Chapter I: The Collegian’s Supper

“Filled is life’s goblet to the brim.”—_Longfellow._

“India!” exclaimed Mark Sutherland, rising at the head of his table, and waving high the brimming glass, while his fine dark countenance lighted up with enthusiasm. A young Ajax in athletic beauty and strength, stood the Mississippian, until—

“India!” responded his friend Lauderdale, from the foot of the table.

“India!” echoed the young men around the board, as they all arose, and, standing, honoured the toast. Then the glasses jingled merrily down upon the table, and then—

“Now that in blind faith we have worshipped your goddess—who is India? Is it a woman or a quarter of the globe—your idolatry?”

“India!” ejaculated the young Southerner with fervor. “India!

“‘Oh! a woman! friend, a woman! Why, a beast had scarce been duller’

than to have harboured such a question! Fill high your glasses again, and

“‘’Twixt the red wine and the chalice’

let me breathe her beauty’s name. Gentlemen, are you ready?—The Pearl of Pearl River!”

“The Pearl of Pearl River!” responded Lauderdale.

“The Pearl of Pearl River!” re-echoed all those gay youths, as this toast was also quaffed standing, and the empty glasses rattled down upon the table.

This was the parting toast, and the company broke up to separate. The young guests all crowded around their youthful host with adieus, regrets, congratulations, and kind wishes; for all these opposite phrases were equally appropriate, as will be seen.

Mark Sutherland was the son and nephew of the celebrated Pearl River planters—the three brothers Sutherland. He was the prospective possessor of three immense estates—being the heir of the first, betrothed to the heiress of the second, and co-heir with her to the third extensive plantation. He had just concluded a brilliant collegiate course with distinguished honour; he was soon to return south, to enter upon his patrimony, and claim the hand of his affianced bride, before he set forth upon his European travels. And this was his valedictory entertainment, given to his classmates. For him, indeed—

“Filled was life’s goblet to the brim!”

No wonder those fine strong eyes danced with anticipation as he shook hands right and left. He was, up to this time, a frank, thoughtless, joyous, extravagant fellow—selfish because he knew nothing of sorrow, and wasteful because he knew nothing of want. Affluent in youth, health, and love—affluent in wealth, honour, and homage—he seemed to consider gold valueless as dust, and deference only his just due. He “the heir of all the ages” past of thought and toil, had entered upon his intellectual inheritance with great _éclat_; but as yet not one mite had he added to the store; not one thought had he bestowed upon the great subjects that now engross all earnest minds. Too full of youthful fire, vitality, love, hope, and joy, for any grave thought or feeling to find room in his brain or heart, was the planter’s son. How, indeed, could earnest thought find entrance through such a crowd of noisy joys to his heart? He stood upon the threshold of the past, indeed, and his face was set forward towards the future; but not one onward step had he taken. Why should he trouble himself? The bounteous future was advancing to him, smiling, and laden with all the riches of life and time.

But he stood, receiving the adieus of his young friends, and dealing out wholesale and retail invitations for all and each to come and visit him, for an indefinite length of time, or until they were tired. At last they were all gone, except Lauderdale, his chum, who was passing some days with him, as his guest, at the Minerva House.

“You are an enviable dog, Sutherland,” exclaimed the latter, clapping him sharply upon the shoulder. “You are a deuced enviable villain! By my soul, it is enough to make a poor man like me dissatisfied with his lot, or the present arrangements of society, which amounts to precisely the same thing, I suppose. Deuce take me, if it is not enough to make me turn Agrarian, Chartist, Radical, or whatever may be the new name for the old discontent! Just contrast our positions! Here are you, at one-and-twenty years of age, entirely free from all toil and care for the whole remainder of your life. You will now return to a sumptuous southern home, on a magnificent estate, where troops of friends wait to welcome you, and troops of slaves attend to serve you, and where your bride, the very pearl of beauty, dreams of and languishes for your presence; and, above all—yes, I speak reflectingly, above _all_—more than sumptuous home, and troops of friends, and trains of servants, and blushing bride—where, lying perdue at your service, is a plenty of the root of all evil—

‘Gold to save—gold to lend—
Gold to give—gold to spend.’

While I!—well, I shall just plod on in the old way, teaching school one half the year to pay my college expenses for the other, until I find myself in some lawyer’s shop, in arrears with my landlady, in debt to my washerwoman—detesting to walk up the street, because I should pass the tailor’s store—abhorring to walk down it, because I should be sure to see the shoemaker standing in his door. With no more comfort or convenience in my life than can be enjoyed between my little back-chamber, up four pair of stairs in a cheap boarding-house, and the straight-backed chair and high-topped desk of the law shop. And no more love, or hope, or poetry, in my life, than may be found bound up between the covers of Coke upon Lyttleton. Or perhaps I shall turn private tutor, and advertise, ‘A highly respectable young gentleman, a graduate of Yale College, wishes to obtain,’ &c.; and you, who will be by this time the grave head of a family, with several little domestic liabilities, will probably answer the advertisement; and I shall find myself teaching the names of the keys of knowledge to young Mark and his brothers. Oh!”——

“Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!” laughed Sutherland.

“Oh, _you’ll_ patronise me, rather! _You’ll_ be kind to me; for you’ll say to yourself and friends, ‘He was a college friend of mine, poor fellow.’ I fancy I hear and see you saying it now, with that careless, cordial, jolly condescension of yours.”

“Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! My _dear_ Lincoln! My _dear_ fellow, why should that be? Why should you be pettifogger or pedagogue, unless you have a vocation for it? Why should anybody do what they don’t want to do? Life is rich—full of wealth, and love, and joy, and glory. Enter and take possession.”

“Enter and take possession! Yes, that is what _you_ can do. Life is full of wealth, and love, and joy, and glory, for _you_, indeed; and you can afford to mock me with those words! But, never mind, my fine flamingo! I have heard the wise say that happiness is not so unequally distributed, after all. And I, for one, don’t believe this cake of comfort is going to be so very unjustly divided between us, or that you will have all the white sugar on the top, and I all the burnt paper at the bottom.”

“See here, my friend, remember that we good-for-nothing Mississippians are not initiated into the mysteries of the kitchen, and therefore I don’t understand your culinary figure of speech at all.”

“Oh, go on! go on! You’re a young bear!”

“A young bear! Comrades! Oh, they are all gone! A young bear? Oh, I suppose he alludes to my black whiskers and hair, and my shag over coat!”

“I mean _your_ trouble is all before you!”

“Trouble? Oh, my dear boy, that is a word with out a meaning! Trouble? What _is_ trouble? What idea is the word designed to represent? Trouble? Oh, my dear fellow, it is all a mistake, a mere notion, a superstition, a prejudice; a saying of old folks, who, being near the verge of departure from this bright, glad, joyous, jubilant world, vainly try to console themselves by slandering it as a world of trouble, and talk of a _better_ one, to which they are progressing. If this world in itself is not ‘good,’ as the Creator pronounced it to be in the beginning, by all the rules of comparison, how can any other world be said to be better?”

“Well, I believe in the better world as much as they do; but look you! the pleasantest notion I have of Heaven is its being—being”——

“Oh, don’t let it go any further—as _good_ as this world, and only better as far as it endures longer. _This_ world is full of all that is great and glorious for enjoyment! And, Lincoln, my fine fellow, enter and take possession! _Don’t_ teach or study law! _Don’t_ plod; it is ungentlemanly. Somebody, I suppose, must teach and study law, and do such things—but don’t _you_. Do you leave it to those a—those persons a—those in fact who have the plebeian instinct of labor; you apprehend? They really _enjoy_ work now! Just think of it! I suppose that gracious nature, intending them to carry on the work of the world, endowed them with a _taste for it_! Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! But _I_’ve no vocation for it! Neither have you, my dear boy. Don’t force your nature in an opposite direction to which it tends, therefore! Enter life, and take possession!”

“Humph! thank you! This is to say, ‘follow my attractions,’ and if they ‘attract’ me to lead an idle life, and live upon other people, why, so much the better—they are my attractions; and if they ‘attract’ me to pick my host’s pocket, or run away with his daughter, it is the same thing by the same law.”

“Ha! ha! ha! Oh, certainly; remembering that your host might experience an attraction to blow your brains out.”

“Pleasant points to be drawn to. I guess I shall not follow my attractions! I’ll stick to the little law shop, and relieve weariness by grumbling. Some distinguished men have emerged from those little law dens; and, by the way, seriously, my dear Mark, I think that I, that you, even _you_, possess those very qualities out of which _really_ distinguished men are formed, and that if destiny had not ‘thrust’ a sort of moneyed and landed greatness upon you, that even _you_ would ‘achieve’ some judicial, political, diplomatic, or intellectual greatness of some sort.”

“Ha! ha! ha! even _I_! Well, that is a stretch of possibility, indeed. Even _I_, humph! _Mais à nos moutons._ Will you come home with me? Do come and be my guest _à éternité_—or until you win some rich Mississippi beauty. Woo beauty, not Blackstone, for a fortune. You have so much more genius for the first than for the last, my fine fellow.”

“Oh, then you would have me turn fortune-hunter, and, under cover of your friendship and introduction, aim at some heiress, and bring her down, and so secure wealth?”

“Set fire to you, _no_! Whom do you take me for? Do you think that _I_ would present an adventurer to Southern creoles? _No, sir!_ But I _do_ want you to fall in love with a Southern beauty, and fortune would follow, of course.”

“I do not see it at all. There are several links wanting in that chain of reasoning. But, apropos of beauty, love, and marriage. Tell me something more of Miss Sutherland, _votre belle fiancée_.”

“India! listen, you.” And he took Lauderdale’s arm, and turned to walk up and down the room for a confidential chat. “Listen, you! I named her just now over the wine. I regret to have done so. Would it were undone! But so it is; in some moment of excitement a word passes our lips, and it is unrecallable forever. She is so sacred to my heart, so divine to my soul! I often wonder if Helen of Argos were half as beautiful as she—my India.”

“What a strange, charming name that is for a woman!”

“Is it not? But, rich, luxurious, and gorgeous, in its associations, too—(and that is why it was given to her) it suits her. She is India. Her mother was like her—a beautiful, passionate Havanienne, rich in genius, poetry, song—luxuriating in the beautiful creations of others, yet far too indolent to create. More than all, she lost herself amid the oriental elysiums of Moore, and thence she named her only daughter Hinda. And as the maiden budded and bloomed into womanhood—well, yes, I believe, after all, it was I who softened down her name to India. It has the same derivation, it is the same name, in fact. Oh! and it suits her.”

“Describe your nonpareil to me.”

“I cannot. By my soul’s idolatry, I cannot. The best of beauty—the charm, the soul, the divine of beauty—can never be described or painted. It is spiritual, and can only be perceived.”

“Humph! is she fair?”

“No—yet radiant.”

“Dark?”

“No—yet shadowy.”

“Is she tall?”

“No.”

“Short?”

“No, no; nonsense!”

“What, neither tall nor short? Perhaps she is of medium height.”

“I do not know. I cannot tell, indeed. But oh! she is beautiful—she is glorious! My lady, my queen!”

“To come to something tangible, what is the colour of her eyes?”

“Oh! what is the colour of love, or joy, or heaven? for as soon could I tell you the colour of these as of her witching eyes. I only know they have light, softly thrilling all the chords of life, like music; and shadows, calming my spirit, like silence.”

“Well, I admit the hue of beautiful eyes to be a mysterious point; but hair, now, is a little more certain in that respect. Tell me the hue of your lady’s tresses.”

“I cannot. I only know they are rich, warm, and lustrous.”

“Humph! satisfactory portrait that. Oh! here is Flamingo. Come, Flame, and tell me what is the colour of your young mistress’s hair.”

The latter part of this speech was addressed to Mr. Sutherland’s valet, who had just entered. Flamingo was a character in his way; a handsome, bright mulatto, with quite a “wealth” of bushy black silky hair and whiskers. Very mercurial in temperament, and excessively fond of dress, he presented quite as gay and gorgeous an exterior as the famous feathered biped, his namesake. Flamingo stood for a moment in a quandary, at the suddenness and novelty of the question put to him.

“Oh, come, now; you are not poetically bewildered. Can’t you tell us the colour of the lady’s hair?”

“De colour o’ Miss Inda’s hair, sir—a—yes, sir—its—its—’bout de colour o’ ‘lasses taffy, when you’re ’bout half done pullin’ of it, an’ it’s shining.”

“Molasses taffy! Out, you wretch! It is amber-hued, Lauderdale—_amber-hued_, understand; the rich, warm, lustrous hue of amber. Molasses taffy! Oh, villain! To think I could not find a comparison in all nature precious enough for those precious tresses, and he should compare them to molasses taffy! Out of my sight, beast! _Molasses taffy! Pah!_” exclaimed Sutherland, in disgust, while Lauderdale laughed aloud, and Flamingo vanished into the adjoining chamber, where he turned on the gas, and busied himself in making the apartment comfortable for the night.

“Come, let’s get out of this mess before the waiters come to clear away the service. Look! This is one of the things that always make me melancholy,” said Sutherland, pointing to the disordered table.

Both young men were about to retire, when Sutherland again clasped the hand of his friend and said—“But you have not yet told me whether you will accompany me home. Come, laying all jesting and raillery aside, you know how happy I should be to have you.”

“And you know what I have told you before, my dear Sutherland, that I must go to New York for the anniversary week. And by the way, my dear Damon, why cannot you stop a few days before you go South, and attend some of these meetings?”

“Me! Heavens! You shock me! You deprive me of words—of breath! _I!_ a Mississippian! Why, look you; if I were to attend one of those meetings, and if it should be known in my neighborhood, my friends would turn me off, my uncles disinherit me, and my father rise from his grave to reproach me. Sir, my friends and relatives are ‘of the most straitest sect of the Pharisees!’”

“And do you share their opinions?”

“Opinions? Opinions, my dear fellow! I have no opinions. Opinions, it appears to me, are the currency of—of—those who have nothing else to offer in exchange for a living.”

“Levity! Oh, Mark, how you sin against your own fine mind!”

“Oh! come, come, come, no more of that. ‘Sir, praise is very flat, except from the fair sex.’”

“Ah! I see you are hopelessly flighty to-night. Good night.”

“Good night. Stay; you _will_ go with me?”

“No; unless you first accompany me to New York, and remain through the anniversary week, and attend the meetings.”

“And hear myself traduced, slandered, abused, cursed! A pleasant invitation—thank you.”

“And get yourself _dis_abused of many things, you should rather say. See here, Mark, my proposition is perfectly fair and reasonable, and has a meaning in it. Observe: you invite me to the South, and laughingly promise that an actual acquaintance with the patriarchal system shall cool what you call my fever; and that a Southern bride with two hundred negroes, shall completely cure it. Well, I am reasonable. I am open to conviction. I am willing to try it—to examine the ‘peculiar institution’ with the utmost impartiality. Nor do I fear or doubt the result. But observe further. Both of us, it seems, have heard but one side of this great question. I therefore consent to go with you to the South, and spend some weeks on a cotton plantation, only on condition that you accompany me to New York, and attend the anniversary meetings. In a word, I will _see_ your side of the question, if you will _hear_ ours.”

“I’ll do it, I’ll go,” exclaimed Sutherland, laughing, and clapping his hand cordially into that of Lauderdale. “I’ll go, nor have _I_ any doubt or fear as to the result.”