Settled in some secret nest,
In calm leisure let me rest;
And far off the public stage.
Pass away my silent age.
SENECA. _Marvell's Trans._
Twelve years previous to the opening of this tale, an English gentleman,
advanced to middle age, accompanied by an infant daughter, and her
attendant, arrived at a settlement in the district of the Illinois in
North America. It was at the time when this part of the country first
began to be cleared, and a new comer, with some show of property, was
considered a welcome acquisition. Still the settlement was too young,
and the people were too busy in securing for themselves the necessaries
of life, for much attention to be paid to any thing but the "overt acts"
of the stranger--the number of acres which he bought, which were few,
the extent of his clearings, and the number of workmen that he employed,
both of which were, proportionately to his possession in land, on a far
larger scale than that of any of his fellow colonists. Like magic, a
commodious house was raised on a small height that embanked the swift
river--every vestige of forest disappeared from its immediate vicinity,
replaced by agricultural cultivation, and a garden bloomed in the
wilderness. His labourers were many, and golden harvests shone in his
fields, while the dark forest, or untilled plain, seemed yet to set at
defiance the efforts of his fellow settlers; and at the same time
comforts of so civilized a description, that the Americans termed them
luxuries, appeared in the abode and reigned in the domestic arrangements
of the Englishman, although to his eye every thing was regulated by the
strictest regard to republican plainness and simplicity.
He did not mingle much in the affairs of the colony, yet his advice was
always to be commanded, and his assistance was readily afforded. He
superintended the operations carried on on his own land; and it was
observed that they differed often both from American and English modes
of agriculture. When questioned, he detailed practices in Poland and
Hungary, and gave his reasons why he thought them applicable to the soil
in question. Many of these experiments of course failed; others were
eminently successful. He did not shun labour of any sort. He joined the
hunting parties, and made one on expeditions that went out to explore
the neighbouring wilds, and the haunts of the native Indians. He gave
money for the carrying on any necessary public work, and came forward
willingly when called upon for any useful purpose. In any time of
difficulty or sorrow--on the overflowing of the stream, or the failure
of a crop, he was earnest in his endeavours to aid and to console. But
with all this, there was an insurmountable barrier between him and the
other inhabitants of the colony. He never made one at their feasts, nor
mingled in the familiar communications of daily life; his dwelling,
situated at the distance of a full mile from the village, removed him
from out of the very hearing of their festivities and assemblies. He
might labour in common with others, but his pleasures were all solitary,
and he preserved the utmost independence as far as regarded the sacred
privacy of his abode, and the silence he kept in all concerns regarding
himself alone.
At first the settlement had to struggle with all the difficulties
attendant on colonization. It grew rapidly, however, and bid fair to
become a busy and large town, when it met with a sudden check. A new
spot was discovered, a few miles distant, possessing peculiar advantages
for commercial purposes. An active, enterprising man engaged himself in
the task of establishing a town there on a larger scale and with greater
pretensions. He succeeded, and its predecessor sunk at once into
insignificance. It was matter of conjecture among them whether Mr.
Fitzhenry (so was named the English stranger) would remove to the
vicinity of the more considerable town, but no such idea seemed to have
occurred to him. Probably he rejoiced in an accident that tended to
render his abode so entirely secluded. At first the former town rapidly
declined, and many a log hut fell to ruin; but at last, having sunk into
the appearance and name of a village, it continued to exist, bearing few
marks of that busy enterprising stir which usually characterizes a new
settlement in America. The ambitious and scheming had deserted it--it
was left to those who courted tranquillity, and desired the necessaries
of life without the hope of great future gain. It acquired an almost
old-fashioned appearance. The houses began to look weatherworn, and none
with fresh faces sprung up to shame them. Extensive clearings, suddenly
checked, gave entrance to the forests, without the appendages of a
manufacture or a farm. The sound of the axe was seldom heard, and
primeval quiet again took possession of the wild. Meanwhile Mr.
Fitzhenry continued to adorn his dwelling with imported conveniences,
the result of European art, and to spend much time and labour in making
his surrounding land assume somewhat of the appearance of
pleasure-ground.
He lived in peace and solitude, and seemed to enjoy the unchanging tenor
of his life. It had not always been so. During the first three or four
years of his arrival in America, he had evidently been unquiet in his
mind, and dissatisfied with the scene around him. He gave directions to
his workmen, but did not overlook their execution. He took great pains
to secure a horse, whose fiery spirit and beautiful form might satisfy a
fastidious connoisseur. Having with much trouble and expense got several
animals of English breed together, he was perpetually seen mounted and
forcing his way amid the forest land, or galloping over the unincumbered
country. Sadness sat on his brow, and dwelt in eyes, whose dark large
orbs were peculiarly expressive of tenderness and melancholy,
"Pietosi a riguardare, a mover parchi."
Often, when in conversation on uninteresting topics, some keen sensation
would pierce his heart, his voice faltered, and an expression of
unspeakable wretchedness was imprinted on his countenance, mastered
after a momentary struggle, yet astounding to the person he might be
addressing. Generally on such occasions he would seize an immediate
opportunity to break away and to remain alone. He had been seen,
believing himself unseen, making passionate gestures, and heard uttering
some wild exclamations. Once or twice he had wandered away into the
woods, and not returned for several days, to the exceeding terror of his
little household. He evidently sought loneliness, there to combat
unobserved with the fierce enemy that dwelt within his breast. On such
occasions, when intruded upon and disturbed, he was irritated to fury.
His resentment was expressed in terms ill-adapted to republican
equality--and no one could doubt that in his own country he had filled a
high station in society, and been educated in habits of command, so that
he involuntarily looked upon himself as of a distinct and superior race
to the human beings that each day crossed his path. In general, however,
this was only shown by a certain loftiness of demeanour and cold
abstraction, which might annoy, but could not be resented. Any
ebullition of temper he was not backward to atone for by apology, and to
compensate by gifts.
There was no tinge of misanthropy in Fitzhenry's disposition. Even while
he shrunk from familiar communication with the rude and unlettered, he
took an interest in their welfare. His benevolence was active, his
compassion readily afforded. It was quickness of feeling, and not
apathy, that made him shy and retired. Sensibility checked and crushed,
an ardent thirst for sympathy which could not be allayed in the
wildernesses of America, begot a certain appearance of coldness,
altogether deceptive. He concealed his sufferings--he abhorred that they
should be pryed into; but this reserve was not natural to him, and it
added to the misery which his state of banishment occasioned.
"Quiet to quick bosoms is a hell."
And so was it with him. His passions were
powerful, and had been ungoverned. He writhed beneath the dominion of
_sameness_; and tranquillity, allied to loneliness, possessed no charms.
He groaned beneath the chains that fettered him to the spot, where he
was withering in inaction. They caused unutterable throes and paroxysms
of despair. Ennui, the dæmon, waited at the threshold of his noiseless
refuge, and drove away the stirring hopes and enlivening expectations,
which form the better part of life. Sensibility in such a situation is a
curse: men become "cannibals of their own hearts;" remorse, regret, and
restless impatience usurp the place of more wholesome feeling: every
thing seems better than that which is; and solitude becomes a sort of
tangible enemy, the more dangerous, because it dwells within the citadel
itself. Borne down by such emotions, Fitzhenry was often about to yield
to the yearnings of his soul, and to fly from repose into action,
however accompanied by strife and wretchedness; to leave America, to
return to Europe, and to face at once all the evils which he had
journeyed so far to escape. He did not--he remained. His motives for
flight returned on him with full power after any such paroxysm, and held
him back. He despised himself for his hesitation. He had made his
choice, and would abide by it. He was not so devoid of manliness as to
be destitute of fortitude, or so dependent a wretch as not to have
resources in himself. He would cultivate these, and obtain that peace
which it had been his boast that he should experience.
It came at last. Time and custom accomplished their task, and he became
reconciled to his present mode of existence. He grew to love his home in
the wilderness. It was all his own creation, and the pains and thought
he continued to bestow upon it, rendered it doubly his. The murmur of
the neighbouring river became the voice of a friend; it welcomed him on
his return from any expedition; and he hailed the first echo of it that
struck upon his ear from afar, with a thrill of joy.
Peace descended upon his soul. He became enamoured of the independence
of solitude, and the sublime operations of surrounding nature. All
further attempts at cultivation having ceased in his neighbourhood, from
year to year nothing changed, except at the bidding of the months, in
obedience to the varying seasons;--nothing changed, except that the moss
grew thicker and greener upon the logs that supported his roof, that the
plants he cultivated increased in strength and beauty, and that the
fruit-trees yielded their sweet produce in greater abundance. The
improvements he had set on foot displayed in their progress the taste
and ingenuity of their projector; and as the landscape became more
familiar, so did a thousand associations twine themselves with its
varied appearances, till the forests and glades became as friends and
companions.
As he learnt to be contented with his lot, the inequalities of humour,
and singularities of conduct, which had at first attended him, died
away. He had grown familiar with the persons of his fellow-colonists,
and their various fortunes interested him. Though he could find no
friend, tempered like him, like him nursed in the delicacies and
fastidiousness of the societies of the old world;--though he, a china
vase, dreaded too near a collision with the brazen ones around; yet,
though he could not give his confidence, or unburthen the treasure of
his soul, he could approve of, and even feel affection for several among
them. Personal courage, honesty, and frankness, were to be found among
the men; simplicity and kindness among the women. He saw instances of
love and devotion in members of families, that made him sigh to be one
of them; and the strong sense and shrewd observations of many of the
elder settlers exercised his understanding. They opened, by their
reasonings and conversation, a new source of amusement, and presented
him with another opiate for his too busy memory.
Fitzhenry had been a patron of the fine arts; and thus he had loved
books, poetry, and the elegant philosophy of the ancients. But he had
not been a student. His mind was now in a fit state to find solace in
reading, and excitement in the pursuit of knowledge. At first he sent
for a few books, such as he wished immediately to consult, from New
York, and made slight additions to the small library of classical
literature he had originally brought with him on his emigration. But
when once the desire to instruct himself was fully aroused in his mind,
he became aware how slight and inadequate his present library was, even
for the use of one man. Now each quarter brought chests of a commodity
he began to deem the most precious upon earth. Beings with human forms
and human feelings he had around him; but, as if made of coarser,
half-kneaded clay, they wanted the divine spark of mind and the polish
of taste. He had pined for these, and now they were presented to him.
Books became his friends: they, when rightly questioned, could answer to
his thoughts. Plato could elevate, Epictetus calm, his soul. He could
revel with Ovid in the imagery presented by a graceful, though
voluptuous imagination; and hang enchanted over the majesty and elegance
of Virgil. Homer was as a dear and revered friend--Horace a pleasant
companion. English, Italian, German, and French, all yielded their
stores in turn; and the abstruse sciences were often a relaxation to a
mind, whose chief bane was its dwelling too entirely upon one idea. He
made a study, also, of the things peculiarly befitting his present
situation; and he rose in the estimation of those around, as they became
aware of his talents and his knowledge.
Study and occupation restored to his heart self-complacency, which is an
ingredient so necessary to the composition of human happiness. He felt
himself to be useful, and knew himself to be honoured. He no longer
asked himself, "Why do I live?" or looked on the dark, rapid waves, and
longed for the repose that was in their gift. The blood flowed equably
in his veins; a healthy temperance regulated his hopes and wishes. He
could again bless God for the boon of existence, and look forward to
future years, if not with eager anticipation, yet with a calm reliance
upon the power of good, wholly remote from despair.