Chapter VIII: Part 8

"Klosterheim" is from beginning to end only the development, through regular stages, of an intricately involved mystery of this subtile nature. Oftentimes De Quincey deals with the horrid tragedy of murder; but the mere fact of a murder, however shocking, was not sufficient to arrest him. With the celebrated Williams murders, on the contrary, he was entirely taken up, since these proceeded in accordance with designs not traceable to the cursory glance, but which tasked the skill of a decipherer to interpret and reduce to harmony. Here were murders that revolved musically, that modulated themselves to master-principles, and that at every stage of progress sought alliance with the hidden mysteries of universal human nature. I know of no writer but De Quincey who invests mysteries of this tragic order with their appropriate drapery, so that they shall, to our imaginations, unfold the full measure of their capacities for striking awe into our hearts.

This sort of mystery is always connected with dreams. They owe their very existence to darkness, which withdraws them from the material limitations of every-day life; they are shifted to an ideal _proscenium_; their _dramatis personæ_, however familiar nominally, and however much derived from material suggestions, are yet in all their motions obedient to an alien centre as opposite as is possible to the ordinary centre about which the mere mechanism of life revolves. We should therefore expect beforehand in De Quincey an overruling tendency towards this remote architecture of dreams. The careful reader of his "Autobiographic Sketches" will remember, that, at the early age of seven, and before he knew of even the existence of opium, the least material hint which bordered on the shadowy was sufficient to lift him up into aërial structures, and to lead his infant footsteps amongst the clouds. Such hints, after his little sister's death, were furnished by certain expressions of the Litany, by pictures in the stained windows of the church, and by the tumult of the organ. Nor were the dreams thus introduced mere fantasies, irregular and inconsistent. Throughout, they were self-sustained and majestic.

The natural effects of opium were concurrent with preëxisting tendencies of De Quincey's mind. If, instead of having his restless intellect, he had been indolent,--if, instead of loving the mysterious, because it invited a Titanic energy to reduce its anarchy to order, he had loved it as simply dark or obscure,--if his natural subtilty of reflection had been less, or if he had been endowed with inferior powers in the sublime architecture of impassioned expression,--then might he as well have smoked a meerschaum, taken snuff or grog or any other stimulant, as to have gone out of his way for the more refined pleasures of opium.

The reader will indulge us in a single philosophical distinction, at this point, by which we mean to classify the effects of opium under two heads: first, the _external_, and, secondly, the _internal_. Properly speaking, all the _positive_ effects of opium must be internal; for all its movements are inward in their direction, being refluent upon the focal centres of life. Thus, one of the most noticeable phenomena connected with opium-eating is the burden of life resting back upon the heart, which deliberately pulsates the moments of existence, as if the most momentous issues depended upon each separate throb. But this very reflux of sensibility will produce great effects at the surface, which are purely negative. This latter class of effects Homer has indicated with considerable accuracy, in the ninth Odyssey, (82-105,) where he notices specifically an air of carelessness regarding external things,--carelessness as to the mutual interchange of conversation by question and answer, and as to the ordinary pursuits of life as disturbing an inward peace. The same characteristics are more fully developed in Tennyson's "Lotos-Eaters":--

"Branches they bore of that enchanted stem,
Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gave
To each; but whoso did receive of them,
And taste, to him the gushing of the wave,
Far, far away, did seem to mourn and rave
On alien shores; and if his fellows spake,
His voice was thin, as voices from the grave;
And deaf-asleep he seemed, yet all awake,
And music in his ears his beating heart did make."

By causing the life to flow inward upon a more ideal centre, opium deepens the consciousness, and compels it to give testimony to processes and connections that in ordinary moments escape unrecorded. It is as if new materials were found for a history of the individual life,--materials which, like freshly discovered records, sound the deepest meanings of the present and measure the abysses of the past. Thus it is that the fugitive imagery of sense is interpreted as a scroll which hides infinite truths under the most fleeting of symbols,--symbols which are not sufficiently enduring to call them words, or even syllables of words, since the most trivial hint or whisper of them has hardly reached us ere they have perished. Thus it is that even the still more intangible record of memory, where are preserved only images and echoes of that which undeniably has perished, is revivified and enlarged.

There is, then, in the opium-eater a most marked, a polar antithesis between his every-day life and the central manifestations of his genius. In the latter, there is beautiful order, as in a symphony of Beethoven's; but in the former, looked upon from without, all seems confusion. There is the same antithesis in every meditative mind; but here opium has heightened each part of the contrast. The more we admire the _en_centric harmonies of inwrapt power, the more do we find to draw forth laughter in the eccentricities of outward habit. The very same agencies which undisguised and unveiled the deep, divine heaven, masked the earth with desert sands; and De Quincey's outward life was thus masked and rendered abnormal, that the blue heaven in which he revelled might be infinitely exalted.

Thus is it possible for the seemingly ludicrous to harmonize with transcendent sublimity. We smile at De Quincey's giving in "copy" on the generous margins of a splendid "Somnium Scipionis"; but the precious words, that might perhaps have found some more fit vehicle to the composer's eye, could have found no deeper place in our hearts. We look at the hatless sleeper among the mountains: his face seems utterly blank and meaningless, and to all intents and purposes he seems as good as dead; but let us ascend with him in his dreams, and we shall soon forget that under God's heavens there exists mortality or the commonplace uses of mortality.

As we ascend from grotesque features to such as are more intellectual, that peculiarity of his character which most strikes us is his inimitable courtesy. Mr. F.,--to whom I am indebted for the most novel and interesting portions of this memorial,--from his own personal interviews with the man, among many other things, retains this chiefly in remembrance,--that De Quincey was the perfectest gentleman he had ever seen.

I take the liberty here of particularizing somewhat in regard to one visit which this friend of De Quincey's paid him, particularly as it introduces us to the man towards the last of his life (1851). Mr. F., curious as it may seem, found but one person in Edinburgh who could inform him definitely as to De Quincey's whereabouts. In return to a note, giving De Quincey information of his arrival, etc., the latter replies in a letter which is very characteristic, and which may well be highly prized, so rarely was it that any friend was able to obtain from him such a memento. The style, perhaps, is as familiar as it was ever his habit to indulge in; and it shows how impossible it was for him, even on the most temporary summons, to dispense with his usual regularity of expression or with any logical nicety of method. The letter runs thus:--

_Thursday evening, August 26, 1851_.

"My dear Sir,--The acccompanying billet from my daughter, short at
any rate under the pressure of instant engagements, has been cut
shorter by a sudden and very distressing headache; I, therefore,
who (from a peculiar nervousness connected with the act of writing)
so rarely attempt to discharge my own debts in the letter-writing
department of life, find myself unaccountably, I might say
mysteriously, engaged in the knight-errantry of undertaking for
other people's. Wretched bankrupt that I am, with an absolute
refusal on the part of the Commissioner to grant me a certificate
of the lowest class, suddenly, and by a necessity not to be evaded,
I am affecting the large bounties of supererogation. I appear to be
vaporing in a spirit of vainglory; and yet it is under the mere
coercion of '_salva necessitas_' that I am surprised into this
unparalleled instance of activity. Do you walk? That is, do you
like walking for four hours '_on end_'--(which is our archaic
expression for _continuously_)? If I knew _that_, I would arrange
accordingly for meeting you. The case as to distance is this. The
Dalkeith railway, from the Waverley station, brings you to Esk
Bank. That is its nearest approach,--its _perihelion_, in relation
to ourselves; and it is precisely two and three-quarters miles
distant from _Mavis Bush_,--the name of our cottage. Close to us,
and the most noticeable object for guiding your inquiries, is _Mr.
Annandale's Paper-Mills_.

"Now, then, accordingly as you direct my motions, I will--rain
being supposed absent--join you at your hotel in Edinburgh any time
after 11 A.M. and walk out the whole distance, (seven miles from
the Scott monument,) or else I will meet you at Esk Bank; or, if
you prefer coming out in a carriage, I will await your coming here
in that state of motionless repose which best befits a philosopher.
Excuse my levity; and believe that with sincere pleasure we shall
receive your obliging visit.

"Ever your faithful servant,

"THOMAS DE QUINCEY."

In order to appreciate the physical powers of him who proposed a walk of the distance indicated in the letter, we must remember that he was then just sixty-six years _plus_ ten days old. He was now living with his daughters, in the utmost simplicity. On his arrival, Mr. F. found De Quincey awaiting him at the door of his cottage,--a short man, with small head, and eyes that were absolutely indescribable as human features, with a certain boyish awkwardness of manner, but with the most urban-like courtesy and affability. From noon till dark, the time is spent in conversation, continued, various, and eloquent. What a presence is there in this humble, unpretending cottage! And as the stream of Olympian sweetness moves on, now in laughing ripples, and again in a solemn majestic flood, what a past do we bring before ourselves! what a present! For this is he that talked with Coleridge, that was the friend of Wilson,--and--what furnishes a more sublime suggestion--this is he that knows by heart the mountain-fells and the mysterious recesses of hidden valleys for miles around; and we think, if he could convey us from the haunts of this Lasswade of his old age to those which glorified the Grasmere of his youth, what new chords he might touch,--of human love, for there it was that the sweetness of his wedded life had been buried and embalmed in a thousand outward memorials of happy hours long gone by,--and of human sadness, for there it was that he had experienced the reversal of every outward fortune, and the alienations of friendships which he most highly valued. But the remembrances of Grasmere and of youth seem now to have been removed as into some other life: the man of a past generation walks alone, and amid other scenes. And yonder is the study in which he spends hours that are most holy,--hours consecrated to what specific employments is known to none, since across its threshold no feet save his have passed for years. Now and then some grand intellectual effort proceeds forth from its sacred precincts; but that only happens when pecuniary necessities compel the exertion. How is it that the time not thus occupied is spent?--in what remembrances, in what hidden thoughts, what passing dreams?

As it grows dark, De Quincey's guest, having spent most precious moments which he feels ought never to cease, signifies the necessity of his taking his departure. To take leave of this strange man, however, is not so easy a matter as one might rashly suppose. There is a genius of procrastination about him. Was he ever known to make his appearance at any dinner in season, or indeed at any entertainment? Yes, he did _once_, at the recital of a Greek tragedy on the Edinburgh stage; but that happened through a trick played on him by an acquaintance, who, to secure some remote chance of his seeing the performance, told him that the doors opened at half-past six, whereas, in fact, they opened at seven. How preposterous, then, to suppose that he would let an opportunity pass for procrastinating other people, and putting all manner of snares about their feet! It is dangerous with such a man to hint of late hours; for just that lateness is to him the very jewel of the thing. In mentioning the circumstance, you only suggest to him the infinite pleasure connected with the circumstance. Perhaps he will deliberately set to work to prove that candle-light is the one absolutely indispensable condition to genial intercourse,--which would doubtless suggest a great contrast, in that respect, between the ancient and modern economy,--and where, then, _is_ there to be an end? All attempts to extricate yourself by unravelling the net which is being woven about you are hopelessly vain; you cannot keep pace with _him_. The thought of delay enchants him, and he dallies with it, as a child with a pet delicacy. Thus, he is at the house of a friend; it storms, and a reasonable excuse is furnished for his favorite experiment. The consequence is, that, once started in this direction, the delay is continued for a year. Late hours were particularly potent to "draw out" De Quincey; and, understanding this, Professor Wilson used to protract his dinners almost into the morning, a tribute which De Quincey doubtless appreciated.

So that it is better to be on the sly about saying "Good bye" to this host of yours. When, however, it was absolutely necessary to be gone, De Quincey forthwith insisted on accompanying his guest. What, then, was to be done? Ominously the sky looked down upon them, momently threatening a storm. No resource was there but to give the man his way, and accept his offer of companionship for a short distance, painfully conscious though you are of the fact that every step taken forwards must, during this same August night, be retraced by the weary-looking old man at your side, who now lacks barely four years of life's average allotment. Thus you move on: and the heavens move on their hurricanes by nearer approaches, warnings of which propagate themselves all around you in every sound of the wind and every rustle of the forest-leaves. Meanwhile, there is no rest to the silvery vocal utterances of your companion: every object by the way furnishes a ready topic for conversation. Just now you are passing an antiquated old mansion, and your guide stops to tell you that in this house may have been committed most strange and horrible murders, that, in spite of the tempestuous mutterings heard on every side, ought now and here to be specially and solemnly memorialized by human relation. A woman passes by, a perfect stranger, but De Quincey steps entirely out of the road to one side, takes off his hat, and in the most reverent attitude awaits her passage,--and you, poor astonished mortal that you are, lest you should yourself seem scandalously uncourteous, are compelled to do likewise. In this incident we see what infinite majesty invested the very semblance of humanity in De Quincey's thoughts: and something of the same remarkable courtesy was manifested by Rufus Choate, who uniformly addressed the lowest of women in the witness-box as if they were every one of them worthy of the most queenly consideration.

Onward you proceed,--one,--two,--three miles, and you can endure no longer the thought that your friend shall go on farther, increasing thus at every step the burden of his journey back. You have, reached the Esk bank and the bridge which spans the stream; the storm so long threatened begins now to let loose its rage against all unsheltered mortals. Here De Quincey consents to bid you good-bye,--to you his last good-bye; and as here you leave him, so is he forever enshrined in your thoughts, together with the primal mysteries of night and of storm, of human tragedies and of the most pathetic human tenderness.

But this paper, already sufficiently prolonged, should draw to a close. It is a source of great mortification to me that I cannot find some very disagreeable thing to say of De Quincey, merely as a matter of poetic justice; for assuredly he was in the habit of saying all the malicious things _he_ could about his friends. If there was anything in a man's face or shape particularly uncouth, you might trust De Quincey for noticing _that_. Even Wordsworth he could not let off without a Parthian shot at his awkward legs and round shoulders; Dr. Parr he rated soundly on his mean proportions; and one of the most unfortunate things which ever happened to the Russian Emperor Alexander was to have been seen in London by De Quincey, who, even amid the festivities of national and international congratulation on the fall of Napoleon, could not forget that this imperial ally was a very commonplace-looking fellow, after all. But, in regard to physical superiority, De Quincey lived in a glass house too fragile to admit of his throwing many stones at his neighbors. The very fact that he valued personal appearance at so low an estimate takes away the sting from his remarks on the deformities of other people: he could not have meant any detraction, but simply wished to present a perfect picture to the eye, preserving the ugly features with the faultless, just as we all insist on doing in regard to those we love. De Quincey and myself, therefore, are likely to part good friends. Surely, if there was anything which vexed the tender heart of this man, it was "the little love and the infinite hate" which went to make up the sum of life. If morbid in any direction, it was not in that of spite, but of love; and as an instance of almost unnatural intensity of affection, witness his insane grief over little Kate Wordsworth's grave,--a grief which satisfied itself only by reasonless prostrations, for whole nights, over the dark mould which covered her from his sight.

It only remains for us to look in upon De Quincey's last hours. We are enabled to take almost the position of those who were permitted really to watch at his bedside, through a slight unpublished sketch, from the hand of his daughter, in a letter to an American friend. I tremble almost to use materials that personally are so sacred; but sympathy, and the tender interest which is awakened in our hearts by such a life, are also sacred, and in privilege stand nearest to grief.

During the few last, days of his life De Quincey wandered much, mixing up "real and imaginary, or apparently imaginary things." He complained, one night, that his feet were hot and tired. His daughter arranged the blankets around them, saying, "Is that better, papa?" when he answered, "Yes, my love, I think it is; you know, my dear girl, these are the feet that Christ washed."

Everything seemed to connect itself in his mind with little children. He aroused one day, and said suddenly,--"You must know, my dear, the Edinburgh cabmen are the most brutal set of fellows under the sun. I must tell you that I and the little children were all invited to supper with Jesus Christ. So, as you see, it was a great honor. I thought I must buy new dresses for the little ones; and--would you believe it possible?--when I went out with the children, these wretches laughed at their new dresses."

"Of my brothers he often spoke, both those that are dead and those that are alive, as if they were his own brothers. One night he said, when I entered the room,--

"'Is that you, Horace?'

"'No, papa.'

"'Oh, I see! I thought you were Horace; for he was talking to me just now, and I suppose has just left the room.'"

Speaking of his father, one day, suddenly and without introduction, he exclaimed,--"There is one thing I deeply regret, that I did not know my dear father better; for I am sure a better, kinder, or juster man could never have existed."

When death seemed approaching, the physician recommended that a telegram should be sent to the eldest daughter,[A] who resided in Ireland, but he forbade any mention of this fact to the patient. De Quincey seemed to have a prophetic feeling that she was on her way to him, saying, "Has M. got to that town yet, that we stopped at when we went to Ireland? How many hours will it be before she can be here? Let me see,--there are eight hours before I can see her, and three added to that!" His daughter came sooner than the family expected; but the time tallied very nearly with the computation he had made. On the morning his daughter arrived occurred the first intimation his family had seen that the hand of death was laid upon him. He had passed a quiet, but rather sleepless night, appearing "much the same, yet more than ordinarily loving." After greeting his child, he said, "And how does mamma's little girl like her leaving her?" "Oh, they were very glad for me to come to grandpapa, and they sent you this kiss,--which they did of their own accord." He seemed much pleased. It was evident that M. presented herself to him as the mother of children, the constant theme of his wanderings. Once when his daughter quitted the room, he said, "They are all leaving me but my _dear_ little children." "I heard him call, one day, distinctly, 'Florence! Florence! Florence!'--again, 'My dear, dear mother!'--and to the last he called us 'my love,' and it sounded like no other sound ever uttered. I never heard such pathos as there was in it, and in every tone of his voice. It gave me an idea of a love that passeth all understanding."

[Footnote A: De Quincey, at his death, had two sons and three daughters. The, eldest of the daughters became the wife of Robert Craig of Ireland. It was this one, and the youngest, who were present during his last hours. The second daughter, Florence, was with her husband (a colonel of the British army) in India. The two sons were both absent: one in India, a captain in the army; the other, a physician, in Brazil.]

During the next night he was thought dying, "but he lingered on and on till half past nine the next morning. He told me something about 'to-morrow morning,' and something about sunshine; but the thought that he was talking about what he would never see drove the exact idea out of my head, though I am sure it was morning in another world he was talking of."

"There was an extraordinary appearance of youth about him, both for some time before and after death. He looked more like a boy of fourteen, and very beautiful. We did not like to let in the morning light, and the candle was burning at nine o'clock, when the post brought the following letter, which my sister and myself glanced over by the candle-light, just as we were listening to his decreasing breath. At the moment it did not strike me with the astonishment, at such an extraordinary coincidence, that when we came to read it afterwards it did.

"'_Brighton, Dec. 7th, 1859_.

"'My Dear De Quincey,--Before I quit this world, I most ardently
desire to see your handwriting. In early life, that is, more than
sixty years ago, we were school-fellows together and mutually
attached; nay, I remember a boyish paper ("The Observer") in which
we were engaged. Yours has been a brilliant literary career, mine
far from brilliant, but I hope not unuseful as a theological
student. It seems a pity we should not once more recognize one
another before quitting the stage. I have often read your works,
and never without remembering the promise of your talents at
Winkfield. My life has been almost a domestic tragedy. I have four
children in lunatic-asylums. Thank God, it is now drawing to a
close; but it would cheer the evening of my days to receive a line
from you, for I am, with much sincerity,

"'Your old and attached friend,

"'E.H.G.'

"I do not remember the name of G., but the name of Edward constantly recurred in his wanderings.

"Half an hour after the reading of that letter we heard those last pathetic sighs, so terrible from their very softness, and saw the poor, worn-out garment laid aside." Just before he died, he looked around the room, and said very tenderly to the nurse, the physician, and his daughters, who were present, "Thank you,--thank you all!" Sensible thus to the very last of kindness, he breathed out his life in simple thanks, swayed even in death by the spirit of profound courtesy that had ruled his life.

MRS. LEWIS.

A STORY IN THREE PARTS.

PART I.

I.

"Here's something Gus Lewis would like to send by you, mother," said my hasty boy John, plunging into the room at nine in the evening, and stumbling over two trunks, three valises, and bandboxes countless.

The floor was strewn with bundles, and the mantel-piece adorned with letters, directed to Springfield, Hartford, New Haven, and New York.

"Oh! ah! yes. Any packages, if not too large," said I, wistfully eying the box, (a foot square,) full of fresh maple-sugar, with its card of direction to "_Mrs. Lulu L., by the politeness of Mrs. Prince_." Boy-like.

"First of all, my John, go you to bed, where Charley has been this half-hour, and say good-bye, for we shall be off before you are up."

"See, then, father, if you are!" retorted the wide-awake youth, going out of the room in ground and lofty tumbling, and up-stairs in somersets.

"I don't see," said I, pettishly, "how I _am_ to get this bundle into my trunk, nor where in the world this great box of sugar is to go. See! not a direction! but I suppose she is in New York somewhere."

"We shall see her at all events, which is something. I should like to know what she is like,--not to look after her boy for two mortal years," said the Dominie.

"I hope not like Gus. He'd make an ugly woman, with his black hair and heavy eyebrows, and his big, black eyes always staring. He don't look like an American child."

"If we could only say what an American type is. At present, it is a little of everything."

"I mean a New-Englander,--an original American."

"Well, he don't.--What do you say to these trunks? Shall we try again to compress the gigantic genie into the copper vessel? I thought it was a dangerous move, that last one of yours, taking out Tirzah White's quilted coat. And what's to be done with these three packages?"

"Well! we can't sit here!" said I, briskly; "half-past nine already, and only one trunk packed! Never mind. You can put these three bundles in with your clothes."

"Bursting the lock, now."

"How easy 'tis to pack other people's things! But what, then, have you in there,--I mean, besides your shirts, etc.?"

"_Imprimis_. Eight volumes of Scott's Commentaries, brought by Deacon Boardman. I am to exchange them. They are imperfect. _Item_. A dozen of 'Sinbad the Sailor,' sent by mistake to the Association, instead of Doddridge. These books won't press nor give, more than sound doctrine; and I must have room for my gown, without which I am nothing."

The clock struck ten, and we were still struggling with unabated ardor to compress Lorana Briggs's shawl, and the flat packages from Burt's, into the largest carpet-bag, that there might be room for the seventeen letters on top of the minister's luggage, inside the sanctuary of his silk gown.

"We can carry a good deal in your coat-pocket, my dear," said I, cheerfully; for really we seemed to be coming to daylight, a little.

"Full."

The knocker sounded.

"My galoches at last! Deacon, I can't ask you to come in, we are so untidy; but I couldn't pack as I meant to, this afternoon."

How we dreaded his coming in,--half deacon, half shoemaker, and two-thirds missionary, with his "Panoplist" sticking out of his coat-pocket, and his ears evermore pricked up for the latest news from Bombay! and how angry I had been for three weeks because I couldn't get those indispensable galoches!

It seemed as if he never would go from the half-open door. He reckoned the York folks would stare to see so many patches; he expected ministers down to York warn't quite so carfle and troubled about many things, as they be to Weston; but he added, with a grim joyfulness,--

"We took up a good collection, though, last Sabbath! eight dollars and fifteen cents, clear!"

"Yes, Deacon," responded the minister, with as much heartiness as he could muster, between the pushings, puffings, and pressings at the carpet-bag; "a cup of cold water shall in no wise lose its reward, we're told.--These carpet-bags stretch well!"

"Them poor, dear heathen!" groaned the Deacon.

"Oh, dreadful!" chimed I; "give me that biggest shawl, will you?--no, the other,--Ursula Drury's! Shall we ever finish packing?"

"S'pose ye'll see th' A.B.C.F.M.!--Lucina Rand's put in 'the avails of a hen,'--and Semela Briggs sold the silver thimble her aunt gin her. 'T all helps the good work. I told the Widow Rand she'd ough' to do somethin' for the heathen, so she's gone to raisin' mustard. She said she hadn't more 'n a grain o' that to spare, she was so poor; but I told her 't would be blest, I guessed. Widow Rand's rather worldly-minded, I'm afraid."

A minute more and we should have had Hindostan, Harriet Newell, and Juggernaut. Happily, somebody came for the Deacon, and we were left to our packing again.

II.

This was the second week in May, in the year 1830. We were a promising country, but had not yet performed. Neither railroads, telegraphs, nor cheap postage had been established. Enthusiastic inventors yet sucked their fingers in garrets, waiting for the good time coming; and philanthropic statesmen aired their vocabularies in vain, in Congressional halls, built in defiance of acoustics. Their words rose, their fine sentiments curled up and down the pillars of the temple of eloquence, and fell flat to the floor. Meanwhile human nature travelled by stage-coaches; and postage for over a hundred miles rose to eighteen cents. Not a lover's sigh for a cent less; and it took a fortune for persons of sensibility to exchange sentiments.

The consequence to country-people of this last-mentioned fact was, that everybody who went anywhere took everybody's letters, and, as there were no expresses, added, of course, everybody's packages and messages. And the consequence of this was, that everybody made everybody's purchases, whether gowns, books, bonnets, or what not. It mattered little who did errands, so only they were done. Generally, the one store-keeper bought our bonnets when he went to Boston for his yearly stock of goods, and our one bonnet lasted in those days a year, being retrimmed for winter weather. I remember, too, when our one store-keeper, mingling in the æsthetic conversation at one of our parties, where Art was on the _tapis_, made a comical mistake, but one natural enough, too,--stating that he could buy, and had bought, Vandykes for ten dollars. We were not thinking of exactly the same kind of Vandyke that he was.

Many a time have I carried in my trunk more letters than the mail-bag did to Boston, and conscientiously finished all the parish's business before touching my own.

A certain amount of self-complacency and satisfaction is felt, and laudably earned, by being intrusted with commissions; and I flatter myself few persons ever set off for New York with such an array of them as I did on this occasion.

Looking over my list, I must confess to a flush of real enjoyment at finding _carte blanche_ for a scarf. "Now, that is something like!" said I. "I can see now how pleasantly an artist feels, or would feel, at an order for a picture,--'your own subject,--your own terms.' Miss Patty Jones knows what is what, and shall be my patroness."

And did I not vindicate triumphantly Miss Patty's confidence? I knew better than to buy her a gray and brown thing, merely because she, too, was gray and brown. I wreathed her with lilies and hyacinths and French green leaves, and she blossomed under it like a rose. If she were not the garland, she wore it, and so borrowed bloom and gay freshness. She extolled my taste to all Weston.

Then Mrs. Eben Loring had concluded on the whole that I should buy her a hat, in Maiden Lane, at the very tip-top milliner's. The thought of my return was somewhat embittered by the prospective necessity of carrying two very large bandboxes in my lap, in case of rain. Rain might not unreasonably be expected in the course of a three days' journey. Think of all the bandboxes that in such a case would be put in at the coach-window by the driver, to be held in the hapless laps of the nine passengers! Almost I was persuaded to leave my own black satin bonnet, and perambulate the streets of New York in my travelling-calash, which looked exactly like, and was nearly of the size of, a "bellows-top shay."

I was thinking of this last sacrifice, when my husband said, in a dreamy, bewildered way,--

"Here are five boxes, mother, two bundles, and the rest of these books. I give up!"

"Give up? Not I! Now, where a man's energies are exhausted, a woman's just begin to show themselves. First and foremost, lock this trunk, and let me put the key in my pocket. That's one thing done, and can't be undone."

He stepped back from the trunk.

"What's this? all your clothes on the floor!"

"Well, yes, my dear, most of 'em. You see, I couldn't leave Zipporah Haven's shawl out, which she sends to her grandmother; and I must put in these bundles of the Burts's, and Mary Skinner's box of linen thread. If my own things are lost, why, they must be replaced, you know, my dear; that is all."

"And we must keep a good lookout, ourselves, that our bandboxes and bundles don't fall off behind," replied the Dominie, faintly.

"Yes; and you can put the small trunk under my feet, and the big basket under your own, and you will keep an eye on my red shawl,--and pray don't lose the umbrella, nor your great-coat, nor your cane. I will, on my part, see to these three small bundles, and my parasol. Doubtless we shall go on smoothly as need be, only I am afraid you won't be able to think up many sermons on the highway. There! I forgot the jar of currant-jelly to go to Ruth Hoyt's aunt! However, we must manage somehow. You are sure our names are down at the stage-office?"

But, like Charles XII., "after Pultowa's dreadful day," when the tale-teller listened for his sympathy,

"The king had been an hour asleep."

I am ashamed to say that I must have lost myself after that, though I thought I was only thinking of the Day of Judgment. But I must have dreamed it, or how should I have thought it the last trumpet, when it was only the stage-driver's warning knock?

It was delightful to hear the knock, and the simultaneous clang of pots and pans which assured us, that, though night had been no night to us, the dark morning would usher in our breakfast with coffee by the faithful Polly. The driver coming in again before we had finished, we seduced him without scruple into taking a cup of boiling comfort, while we guiltily collected the waifs and strays of our multifarious luggage. Many a time I have waited, myself, in the coach, while similar orgies were going on among the unready, so I know just how vexed and impatient the passengers were. But what use to go on without the driver? At last we squeezed into the full stage.

III.

No sooner in than out, however. I was determined not to die before my time, as I was sure to do on the back-seat of an overloaded stage, with nine passengers, besides numerous, because gratuitously earned, children. "For who," as it was sometimes pertinently asked, "would charge anything for a poor little innocent child?" The younger, the more innocent, of course, and the more numerous.

"If you'll set up here 'long o' me, Miss Prince, there's a plenty o' room,--and for you, too, Parson," said the good-natured driver.

Extricating ourselves from the Black Hole, we delightedly clambered to the heights above, regardless of risk, and catching at wheel and step like Alpine hunters. How comfortable the seat was, with the fresh, early morning air blowing freely in our faces! How small the horses looked in the dim light of three o'clock! How oddly the wheel-horses looked, all backs and no legs!--and how mysteriously many were the reins that were tied round and round the iron lantern-rod!

"Just let me put the mail-bag under your feet, Miss Prince. Here we are, now, all right, and nothin' to do but go along!"

"Now, then!"

"Come up! come! come!"

But in vain were caresses; in vain were chirrups, duckings, and kisses, wafted to the nigh leader. Like the rebellious South of to-day, he had taken his attitude, and stood now on four legs, now on two, pawing only the dark air, and regardless of the general welfare behind him.

"Now what will you do, driver?" said cowardly I, who, always mortally afraid of horse-flesh, felt on this occasion a strange confidence: partly in the staid, heavy mass of determination beside me, who looked so calm and good-natured; and partly in the queer, elfin look of the beast, who seemed so far off as to have no necessary connection with our safety or ultimate progress. It seemed quite possible for us to get on with the other three pulling, while our demoniacal friend ornamented the occasion by plunges, rearings, and kickings.

Still gathering the reins lightly in his large hand, the stable and sure intelligence beside me calmly chirruped, and then as calmly switched his long whip at the distant rebel brute. How the switching and snapping galled his proud neck! How his black back curved, and his small head tossed! Still, he would not pull an ounce, but just pawed like a fairy horse, or as if he were born to tread on clouds alone, or to herald in the morning.

"He'll start by-'m-by,--he's a devil of a spirit in him, when he doos start," remarked our Phoebus, composedly, giving, through the darkness, the unerring switch every half minute.

What acted on the capricious thing at last,--whether the Inevitability behind him, or the folly exhausting itself, nobody knows; but the "beautiful disdain" left his black back and tossing mane in a moment, and he buckled down to his work with an energy worthy of the cause, and with a good-will that was an example to the other three.

"There! you see he can do well enough, 'f he's jest a mind to! nothin' wantin' but the will! There's a pair on 'em," said the driver, "but I won't never drive 'em together. Staples drove the pair last summer. He says they'd run till they dropped down dead. I guess they would. He's a putty critter enough, and well made, but dreadful ugly. Now, I like that 'ere wheeler!"--he pointed his whip towards the horse below my foot. "She's kind,--that mare is; and she's fast enough, and handsome. Broad back,--short legs,--goes like a duck!"

In such pleasant chat (and why not? for wasn't the driver a cousin of my own?--a man of means,--owning his team,--and with more knowledge of his district than most members of Congress have? Indeed, I believe he's in Congress this minute!) we pulled up hill and tore down dale. Nobody knows a hill by experience but New-Hampshire travellers. The Green Mountains are full of comparatively gentle slopes, and verdure crowns their highest and tallest tops; but the hills of New Hampshire are Alpine in their steepness and barrenness, and the roads of old time made by the Puritans took the Devil by the horns. There was no circuitous, soothing, easy passage. The road ran straight over mountains and pitched deep down ravines, the surveyors having evidently kept only in view the shortest air-line between places.

Sometimes we chained the wheels, but not often. Oftenest we ran down a steep place, and the impetus carried us up the opposite hill. At the foot of a long hill, of a two-mile stretch, the driver generally stopped, to indicate the propriety of the male passengers, at least, ascending the hill on foot. And often the whole stage-load gladly availed itself of the permission. It was handy for the owners of bandboxes, to pick them up from the rocky road, as they tumbled off now and then; and the four beasts, like those in Revelation, said "Amen" to the kindly impulse of humanity that lightened their load, and left them to scramble comfortably from one side to the other of the still ascending path. When they did get to the top of some of those Walpole hills, would they could have taken in the living glory and beauty of the far-reaching and most magnificent landscape!

IV.

We had the mails to change at the post-offices, and a seemingly inexhaustible store, intrusted to the care and courtesy of the driver, and surrounding him like a rampart,--of newspapers, bundles, cans, pillow-cases full of dried apples, and often letters.

At the red house near the mill below Surrey, a sweet-looking girl ran out, as we passed, holding her hand forward for a letter, which our driver pretended to drop half a dozen times, on purpose to tantalize her. It was pretty to see her blushing, sparkling face, as the blood danced to her brow with hope, and back with the baffled expectancy to her heart.

"Neouw, Sil, be still! give to me, yeouw!"

If it hadn't been Yankee, it was soft and melodious enough for an Italian peasant. As picturesque, too, was her short, blue woollen petticoat, and white short-gown, that "half hid and half revealed" the unconstrained grace of healthy mountain-nature; and more modest the happy look with which she received the letter at last, and flew with it like a bird back to the red nest.

"A love-letter, I suppose," said I, answering the twinkle of the driver's good-natured eye.

"Wal, I expect 's likely. They've been sparking now over a year. And it's a pity, too, such a real clever girl as that is! She a'n't so dreadful bright, but she's real clever, and ough' to hev a better chance 'n Jim Ruggles."

"A bad match for her?"

"Wal, Jim's a good feller enough, but he drinks. I don't mean to say nothin' agin moderate drinkin'. I drink myself moderately. But Jim's a real sponge. He'd drink all day hard and never show it, without it is bein' cross, maybe, and paler 'n common. Now I say,--and I a'n't no 'reformed inebriate,' nor Father Matthew sort,--but I do say, and will hold to it, such a man at twenty-one makes a poor beginnin'. If he lives, he'll be a poor shote, and no mistake. I'm sorry for the gal."

"Somebody ought to tell her. Why not you?"

"Wal, what's the good on 't? She wouldn't hear a word. When a woman's once sot her mind, don't do no good to talk. For that matter, talkin' never did do much, I'm thinkin',--exceptin' preachin'. We're bound to hear that, Parson," he added, laughing, and with a nod which might seem respectful.

In three hours we had driven thirteen miles. Pretty good progress this of a warm day, and with a full complement of passengers. We had watched the sun rise over Walpole hills, and the specks in the distance where the early farmers were ploughing and sowing. The breaking day, the bursting spring, and all the outward melodies with which the welcoming day rings as we toil on, are so many incentives to appetite, and we are all sharp for the ready breakfast, at six o'clock.

Then, as I am talking of the past, and not of the present, there was time enough: time enough for the comfortable discussion of breakfast, for the changing of raiment among the babies, for chatting in the bar-room, for the interchange of news among the men, and even for glasses of milk-punch. Tell it not in modern Gath that even the Dominie spiced his half-mug of flip with an anecdote, and that every man and woman took cider as well as coffee.

How can I describe the events and vicissitudes that befell us during this journey of three days and a half to New York? Modern travellers, who are, or are not, as it happens, run off the track, smashed up, or otherwise suddenly and summarily disposed of, have little notion of our successive and amusing accidents, and of how they diversified and occupied the mind, so as entirely to preclude the _ennui_ which comes from railroad-travelling, with its ninety-nine chances of safety to one of accident.

That we were tipped out and over repeatedly,--that one of the leaders had fits, (which amiable weakness was understood and allowed for by our driver, who was in hopes the critter wouldn't have 'em that day,)--that the coach wholly collapsed once, letting all the patient passengers into a promiscuous heap of unbroken bones,--this, and such as this, will be easily believed by any New-England traveller who remembers thirty years back. But how we fell so softly that the brains were never damaged,--why falling into ditches at night wasn't an unhealthy process,--and, above all, how the driver's stock of leathern straps, strings, and nails should always prove exhaustless, and be always so wonderfully adapted to every emergency,--that was a wonder, and is a wonder still to me. No amount of mechanical skill, though the Yankee has made machines that almost think, and altogether do, for him, has superseded or exhausted his natural tact, expediency, and invention. With string and nail in his pocket, I would defy the horses of Phoebus to get away from a Yankee, or his chariot to get out of gear; and if Phaeton had only been a Vermonter, the deserts of Ethiopia might to this day have been covered with roses instead of sand. Our driver, though he didn't know his own powers, knew all about Phoebus, and had read Virgil and Ovid by the light of a pine-knot in his father's kitchen. This rude culture is the commonest fact among our mountaineers.

We "stopped over" one day in Hartford, to see the deaf-mutes. Their bright, concentrated, eager looks haunted me long after. I should like to know who would stop anywhere now to see anything! One might as well be put into a gun and fired off to New York as go there now by steam-cars. Line a gun with red plush, and it is not unlike a "resonant steam-eagle." And you would see as much in one as in the other.

But travelling in 1830 enlarged your mind. A journey then was one as _was_ a journey. You saw people, you made their acquaintance, you entered their hearts and took lodgings,--sometimes for life.

Then the country! You saw that, too,--not the poorest part of it, scooting round wherever it is most level, till you pronounce the whole way flat, and are glad to shut your eyes and listen to the engine, rather than have them ache with seeing everything you would never wish to look at!

All these days were full of great, beautiful pictures. From the time we leave the Granite State, with it a wild, fierce grandeur, its long, dreary reaches of unfertile pastures, and its wealth of stone wall,--so abundant that travellers wonder where the stones came from to build it, seeing no lack in the road or field,--from the time we enter on trim, well-kept Massachusetts, the panorama shifts with ever new interest and beauty. We leave the pretentious brick houses, or the glaring white ones, which mark the uncultivated taste of the American Switzerland, and enter for the first time regions impressed with the necessary element of fine landscape, maturity. With and under the old oaks and birches rest the sad-colored houses that have held life and experience,--birth, death, and old historic adventure.

Looking over the broad meadows that skirt the Connecticut by Hadley and Northampton, one seems to see under the distant oaks spectral shapes of Indian struggle, or wandering regicides, hiding their noble heads in caves, or bursting out like white spirits to lead and avenge. The air is peopled with traditions far back from the present, but with which the grave, imposing, characteristic landscape seems still to sympathize.

In two days we emerged from the brown chrysalis of a New-Hampshire spring into the exultant richness of the winged butterfly,--into white, fragrant fields of blossoming fruit, and the odor of tree-lilacs.

In my enchantment at the bounteous panorama that spread out before me in ever varying abundance, I forgot to cultivate any interest in my fellow-passengers, and, except in listening to some communicative old women, might really, as far as society was concerned, as well have been travelling in the style of to-day. Beyond the casual acquaintances I made when rain compelled me to indoor chat, I saw nobody who interested me until we reached Springfield. There, at the top of the first short hill outside the town, after looking back on the white houses standing in the river-mist like so many ghosts in white muslin, I saw somebody whom my prophetic soul announced as a companion, looking wholly unlike a ghost, and very unlike a mist. He raised his hand, just as we were about passing him, as if signalling an omnibus, and our driver suddenly reined in his team.

A full, hearty voice, not a bit nasal, but fresh from the broad chest, showed us a traveller by the road-side, waiting to be taken up.

He sprang with two bounds to the top of the coach, and made room for himself just above us among the countless boxes.

"Don't let me disturb you, Madam All right. Just room for my bag. Go on, driver."

"Fine day," said we.

"A warm morning. I have been walking for the last fifteen miles,--but the sun is too hot for me."

He took off his travelling-hat of weather-beaten Panama, and dried his broad brow with his handkerchief. Then he looked at us with clear blue eyes, and tossed back his curling brown hair. He had a gray travelling-dress, such as everybody wears now, but which was then a novelty; and something in his curt, clear accents, and his crimson lips, and the fresh life in his limbs and action, betrayed that he was not an American. So much the better.

V.

I said he looked sharply at us two. He seemed to have a habit of investigating, at least to a certain extent; and he took us in at once, evidently. A country-parson and his wife. If I say his pretty wife, I will promise faithfully that it shall be the last time I will refer to myself or my prettiness, the whole way, further than may be absolutely necessary; and it isn't every woman who will do as much. For with this man and his belongings I came to have much to do in the course of the next five years. Little thought I, as I heard him chatting soberly with my husband, and nodding from time to time gravely at me, as If to take me into the conversation,--little thought I of the shadow he would one day cast over both of our lives!

He showed us his travelling-apparatus for making a cup of tea in ten minutes, toasting bread, and boiling eggs. It was like a doll's cooking-stove six inches square, a curious invention, new then, and a wonderful convenience.

"With my tea and this," said he, "I can go over the United States. Good bread and sweet butter I can always get at your farm-houses, and I often walk fifty miles together."

We looked and spoke our New-English astonishment. In our part of the world nobody walked anywhere. Everybody, however poor, had a wagon, if not a chaise; and he must be miserable indeed who did not own at least one horse. Nobody in his sober senses demeaned himself to walking. Perhaps it was the climate. Perhaps our fathers instituted the custom, to be as unlike the British as possible,--as they did of making their houses like lanterns, to show they had no window-tax to pay.