Madame’s Family and Society described.
THE next year (1762) came, and found me at Albany; if not wiser, more
knowing. Again I was shut up in a fort, solemn and solitary; I had no
companion, and was never allowed to go out, except with my mother, and
that was very seldom, indeed. All the fine forenoons I sat and sewed;
and when others went to play in the evening, I was very often sent up to
a large waste room, to get a long task by heart of something very grave
and repulsive. In this waste room, however, lay an old tattered
dictionary, Bailey’s I think, which proved a treasure to me; the very
few books we had, being all religious or military. I had returned to my
Milton, which I conned so industriously, that I got it almost by heart,
as far as I went; yet took care to go no further than I understood. To
make out this point, when any one encouraged me by speaking kindly to
me, I was sure to ask the meaning of some word or phrase; and when I
found people were not at all willing or able to gratify me, I at length
had recourse to my waste room and tattered dictionary, which I found a
perpetual fountain of knowledge. Consequently the waste room, formerly a
gloomy prison, which I thought of with horror, became now the scene of
all my enjoyments; and the moment I was dismissed from my task, I flew
to it with anticipated delight; for there were my treasures, Milton and
the ragged dictionary, which had become the light of my eyes. I studied
the dictionary with indefatigable diligence; which I began now to
consider as very entertaining. I was extremely sorry for the fallen
angels, deeply interested in their speeches, and so well acquainted with
their names, that I could have called the roll of them with all the ease
imaginable. Time run on, I was eight years old, and quite uneducated,
except reading and plain-work; when company came I was considered as in
the way, and sent up to my waste room; but here lay my whole pleasure,
for I had neither companions nor amusement. It was, however, talked of,
that I should go to a convent, at Trois Rivières], in Canada, where
several officers had sent their daughters to be educated.
The fame of Aunt Schuyler every now and then reached my ears, and sunk
deep in my mind. To see her I thought was a happiness too great for me;
and I was continually drawing pictures of her to myself. Meanwhile the
17th regiment arrived; and a party of them took possession of the fort.
During this interim, peace had been proclaimed; and the 55th regiment
were under orders for Britain.
My father, not being satisfied with the single apartment allotted to him
by the new comers, removed to the town; where a friend of his, a Scotch
merchant, gave him a lodging in his own house, next to that very Madame
Schuyler who had been so long my daily thoughts and nightly dreams. We
had not been long there when aunt heard that my father was a good,
plain, upright man, without pretensions, but very well principled. She
sent a married lady, the wife of her favourite nephew, who resided with
her at the time, to ask us to spend the evening with her. I think I have
not been on any occasion more astonished, than when, with no little awe
and agitation, I came into the presence of madame. She was sitting; and
filled a great chair, from which she seldom moved. Her aspect was
composed, and her manner, such as was at first more calculated to
inspire respect, than conciliate affection. Not having the smallest
solicitude about what people thought of her, and having her mind
generally occupied with matters of weighty concern, the first expression
of her kindness seemed rather a lofty courtesy, than attractive
affability: but she shone out by degrees; and she was sure eventually to
please every one worth pleasing, her conversation was so rich, so
varied, so informing; every thing she said bore such a stamp of reality:
her character had such a grasp in it. Her expressions, not from art and
study, but from the clear perceptions of her sound and strong mind, were
powerful, distinct, and exactly adapted to the occasion. You saw her
thoughts as they occurred to her mind, without the usual bias rising
from either a fear to offend, or a wish to please. This was one of the
secrets in which lay the singular power of her conversation. When
ordinary people speak to you, your mind wanders in search of the motives
that prompt their discourse, or the views and prejudices which bias it;
when those who excite (and perhaps solicit) admiration talk, you are
secretly asking yourself whether they mean to inform, or dazzle you. All
this interior canvass vanished before the evident truth and unstudied
ease of aunt’s discourse. On a nearer knowledge, too, you found she was
much more intent to serve, than please you, and too much engrossed by
her endeavours to do so, to stop and look round for your gratitude,
which she heeded just as little as your admiration. In short, she
informed, enlightened, and served you, without levying on you any
tribute whatever, except the information you could give in return. I
describe her appearance as it then struck me; and, once for all, her
manners and conversation, as I thought of them when I was older and knew
better how to distinguish and appreciate. Every thing about her was
calculated to increase the impression of respect and admiration; which,
from the earliest dawn of reflection, I had been taught to entertain for
her. Her house was the most spacious and best furnished I had ever
entered. The family pictures, and scripture paintings, were to me
particularly awful and impressive. I compared them to the models which
had before existed in my imagination, and was delighted or mortified, as
I found they did or did not resemble them.
The family with which she was then surrounded, awakened a more than
common interest. Her favourite nephew, the eldest son of her much
beloved sister, had, by his father’s desire, entered into partnership in
a great commercial house in New-York. Smitten with the uncommon beauty
of a young lady of seventeen, from Rhode-Island, he had married her
without waiting for the consent of his relations. Had he lived in
Albany, and connected himself with one of his fellow citizens, bred up
in frugal simplicity, this step might have been easily got over. But an
expensive and elegant style of living begun already to take place in
New-York; which was, from the residence of the governor and commander in
chief, become the seat of a little court. The lady, whom Philip had
married, was of a family originally Scotch; and derived her descent at
no great distance from one of the noblest families in that country.[20]
Gay, witty, and very engaging, beloved and indulged, beyond measure, by
a fond husband, who was generous and good natured to excess, this young
beauty became “the glass of fashion, and the mould of form.” And the
house of this amiable couple was the resort of all that was gay and
elegant, and the centre of attraction to strangers. The mayor, who was a
person singularly judicious, and most impartial in the affection which
he distributed amongst his large family, saw clearly that the young
people trusted too much to the wealth he was known to possess, and had
got into a very expensive style of living; which, on examining their
affairs, he did not think likely to be long supported by the profits of
the business in which his son was engaged. The probable consequence of a
failure, he saw, would so far involve him as to injure his own family:
this he prevented. Peace was daily expected; and the very existence of
the business in which he was engaged, depended on the army; which his
house was wont to furnish with every thing necessary. He clearly foresaw
the withdrawing of this army; and that the habits of open hospitality
and expensive living would remain, when the sources of their present
supplies were dried up. He insisted on his son entirely quitting this
line, and retiring to Albany. He loaded a ship on his own account for
the West-Indies, and sent the young man as supercargo, to dispose of the
lading. As house-keeping was given up in New-York, and not yet resumed
in Albany, this young creature had only the option of returning to the
large family she had left, or going to her father-in-law’s. Aunt
Schuyler, ever generous and considerate, had every allowance to make for
the high spirit and fine feelings of this inexperienced young creature;
and invited her, with her little daughter, to remain with her till her
husband’s return. Nothing could be more pleasing than to witness the
maternal tenderness and delicate confidence, which appeared in the
behaviour of madame to this new inmate; whose fine countenance seemed
animated with the liveliest gratitude, and the utmost solicitude to
please her revered benefactress. The child was a creature not to be seen
with indifference. The beauty and understanding that appeared full blown
in her mother, seemed budding with the loveliest promise in the young
Catalina; a child, whom to this day, I cannot recollect without an
emotion of tenderness. She was then about three years old. Besides these
interesting strangers, there was a grand niece whom she had brought up.
Such was her family when I first knew it. In the course of the evening,
dreams began to be talked of; and every one in turn gave their opinion
with regard to that wonderful mode, in which the mind acts independent
of the senses, asserting its immaterial nature in a manner the most
conclusive. I mused and listened, till at length the spirit of quotation
(which very early began to haunt me) moved me to repeat, from Paradise
Lost,
Footnote 20:
Earl of Crawford’s.
“When nature rests,
Oft in her absence mimic fancy wakes, to imitate her;
But misjoining shapes, wild work produces oft.”
I sat silent when my bolt was shot; but so did not madame. Astonished to
hear her favourite author quoted readily, by so mere a child, she
attached much more importance to the circumstance than it deserved. So
much, indeed, that long after she used to repeat it to strangers in my
presence, by way of accounting for the great fancy she had taken to me.
These partial repetitions of hers fixed this lucky quotation indelibly
in my mind. Any person who has ever been in love, and has unexpectedly
heard that sweetest of all music, the praise of his beloved, may judge
of my sensations when madame began to talk with enthusiasm of Milton.
The bard of Paradise was indeed “the dweller of my secret soul;” and it
never was my fortune before to meet with any one who understood or
relished him. I knew very well that the divine spirit was his Urania.
But I took his invocation quite literally, and had not the smallest
doubt of his being as much inspired as ever Isaiah was. This was a very
hopeful opening; yet I was much too simple and humble to expect that I
should excite the attention of madame. My ambition aimed at nothing
higher than winning the heart of the sweet Catalina; and I thought if
heaven had given me such another little sister, and enabled me to teach
her, in due time, to relish Milton, I should have nothing left to ask.
Time went on; we were neighbours, and became intimate in the family. I
was beloved by Catalina, caressed by her charming mother, and frequently
noticed by aunt, whom I very much inclined to love, were it not that it
seemed to me as if, in so doing, I should aspire too high. Yet, in my
visits to her, where I had now a particular low chair in a corner
assigned me, I had great enjoyment of various kinds. First, I met there
with all those strangers or inhabitants who were particularly
respectable for their character or conversation. Then I was witness to a
thousand acts of beneficence that charmed me, I could not well say why,
not having learned to analyze my feelings. Then I met with the Spectator
and a few other suitable books, which I read over and over with
unwearied diligence, not having the least idea of treating a book as a
plaything, to be thrown away when the charm of novelty was past. I was
by degrees getting into favour with aunt Schuyler, when a new arrival
for awhile suspended the growing intimacy. I allude to the colonel of my
father’s regiment, who had removed from Crown Point to Albany.
The colonel was a married man, whose wife, like himself, had passed her
early days in a course of frivolous gaiety. They were now approaching
the decline of life, and finding nothing pleasing in the retrospect nor
flattering in prospect, time hung on their hands. Where nothing round
them was congenial to their habits, they took a fancy to have me
frequently with them as matter of amusement. They had had children, and
when they died, their mutual affection died with them. They had had a
fortune, and when it was spent, all their pleasures were exhausted. They
were by this time drawing out the vapid dregs of a tasteless existence,
without energy to make themselves feared, or those gentle and amiable
qualities which attract love; yet they were not stained with gross
vices, and were people of character, as the world goes.
What a new world was I entered into! from the quiet simplicity of my
home, where I heard nothing but truth, and saw nothing but innocence;
and from my good friend’s respectable mansion, where knowledge reflected
light upon virtue, and where the hours were too few for their
occupation; to be a daily witness of the manner in which these listless
ghosts of departed fashion and gaiety drank up the bitter lees of
misused time, fortune, and capacity. Never was lesson more impressive;
and young as I was, I did not fail to mark the contrast, and draw the
obvious inference. From this hopeful school I was set free the following
summer (when I had entered on my ninth year) by the colonel’s return to
England. They were indeed, kind to me; but the gratitude I could not but
feel was a sentiment independent of attachment, and early taught me how
difficult it is, nay, how painful, to disjoin esteem from gratitude.
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