Nevertheless, they believed in witchcraft, and we regard all who
speak of it seriously, with contempt. How dare we! What right have we
to say that witches and witchcraft are no more, that sorcery is done
with forever, that miracles are never to be wrought again, or that
Prophecy shall never be heard again by the people of God, uplifting
her voice like a thousand echoes from the everlasting solitudes of the
sea, or like uninterrupted heavy thunder breaking over the terrible and
haughty nations of our earth?
Why should we not think as well of him who believes too much, as of
him who believes too little? Of him whose faith, whatever it may be,
is too large, as of him whose faith, whatever it may be, is too small?
Of the good with a credulous temper, as of the great with a suspicious
temper? Of the pure in heart, of the youthful, of the untried in the
ways of the world, who put much faith in whatever they are told, too
much it may be, as of them who being thoroughly tried in the ways of
the world put no faith in what they hear, and little in what they see?
Of the humble in spirit who believe, _though_ they do not perfectly
understand, as of the haughty who will not believe _because_ they do
not perfectly understand? Of the poor child who thinks a juggler eats
fire when he does not, as of the grown-up sage who thinks a juggler
does _not_ swallow a sword when he _does_? Of the believer in Crusoe,
who sits poring over the story under a hedge, as of the unbeliever in
Bruce who would not believe, so long as it was new, in the Tale of
Abyssinia? Of those in short who are led astray by self-distrust, or
innocence, or humility, as of them who are led astray by self-conceit,
or corruption, or pride?
In other days, the Lion of the desert would not believe the horse when
he came up out of the bleak north, and told a story of waters and seas
that grew solid, quiet and smooth in the dead of winter. His majesty
had never heard of such a thing before, and what his majesty had never
heard of before could not be possible. The mighty lord of the Numedian
desert could not believe--how could he?--in a cock-and-a-bull-story,
about ice and snow; for to him they were both as a multitude of such
things are to the philosophy of our age, out of the course of nature.
A solid sea and a fluid earth are alike to such as have no belief in
what is new or contrary to that course of nature with which they are
acquainted--whatever that may be. There is no such thing as proof
to the over-wise or over mighty, save where by reason of what they
already know, there is not much need of other proof.--They would not
believe, though one should rise from the dead--they are too cautious
by half; they are not satisfied with any sort of testimony; they dare
not believe their own eyes--they do not indeed; for spectres when they
appear to the eye of the philosopher now, are attributed altogether to
a diseased organ.[3] They care not for the cloud of witnesses--they
withdraw from the Bible, they scoff at history, and while they
themselves reject every kind of proof, whatever it may be, such proof
as they would be satisfied with in a case of murder, were they to hear
it as a jury--such proof as they would give judgment of death upon,
without fear, proof under oath by men of high character and severe
probity, eye-witnesses and ear-witnesses of what they swear to--they
ridicule those who undertake to weigh it with care, and pursue with
scorn or pity those who shiver through all their arteries at a story of
the preternatural.
[3] As by the printer of Berlin. See also Beasley’s Search after Truth.
As if it were a mark of deplorable fatuity for a babe to believe now as
a multitude of wise and great and gifted men have heretofore believed
in every age of the world! As if to think it possible for such to have
been right in their belief, were too absurd for excuse now--such men as
the holy Greek, the upright immovable Socrates, who persuaded himself
that he was watched over by a sort of household spirit; such men too
as the “bald” Cæsar, and the rock-hearted Brutus, both of whom spite
of their imperial nature and high place among the warlike and mighty
of their age, believed in that, and shook before that which whether
deceitful or not, substance or shadow, the very cowards of our day are
too brave to be scared with, too full of courage to put their trust
in--afraid as they are of that, which the Roman pair would have met
with a stern smile and a free step; such men too of a later age, as
the profound, wise and pure Sir Matthew Hale, who put many to death
for witchcraft--so clear was the proof, and so clear the nature of the
crime--while the nature of larceny, the nature of common theft was
forever a mystery to him, if we may believe what we hear out of his
own mouth; such men too as the celebrated Judge Blackstone, who after
a thorough sifting of the law, says--“It seems to be most eligible to
conclude that in general there has been such a thing as witchcraft,
though we cannot give credit to any particular modern instance of it;”
such men too as Doctor Samuel Johnson, L. L. D. who saw through all
the hypocricy and subterfuge of our day, when he said, speaking of a
superstitious belief, that men who deny it by their words, confess it
by their fears--nothing was ever so true! we who are most afraid, want
courage to own it; such men too as the Lord Protector of England, while
she was a commonwealth; and such as he, the Desolator--
“........... From whose reluctant hand,
The thunder-bolt was wrung”--
for they were both believers in what the very rabble of our earth
deride now; such men, too, as the chief among poets--Byron--for he
believed in the words of a poor old gypsey, and shook with fear, and
faltered on the way to his bridal-chamber, when he thought of the
prophecy she had uttered years and years before, in the morning of
his haughty youth; such men too as the head lawgiver of our day, the
High-Priest of Legislation, the great and good, the benevolent, the
courageous Bentham, who to this hour is half afraid in the dark, and
only able to satisfy himself about the folly of such fear, when his
night-cap is off, by resorting with suitable gravity to his old refuge,
the exhaustive mode of reasoning. If a ghost appear at all, argues he,
it must appear either clothed or not clothed. But a ghost never appears
not clothed, or naked; and if it appear clothed, we shall have not
only the ghost of a human creature--which is bad enough; but the ghost
of a particular kind of cloth of a particular fashion, the ghost of a
pocket-handkerchief, or a night-cap--which is too bad.
Thus much for authority: and here, but for one little circumstance we
should take up our narrative, and pursue it without turning to the
right or the left, until we came to the sorrowful issue; but as we may
have here and there a reader, in this unbelieving age, who has no
regard for authority, nor much respect for the wisdom of our ancestors,
what if we try to put the whole argument into a more conclusive shape?
It may require but a few pages, and a few pages may go far to allay
the wrath of modern philosophy. If we throw aside the privilege of
authorship, and speak, not as a multitude but as one of the true faith,
our argument would stand thus:
In a word, whatever the philosophy of our age may say, I cannot look
upon witchcraft and sorcery as the unbeliever does. I know enough what
the fashion is now; but I cannot believe, I do not believe that we know
much more of the matter than our great progenitors did; or that we
are much wiser than a multitude who have been for ages, and are now,
renowned for their wisdom; or that we are much more pious than our
noble fathers were, who died in their belief--died _for_ their belief,
I should say, and are a proverb to this hour on account of their
piety. Nor can I persuade myself that such facts would be met with in
grave undoubted history, if they were untrue, as are to be met with
in every page of that which concerns the period of our story; facts
which go to prove not only that a fixed belief in witchcraft prevailed
throughout Europe as well as America, and among those with whom there
was no lack of probity or good sense, or knowledge, it would appear;
but that hundreds of poor creatures were tried for witchcraft under
the authority of British law, and put to death, under the authority
of British law, (and several after confession) for the practice of
witchcraft and sorcery.
May it not be worth our while therefore, to speak seriously and
reverently of our mighty forefathers? to bear in mind that the proof
which they offer is affirmative and positive, while that which we rely
upon, is negative--a matter of theory? to keep in view, moreover,
that if a body of witnesses of equal worth were equally divided,
one half saying that on such a day and hour, at such a place, when
they were all together, such or such a thing, preternatural or not,
mysterious or not, occurred; while the other half say positively, man
for man, that so far as they heard or saw, or know or believe, no
such thing did occur, at such a time or place, or at any other time
or place, whatsoever--still, even here, though you may believe both
parties, though you may give entire credit to the words of each, you
may be justified, in a variety of cases, in acting upon the testimony
of the former in preference to that of the latter. And why? Because
the contradictory words of both may not be so contradictory as they
appear--not so contradictory as to neutralize each other on every
hypothesis; but may be reconcilable to the supposition that such or
such a fact, however positively denied by one party, and however
mysterious it may seem, really did occur: and this while they are not
reconcilable to the supposition that such or such a fact really did
_not_ occur.--It being much more easy to overlook that which is, than
to see that which is not; much more easy to _not_ see a shadow that
falls upon our pathway, than to see a shadow where indeed there is no
shadow; much more easy to _not_ hear a real voice, than to hear _no_
voice.
If the multitude of trustworthy and superior men, therefore, who
testify to the facts which are embodied in the following narrative,
and which may appear incredible to the wise of our day, or out of the
course of nature to the philosophy of our day, like ice or snow to
the Lord of the Desert; if they were positively contradicted step by
step, throughout, by another like multitude of trustworthy and superior
men--still, though the two parties were alike numerous and alike worthy
of credit, and although you might believe the story of each, and every
word of it, and give no preference to either:--Still I say, you might
be justified in supposing that after all, the facts which the former
testify to really did occur. And why? Because _though_ both speak true,
that hypothesis may still be supported; while _if_ both speak true, the
contrary hypothesis cannot be supported. Facts may occur without being
heard or seen by the whole of a party who are together at the time they
occur: but how are they to be seen or heard, if they do not occur at
all?
I have put a much stronger case than that on which the truth of the
following story is made to depend; for no such contradiction occurs
here, no such positive testimony, no such array of multitude against
multitude of the same worth, or the same age, or the same people. On
the affirmative side are a host here--a host of respectable witnesses,
not a few of whom sealed their testimony with their blood; on the
negative, hardly one either of a good or a bad character. What appears
on the negative side is not by facts, but by theory. It is not positive
but conjectural. The negative witnesses are of our age and of our
people; the affirmative were of another age and of another people.
The former too, it should be remarked were not only not present, but
they were not born--they were not alive, when the matters which they
deny the truth of, took place--if they ever took place at all. Now, if
oaths are to be answered by conjecture, bloodshed by a sneer, absolute
martyrdom by hypothesis, much grave testimony of the great and the
pious, by a speculative argument, a brief syllogism, or a joke--of what
use are the rules by which our trust in what we hear is regulated? our
faith whatever it may be, and whether it concern this world or the
next, and whether it be of the past, the present or the future? Are we
to believe only so far as we may touch and see for ourselves? What is
the groundwork of true knowledge? where the spirit of true philosophy?
Whither should we go for proof; and of what avail is the truth which we
are hoarding up, the truth which we are extracting year after year by
laborious investigation, or fearful experiment? If we do not believe
those who go up to the altar and make oath before the Everlasting God,
not as men do now, one after another, but nation by nation, to that
which is very new to us, or wonderful, why should posterity believe
us when we testify to that which hereafter may be very new to them or
very wonderful? Is every day to be like every other day, every age
like every other age in the Diary of the Universe? Earthquake, war and
revolution--the overthrow of States and of empires, are they to be
repeated forever, lest men should not believe the stories that are told
of them?
CHAPTER II.
But enough. It is quite impossible to doubt the sincerity of the
Plymouth settlers, the Pilgrims, or Fathers of New-England, who
escaping over sea laid the foundations of a mighty empire on the
perpetual rocks of New-Plymouth, and along the desolate shores of a
new world, or their belief in witchcraft and sorcery, whatever we may
happen to believe now; for, at a period of sore and bitter perplexity
for them and theirs, while they were yet wrestling for life, about
four hundred of their hardy brave industrious population were either
in prison for the alleged practice of witchcraft, or under accusation
for matters which were looked upon as fatal evidence thereof. By
referring to the sober and faithful records of that age, it will be
found that in the course of about fifteen months, while the Fathers
of New-England were beset on every side by the exasperated savages,
or by the more exasperated French, who led the former through every
part of the British-American territory, twenty-eight persons received
sentence of death (of which number nineteen were executed) one died in
jail, to whom our narrative relates, and one was deliberately crushed
to death--according to British law, because forsooth, being a stout
full-hearted man, he would not make a plea, nor open his mouth to the
charge of sorcery, before the twelve, who up to that hour had permitted
no one who did open his mouth to escape; that a few more succeeded
in getting away before they were capitally charged; that one hundred
and fifty were set free after the outcry was over; and that full two
hundred more of the accused who were in great peril without knowing it,
were never proceeded against, after the death of the individual whose
character we have attempted a sketch of, in the following story.
Of these four hundred poor creatures, a large part of whom were people
of good repute in the prime of life, above two-score made confession
of their guilt--and this although about one half, being privately
charged, had no opportunity for confession. The laws of nature, it
would seem _were_ set aside--if not by Jehovah, at least by the judges
acting under the high and holy sanction of British law, in this day of
sorrow; for at the trial of a woman who appears to have been celebrated
for beauty and held in great fear because of her temper, both by the
settlers and the savages, three of her children stood up, and children
though they were, in the presence of their mother, avowed themselves to
be witches, and gave a particular account of their voyages through the
air and over sea, and of the cruel mischief they had perpetrated by her
advice and direction; for she was endowed, say the records of the day,
with great power and prerogative, and the Father of lies had promised
her, at one of their church-yard gatherings that she should be “Queen
of Hell.”
But before we go further into the particulars of our narrative which
relates to a period when the frightful superstition we speak of was
raging with irresistible power, a rapid review of so much of the
earlier parts of the New-England history, as immediately concerns
the breaking out, and the growth of a belief in witchcraft among the
settlers of our savage country, may be of use to the reader, who, but
for some such preparation, would never be able to credit a fiftieth
part of what is undoubtedly true in the following story.
The pilgrims or “Fathers” of New-England, as they are now called by
the writers of America, were but a ship-load of pious brave men, who
while they were in search of a spot of earth where they might worship
their God without fear, and build up a faith, if so it pleased him,
without reproach, went ashore partly of their own accord, but more
from necessity, in the terrible winter of 1620-21, upon a rock of
Massachusetts-Bay, to which they gave the name of New-Plymouth, after
that of the port of England from which they embarked.
They left England forever.... England their home and the home of their
mighty fathers--turned their backs forever upon all that was dear to
them in their beloved country, their friends, their houses, their tombs
and their churches, their laws and their literature with all that other
men cared for in that age; and this merely to avoid persecution for a
religious faith; fled away as it were to the ends of the earth, over
a sea the very name of which was doubtful, toward a shore that was
like a shadow to the navigators of Europe, in search of a place where
they might kneel down before their Father, and pray to him without
molestation.
But, alas for their faith! No sooner had these pilgrims touched the
shore of the new world, no sooner were they established in comparative
power and security, than they fell upon the Quakers, who had followed
them over the same sea, with the same hope; and scourged and banished
them, and imprisoned them, and put some to death, for not believing
as the new church taught in the new world. Such is the nature of man!
The persecuted of to-day become the persecutors of to-morrow. They
flourish, not because they are right, but because they are persecuted;
and they persecute because they have the power, not because they whom
they persecute are wrong.
The quakers died in their belief, and as the great always die--without
a word or a tear; praying for the misguided people to their last
breath, but prophecying heavy sorrow to them and to theirs--a sorrow
without a name--a wo without a shape, to their whole race forever; with
a mighty series of near and bitter affliction to the judges of the
land, who while they were uttering the words of death to an aged woman
of the Quakers, (Mary Dyer) were commanded with a loud voice to set
their houses in order, to get ready the accounts of their stewardship,
and to prepare with the priesthood of all the earth, to go before
the Judge of the quick and the dead. It was the voice of Elizabeth
Hutchinson, the dear and familiar friend of Mary Dyer. She spoke
as one having authority from above, so that all who heard her were
afraid--all! even the judges who were dealing out their judgment of
death upon a fellow creature. And lo! after a few years, the daughter
of the chief judge, before whom the prophecy had been uttered with such
awful power, was tried for witchcraft and put to death for witchcraft
on the very spot (so says the tradition of the people) where she stayed
to scoff at Mary Dyer, who was on her way to the scaffold at the time,
with her little withered hands locked upon her bosom ... her grey head
lifted up ... not bowed in her unspeakable distress ... but lifted up,
as if in prayer to something visible above, something whatever it was,
the shadow of which fell upon the path and walked by the side of the
aged martyr; something whatever it was, that moved like a spirit over
the green smooth turf ... now at her elbow, now high up and afar off
... now in the blue, bright air; something whose holy guardianship was
betrayed to the multitude by the devout slow motion of the eyes that
were about to be extinguished forever.
Not long after the death of the daughter of the chief judge, another
female was executed for witchcraft, and other stories of a similar
nature were spread over the whole country, to prove that she too had
gone out of her way to scoff at the poor quaker-woman. This occurred
in 1655, only thirty-five years after the arrival of the Fathers in
America. From this period, until 1691, there were but few trials for
witchcraft among the Plymouth settlers, though the practice of the art
was believed to be common throughout Europe as well as America, and
a persuasion was rooted in the very hearts of the people, that the
prophecy of the quakers and of Elizabeth Hutchinson would assuredly be
accomplished.
It _was_ accomplished. A shadow fell upon the earth at noon-day.
The waters grew dark as midnight. Every thing alive was quiet with
fear--the trees, the birds, the cattle, the very hearts of men who were
gathered together in the houses of the Lord, every where, throughout
all the land, for worship and for mutual succor. It was indeed a
“Dark Day”--a day never to be thought of by those who were alive at
the time, nor by their children’s children, without fear. The shadow
of the grave was abroad, with a voice like the voice of the grave.
Earthquake, fire, and a furious bright storm followed; inundation, war
and strife in the church. Stars fell in a shower, heavy cannon were
heard in the deep of the wilderness, low music from the sea--trumpets,
horses, armies, mustering for battle in the deep sea. Apparitions were
met in the high way, people whom nobody knew, men of a most unearthly
stature; evil spirits going abroad on the sabbath day. The print of
huge feet and hoof-marks were continually discovered in the snow, in
the white sand of the sea-shore--nay, in the solid rocks and along
the steep side of high mountains, where no mortal hoof could go; and
sometimes they could be traced from roof to roof on the house-tops,
though the buildings were very far apart; and the shape of Elizabeth
Hutchinson herself, was said to have appeared to a traveller, on the
very spot where she and her large family, after being driven forth out
of New-England by the power of the new church, were put to death by the
savages. He that saw the shape knew it, and was afraid for the people;
for the look of the woman was a look of wrath, and her speech a speech
of power.
Elizabeth Hutchinson was one of the most extraordinary women of the
age--haughty, ambitious and crafty; and when it was told every where
through the Plymouth colony that she had appeared to one of the church
that expelled her, they knew that she had come back, to be seen of the
judges and elders, according to her oath, and were siezed with a deep
fear. They knew that she had been able to draw away from their peculiar
mode of worship, a tithe of their whole number when she was alive, and
a setter forth, if not of strange gods, at least of strange doctrines:
and who should say that her mischievous power had not been fearfully
augmented by death?
Meanwhile the men of New Plymouth, and of Massachusetts Bay, had
multiplied so that all the neighborhood was tributary to them, and
they were able to send forth large bodies of their young men to war,
six hundred, seven hundred, and a thousand at a time, year after year,
to fight with Philip of Mount Hope, a royal barbarian, who had wit
enough to make war as the great men of Europe would make war now, and
to persuade the white people that the prophecy of the Quakers related
to him. It is true enough that he made war like a savage--and who
would not, if he were surrounded as Philip of Mount Hope was, by
a foe whose hatred was a part of his religion, a part of his very
blood and being? if his territory were ploughed up or laid waste by a
superior foe? if the very wilderness about him were fired while it was
the burial-place and sanctuary of his mighty fathers? if their form
of worship were scouted, and every grave and every secret place of
prayer laid open to the light, with all their treasures and all their
mysteries? every temple not made with hands, every church built by
the Builder of the Skies, invaded by such a foe and polluted with the
rites of a new faith, or levelled without mercy--every church and every
temple, whether of rock or wood, whether perpetual from the first, or
planted as the churches and temples of the solitude are, with leave
to perpetuate themselves forever, to renew their strength and beauty
every year and to multiply themselves on every side forever and ever,
in spite of deluge and fire, storm, strife and earthquake; every church
and every temple whether roofed as the skies are, and floored as the
mountains are, with great clouds and with huge rocks, or covered in
with tree-branches and paved with fresh turf, lighted with stars and
purified with high winds? Would not the man of Europe make war now like
a savage, and without mercy, if he were beset by a foe--for such was
the foe that Philip of Mount Hope had to contend with in the fierce
pale men of Massachusetts Bay,--a foe that no weapon of his could
reach, a foe coming up out of the sea with irresistible power, and with
a new shape? What if armies were to spring up out of the solid earth
before the man of Europe--it would not be more wonderful to him than
it was to the man of America to see armies issuing from the deep. What
if they were to approach in balloons--or in great ships of the air,
armed all over as the foe of the poor savage appeared to be, when the
ships of the water drew near, charged with thunder and with lightning,
and with four-footed creatures, and with sudden death? Would the man
of Europe make war in such a case according to what are now called the
usages of war?
The struggle with this haughty savage was regarded for a time as the
wo without a shape, to which the prophecy referred, the sorrow without
a name; for it occupied the whole force of the country, long and long
after the bow of the red-chief was broken forever, his people scattered
from the face of the earth, and his royalty reduced to a shadow--a
shadow it is true, but still the shadow of a king; for up to the last
hour of his life, when he died as no king had ever the courage to die,
he showed no sign of terror, betrayed no wish to conciliate the foe,
and smote all that were near without mercy, whenever they talked of
submission; though he had no hope left, no path for escape, and every
shot of the enemy was fatal to some one of the few that stood near
him. It was a war, which but for the accidental discovery of a league
embracing all the chief tribes of the north, before they were able to
muster their strength for the meditated blow, would have swept away
the white men, literally to the four winds of heaven, and left that
earth free which they had set up their dominion over by falsehood and
by treachery. By and by however, just when the issue of that war was
near, and the fright of the pale men over, just when the hearts of the
church had begun to heave with a new hope, and the prophecy of wrath
and sorrow was no longer to be heard in the market-place, and by the
way-side, or wherever the people were gathered together for business or
worship, with a look of awe and a subdued breath--just when it came to
be no longer thought of nor cared for by the judges and the elders,
to whom week after week and year after year, it had been a familiar
proverb of death (if bad news from the war had come over night, or news
of trouble to the church, at home or abroad, in Europe or in America)
they saw it suddenly and wholly accomplished before their faces--every
word of it and every letter.
The shadow of the destroyer went by ... the type was no more. But lo!
in the stead thereof, while every mother was happy, and every father
in peace, and every child asleep in security, because the shadow and
the type _had_ gone by--lo! the Destroyer himself appeared! The shadow
of death gave way for the visage of death--filling every heart with
terror, and every house with lamentation. The people cried out for
fear, as with one voice. They prayed as with one prayer. They had
no hope; for they saw the children of those who had offered outrage
to the poor quaker-woman gathered up, on every side, from the rest
of the people, and after a few days and a brief inquiry, afflicted
in their turn with reproach and outcry, with misery, torture and
cruel death;--and when they saw this, they thought of the speech of
Elizabeth Hutchinson before the priesthood of the land, the judges and
the people, when they drove her out from among them, because of her
new faith, and left her to perish for it in the depth of a howling
wilderness; her, and her babes, and her beautiful daughter, and her two
or three brave disciples, away from hope and afar from succor;--and as
they thought of this, they were filled anew with unspeakable dread:
for Mary Dyer and Elizabeth Hutchinson, were they not familiar, and
very dear friends? were they not sisters in life, and sisters in death?
gifted alike with a spirit of sure prophecy, though of a different
faith? and martyrs alike to the church?