The entertainment of the evening gave its character to our conversation
on the following morning. It was a conversation too grave for
introduction into a work intended only to aid in the entertainment of
festive hours: it commenced with the English "poor-laws," and ended with
a discussion of the tenure of property in that land, and the wisdom of
our own republican fathers in abolishing entails--a subject affording a
fair opportunity to us Americans, to indulge a little in that
self-glorification which we are accused of loving so well.
"What a curious book would a 'History of Entails' be!" exclaimed Mr.
Arlington, "how full of the romance of life!"
"Romance!" ejaculated Annie.
"Yes, romance; for under this system, the poor man, whose life seemed
doomed to one unbroken struggle with fortune, for the necessaries of
existence, finds himself, by some unexpected casualty, the possessor of
rank, and of what seems to him boundless wealth."
"Ah, yes!" said I, "but you have given us only the bright side of the
picture. To make room for this stranger, whose only connection with the
house of which he has so unexpectedly become the head is probably that
preserved in genealogical tables, the daughters of the house, or their
children it may be, reared in luxury, must go forth to a life of
comparative privation. I met, some years ago, in one of my visits to the
Far West, a young Englishman, who--but I will read you the story of his
life, as I wrote it out soon after parting with him."
"Have you a picture of him, Aunt Nancy?" asked Robert Dudley.
"Yes, Robert," I replied with a smile, "but you must have patience, for
I shall neither show the picture nor tell the story till evening."
When we were assembled in the evening, Annie, with much ceremony, led me
to the high-backed arm-chair, which she called the Speaker's Chair, and
placed before me the small travelling desk, in which she knew my
manuscripts were kept. I unlocked it, and soon found the scroll of which
I was in search.
"But the picture, Aunt Nancy--where is the picture?" cried the eager
Robert.
"Here it is," I cried, as I loosened the ribbon with which the
manuscript was bound together, and produced a small engraving; a fancy
subject, however, rather than an actual portrait, and of no general
interest. The print was eagerly caught by Robert, and handed around the
circle, with exclamations of, "How handsome!" "What an exquisite
picture!" Mr. Arlington looked at it a moment, then, with a smiling
glance at me, handed it, without a word of comment, to Col. Donaldson.
"The impertinent puppy!" ejaculated the Colonel, "engrossed with his
hawk and his hound, and wearing such an insolent air of self-absorption
in the presence of a lady" (for the artist had introduced a lovely young
maiden in the scene). "Poor girl!" continued the Colonel; "if she were
in any way connected with him, I am not surprised that she should look
so sad and reproachful."
Mr. Arlington's smiling glance was again turned on me; and I met it with
a hearty laugh.
"Indeed, Aunt Nancy," said the Colonel, who seemed strangely annoyed at
my laughter, "I think your friend does you little credit, and I can
only hope that he had some of these lordly airs drubbed out of him at
the West."
As Col. Donaldson spoke he threw down the engraving which he had held,
and pushed his chair from the table.
"I assure you, sir," I replied, "my friend has as few lordly airs as it
is possible to conceive in one born to such lordly circumstances. It was
not my intention to impose on you that picture as an actual likeness of
him--though had you ever seen him I might easily have done so, as it
really resembles him very much in his personal traits."
"Well, I am glad he did not sit for this picture," said Col. Donaldson;
"now I can listen to your story with some pleasure."
"Thank you; you must first take some reflections suggested to me by the
incidents I have here narrated. Of the character of these reflections,
you will form some conception from the title I have given to the tale
into which I have interwoven them. I have called it
"LIFE IN AMERICA."
"Men and Manners in America" was the comprehensive title of a book
issued some fifteen or twenty years ago, by a gentleman from Scotland,
to whom, we fear, Americans have never tendered the grateful
acknowledgments he deserved for his disinterested efforts to teach
them to eat eggs properly, and to give due time to the mastication of
their food. This benevolently instructive work was the precursor of a
host of others on the same topics, and others of a kindred character.
America has been the standard subject for the trial essays of European
tyros in philosophy, political economy, and book-making in general.
Society in America has been presented, it would seem, in all its
aspects--religious, educational, industrial, political, commercial, and
fashionable. Our schools and our prisons, our churches and our theatres,
have been in turn the subject of investigation, of unqualified censure,
and of scarcely less unqualified laudation.
The subject thus dissected, put together, and dissected again, has
not been able to restrain some wincing and an occasional outcry,
when the scalpel has been held by a more than usually unskilful
hand--demonstrations of sensibility which have occasioned apparently as
much disapprobation as surprise in the anatomists. We flatter ourselves
that there is peculiar fitness in the metaphor just used, for the outer
form only of American life has been touched by these various writers.
Its spirit, that which gives to it its peculiar organization, has evaded
them as completely as the soul of man evades the keenest investigations
of the dissecting room. Even of the seat of the spirit--of the point
whence it sends forth its subtle influences, giving activity and
direction to every member--of the HOMES of America, they have little
real knowledge. The anatomist--the reader will pardon the continuation
of a figure so illustrative of our meaning--the anatomist knows that not
only can he never hope to lay his finger upon the principle of life, but
that ere he can pry into those cells in which its mysterious processes
are evolved, they must have been dismantled of all that could have
guided him to any certain deductions respecting its nature and mode of
action. And seldom is the eye of the stranger, never that of the
professed bookmaker, suffered to rest upon our homes till they have
undergone changes that will as completely baffle his penetration. Nor is
this always designedly. It is from a delicate instinct which shrinks
from subjecting its most sacred and touching emotions to the rude gaze
and ruder comment of the world.
We have been led to these observations by certain events of which we
have lately become informed, and which we would here record, as
illustrative of some peculiarities of social life in America, and
especially of the new development of character manifested by women under
the influence of these peculiarities.
The ringing of bells, the firing of cannon, the huzzaing of the
assembling multitude on the announcement in London of the victory of
Waterloo, must have seemed a bitter mockery to many a heart, mad with
the first sharp agony of bereavement. "The few must suffer that the many
may rejoice," say the statesman and the warrior while they plan new
conquests. It may be so, but we have at present to do with the
sufferings of the few.
On the list of the killed in that battle appeared the name of Horace
Danforth, Captain in the 41st Regiment of Infantry. It was a name of
little note, but there was one to whom it was the synonyme of all that
gave beauty or gladness to life; and ere the bells had ceased to sound,
or the eager crowd to huzza, her heart was still. With her last
quivering sigh had mingled the wail of a new-born infant.
Thus was Horace Maitland Danforth ushered into life. He had been born at
the house of his maternal uncle, Sir Thomas Maitland, and as his mother
had been wholly dependent on this gentleman, and his father had been a
soldier of fortune, leaving to his son no heritage but his name, he
continued there, as carefully reared and tenderly regarded as though he
had been the heir to Maitland Park and to all its dependencies. Though
Sir Thomas had, for many years after the birth of his nephew intended to
marry, it was an intention never executed, and when Horace attained his
twenty-first birthday, his majority was celebrated as that of his
uncle's heir, and as such he was presented by Sir Thomas Maitland to his
assembled tenantry. Soon after this event, the Baronet obtained for his
nephew a right to the name and arms of Maitland--a measure to which,
knowing little of his father's family, Horace readily consented. Sir
Thomas Maitland died suddenly while yet in the prime of life, and was
succeeded by Sir Horace, then twenty-four years of age. In the
enjoyments of society, of travel, and of those thousand luxuries, mental
and physical, which fortune secures, three years passed rapidly away
with the young, handsome, and accomplished Baronet.
One of the earliest convictions of Horace Maitland's life had been, that
the refining presence of woman was necessary to the perfection of
Maitland Park, and when Sir Thomas said to him, "Marry, Horace--do not
be an old bachelor like your uncle"--though he answered nothing, he
vowed in the inmost recesses of his heart that it should not be his
fault if he did not obey the injunction. Yet to the world it seemed
wholly his own fault that at twenty-seven he had not given to Maitland
Park a mistress, and even he himself could not attribute his continued
celibacy to the coldness or cruelty of woman; for, in truth, though he
had "knelt at many a shrine," he had "laid his heart on none." If hardly
pressed for his reason, he might have said with Ferdinand,--
"For several virtues
Have I liked several women; never any
With so full soul, but some defect in her
Did quarrel with the noblest grace she own'd,
And put it to the foil."
He who after the death of his uncle continued to urge Sir Horace most on
the subject of matrimony, was the one of all the world who might have
been supposed least desirous to see him enter into its bonds. This was
Edward Maitland, a distant cousin, somewhat younger than himself, to
whom he had been attached from his boyhood, and who had been saved by
his generosity from many of those painful experiences to which a very
narrow income would otherwise have subjected him. It had more than once
been suggested to Edward Maitland, that should his cousin die
unmarried, he might not unreasonably hope to become his heir, as he was
supposed to be uncontrolled by any entail in the disposal of his
property, and had few nearer relations than himself, and none with whom
he maintained such intimate and affectionate intercourse. Nor could
Edward Maitland fail to perceive that his own value in society was in an
inverse ratio to the chances of the Baronet's marrying, as a report of
an actual proposal on the part of the latter had more than once
occasioned a visible declension in the number and warmth of his
invitations. These considerations appeared, however, only to stimulate
the young man's activity in the search of a wife for his cousin. Had he
been employed by a marriage broker with a prospect of a liberal
commission, he could hardly have been more indefatigable.
"Well, Horace," exclaimed the younger Maitland, as the two sat loitering
over a late London breakfast one morning, "how did you like the lady to
whom I introduced you last evening?"
A smile lighted the eyes of Sir Horace as he replied, "Very much,
Ned--she is certainly intelligent, and has read and thought more than
most ladies of her age."
"She will make a capital manager, I am sure."
"And an agreeable companion," added Sir Horace.
"And a good wife--do you not think so, Horace?"
"She doubtless would be to one who could fancy her, Ned; for me her
style is a little too _prononcé_."
"Well, really, Horace, I cannot imagine what you would have. One woman
is too frivolous--another wants refinement--one is too indolent and
exacting--and when you can make no other objection, why her style is a
little too _prononcé_"--the last words were given with ludicrous
imitation of his cousin's tone. "If an angel were to descend from heaven
for you, I doubt if you would be suited."
"So do I," replied Horace, with a gay laugh at his cousin's evident
vexation.
And thus did he meet all Edward's well-intended efforts. The power of
choice had made him fastidious, and his life of luxury and freedom had
brought him no experiences of the need of another and gentler self as a
consoler. But that lesson was approaching.
A call from his lawyer for some papers necessary to complete an
arrangement in which he was much interested, had sent Sir Horace to
Maitland Park, in the midst of the London season, to explore the yet
unfathomed recesses of an old _escritoire_ of Sir Thomas. He had been
gone but two days when Edward received the following note from him,
written, as it seemed, both in haste and agitation:--
"Come to me immediately on the receipt of this, dear Edward. I have
found here a paper of the utmost importance to you as well as to me.
Come quickly--take the chariot and travel post.
"Yours, H. D. MAITLAND."
In less than an hour after the reception of this note Edward Maitland
was on the road: and travelling with the utmost expedition, he arrived
at Maitland Park just as the day was fading into dusky eve.
"How is Sir Horace?" he asked of the man who admitted him.
"I do not think he seems very well, sir. You will find him in the
library, Mr. Edward--shall I announce you, sir?"
"No;" and with hurried steps and anxious heart Edward Maitland trod the
well-known passages leading to the library.
When he entered that room, Sir Horace was standing at one of its windows
gazing upon the landscape without, and so absorbed was he that he did
not move at the opening of the door. Edward spoke, and starting, he
turned towards him a face haggard with some yet untold suffering. He
advanced to meet his cousin, and with an almost convulsive grasp of the
hand, said, "I am glad you have come, Edward,"--then, without heeding
the anxious inquiries addressed to him by Edward, he rang the bell, and
ordered lights in a tone which caused them to be brought without a
moment's delay. As soon as the servant who had brought them had left the
room, Horace resumed: "Now, Edward, here is the paper of which I wrote
to you; read it at once."
Agitated by his cousin's manner, Edward took the old stained paper from
him without a word, and seating himself near the lights, began to read,
while Sir Horace stood just opposite him, eyeing him intently. In a very
few minutes Edward looked up with a puzzled air and said, "I do not
understand one word of it. What does it all mean, Horace?"
"It means that you are Sir Edward Maitland--that you are master
here--and that I am a beggar."
"Horace, you are mad!" exclaimed the young man, starting from his chair,
with quivering limbs and a face from which every trace of color had
departed.
Hitherto the tone in which Sir Horace had spoken, the alternate flush
and pallor on his face, and the shiver that occasionally passed over his
frame, had shown him to be fearfully excited; but as Edward became
agitated, all these signs of emotion passed away, and with wonderful
calmness taking the paper in his hand, he commenced reading that part of
it which explained its purpose. This was to secure the descent of the
baronetcy of Maitland and the property attached to it in the male line.
Having made Edward Maitland comprehend this purpose, Sir Horace drew
towards him a genealogical table of their family, and showed him that he
was himself the only living descendant in a direct line through an
unbroken succession of males from the period at which this entail was
made.
"And now, Edward," he said in conclusion, "I am prepared to give up
every thing to you. That you have so long been defrauded of your rights
has been through ignorance on my part, and equal ignorance, I am
convinced, on the part of my uncle. You know he paid little attention to
business, leaving it wholly to his agents. I have often heard him
express a wish to examine the papers in the old _escritoire_ in which I
found this deed, saying that they had been sent home by old Harris when
he gave up his business to his nephew--the old man writing to my uncle,
that as they consisted of leases that had fallen in, or of antiquated
deeds, they were no longer of any value except as family records. It was
a just Providence that led me to that _escritoire_, to search for the
missing title-deeds of the farm I was about to sell."
Edward Maitland had sunk into his chair from sheer inability to stand,
and for several minutes after his cousin had ceased speaking, he still
sat, with his elbows resting on the table before him, and his face
buried in his clasped hands. At length looking up, he said, "Horace, let
us burn this paper and forget it."
"Forget! that is impossible, Edward."
"Why?--why not live as we have done? You speak of defrauding me, but
what have I wanted that you had? Has not your purse been as my own? Your
home--has it not been mine? It shall be so still. We shall share the
fortune, and as to the title, you will wear it more gracefully than I."
"Dear Edward! Such proof of your generous affection ought to console me
for all changes, and it shall. I will confess to you that I have
suffered, but it is past. My people----" his voice faltered, his chest
heaved, and turning away he walked more than once across the room before
he resumed--"they are mine no longer--but you will be kind to them,
Edward, I know."
"Horace, you will drive me mad!" cried Edward Maitland. "Promise, I
conjure you, promise me to say nothing more of this."
He threw himself as he spoke into his cousin's arms with an agitation
which Horace vainly sought to soothe, until he promised "to _speak_" no
further on this subject at present to any one. Satisfied with this
promise, and exhausted by the emotions of the last hour, Edward soon
retired to his own room. It was long before he slept, and had he not
been in a distant part of the house, he would have heard the hurried
steps with which, for many an hour after he was left alone, Sir Horace
Maitland continued to pace the floor of the dimly lighted library. The
clock was on the stroke of three when he seated himself and began the
following letter:
DEAR EDWARD:--I must go, and at once. I cannot without the loss of
self-respect continue to play the master here another day, neither can I
live as a dependent within these walls--no, not for an hour. Do not
attempt to follow me, for I will not see you. I will write to you as
soon as I arrive at my point of destination--I know not yet where that
will be. Feel no anxiety about me. I shall take with me a thousand
pounds, and will leave an order for Decker to receive from you and hold
subject to my draft whatever sum may accrue from the sale, at a fair
valuation, of Sir Thomas Maitland's personal property, which he had an
undoubted right to will as he pleased, the amount of the mesne rents
expended by me during the last three years having been deducted
therefrom. Do not attempt to force favors upon me, Edward--I cannot bear
them now. Such attempts would only compel me to cut myself loose from
you and your affection--the one blessing that earth still holds for me.
My trunks have been packed two days, for my first resolve was to go
from this place and from England. I shall take the chariot in which you
came down and fresh horses, but I will send them back to you from
London.
God bless you, Edward. I dare not speak of my feelings to you now, lest
I should lose the strength and self-command I need so much. God bless
you.
H. D. MAITLAND.
Stealthily did Sir Horace move through the wide halls and ascend the
lofty stairs of this home of his life, feeling at every step the rushing
tide of memory conflicting with the sad thought that he was treading
them for the last time. Having reached his sleeping apartments, he rang
a bell which he knew would summon his own man. Rapidly as the man moved,
the time seemed long to him ere the summons was obeyed, and he had given
the necessary orders to have the carriage prepared and the trunks
brought down as soon as possible, "and as quietly," he added, "as he did
not wish to disturb Mr. Edward, who had retired to bed late."
"Will you not take breakfast, sir, before you set out?" asked the man.
"No, John. Let the carriage follow me. I shall walk on. Be quick, and
make no noise."
A faint streak of light was just beginning to appear in the east, when
the heretofore master of that lordly mansion went out into a world which
held for him no other home. ACCIDENT, as short-sighted mortals name
events controlled by no human will, decided whither he should direct his
course from London. He had called at his lawyer's--the already mentioned
"nephew of old Harris"--determined to communicate his discovery to him,
perhaps with some faint hope of learning that the entail had been in
some way set aside, before Sir Thomas had ventured to make his sister's
son his heir. Mr. Decker was not in his rooms, and sitting down to wait
for him he took up mechanically the morning paper that lay on his table.
The first thing on which his eye rested was the advertisement of a steam
packet about to sail from Liverpool for America.
"America; the very place for me. I shall meet no acquaintances there,"
was the thought which flashed through his mind. Another glance at the
paper of the day and hour of the packet's sailing, an examination of his
watch, an impatient look from the window up and down the street, and
again he mused, "I have not a moment to spare, and if I wait for Decker
I may be kept for hours, and so lose the packet; and why should I wait?
Have I not seen the deed? This indecision is folly."
The result of these reflections was a note rapidly written to Mr.
Decker, stating his discovery of the deed of entail, his consequent
surrender of all claim to the property to Edward Maitland, and his
determination to quit England immediately. All arrangements respecting
the settlement of his claims on the estate, and the claims of the
present proprietor upon him, he left to Sir Edward and Mr. Decker,
empowering the latter to receive and retain for his use and subject to
his order, whatever, on such a settlement, should appertain to him.
This note was left on Mr. Decker's table, and in one hour after leaving
his office Horace Maitland was advancing to Liverpool with the rapidity
of steam. The packet waited but the arrival of the train in which he was
a passenger, to leave the shores of England. With what bitterness he
watched those receding shores, while memory wrote upon his bare and
bleeding heart the record of joys identified with them, and fading like
them for ever from his life, let each imagine for himself, for to such
emotions no language can do justice.
A voyage across the Atlantic is now too common an event to stay, even
for a moment, the pen of a narrator. From Boston, Horace--no longer Sir
Horace--wrote to his cousin as follows--
DEAR EDWARD--Here I am among the republicans, with whom I may flatter
myself I have lost nothing by sinking Sir Horace Maitland into plain Mr.
Danforth. Such is now my address, assumed not from fear that in this
distant quarter of the world I shall meet any to whom the name of
Maitland is familiar but because much of which I do not desire to be
reminded is associated with that came. I said to you when leaving my
home, dear Edward, "Do not fear for me." I can now repeat this with
better reason. The first stunning shock of the change to which I was so
suddenly subjected has been borne. My past life already seems to me as a
dream from which I have been rudely but effectually awakened. I am now
first to begin life in reality.
The accident which determined me to seek these shores was a happy one. I
cannot well dream here where all around me is active, vigorous life. We
are accustomed in England to think of the American shores as the Ultima
Thule in a western direction, but when we reach these shores we find
that the movement is still west. The daily papers are filled with
accounts of persons migrating west, and thither am I going. "The world
is all before me where to choose" the theatre of my new life--my life of
work---and I would have it far from the blue sea, out of hearing of the
murmur of the waves that lave my island home. I will go where the wide
prairies sweep away on every side of the horizon--where every link with
other lands will be severed, and America below and Heaven above
constitute my universe. "You will find no society at the West," has been
said to me. This is another attraction to that region. I would work out
my destiny in solitude. I desire to travel without company, and have
made my arrangements accordingly. I have purchased three substantial
horses for a little more than one hundred pounds, and have engaged a
shrewd, active lad as groom, valet, and he seems to think, companion,
at about two pounds per month. A very light carriage, sometimes driven
by my servant and sometimes by myself, will transport the moderate
wardrobe which I shall deem it necessary to take with me to the
outermost verge of civilization and good roads, where leaving carriage
and wardrobe, or at least all of the latter which may not be borne by a
led-horse, I shall penetrate still further into the old forests of this
New World. I long to be alone with "Nature's full, free
heart"--perchance, there, my own may beat as of yore.
Farewell, dear Edward. You may hear of me next among the Sacs and
Foxes;--at present address H. Danforth, care of G---- & D----,
Merchants, ---- ---- street, Boston.
Yours ever, H. DANFORTH.
A new external life had indeed opened upon this child of luxury and
conventional refinement. He whose movements had been chronicled as
matter of interest to the public, for whose presence the "world" had
postponed its fêtes, might now travel hundreds of miles without
observation or inquiry. He upon whose steps had waited a crowd of
obsequious attendants, now found himself with one follower, whose tone
of independence hardly permitted him to call him servant. In cities,
where he would still have been surrounded by those conventional
distinctions of which he had himself been deprived, the sense of a great
loss would have been ever present with him, and the contrast with the
past would have made the fairest present to which he could now attain,
desolate. But there could be no comparison, and therefore no painful
contrast, between the wild life of the prairies and the
ultra-civilization of English aristocratic society. In the excitement
and adventure of the one, he hoped to forget the other. He sought to
forget--not to be resigned, to acquiesce. His inner life was unchanged.
He had been a dreamer--a pleasure-seeker--and a dreamer and
pleasure-seeker he continued, though the dreams and the pleasures must
be wrought from new materials. To sketch the progress of such a
character through the shifting scenes of his new existence--to observe
him in his association with the strong, daring, acute, but uncultivated
denizens of our frontier States--to stand with sympathizing heart beside
him as he first entered upon those unpeopled solitudes in whose silence
God speaks to the soul, is not permitted us at present. This may be the
work of another day; but now we must pass at once with him from Boston
to a scene within the confines of Iowa. His carriage had been left
behind, and for two days he had been riding over a rolling country,
whose grassy knolls, dotted here and there with clumps of trees, brought
occasionally to his mind the park scenery of his own land. Early in this
day he had passed a farm with a comfortable house and substantial
out-buildings, but no dwelling of man had since presented itself to him,
though the sun was now low in the western sky. Under ordinary
circumstances this would have been of little consequence, for he had
already spent more than one night in the open air without discomfort;
but his attendant had heard a distant muttering of thunder, and John
Stacy was not the lad to encounter without murmuring a night of storm
unsheltered. John's anxiety made him keen-sighted, and he was the first
to perceive and announce the approach of a rider. We use the neutral
term _rider_ not without consideration, for he was one in whom a certain
ease of manner, and even an air of command, contradicted the testimony
of habiliments made and worn after a fashion recognized nowhere as
characteristic of the _genus_ gentleman. A courteous inquiry from Horace
Danforth respecting the nearest place at which a night's shelter might
be obtained, led to a cordial invitation to him to return with him to
his own house. It was an invitation not to be disregarded under existing
circumstances, and it was accepted with evident pleasure both by master
and man.
Mr. Grahame, for so the new-comer had announced himself, led the way
back for a short distance over the route just pursued by our travellers,
and then striking off to the left, rode briskly forward for several
miles. The light gray clouds which had long been gathering in the
western sky had deepened into blackness as they proceeded, and flashes
of lightning were darting across their path, and large drops of rain
were falling upon them when they neared a house constructed of logs, yet
bearing some evidence of taste in the grounds around it, as well as in
its position, which was on the side of a gently sloping hill, looking
out upon a landscape through which wound a clear and rapid, though
narrow stream.
"Like good cavaliers, we will see our horses housed first," said Mr.
Grahame, riding past the main building to one of the out-houses, built
also of logs, which served as a stable. Here Horace Danforth
relinquished his tired steed to the care of John Stacy, and Mr. Grahame
having himself rubbed down his own beautiful animal, and thrown a bundle
of hay before him, with a slight apology to his visitor for the
detention, led the way into the house. As they entered the vacant parlor
a shade of something like dissatisfaction passed over the master's
countenance, and having seen his guest seated by a huge fireplace, whose
cheerful blaze of wood a chilly evening made by no means unwelcome, he
left him alone. He soon returned, however, with a brighter expression,
which was explained by his saying, "I feared, on finding this room
empty, that my daughter had been sent for to a sick woman with whom she
has lately spent several days and nights, and that I could offer you
only the discomforts of a bachelor's establishment; but I find she is at
home, and will soon give us supper."
During the absence of his host, our Englishman had looked around with
increasing surprise at the contents of the parlor. The furniture was of
the most simple description, yet marked by a certain neatness and
gracefulness of arrangement, indicative, as he could not but think, of a
cultivated taste. The same mingling of even rude simplicity of material
and tasteful arrangement prevailed in the chamber to which his host now
conducted him, and where the luxury, for such he had learned to regard
it, of abundance of clear water and clean napkins awaited him. In a few
minutes after his return to the parlor a door was opened, through which
he obtained a view of an inner apartment, well lighted, and containing a
table so spread as to present no slight temptation to a traveller who
had not broken his fast since the morning meal. At the head of this
table stood a young woman of graceful form, whom his host introduced to
him as his daughter, Miss Grahame.
Mary Grahame's clear complexion, glowing with the hue of health, her
large and soft and dark gray eyes, her abundant glossy black hair, might
have won from the most fastidious some of that admiration given to
personal beauty; but in truth Horace Danforth had grown indifferent as
well as fastidious, and it was not until in after days he had seen the
complexion glow and the dark eyes kindle with feeling, that he said to
himself, "She is beautiful!" To the fascination of a peculiarly
graceful, gentle, yet earnest manner, he was, however, more quickly
susceptible. During this first evening, the chief emotion excited in his
mind was surprise at the style of conversation and manner, the
acquaintance with books and with _les bien-séances_ which marked these
inhabitants of a log cabin in the western wilds--these denizens of a
half-savage life.
A day of hard riding had induced such fatigue, that even the rare and
unexpected pleasure of communication with refined and cultivated minds,
could not keep Horace Danforth long from his pillow. As he expected to
set out in the morning very early, he would have made his adieus in
parting for the night, mingling with them courteous expressions of the
enjoyment which such society had afforded him after his long abstinence
from all intellectual converse.
"Believe me," said Mr. Graham, and the sentiment was corroborated by his
daughter's eyes, "the pleasure has been mutual. Society is the great
want of our western life. I have been wishing to ask whether your
business were too urgent to permit you to afford us more of this coveted
good?"
"I am ashamed to confess," said Horace Danforth, with some
embarrassment, "that I have no business at present--that I am an
idler--I verily believe the only one in your country."
"Then will you not give us the pleasure of your company for a longer
time? A little rest will be no disadvantage either to your horses or
yourself, and on us you will be conferring a favor which you cannot
appreciate till you have lived five hundred miles away from
civilization."
The invitation was accepted as cordially as it was given, to the great
satisfaction of John Stacy, who had been much pleased with the
appearance of land in this neighborhood, and wanted time to look about
him preparatory to purchasing.
Horace Danforth awoke early next morning, and throwing open the shutters
of the only window in his room, found that a stormy night had been
succeeded by an unusually brilliant morning. "To brush the dews from off
the upland lawn" had not been a habit of his past life; but the cool
fresh air, the spicy perfumes which it wafted to him, and the brightness
and verdure of the whole landscape, proved now more inviting than his
pillow; and dressing himself hastily, he descended the clean but rude
and uncarpeted stairs as gently as possible, lest he should arouse Miss
Grahame from her slumbers. He found the front door open, showing that he
was not the first of the household to go abroad that day. As he stepped
out upon the lawn, he discovered that the parlor windows were also
open, and a familiar air, hummed in low, suppressed tones, caused him
to look through them as he passed. Could he believe his eyes? Was that
neatest and prettiest of all housemaids, who, moving with light and even
graceful steps, was yet busied in the very homely task of dusting and
arranging the furniture in the parlor--was she indeed the same Miss
Grahame who had last evening charmed him by her lady-like deportment and
intelligent conversation? Yes, the very same; for though the glossy
black braids were covered by a gay colored handkerchief wound around her
head _à la Turque_, there was the same wide forehead and well-defined
brows; the same soft dark gray eyes; the same slightly aquiline nose and
smiling mouth. Nor was the conversation of last evening more opposed, in
his imagination, to her present employment, than the evident taste and
feeling with which she was now singing that most beautiful hymn of the
Irish poet:--
"O God! Thou art the life and light
Of all this wondrous world I see."
Listening and gazing, wondering and comparing, he had well nigh
forgotten himself, when the lady of the mansion turning suddenly to the
window, raised her head. Their eyes met! The color which rushed quickly
to her very temples, recalled him to himself, and bowing with certainly
not less embarrassment than she evinced, he walked rapidly on. He had
not proceeded far, however, when he saw his host approaching from an
opposite direction. As Mr. Grahame had already spent more than an hour
in his fields, sharing as well as directing the labors of his men, he
expressed no surprise at meeting his guest abroad. After a cordial
greeting, and a few general observations on the weather and scenery had
been exchanged, Mr. Grahame, glancing up at the sun, which had now risen
considerably above a distant wood, said, "I am sorry to interrupt your
walk, but my morning's work has made me by no means indifferent to my
breakfast, and I think that Mary's coffee and biscuits are about this
time done to a turn."
A few minutes brought them back to the house, and into the parlor from
which Mary Grahame had disappeared, leaving behind her, in its neat and
tasteful arrangement, and in the fresh flowers that adorned the table
and mantelpiece, evidence of her early presence. The gentlemen were soon
summoned to breakfast.
It may have been that his early rising had given to Horace Danforth an
unusual appetite; but certain it is that no breakfast of which he had
ever partaken seemed to him half so inviting as this. And yet, in truth,
it was simple enough; toast, crisp and brown, warm, light biscuits,
fresh eggs, good butter, excellent coffee, and rich cream were all it
offered. Mary Grahame presided, and speaking little herself, listened to
her father and Horace, while they discussed the different
characteristics of English or European and American society, with a
pleased and intelligent countenance. Some observations from him drew
from Mr. Grahame the following reply:--
"There is one feature of American society upon which I think no
foreigner has remarked, or if he have, it has been so cursorily as
plainly to show that he was far from appreciating its importance: I mean
the fact that here the thinker is also the worker. In England and the
European States, the working class is distinct from the consumers, and
there must be almost as great a contrast in the intellectual as in the
physical condition of the two. All the refinement, the cultivation, must
remain with those who have leisure and fortune--as a class, I mean, for
individuals will of course be found, who, in spite of all disadvantages,
will rise to the highest position. But here, in America, there are no
idlers. Here, with few if any exceptions, all must be, in some way,
workers, and all may be thinkers. We attain thus to a republic of
mind."
"Do you not fear that the result of this will be to check the
development of individual greatness; that as you have no king in the
State, so you will have no king in literature?"
"Even were this so, it would remain a question whether the great
increase of general intelligence would not more than compensate the
evil."
"Can many Polloks repay us for one Milton--many Drydens for one
Shakspeare?"
"You take extreme cases; besides, I only admitted your supposition to
show that I could produce a set-off to the disadvantage. I do not
believe that the necessity for labor of some sort will prevent a truly
great mind from achieving for itself the highest distinction. I think
the history of such minds proves that it will rather serve as a stimulus
to their powers."
Horace Danforth was silent, and after a moment's pause, Mr. Grahame
resumed.
"In this union of the working and the thinking classes, the refinements
of life, those things which adorn, and beautify it, take their true
place as consolers and soothers of the care-worn and toil-wearied mind.
No Italian opera can give such delight to the sated man of pleasure as
the tired laborer feels in listening to the evening song with which some
loved one, in his home, sings him to repose.
"You speak _con amore_" said Horace Danforth, smiling at his host's
fervor.
"I do. Had I been excluded from the refinements of social life, I should
long since have fainted and grown weary of my toil here. I felt this
when compelled to relinquish my daughter's society for two years, that
she might have the advantage of instruction in those branches of a
womanly education in which I could give her no aid."
"And having spent two years in the more cultivated East, did Miss
Grahame return willingly to her home in the wilderness?"
This question was addressed to Mary Grahame herself, and she answered
simply, "My father was here."
"You acknowledge, then, that could your father have been with you, you
would have preferred remaining at the East?"
"Oh no! I was fifteen when my father sent me from home, and they who
have enjoyed the free life of the prairies so long, seldom love
cities."
"But the ease, the freedom from labor, which is enjoyed in a more
advanced stage of society, the power to devote yourself to pursuits
agreeable to your taste--did you not regret these?"
"Permit me to put your question into plainer language," interposed Mr.
Grahame. "Mr. Danforth would ask, Mary, whether you would not prefer to
live where you would not be compelled to degrade your mind----"
"No, no, I protest against the degradation," exclaimed Mr. Danforth.
"To degrade your mind," pursued Mr. Grahame, answering the interruption
only by a smile, "by exercising it on such homely things as brewing
coffee and baking cakes, or to soil your fair hands with brooms and
dusters."
"For the soil of the hands we have sparkling rills, and for the
degradation of the mind, I, like Mr. Danforth, protest against it."
"But how can you make your protest good?"
"You have taught me that there is no degradation in labor, pursued for
fair and right ends, and that where the end is noble, the labor becomes
ennobling."
"But what noble ends can be alleged for the drudgery of domestic life? I
am translating your looks into language," said Mr. Grahame, turning
playfully to his guest; "correct me if I do not read them rightly."
"If I say you do, I fear Miss Grahame will think them very impertinent
looks."
"I shall not complain of them while I can reply to them so easily," said
Mary gayly. "He who knows how much a well-ordered household contributes
to the cultivation of domestic virtues and family affections, will not
think a woman degraded who sacrifices somewhat of her tastes and
pleasures to the deeper happiness of procuring such advantages for those
she loves."
"But is not that state of society preferable, in which, without her
personal interference, by the employment of those who have no higher
tastes, she may accomplish the same object?"
"That question proves that you do not, like my father, desire to see the
working and the thinking classes united. You seem to propose that the
first shall ever remain our hewers of wood and drawers of water."
"Is it not a fact that there have been, are, and always will be those in
the world who are fitted for no other position?"
"That there are and always have been such persons, I acknowledge; but
when labor ceases to be degrading, because it is partaken by all, may we
not hope that new aspirations will be awakened in the laborer--that he
will elevate himself in the scale of being when he feels elevation
possible?"
Mary Grahame spoke with generous enthusiasm, yet with a modest
gentleness which made Horace Danforth desire to continue the argument.
"Admitting all this," he said, "it does not answer my question, which
was, whether you did not prefer that state of society in which you were
able to avail yourself of the services of such a class?"
"There are moments, doubtless, when indolence would plead for such
self-indulgence; but I should be mortified, indeed, where this the
prevailing temper of my mind."
"Pardon me if I say that I do not see how it can be otherwise--how a
lady of Miss Grahame's refinement and taste can be pleased with the
employments, for instance, to which Mr. Grahame just now referred."
"Not pleased with them in themselves, but she may accept them, may she
not, as a necessary part of a great object to which she has devoted
herself?"
"And this object?--but, forgive me. The interest you have awakened in
the subject, and your kindness in answering my questions, make me an
encroacher, I fear," he added, as he marked the heightened color with
which Mary glanced at her father as he paused for her answer.
"Not at all; but I speak in presence of my master, and will refer you to
him," she replied, with another smiling glance at her father.
"You see," said Mr. Grahame, "that even in these wilds, 'the world's
dread laugh' retains its power. Mary, I see, is afraid of being called a
female Quixote, and even I find myself disposed to win you to some
interest in my object, before I avow it. This I think I can best do by a
sketch of the circumstances which led to its adoption. I will give you
such a sketch, therefore, if you will promise to acquit me of egotism in
doing so."
"That I will readily do. I shall be delighted to hear it."
"You shall have it, but not now; for I see, by certain cabalistic signs,
known only to the initiated, that Mary is about to leave us for some of
those same degrading employments, and if you will take a ride with me, I
will relieve you from all danger of contact with them, and will, at the
same time, show you something of our neighborhood."
The proposal was of course accepted. The ride embraced a circuit of ten
miles, in which they passed only two houses. The first of these was
built with an apparent regard to convenience and comfort, and even some
effort at adornment, as manifested in the climbing plants with which the
windows were draperied, and the flowers which adorned the little court
in front. Mr. Grahame stopped before the gateway of this court, and a
woman of coarse, rough exterior, though scrupulously clean, came out to
speak to him, and to urge his alighting and entering the house with his
friend. This Mr. Grahame declined; he had stopped only to inquire after
a sick child, and to express a hope that her husband's hay had turned
out well.
"Dreadful fine," was her reply to the last. "I'm sure we be much
obleeged to you for the seed, and for tellin' Jim how to plant it He
never had sich hay before."
"I'm glad to hear it. Where is Lucy?"
"Oh, she's off to school. Tell Miss Mary she's gittin' to be 'most as
grand a reader as she be. And yet the child's willin' enough to work,
for all."
As the gentlemen rode on, after this interview, Mr. Grahame said, "That
last speech expressed one of the greatest difficulties against which we
had to contend in our efforts to induce our neighbors to give to their
children some of the advantages of education. They were afraid 'larnin'
would make them lazy.' They were of your opinion, that the thinker and
the worker must remain of different classes."
"I was much surprised to hear that woman speak of a school. I should not
think the teacher could find his situation very profitable."
"He is one who has regard to a higher reward than any earthly one. He is
a self-denying Christian missionary, whom I induced to settle in our
neighborhood. He preaches on the Sabbath, in a little church about two
miles from my house, to a congregation of about twenty adults, and twice
that number of children; and during the week, he keeps a school which is
well attended in the summer. Some of his earlier pupils are already
showing, by their more useful and more happy lives, the importance of
the schoolmaster's work in the elevation of a people."
The next dwelling they approached was very small and mean-looking. It
seemed to Horace Danforth to contain only one apartment, warmed by an
ill-constructed clay chimney, and lighted by one small, square window.
That window, however, was not only sashed and glazed, but shaded by a
plain muslin curtain.
"Here," said Mr. Grahame, "lives one of those pupils of whom I spoke
just now. He has commenced life with nothing but the plot of ground you
see, and having a wife to support, he must work hard, yet already he is
aiming at something more than the supply of merely physical wants; and I
doubt not he will, should he live long enough, become the intelligent
and wealthy father of a well-educated family."
They were approaching the house as Mr. Grahame spoke. Near it was a
small field, in which a man was hoeing.
"How is your wife, Martin?" asked Mr. Grahame.
"Oh, thank you, sir, she is quite smart. She's been getting better ever
since the night Miss Mary sat up with her last. We say she always brings
good luck."
"And how are your potatoes?"
"How could they help but be good, sir, with such grand seed as you gave
me? Tell Miss Mary, if you please, sir, that the rose-tree is growing
finely, and that as soon as I can get time to put up the fence, Sally is
to have the flower-garden she talked about."
"I am glad to hear it, Martin; if you are brisk you may have some
flowers yet before frost. I will bring you some seeds the next time I
come."
"Do you procure your seeds from the East, or is it the result of your
superior cultivation, that you are able thus to supply your neighbors?"
asked Horace Danforth of Mr. Grahame, as they rode on.
"The potatoes were from my own field, raised from the seed two years
ago. The grass and flower seeds were from my agent at the East. These
little favors win for my daughter and myself considerable influence over
our neighbors, and thus facilitate our attainment of the object for
which we have pitched our tent in the wilderness, and accepted those
labors which you justly regard as distasteful in themselves."
The return home of Mr. Grahame and his visitor, their dinner and
afternoon engagements, offer nothing worthy of our notice. It was not
till the labors of the day had been concluded, and the little party were
gathered again before a cheerful fire in the parlor, that the subject of
the morning's conversation was resumed. As Mary entered from the
supper-room, bringing with her a little basket of needle-work, Horace
Danforth asked if he might not now hope to receive the promised sketch.
"I will give it you with pleasure when I have had my evening song from
Mary," said Mr. Grahame.
Opening the piano for his young hostess, Horace Danforth stood beside
her as she sang, but he forgot to turn the leaves of the music before
her as he listened once again to a rich and cultivated voice,
accompanied by a fine instrument, touched by a skilful hand. As the
sweet and well-remembered strains fell on his ear, he closed his eyes
and gave the reins to fancy. The loved and lost gathered around him, and
it was with a strange, dream-like feeling that, as the sweet sound
ceased, and Mary arose from the piano, he opened his eyes and looked
upon the rough walls and simple furniture of his present abode.
"It is now nearly nineteen years," began Mr. Grahame, when his daughter
and guest had resumed their seats near him, "since, crushed in spirit, I
turned from the grave in which I had laid my chief earthly blessing, to
wander 'any where, any where out of that world' which had a few weeks
before been bright and joyous to me, but which I was now ready to
pronounce a desolate waste. The desire to avoid society made me turn
westward, and nearly one hundred miles east of our present residence I
found myself in the midst of a people without churches, without schools,
rude in appearance and in manners. Absorbed in the destruction of my own
selfish happiness, I might have passed from among them without knowing
that disease was adding its pangs to those inflicted by want, ignorance,
and superstition, had not a mother in the agony of parting from her
first-born, looking hither and thither for help, turned her eyes
entreatingly upon the stranger. I had once studied medicine, though
regarding the profession, as our young men too often do, merely as a
means of personal aggrandizement, and having received just at the
completion of my studies an accession of fortune, which removed all
pecuniary necessity to exertion on my part, I had never practised it,
nor indeed obtained the diploma necessary to its practice. Now, however,
I endeavored to make myself master of the peculiar features of the
epidemic under which the child was suffering, and with the aid of a
small store of medicines which my good sister had insisted on my taking
with me, and a rigid enforcement of some of the simplest rules of diet
and regimen, I had the happiness of seeing the child in a few days out
of danger, and of receiving the mother's rapturous thanks. That moment,
gave me the first gleam of happiness I had known for months, and
disposed me to listen to the entreaties of the poor creatures who came
from far and near to entreat the aid of the Doctor, as they persisted in
calling me, notwithstanding my repeated assurances that I had no right
to the title. I spent weeks in that neighborhood, and there I was born
to a new life. Till that time I had lived to myself, and when that in
which I had centered my earthly joy was snatched from me by death, I had
felt that life had nothing left for me; but now I saw that while there
were sentient beings in the universe to serve, and a glorious and ever
blessed Father presiding over that universe and smiling on such service,
life could not be divested of joy. Under the influence of such views my
plans for the future were formed, nor have I ever seen reason to change
or to regret them. Every where the Christian religion teaches the same
precepts, but not every where is it equally easy to see the way in which
those precepts may be obeyed; every where it is true, as a distinguished
writer of your own land has said, 'Blessed is the man who has found his
work--let him seek no other blessedness;' but not every where is it
equally easy to see where our work lies. Here, in America, the
partition-walls which stand elsewhere as a remnant of the old feudalism,
have been broken down; every man is irresistibly pressed into contact
with his neighbors--he cannot shut his eyes to their wants--he cannot
stop his ears against their cries. In America, too, every man, as I have
already said, must be a worker--or, if he live an idler, it must be on
that which his father gained by the sweat of his brow, and he leaves his
children to enslaving toil, or more enslaving dependence. Here the man
of pleasure, the idler of either sex, is a foreign exotic which finds no
nourishment in our soil, no shelter from our institutions--which is out
of harmony with our social life, and must ever be marked by the innate
vulgarity of unsustained pretension. Therefore it is comparatively easy
for us to hold out the hand of love to our brethren, sinking and
suffering at our very side, and to teach them that there is no natural
inalienable connection between labor and coarseness, ignorance and
servility; that man, though compelled to win his bread by the sweat of
his brow, may still enjoy all those graceful amenities of which woman
was the type in Paradise and is the promoter here; that the light of
knowledge and the divine light of faith may still cheer him in his
pursuits and guide him to his rest. It seems to me that to bring out
these principles fairly to the world's perception, is the mission to
which America has been especially appointed--is that for which Americans
should live; and to this I have accordingly devoted myself. For this I
purchased my present property--for this I determined, while allowing
myself and my daughter all the comforts of life, to dispense with many
of those luxuries to which my fortune might have seemed to entitle us,
lest I should separate myself too far from those I would aid. Here I
have spent seventeen years of life, happy in my work, and happier in the
conviction that it has not been in vain."
As Mr. Grahame paused, Horace Danforth turned to Mary Grahame. Her eyes
were fixed upon him. They seemed to challenge his admiration for her
father, in whose hand her own was clasped, as though she would thus
intimate the perfect accordance of her feelings with his.
"And this, then," he said to her, "is your object?"
"It is."
"An object to which you were devoted by your father in your infancy?"
"And which I have since adopted on my own intelligent conviction," said
Mary, earnestly, losing all timidity in a glow of that generous
enthusiasm which sits so gracefully on a gentle woman.
There was silence in the little circle--silence with all; with one,
thought was rapidly passing down the long vista of the past, and
pointing the awakened mind to the fact that elsewhere than in America
was there ignorance to be enlightened and want to be relieved--that not
here only did Christianity teach that man should live not unto himself
alone, and that he should love his neighbor as himself.
The thoughts and feelings aroused on that evening colored the whole
future destiny of Horace Danforth. Ere another day had passed, he had
confided to his host so much of his history as proved him to be an
aimless and almost unconnected wanderer on the earth, with a prospect
of a fortune which, unequal to the demands of a man of fashion in
England, would give to a _worker_ in America great influence for good or
for evil--as the personal property of Sir Thomas Maitland could not, as
Horace Danforth was well aware, be valued at less than 50,000 dollars.
With that rapid decision which had ever marked his movements, the young
Englishman determined to purchase land in the neighborhood of Mr.
Grahame, there to rear his future hope, and to devote his life to the
like noble purposes. The land was purchased, the site for the house was
selected and marked out--but the house was never built--for ere that had
been accomplished Horace Danforth discovered that the companionship of a
cultivated woman was essential to his views of "Life in America," and
that Mary Grahame was exactly the embodiment of that youthful vision
which he had sought in vain elsewhere; for she united the delicacy and
refined grace, with the intelligent mind, the active affections and
energetic will, which were necessary at once to please his fancy and
satisfy his heart Mary Grahame could not consent to leave her father to
a lonely home, but yet she could not deny that it would be a sad home to
her if deprived of the society of him whose intelligent and varied
converse and manly tenderness had lately formed the chief charm of her
existence. There was only one way of reconciling these conflicting
claims. Horace Danforth must live with Mr. Grahame; and so he did,
having first obtained that gentleman's permission to enlarge his house,
and to furnish it with some of those inventions by which art has so
greatly lightened domestic occupation, and which had been made familiar
to him by his life abroad.
Six months had been spent in this abode--six months of an existence of
joy and love, untroubled as it could be to those who were yet dwellers
upon earth--six months in which the fastidious and world-wearied man
learned the secret of true peace in a life devoted to useful and
benevolent objects--when a most unexpected visitor arrived in the person
of Sir Edward Maitland--no, not Sir Edward. He came to announce that to
this title he had no right. That he had remained himself, and suffered
his cousin to remain so long in ignorance on this point, had been the
result of no want of effort to arrive at the truth, still less of any
lingering love of the honors forced upon him. He had never assumed the
title, nor suffered the secret of his supposed change of circumstances
to be known beyond himself and the lawyer to whom his cousin Horace had
revealed it. This lawyer, it may be remembered, had lately succeeded in
the care of the Maitland estate to an uncle, who had been compelled by
the infirmities of advancing age to retire from business. The old man
was absent from England when Horace Danforth left it, and it was not
till his return that full satisfaction on the subject had been obtained,
as it was judged unwise by Mr. Decker to awaken public attention by
investigations which his uncle's return would probably render
unnecessary. When he did return, and the subject was cautiously unfolded
to him, he spent many minutes in _pishing_ and _pshawing_ at the folly
and impetuosity of young Baronets, who, knowing nothing of the tenure on
which they hold their estates, cannot at least wait till they consult
wiser people before they throw them away. The entail of nearly two
centuries ago had, it seems, been set aside in little more than one, by
an improvident father and son, who had in fact greatly diminished the
very fine property so entailed, though most of it had been since
recovered by the care of their successors. The intelligence thus
conveyed to him who was now once more Sir Horace Danforth Maitland, was
of mingled sweet and bitter. He could not be insensible to the joy of
returning to the home of his childhood and the people among whom he had
grown to manhood, yet neither could he leave, without tender regrets,
that in which he had first learned to love, and to live a true, a
noble, and a happy life.
When Mary was first saluted as Lady Maitland by Edward, she turned a
glance of inquiry upon her husband, and then upon her father, for both
were present by previous arrangement; and as she read a confirmation of
the fact in their smiling faces, the color faded from hers, and after a
moment's vain effort to contend against her painful emotion, she burst
into tears.
"Your father has promised to spend his life with us, dearest," said Sir
Horace Maitland, as he threw his arm around her and drew her to his
side.
"But this dear home," sobbed Mary; "this people, for whom and with whom
we have lived so happily."
"All that made this home dear, my daughter, you will take with you to
another home."
"And there, too," interposed Sir Horace, "my Mary will find a people to
enlighten and to bless, over whom her influence will be unbounded, and
to whom she will prove an angel of consolation."
"And can you carry your American life to your English home?" she asked
of her husband, smiling through her tears.
"As much of it as is independent of outward circumstances, Mary--its
spirit, its aims; for they belong to a Christian life, and that I hope,
by God's blessing, to live henceforth, wherever I may be."
"And what will become of all our projected improvements here?" she
inquired of her father.
"I shall not leave this place myself, Mary, till I can find some one
like-minded, who will take our place and do our work. To such a man I
will sell the property on such terms as he can afford, or if he cannot
buy, he shall farm it for me."
This last was the arrangement made with one whom Mr. Grahame had known
in early life, and who had always been distinguished by true Christian
uprightness and benevolence The terms offered by Mr. Grahame to this
gentleman were such, that the conscientious and excellent agent became
in a few years the proprietor and under his fostering care, all those
plans for the intellectual and moral improvement of the neighborhood
which had been so happily commenced, were matured and perfected.
It was nearly a year after the departure of his children before Mr.
Grahame was able to join them at Maitland Park. With his arrival Mary
felt that her cup of joy was full. It had been with a trembling heart
that she assumed the brilliant position to which Providence had
conducted her; not that she feared the judgment of man: her fear had
been lest in the midst of abundance she should forget the hand that fed
her--lest amidst the fascinations of an intellectual and polished
society, she should forget the thick darkness which covered so many
immortal minds around her. But already she had cast aside this unworthy
fear, unworthy of Him in whom is the Christian's strength.
The early dream of the Proprietor of Maitland Park is fulfilled. The
softening and refining presence of woman diffuses a new charm over its
social life, and while his Mary is to his tenantry what he himself
predicted, an angel of consolation, she is to him a faithful co-worker
in all that may advance the reign of peace and righteousness, of
intelligence and joy, throughout the world.