OTHERS as well as you have expressed a wish to see a memoir of my
earliest and most valued friend. To gratify you and them I feel many
inducements, and see many objections. To comply with any wish of yours
is one strong inducement. To please myself with the recollection of past
happiness and departed worth, is another; and to benefit those into
whose hands this imperfect sketch may fall, is a third. For the
authentic record of an exemplary life, though delivered in the most
unadorned manner, or even degraded by poverty of style or uncouthness of
narration, has an attraction for the uncorrupted mind.
It is the rare lot of some exalted characters, by the united power of
virtues and of talents, to soar above their fellow-mortals, and leave a
luminous track behind, on which successive ages gaze with wonder and
delight. But the sweet influence of these benign stars that now and then
enlighten the page of history, is partial and unfrequent.
Those to whom the most important parts on the stage of life are
allotted, if possessed of abilities undirected by virtue, are too often
“Wise to no purpose, artful to no end,”
that is really good and desirable.
They, again, where virtue is not supported by wisdom, are often, with
the best intentions, made subservient to the short-sighted craft of the
artful and designing. Hence, though we may be at times dazzled with the
blaze of heroic achievement, or contemplate with a purer satisfaction
those “awful fathers of mankind,” by whom nations were civilized,
equitable dominion established, or liberty restored; yet, after all, the
crimes and miseries of mankind form such prominent features of the
history of every country, that humanity sickens at the retrospect, and
misanthropy finds an excuse amidst the laurels of the hero, and the
deep-laid schemes of the politician:
“And yet this partial view of things
Is surely not the best.”—_Burns._
Where shall we seek the antidote to this chilling gloom left on the mind
by the bustling intricate scenes, where the best characters, goaded on
by furious factions or dire necessity, become involved in crimes that
their souls abhor?
It is the contemplation of the peaceful virtues in the genial atmosphere
of private life, that can best reconcile us to our nature, and quiet the
turbulent emotions excited by
“The madness of the crowd.”
But vice, folly, and vanity are so noisy, so restless, so ready to rush
into public view, and so adapted to afford food for malevolent
curiosity, that the small still voice of virtue, active in its own
sphere, but unwilling to quit it, is drowned in their tumult. This is a
remedy, however,
“Not obvious, not obtrusive.”
If we would counteract the baleful influence of public vice by the
contemplation of private worth, we must penetrate into its retreats, and
not be deterred from attending to its simple details by the want of that
glare and bustle with which a fictitious or artificial character is
generally surrounded.
But in this wide field of speculation one might wander out of sight of
the original subject. Let me then resume it, and return to my
objections. Of these the first and greatest is the dread of being
inaccurate. Embellished facts, a mixture of truth and fiction, or what
we sometimes meet with, a fictitious superstructure built on a
foundation of reality, would be detestable on the score of bad taste,
though no moral sense were concerned or consulted. It is walking on a
river half frozen that betrays your footing every moment. By these
repulsive artifices no person of real discernment is for a moment
imposed upon. You do not know exactly which part of the narrative is
false; but you are sure it is not all true, and therefore distrust what
is genuine, where it occurs. For this reason a fiction, happily told,
takes a greater hold of the mind than a narrative of facts, evidently
embellished and interwoven with inventions.
I do not mean to discredit my own veracity. I certainly have no
intention to relate any thing that is not true. Yet in the dim distance
of near forty years, unassisted by written memorials, shall I not
mistake dates, misplace facts, and omit circumstances that form
essential links in the chain of narration? Thirty years since, when I
expressed a wish to do what I am now about to attempt, how differently
should I have executed it. A warm heart, a vivid imagination, and a
tenacious memory, were then all filled with a theme which I could not
touch without kindling into an enthusiasm, sacred at once to virtue and
to friendship. Venerated friend of my youth, my guide and my
instructress; are then the dregs of an enfeebled mind, the worn
affections of a wounded heart, the imperfect efforts of a decaying
memory, all that remain to consecrate thy remembrance, to make known thy
worth, and to lay on thy tomb the offering of gratitude?
My friend’s life, besides being mostly passed in unruffled peace and
prosperity, affords few of those vicissitudes which astonish and amuse.
It is from her relations, to those with whom her active benevolence
connected her, that the chief interest of her story (if story it may be
called) arises. This includes that of many persons, obscure indeed but
for the light which her regard and beneficence reflected upon them. Yet
without these subordinate persons in the drama, the action of human
life, especially such a life as hers, cannot be carried on. They can
neither appear with grace, nor be omitted with propriety. Then, remote
and retired as her situation was, the variety of nations and characters,
of tongues and of complexions, with which her public spirit and private
benevolence connected her, might appear wonderful to those unacquainted
with the country and the times in which she lived; without a pretty
distinct view of which my narrative would be unintelligible. I must be
excused too for dwelling, at times, on the recollection of a state of
society so peculiar, so utterly dissimilar to any other that I have
heard or read of, that it exhibits human nature in a new aspect, and is
so far an object of rational curiosity, as well as a kind of phenomenon
in the history of colonization. I forewarn the reader not to look for
lucid order in the narration, or intimate connection between its parts.
I have no authorities to refer to, no coeval witnesses of facts to
consult. In regard to the companions of my youth, (in which several
particulars relative to my friend’s ancestry must necessarily be
included,) I sit like the “Voice of Cona,” alone on the heath; and, like
him too, must muse in silence, till at intervals the “light of my soul
arises,” before I can call attention to “a tale of other times.”
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