CHAPTER XV. THE STORY GOES BACKWARD.
Youth might be wise. We suffer less from pains
Than pleasures.
Festus.
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The characters of Mr. and Mrs. Brainard, those relatives
whom Sidney Romilly accompanied to South Carolina,
have been briefly sketched, and a greater dissimilarity
between persons, considered respectable, can
scarcely be imagined than between them and his own
kind parents.
In the home he had left, resided peace, the brightest
angel of domestic bliss. There, no forced smiles were
necessary to conceal real sorrow; no words of honey
issued from hearts of gall; no feigned compliances were
extorted to save appearances; but sincere affection inspired
the wish to please, and gratified affection still
blessed the loved face, whose smiles even time, the destroyer
of beauty, could not mar. And the flowers of
love, to be worth gathering, must be perennial; but
none are so, except rooted in the soil of virtue, discretion,
and mutual esteem, and moistened with the soft falling
dews of confiding truth, delicacy, and piety.
Shame, however, will sometimes teach decorum when
even a sense of duty would not inspire forbearance; and
a married couple, whose constant bickerings have been
a disagreeable annoyance to their neighbors and intimate
friends, will often live very decently together in the
presence of a stranger.
And thus Mr. Brainard and his wife were, for a time,
awed by the presence of the child, into something very
much like conjugal tranquillity. They both knew the
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manner in which Sidney had been educated; the examples
of kindness, benevolence and self-control to which
he had always been accustomed, and they shrunk from
exhibiting angry or petulant passions before him.
But the vexed spirit, like the raging sea, is difficult to
be restrained. Nothing but the voice of the Almighty
can hush the one, and nothing but the grace inspired by
waiting on Him can give us wisdom to subdue the
other.
Mr. Brainard and his wife did disagree, and after a few
faint apologies for the first contentions, they became regardless
of Sidney's presence, and very soon required
him to arbitrate between them in their trifling, yet obstinately
managed disputes. His aunt, thinking he belonged
especially to her as being of her own blood, now unfolded
to him all her trials and sorrows; his uncle claiming the
affinity which, in many respects, a similarity of disposition
engenders, related the story of his disappointment;
each endeavoring to win his confidence and sympathy,
and infuse into his young heart their own illiberal and
bitter prejudices.
But there was one subject on which they perfectly
agreed, and that was to grant Sidney every indulgence
he desired. They both adored him, and looked to him
as the sweet minstrel whose soothing strains were to bring
to their troubled bosoms the peace they had so foolishly
forfeited.
Sidney was formed to be happy. His gay and unbroken
spirits imparted to every object he beheld a portion
of his own felicity; and even the evident unhappiness of
those with whom he resided had but a passing remembrance
in his innocent bosom.
Indeed he could not sympathize with his aunt in her
abhorrence of the negroes; he was delighted with them
when they came around him, smiling with obsequious
attention to greet his arrival; and he had not yet learned
the immeasurable inferiority a shade of the skin can impart
to beings of the same human family.
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They were told he was to be their master, and exerted
themselves to obtain his favor.
He was informed what rights the laws of men had
given him over them, but nature was not obliterated in
his heart, and instead of claiming their services as a right,
he yielded his love as a recompense.
His aunt could not endure this, and labored to shame
or pique him out of his partiality for the blacks.
His uncle was a good master, and from particular circumstances,
being anxious, in the event which all must
expect, to consign his slaves to a kind owner, he saw
the amity subsisting between them and his heir with
much satisfaction.
Perhaps, too, the idea that it vexed his spouse, might
make him more willing to encourage it; certainly he
permitted his nephew to frolic and ramble about his
estate in company with two or three favorite servants,
who soon initiated him in the arts of hunting and fishing,
and all those games and pastimes in which unlettered
leisure is sure to find amusement.
While Sidney had resided with his father he had
been accustomed to constant employment, working on
the farm, except when attending school, and never considered
play as necessary to his happiness; but the descendants
of Adam are always willing to escape his
penalty of eating bread gained by hard labor; and the
little republican was soon familiar with the idea of his
own privilege of exemption from the degradation of work,
which he was now taught to consider a menial employment.
His uncle had stipulated and indeed intended to bestow
on him a liberal education, but he felt loath to part
with him for the length of time necessary to complete it.
His house seemed insupportable without one happy face,
and so he postponed, month after month, the beginning
of his Latin studies, excusing his neglect by the difficulty
of finding a competent instructor.
At length, after more than a years' delay, a tutor
was obtained, and as Mr. Brainard could not endure the
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thought of sending Sidney to college, he determined to
have him educated at home, beneath his own eye.
The advantages of a public education have been often
asserted, and notwithstanding many objections, the majority
of sensible people have, I believe, given their suffrages
in its favor. Certain it is that Sidney's proficiency
will not be creditable to the private manner of instructing.
He had no competitor to excel, and no reward to
obtain, which he might not by other means have acquired.
He was still docile, but his mind wanted a stimulus
which the pedantic and formal lectures of his master, an
old-fashioned birch pedagogue, never could impart.
His love of study was now languid, and progress in
learning slow compared with what they had been in the
district school of his own native village. There, his
reward for application was certain, immediate, and what
is best of all, while it satisfied his ambition, it still cherished
the generous and kindly feelings of his nature. To
walk home with the medal suspended on his bosom, and
receive a smile from his mother as her glance rested on
the proof of his scholarship; to have his father lay his
hand on his head, and inquire the particular manner of
excelling by which it had been obtained, and listen while
the little fellow, with a most exalted tone, repeated his
perfect lesson, or spelt his hard word; these were the
honors he had coveted, and to gain them he had been
urged to the most unwearied exertions.
Nor was there any punishment he dreaded like the loss
of his station in the class, and the censure of his parents.
But now his uncle was engrossed by pleasure or business,
and had no leisure for such trifles, and his aunt had
neither taste nor capacity for the task of instructing. True
they were both anxious Sidney should be a scholar, and
to have insured him such they would willingly have
offered a large premium. Money to almost any amount
they would freely have given, but their own time, or personal
inspection or encouragement, they could not afford.
The consequence was, as it ever is when study is made
an irksome duty, Sidney's book was neglected for play
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whenever it could be without incurring severe reprimands,
and these his uncle's affection and indulgent temper
rarely permitted to be employed. Once, it is reported,
the master threatened correction, but Mr. Brainard soon
gave him to understand nothing of that kind must be
attempted with his heir, and so Cornelius Nepos and
Virgil slept quietly and unthumbed, while the Latin
scholar was taking his lessons at marbles or ninepins.
How I wish I had a more perfect hero. One of those
patent made creatures, who either by nature or intuition
are possessed of every virtue, art and accomplishment.
It mortifies me to record, that after seven years' instruction,
Sidney Romilly was still ignorant of those languages,
which, by being called learned, we are taught no one can
be learned without understanding; and, what I consider
far worse, that for all kinds of mathematical studies he
had the most invincible aversion. Should these deficiencies,
which truth compels me to make public, be considered
as depreciating from his merits, let those who
aspire to the character of heroes carefully avoid an imitation
of his errors.
But though the classics and mathematics held but a
slight tenure in his memory, he was not wholly idle.
The French language he studied; philosophy and belles
lettres possessed charms to interest his feelings and fancy,
and to these he devoted his attention.
His tutor for some time struggled against the inclinations
of his pupil; but as he declaimed only against those
studies which Sidney found intelligible and agreeable,
without endeavoring to render those he recommended
equally so, his pupil paid no attention to his remonstrances.
And finally, as he found resistance vain, the faithful
tutor contented himself with a good salary, and let Sidney
have his own way, quieting his conscience by laying all
the blame on Mr. Brainard's indulgence and the boy's
obstinacy.
At the age of twenty his education was declared complete,
his tutor was dismissed, and Mr. Sidney Romilly
introduced into society as a young gentleman whose
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scientific attainments entitled him to a high rank in the
learned world, while his polite accomplishments assured
him a flattering reception in the fashionable one.
He was handsome and agreeable; his uncle had riches
and influence, and his pretensions to learning were never
questioned; nor did he suffer more inconvenience for his
lack of Greek, than did the professor at the university of
Louvain.
His time was passed in a continued series of amusements,
and for two years his only occupation seemed to
be the discovery and enjoyment of some new pleasure.
Wherever he appeared, a welcome awaited him; his taste
was the fashion, his applause excellence, and the gay and
accomplished Yankee became the pride and ornament of
a southern city.
But, though he drank deep of the cup of luxury, he
was not the votary of vice. The natural benevolence of
his feelings prevented him from indulging in pleasure at
the expense of another's happiness; and his acquired
prudence kept him from such as would grossly injure
himself.
But, above all, those early lessons of sobriety and virtue
which he had, as it were, drawn in with his mother's
milk, those pure and pious precepts instilled into his soul
before one blight of the world had stained its innocence,
still clung around his heart, still visited his imagination
in dreams by night, when he would find himself again
beneath that roof where folly and repentance were alike
unknown.
His father's revered form, while lifting his hands in
holy prayer, was often before his eyes; and the expression
of the last petition which he had ever heard from
his lips, was an entreaty to Him who can keep us from
temptation, to preserve and return spotless the dear one
who was about to quit the paternal roof; and the remembrance
of that scene often came over him in the midst of
gaiety, and never did it fail of having a restraining and
salutary effect.
But his mother's tears were still more admonitory. He
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never recalled her to his mind without thinking how,
with the last kiss bestowed on his then innocent cheek,
raising her streaming eyes to heaven, she said, “Oh! my
God, I commit him to Thy care, for thou only canst preserve
him.”
And that Sidney Romilly, in the midst of the pleasures
which a gay city presented, with wealth to gratify every
wish, should yet, in a great measure, preserve the integrity
of his heart and his love of virtue, must doubtless
be ascribed to the lessons of his childhood and the example
and prayers of his parents.
It has undoubtedly been already anticipated that Sidney
had been a lover—for what hero is not—and strange
it would have been, if amidst the bright circles in which
he moved, and where he was an acknowledged favorite,
his susceptible feelings should not have been awaked.
Yet his heart was not an easy conquest. The unhappiness
he had witnessed in his uncle's family had prejudiced
him against marriage, and his libertine companions
had treated it with ridicule. His course of reading was
mostly novels and poems, and although they usually
ended by placing their best characters in the honorable
state of wedlock, yet they terribly magnified the perplexities
and dangers besetting the path which leads to the
temple of Hymen.
However, from the recollection of the happiness enjoyed
by his kind parents, and the whispers of his
own heart, he felt assured the most perfect felicity earth
witnesses, is theirs, “whose hearts, whose fortunes, and
whose beings blend.” Yet he imagined this felicity was
attained only by the wedded pair who loved each other
solely and individually, without any alloy of worldly
considerations to sully the purity of their affection; and
he fully determined never to marry, unless assured his
fair one loved him for himself alone.
This was a difficult problem to solve, and cordially as
he hated Euclid, he would willingly have sat down to
the study of angles and triangles, if he might thereby
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have obtained a result by which to calculate the sentiments
of the lady on whom he might fix for a bride.
His appearance, rank, and fortune, made his alliance a
prize not lightly to be rejected by people of fashion;
and he had nothing of that vanity which converts civilities
offered to the station into marks of personal esteem.
This refinement, as most men would call it, made him
distrust exceedingly the friendly and affectionate notices
bestowed on him by mothers who had unmarried daughters,
and aunts who had unportioned nieces. Perhaps if
he had really loved any of the fair or fine ladies of his
acquaintance, he might have fancied a return; the coolness
of his reasoning certainly argued insensibility to
their attractions, as none but an uninterested spectator
can make such rational and unbiased reflections.
At length, however, his philosophy was tested. He
was sitting at the theatre one evening, his eye wandering
unsatisfied over brilliant beauties and dazzling dresses,
when an elderly gentleman entered a box on his right.
His appearance and air bespoke him a man of mighty
consequence in his own opinion, yet he attracted none
of our hero's homage. Sidney looked, but it was at a
beautiful young creature who accompanied him.
How many sensations a single glance can awake—how
much the heart can grasp in a moment of time—how
soon the affections expand when warmed by real love!
Sidney gazed and loved, and in imagination wooed
and married; nor did the brother of Orlando and the
cousin of Rosalind come to the conclusion of the matter
sooner than he.
The features of this unknown charmer were not regularly
handsome—the fascination of her countenance was
its expression; so sweet, so innocent, so feminine, it
seemed as if the softness and harmony of her soul had
diffused their influence over her form and face, giving
to one the most exquisite symmetry, to the other that
indescribable grace which breathes the soul of love and
tenderness.
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Sidney's eyes were riveted; and with his romantic
feelings it is no wonder that
“In every secret glance he stole,
The fond enthusiast sent his soul.”
One would, indeed, be reminded of Ellen Douglas,
while gazing upon her. There was a likeness between
the creation of the bard and the fair creature before him
which immediately occurred to Sidney. The same lightness
of figure, the same raven tresses, the same dark eye;
but the heightened bloom which “sportive toil” had
imparted to the complexion of the Highland lassie did
not mantle the cheek of the fair stranger. She was pale,
and sometimes Sidney fancied a shade of sadness passed
over her mild features like a soft cloud over the brightness
of the summer moon. Yet so young, so lovely,
apparently so affluent, whence could her sorrows arise!
She bestowed no attention on the many curious observers
who regarded her, being apparently absorbed in
the scenes of the drama, or in her own reflections.
The play was Douglas, and during the representation
of some acts she appeared affected even beyond what the
most refined tragic-loving grief could warrant. Through
the first scene she shaded her face entirely; and when
towards the last of the play Lady Randolph sighs forth
in the bitterness of her spirit,
—“Alas! a little time
Was I a wife; a mother not so long!”—
the tears fell in large drops down the colorless cheeks
of that sweet being, who appeared totally unconscious
of the remarks her conduct excited, and sympathizing
only in the sorrows of the wife and mother.
“Pshaw!” said a dandy, who was regarding through
an opera glass the same interesting object, “pshaw! how
I do detest to see a lady playing off her airs of sensibility
and always expecting some compliment for tender
feelings, and to be told how well her grief becomes her.
It is only, take my experience for it, to gull our sterner
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race by making us believe what kind, affectionate, managable
wives they will make; but marry them, and the
soft cloud that seemed to distil only tears is soon changed
to one surcharged with thunder and lightning, and
we may think ourselves fortunate if we escape being prostrated
by a devil of a whirlwind.”
Here he paused, to laugh at his own wit.
It did not strike Sidney as wit; but he felt there
might be truth in the observation. His acquaintance
with the world had taught him how often men are deceived
by appearance; “and yet,” thought he, “who can
suspect artifice in one so young and apparently so innocent?”
He intended to follow her and discover her lodgings,
but as she left the theatre the crowd retarted his progress,
and she was gone he knew not whither. No one
could answer his inquiries concerning her, and after a
fruitless search he returned home to dream of the vision
he had seen.
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Hale, Sarah Josepha Buell, 1788-1879 [1852], Northwood, or, Life North and South, showing the true character of both. (H. Long & Brother, New York) [word count] [eaf561T].
