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Cummins, Maria Susanna, 1827-1866 [1854], The lamplighter. (John P. Jewett & Company, Boston) [word count] [eaf532T].
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CHAPTER XLIV.

And opportunity I here have had
To try thee, sift thee, and confess have found thee
Proof against all temptation.
Milton.

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“Certainly,” said Mr. Amory, who had waited patiently for
the conclusion of Wille's story, “I can well understand that. A
man of a generous spirit could hardly fail to cherish a deep and
lasting gratitude for one who devoted herself so disinterestedly to
a trying and toilsome attendance upon the last hours of beloved
friends, to whose wants he himself was prevented from ministering;
and the warmth with which you eulogize this girl does you
credit, Sullivan. She must, too, be a young person of great excellence,
to have fulfilled so faithfully and well a promise of such
remote date that it would probably have been ignored by a less
disinterested friend. But do not let any enthusiastic sense of
honor induce you to sacrifice yourself on the shrine of gratitude.

“I shall find it hard to believe that a young man who has had
the ambition to mark out, and the energy to pursue, such a course
on the road to fortune as you have thus far successfully followed,
can, in his sober senses, have made a serious resolve to unite himself
and his prospects with an insignificant little playmate, of
unacknowledged birth, without beauty or fortune, unless there is
already a standing engagement, by which he is unwillingly bound,
or he allows himself to be drawn on to matrimony by the belief
that the highest compliment he can pay (namely, the offer of himself)
will alone cancel the immense obligations under which he
labors. May I ask if you are already shackled by promises?”

“I am not,” replied Willie.

“Then listen to me a moment. My motives are friendly when

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I beg you not to act rashly in a matter which will affect the happiness
of your whole life; and to hear,—with patience, too, if you
can,” for Willie already gave symptoms of restlessness,—“the
few words which I have to say on the subject.

“You are much mistaken, my young friend, if you believe that
the happiness of Gerty, as you call her (a very ugly name, by
the way), can be insured, any more than your own, by an illassorted
union, of which you will both find occasion to repent.
You have not seen her for six years; think, then, of all that
has happened in the mean time, and beware how you act with
precipitation.

“You have all this time been living abroad, engaged in active
life, growing in knowledge of the world, and its various phases
of society. In India, to be sure, you witnessed a mode of life
wholly different from that which prevails with us, or in European
cities; but the independence, both of character and manner,
which you there acquired, fitted you admirably for the polished
sphere of Parisian life, to which you were so suddenly introduced,
and in which, I may say without flattery, you met with
such marked success.

“Notwithstanding the privilege you enjoyed of being presented
in polite circles as the friend of a man so well known and
so much respected as Mr. Clinton, you cannot have been insensible
to the marked attentions bestowed upon you by American residents
abroad, or unaware of the advantage you enjoyed, on your
return home, from having been known as the object of such
favor. Though not so fortunate as to meet you in Paris, I was
there at the same time with yourself, and had some opportunity
of being acquainted with facts which I am sure you would have
too much modesty to acknowledge.

“That you were not wholly devoid of taste for choice society
it is easy to infer; since, otherwise, you would never have been
able to render yourself an ornament to it, or even maintain a
place within its precincts. It is also equally evident that your
pride must have been flattered, and your views in life somewhat
biased, by the favorable reception you have met, both abroad
and at home, not only from your own sex, but especially from

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the young, fair, and beautiful women who have honored you with
their smiles, and among whom she whose name the crowd already
associates with your own stands preëminent.

“When I think of all this, and of those pecuniary hopes you
may so reasonably indulge, and on which I have already dilated,
and then imagine you suddenly flinging all these aside, to chivalrously
throw yourself at the feet of your mother's little nurse, I
confess I find it impossible to keep silent, and avoid reminding
you of the reaction that must come, the disappointment that must
ensue, on finding yourself at once and forever shut out from participation
in pleasures which have been within your reach, and
voluntarily discarded.

“You must remember that much of the consideration which is
paid to a young bachelor of growing prospects ceases to be
awarded to him after marriage, and is never extended to his
bride, unless she be chosen from the select circles to which he
aspires. This unportioned orphan, with whom you propose to
share your fate,—this little patient school-mistress—”

“I did not tell you she had ever been a teacher!” exclaimed
Willie, stopping short in his walk up and down the room, which
latterly he had been, in his turn, pacing impatiently, while he
listened to Mr. Amory's words,—“I did not tell you anything
of the sort! How did you know it?”

Mr. Amory, who by his negligence had thus betrayed more
knowledge than he had been supposed to possess, hesitated a
moment, but, quickly recovering himself, answered, with apparent
frankness.

“To tell the truth, Sullivan, I have seen the girl, in company
with an old doctor.”

“Dr. Jeremy?” asked Willie, quickly.

“The same.”

“When did you see her? How did it happen?”

“Do not question me!” said Mr. Amory, petulantly, as if the
matter were of little consequence, and he did not choose to be
interrogated. “I happened to see the old gentleman in the
course of my travels, and this Gertrude Flint was with him. He
told me a few facts concerning her;—nothing to her disadvantage,

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however; in warning you against a mis-alliance, I speak only in
general terms.”

Willie looked at Mr. Amory in a half-scrutinizing, half-wondering
manner, and appeared on the point of persisting in his
attempt to learn further particulars; but Mr. Amory, taking up
the thread of his previous conversation, went on, without giving
him a chance to speak.

“This Gerty, as I was saying, Sullivan, will be a dead weight
upon your hands; a constant drawback to all your efforts for the
attainment of fashionable society, in which it is hardly to be
expected she can be exactly fitted to shine. You yourself pronounce
her to be without wealth or beauty; of her family you
know nothing, and have certainly little reason to expect that, if
discovered, it would do her any credit. I believe, then, that I
only speak from the dictates of common sense, when I bid you
beware how you make, in the disposal of yourself, such a very
unequal bargain.”

“I am very willing to believe, sir,” said Willie, resuming his
seat and settling himself into a composed attitude, “that the
arguments you have so powerfully brought to bear upon a question
most important to my welfare are grounded upon calm reasoning,
and a disinterested desire to promote my prosperity. I
confess you are the last man, judging from our short, but, for
the length of time, intimate acquaintance, from whom I should
have expected such advice; for I had believed you so independent
of the opinion and so indifferent to the applause of the world that
they would weigh but little with you in forming estimates for the
guidance of others.

“Still, though your suggestions have failed to influence or in the
least degree change my sentiments or intentions, I fully appreciate
and thank you for the sincerity and earnestness with which you
have sought to mould my judgment by your own; and will reply
to your arguments with such frankness as will, I think, persuade
you that, so far from following the impulses of a blind enthusiasm,
to plunge with haste and precipitation into a course of action
hereafter to be deplored, I am actuated by feelings which reason
approves, and which have already stood the test of experience.

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“You speak truly when you impute to me a natural taste for good
society; a taste which poverty, and the retirement in which my
boyhood was passed, gave me little opportunity to manifest, but
which had, nevertheless, no small influence in determining my
aims and ambition in life. The fine houses, equipages, and clothes
of the rich, had far less charm to my fancy than the high-bred
ease, refinement, and elegance of manner, which distinguished
some few of their owners who chanced to come under my observation;
and, much as I desired the attainment of wealth for the sake
of its own intrinsic advantages, and the means it would afford of
contributing to the comfort and happiness of others, it would have
seemed to me divested of half its value, should it fail to secure to
its possessor a free admittance to the polite and polished circles
upon which I looked with admiring eyes.

“I needed not, therefore, the social deprivations I experienced in
India to prepare me to enter with eager zest into the excitement
and pleasure of Parisian life, to which, through the kindness and
partiality of Mr. Clinton, I obtained, as you are, it seems, aware,
a free and immediate introduction.

“It is true I was summoned thither at a time when my spirits
had been for months struggling with the depression occasioned by
sad news from home, and had not, therefore, the least disposition
to avail myself of Mr. Clinton's politeness; but the feebleness of
his health, and his inability to enter largely into the gayeties of
the place, compelled me continually to offer myself as an escort
to his daughter, who, fond of society, and reluctant to submit to
any exclusion from it, invariably accepted my services, thus drawing
me into the very whirl and vortex of fashionable life; in which,
I confess, I soon found much to flatter, bewilder, and intoxicate.
I could not be insensible to the privileges so unexpectedly accorded
to me; nor could my vanity be wholly proof against the assaults
made upon it. Nor was my manliness of character alone at stake.
My position in fashionable circles threw other and more serious
temptations in my way. The soundness of principle and simplicity
of habit implanted in me from childhood, and hitherto
preserved intact, soon found themselves at stake. I had withstood
every kind of gross temptation, but my new and refined associates

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now presented it to me in that more subtle form which often
proves a snare to those over whom, had it come without disguise,
it would have no power. The wine-cup could never have enticed
me to the coarse and disgusting scenes of drunken revely; but,
held in the hands of the polished gentlemen, who had, but a
moment before, been the recipients of popular favor and women's
smiles, it sparkled with a richer lustre, and its bitter dregs were
forgotten. The professed gamester, the well-known rogue, would
in vain have sought me for an accomplice; but I was not equally
on my guard against the danger which awaited me from other and
unexpected quarters; for how could I believe that my friends,
Mr. Clinton's friend,s the ornaments of the sphere in which they
moved, would unfairly win my money, involve me in entanglements,
and lead me on to ruin? I almost wonder, as I look back
upon the few first weeks of my residence in Paris, that I did not
finally fall a victim to some one of the numerous snares that were,
on every side, spread for my destruction, and into which my social
disposition, my fearless, and, at the same time, unsophisticated
nature rendered me especially prone to fall. Nothing, I am persuaded,
but the recollection of my pure-minded and watchful
mother, whose recent death had given new freshness and life to
the memory of her many warning counsels,—at the time they were
bestowed deemed by me unnecessary, but now, in the moment of
danger, springing up and arming themselves with a solemn meaning,—
nothing but the consciousness of her gentle spirit, ever
hovering around my path, saddened by my conflicts, rejoicing in
my triumphs, could ever have given me courage and perseverance
to resist, shun, and finally escape altogether, the pitfalls into which
my unwary steps would have plunged me.

“These darker evils, however, successfully combated and subdued,
there were others of scarcely less magnitude awaiting me,
and in which much of my future well-being and usefulness were
involved. In the unvaried round of pleasure in which my days,
and nights even, were frequently passed, there was much to gratify
my self-love, foster my ambition, and annihilate every worthier
emotion. And here, believe me, my safety lay in my success.
Had I approached the outskirts of fashionable life, and been

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compelled to linger, with longing eyes, at the threshold, I might, even
now, be loitering there, a deceived spectator of joys which it was
not permitted to me to enter and share, or, having gained a partial
entrance, be eagerly employed in pushing my way onward.

“Admitted, however, at once, into the very arcana of a sphere I
was eager to penetrate, my eyes were soon opened to the vain,
hollow and worthless nature of the bauble Fashion. Not that I
did not meet within its courts the grace, wit, talent and refinement,
which I had hoped to find there, or that these were invariably
accompanied by other and less attractive qualities. No; I
truly believe there is no class which cannot hoast of its heroes and
heroines, and that there are within the walks of fashionable life
men and women who would grace a wilderness. Nor do I despise
forms and ceremonies which are becoming in themselves, and
conducive to elegance and good-breeding. As long as one class is
distinguished by education and refined manners, and another is
marked by ignorance and vulgarity, there should, and there must,
in the nature of things, be a dividing line between the two, which
neither, perhaps, would desire to overstep.

“But this barrier is not Fashion, which, both abroad and at home,
oftentimes excludes the former, and gives free admittance to the
latter; and, if I presume to adopt a higher standard, it is because
I have had so close an acquaintance with that already set up, that
I can judge how little it is to be trusted.”

“You are young,” said Mr. Amory, “to be such a philosopher.
Many a man has turned away with disgust from an aristocracy
into which he could himself gain no admittance; but few renounce
it voluntarily.”

“Few, perhaps,” replied Willie, “few young men, at least,
have such opportunities as I have had to penetrate its secrets. I
trust I may say without treachery, since I speak in general terms
only, that I have seen more ignorance, more ill-breeding, more
meanness, and more immorality, in the so-called aristocracy of our
country, than I should have believed it possible would be tolerated
there. I have frequently known instances in which the most
accomplished gentleman, or the most beautiful lady, of a gay
circle, has given evidence of unpardonable want of information on

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the most common topics. I have seen elegant evening assemblies
disgraced by a degree of rudeness and incivility which reflected as
little credit on the taste as on the feelings. I have seen the profuse
and lavish expenditure of to-day atoned for by a selfish and
despicable parsimony on the morrow; and I have seen a want of
principle exhibited by persons of both sexes, which proves that a
high position on earth is no security against such contamination
of the soul as must wholly unfit it for an exalted place hereafter.”

“I have witnessed no less myself,” said Mr. Amory; “but my
experiences have not been like those of other men, and my sight
has been sharpened by circumstances. I am still astonished that
you should have been awake to these facts.”

“I was not, at first,” answered Willie. “It was only gradually
that I recovered from the dazzling, blinding effect which the glitter
and show of Fashion imposed upon the clearness of my perceptions.
My suspicions of its falsehood and vanity were based upon instances
of selfishness, folly and cold heartedness, which, one after
another, came to my knowledge. I could relate to you the thousand
mean deceits, the contemptible rivalries, the gross neglect of
sacred duties, which came under my immediate observation; but I
will not betray the secrets of individuals, or weary you with their
recital.

“Especially was I astonished at the effect of an uninterrupted
pursuit of pleasure upon the sensibilities, the tempers, and the
domestic affections, of women. Though bearing within my heart
an image of female goodness and purity, this sweet remembrance,
this living ideal, might possibly have been driven from its throne,
and supplanted by some one of the lovely faces which, at first,
bewildered me by their beauty, had these last been the index to
souls of equal perfection. There may be—I have no doubt that
there are—noble and excellent women, moving in the highest
walks of life, whose beauty, grace and other outward adornments,
are less admirable than their own high natures; but among those
with whom I became familiarly acquainted there was not one who
could in the least compare with her who was continually present
to my memory, who is still, and ever must be, a model to her sex.

“It is no wonder that others failed to come up to my conception

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of all that is lovely in woman, since the character of Gertrude
Flint was the standard by which each in my mind was measured.
How could I help contrasting the folly, the worldliness, and the
cold-heartedness around me, with the cultivated mind, the self-sacrificing
and affectionate disposition, of one who possesses every
quality that can adorn life, whether at home or abroad? You
have indeed failed to convince me that Gertrude can in any way
be a drawback or disadvantage to the man who shall be so fortunate
as to call her his. For my own part, I desire no better, no
more truly aristocratic position in life, than that to which she is so
well entitled, and to which she would be one of the brightest ornaments,—
the aristocracy of true refinement, knowledge, grace and
beauty. You talk to me of wealth. Gertrude has no money in
her purse, but her soul is the pure gold, tried in the furnace of
sorrow and affliction, and thence come forth bright and unalloyed.
You speak of family, and an honorable birth. She has no family,
and her birth is shrouded in mystery; but the blood that courses
in her veins would never disgrace the race from which she sprung,
and every throb of her unselfish heart allies her to all that is
noble.

“You are eloquent on the subject of beauty. When I parted
from Gertrude, she was, in all but character, a mere child, being
only twelve or thirteen years of age. Though much altered and
improved since the time when she first came among us, I scarcely
think she could have been said to possess much of what the world
calls beauty. For myself, it was a matter of which I seldom
thought or cared; and, had I been less indifferent on the subject
she was so dear to me that I should have been utterly unable to
form an impartial judgment of her claims in this respect.

“I well remember, however, the indignation I once felt at hearing
a fellow-clerk, who had accidentally met her in one of our
walks, sneeringly contrast her personal appearance with that of
our mutual employer's handsome daughter, the same Miss Clinton
of whom we have been speaking; and the proportionate rapture
with which I listened to the excellent teacher, Miss Browne, when
on a certain occasion, being present at a school-examination, I
overheard her commenting to a lady upon Gertrude's wonderful

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promise in person as well as in mind. Whether the first part of
this promise has been fulfilled, I have no means of judging; but,
as I recall her dignified and graceful little figure, her large, intelligent,
sparkling eyes, the glow of feeling that lit up her whole
countenance, and the peaceful, almost majestic expression which
purity of soul imparted to her yet childish features, she stands
forth to my remembrance the embodiment of all that I hold most
dear.

“Six years may have outwardly changed her much; but they
cannot have robbed her of what I prize the most. She has
charms over which time can have no power, a grace that is a gift
of Heaven, a beauty that is eternal. Could I ask for more?

“Do not believe, then,” continued he, after a short pause, “that
my fidelity to my early playmate is an emotion of gratitude merely.
It is true I owe her much,—far more than I can ever repay;
but the honest warmth of my affection for the noble girl springs
from the truest love of a purity of character and singleness of
heart which I have never seen equalled.

“What is there in the wearisome and foolish walks of Fashion,
the glitter and show of wealth, the homage of an idle crowd, that
could so fill my heart, elevate my spirit, and inspire my exertions,
as the thought of a peaceful, happy home, blessed by a presiding
spirit so formed for confidence, love, and a communion that time
can never dissolve, and eternity will but render more secure and
unbroken?”

“And she whom you love so well?—are you sure—” asked
Mr. Phillips, speaking with visible effort, and faltering ere he had
completed his sentence.

“No,” answered Willie, anticipating the question. “I know
what you would ask.—I am not sure. I have no reason to
indulge the hopes I have been dwelling upon so fondly; but I do
not regret having spoken with such openness and candor; for,
should she grieve my heart by her coldness, I should still be proud
to have loved her. Until this time, ever since I gained my native
land, I have been shackled with duties, which, sacred as they were,
have chafed a spirit longing for freedom to follow its own impulses.
In this visit to you, sir (and, as he spoke, he rose to

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depart), I have fulfilled the last obligation imposed upon me by
my excellent friend, and to-morrow I shall be at liberty to go
where duty alońe prevented me from at once hastening.”

He offered his hand to Mr. Amory, who grasped it with a cordiality
very different from the feeble greeting he had given him on
his entrance. “Good-by,” said he. “You carry with you my
best wishes for a success which you seem to have so much at
heart; but some day or other I feel sure you will be reminded of
all I have said to you this evening.”

“Strange man!” thought Willie, as he walked towards his own
hotel. “How warmly he shook my hand at parting! and with
what a friendly manner he bade me farewell, notwithstanding the
coldness of the reception he gave me, and the pertinacity with
which, throughout my whole visit, I rejected his opinions and
repelled his advice!”

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Cummins, Maria Susanna, 1827-1866 [1854], The lamplighter. (John P. Jewett & Company, Boston) [word count] [eaf532T].
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