The Kentuckian in New-York; or, The Adventures of Three Southerns. Volume 1 (of 2)
Page 17
CHAPTER XVII.
V. CHEVILLERE TO B. RANDOLPH.
"New-York, 18--.
"I told you in my last of our surprise at the little coincidence of the number on the card, and that on the house where the lady alighted, with whom Lamar had exchanged some intelligent glances in her more girlish days; but I did not complete the relation, which I will do presently.
"In the mean time, was there ever a man of any travel or adventure, who has not been alarmed at these seeming accidents, or, what is more probable, made superstitious by their frequent recurrence? I think that I hazard nothing in saying, that more of such strange coincidences have occurred to me than I have ever seen in any work of fiction; not the clap-traps, and other little contrivances, which are intended to electrify the blunted nerves of veteran readers; but the coincidences of ordinary life in society, which reveal to us occasionally the finger of Providence in the course we vainly suppose we are chalking out for ourselves. What is it to a man to possess the will, when all the circumstances upon which that will is to operate, are ready arranged to his hand? I do not repine at this, if it be a fact. On the contrary, it is often a matter of consolation to me to think, how narrow is the choice which the Creator has given us; thereby, of course, decreasing our means of doing wrong; nor is this all his beneficence to us,--he has made it easier for us to do right than wrong; often leaving us but two plain roads to follow, the right one being the easier, plainer, more attractive to a cultivated head and heart, and more profitable in this world. There! you see I never preach beyond this world; and hard enough it is to see clearly all around us in that.
"This brings me, by a very circuitous route you will no doubt think, to the further coincidence spoken of.
"As Damon does not take up his abode with us, besides other reasons, he was not of our party when we went to pay our respects to the Hazlehurst family. On entering the parlour, we found the young gentleman who had invited us, with Arthur and the lady, who were sitting, at the time of our entrance, engaged in an apparently interesting conversation, in the recess of one of the windows. Arthur and Lamar seemed pleased to meet again. The lady smiled upon Lamar, and acknowledged her recollection of his countenance. She is elegant and lofty; not in height, indeed, for she is not remarkably tall, but lofty in her demeanour and bearing. There are none of the gentle whisperings which come directly from the heart of a certain little unhappy runaway. The one would captivate an assembly; the other has made terrible inroads upon the heart of a single gentleman; and this brings me to the matter with which I began this epistle.
"Lamar, having mentioned to Arthur something about the young lady we had met on our travels, and having thrown many gratuitous remarks and glances towards me, the lady seemed at length to take some interest in the subject, and in Lamar's description. She then appealed to me for the name.
"'Miss St. Clair!' exclaimed she, when I had succeeded in uttering it, 'and have you really fallen into her toils? Alas, I pity you!'
"Why the plague should she pity me, Randolph? It was evident enough that she did not mean the mock pity, which is only another way for saying, 'how I am rejoiced!'
"'But,' continued she, 'the lady is a dear and valued friend of mine, and you shall see her.'
"'But when?' said I, eagerly, awakening out of a brown study.
"All laughed; and I cannot say from my own experience, that I like the sport any better than yourself.
"You could have amused yourself (it was no amusement to me) with the odd looks of Lamar, in presence of the object of a first and youthful attachment. There is something pure and primitive in these boyish loves, and they are too much out of fashion in the present age, even in this country. It is not certainly because matches of mere convenience have supplanted them, so much as because it has become too much the custom to treat very young affairs of the heart with ridicule and contempt. People are apt to say 'Oh! it is nothing more than puppy love!' (a refined expression truly) and to throw derision upon all such demonstrations, at the very time, too, when we are most sensitive upon such subjects, and when our impressions of the fair one are but too easily modified by the pretended opinions of our seniors and superiors. Opposition, direct and serious, will indeed sometimes make the youth steady in his course, but ridicule of the object, never!
"From the little I know of the science of political economy and human happiness, I am inclined to run right into the teeth of the prevailing doctrines on this subject. I have never known a couple who married, whether young or old, upon the strength of a first and mutual passion, who were not contented, prosperous, and happy. There are doubtless exceptions to this sweeping rule, but I have not seen them.
"Its enemies urge that the youthful pair are not capable of estimating each other's qualifications. But do age and experience qualify them? Or is the judgment of so much avail in these matters as is pretended? Look at the men most remarkable for discretion and judgment; I will venture to say you will find that most of them have trusted too much to their judgments, and too little to their hearts, to be happy. The truth is, that nature has made the heart the magnetic point of mutual attraction in these affairs, and the head of the wisest man is here out of its sphere.
"It is too true, that many of your slow, cautious, miserly characters, attempt to reduce the whole business to a question in the single rule of three; as thus: if Caroline B. with a sweet face and a prudent turn makes a thrifty wife, what will Adeline B. make, with a sweet face, thrifty ways, and a heavy purse?
"Thanks be to an overruling providence, they are often carried a rule or two farther in their mathematics than they intended; the honey-moon winds up with doleful calculations, in the ashes of the chimney-corner, with the end of their rattans; such as Vulgar Fractions, Profit and Loss, Tare and Trett, et cetera.
"You must not imagine, from what I have here said, that I am one of those dreamers who contend that the world might again become a paradise; if, in these things, men would always consult the dictates of the heart.
"If we look forward at the marriages which are to come, we can discern nothing. This you may think is too true to make a joke of, and too serious to discuss. But look back over all the world that you have seen, and I think you will own that Providence or destiny has had a great design constantly in view in their fulfilment. The human character has been equipoised, extremes have been avoided, the humble elevated, the exalted humbled; all the genius, and the wit, and the judgment, and the virtues, have not been suffered to be concentrated in the descendants of a single pair, but have been as nearly as possible divided among us, the descendants of the multitude. Opposite, or rather diverging characters, are frequently enamoured of each other--the brave man loves the gentle woman; the gentle man, the gay woman; and thus in their descendants we have the grand compromise of nature.
"There is a sermon, now for the text--'neither is the battle to the strong nor the race to the swift.'
"V. CHEVILLERE."
* * * * *
V. CHEVILLERE TO B. RANDOLPH.
(In continuation.)
"New-York, 18--.
"The day being Sunday, I sent old Cato this morning to arouse Lamar quite early, in order to ascertain if he was disposed to walk before breakfast, and view some of the boasted parks, groves, and gardens of these hospitable Gothamites. Old Cato soon returned, saying that Lamar had but that moment fallen asleep, but that he would be with me as soon as he could make a hasty toilet; hasty it indeed was, for he was n
ot many minutes behind Cato, in his morning-gown and slippers, yawning and stretching his clenched fists through the room as if he had sat in his chair all night.
"'Beshrew me, Chevillere,' said he, 'but you are an uneasy and restless spirit, to be waking a man up at all hours of the night in this style. I thought, at least, when I saw old Cato's grisly head, that you had had a surfeit, or a fit of indigestion.'
"I suppose then you are disappointed to find me well; but tell me, Lamar, how you intend to spend the day?
"'Why, I have not laid it down in a regular campaign, but I suppose, as you are too much of a Roundhead to kill the day with me at cards, that I shall have to submit myself to be whined to death with nasal psalmody, at some conventicle or other. Be that as it may, Damon shall sit on the stool of repentance as well as myself.'
"'In the mean time, suppose we walk to the Battery and Castle Garden?'
"'Agreed!' said he, 'provided you wait till I jump into a more seemly garb.'
"We were soon arm in arm, sauntering down the southern extremity of Broadway, which terminates in a beautiful oval grass-plot, called the Bowling Green; surrounded by a handsome iron railing, and containing a young and an old grove of trees; in imitation, doubtless, of human life, the young to supplant the aged. During the colonial government, there stood in the centre of this beautiful spot a painted leaden equestrian statue of George the Third, but as soon as the revolutionary war broke out, it was melted into bullets, and shot at his own ships and soldiers. On the opposite side of the right branch of Broadway, in a southwesterly direction, is the Battery--a noble lawn, covering some acres of the southern extremity of Manhattan Island, and of course looking into the Bay of New-York. What is by a misnomer called Castle Garden, stands out in the waters of the bay on the south-west side, and is connected with the lawn by a wooden bridge of some thirty or forty yards length, and not too strong to give way under some future pressure. Castle Garden is a castellated structure, without turrets and battlements, built of hewn stone, and pierced with a row of port-holes. It seems to have been built for warlike purposes, but is now used as a public promenade, and exhibition garden, having tiers of seats inside, and around an extensive area, in the manner of an amphitheatre. In the centre of the area is a little temple or dome, supported on columns. Surmounting the whole body of the castle is an esplanade, protected by plain railings; from the top of this extends high into the air a flag-staff, from which, on national festivals, the 'star spangled banner' proudly floats over the blue waves which beat against its base.
"It was here that the corporation entertained Lafayette, a platform having been thrown over the area, and a canvass marquee over the top; this ball-room is said to have been capable of containing from six to ten thousand persons.
"Lamar and I mounted the esplanade, and seated ourselves upon the benches, just within the railing.
"We could see the ships of every nation, as they rode triumphantly over the waters of this magnificent bay, gliding about like 'things of life;' marine birds screaming and diving among them, and sometimes the porpoises in their clumsy gambols, shooting their black masses above the water and down again; steamers with their gay pennants, thundering noises, and deafening bells; the rude music and songs of the sailors, the hoarse voice of the pilot, as he stepped on board some outward-bound vessel, and the 'ay! ay!' of the sailor, as the order reached his ears, through the rattling of the shrouds, and the whistling of the breeze.
"Farther out in the bay, between us and the ocean, is a beautiful chain of islands; first Ellis's, then Bedloe's, and lastly, next the ocean, Staten Island.
"Gay throngs of well-dressed people began now to crowd the gravelled walks of the Battery; maids attending on children were seen with their little charges, gambolling over the green in their Sunday suits; the emancipated mechanics, with their snow-white jackets and collars; and the happy negro, with his tawdry and cast-off finery, as free (personally, not politically, free) as any of the loungers. There was something in this Sunday scene inexpressibly soothing and delightful to my feelings.
"Every southern should visit New-York. It would allay provincial prejudices, and calm his excitement against his northern countrymen. The people here are warm-hearted, generous, and enthusiastic, in a degree scarcely inferior to our own southerns. The multitude move as one man, in all public-spirited, benevolent, or charitable measures. Many of these Yorkers are above local prejudices, and truly consider this as the commercial metropolis of the Union, and all the people of the land as their customers, friends, patrons, and countrymen.
"Nor is trade the only thing that flourishes. The arts of polished and refined life, refined literature, and the profounder studies of the schoolmen, all have their distinguished votaries,--I say distinguished, with reference to the standard of science in our country.
"This much I have written before going to church. The further adventures of the day, in the evening.
"V. CHEVILLERE."
* * * * *
V. CHEVILLERE TO B. RANDOLPH.
(In continuation.)
"10 o'clock P. M.
"About ten o'clock this morning the bells began to ring, from Trinity to St. John's. A forest of steeples seemed to have let loose their artillery at once upon us tardy Christians. These gongs seemed to take effect in about fifteen minutes, for simultaneously the houses poured out their thronging occupants, until the streets literally swarmed with these church-going people.
"'Whither shall we bend our steps?' said I; 'here are various routes to heaven; which do you choose, Episcopal, Methodist, or Presbyterian?'
"'Not any one of the three,' said he.
"'Indeed! Perhaps Jewishly inclined?'
"'No; I thought that you were aware of my partiality for the close-communion Baptists,' said he, with mock gravity.
"'But seriously, Lamar, you accused me of wishing to drag you to some conventicle or other; choose for us both; indeed for _three_, for here comes Damon.'
"'Then,' said he, 'I choose the most celebrated preacher! you will thus be most likely to see a certain demure little runaway.'
"'And there,' said I, 'you will be most likely to see her friend, with Arthur by her side.'
"Damon now coming up, was asked by me where he would choose to spend the forenoon of the day.
"'I can't tell exactly,' replied he, 'for the truth is, I feel pretty much like a fish out of water even of week days; but Sunday I'm completely dished; I was thinking of walking out into the country, and bantering somebody for a foot-race.'
"I proposed that we should all go and hear Dr. ----, and forthwith led the way, my two companions following on, much like truant boys on their return march to school. We entered a low white church, I don't recollect where exactly, but on the western side of Broadway. The preacher was already in the pulpit, and the aisles and pews on the lower floor were crammed with hearers, insomuch that we were compelled to seek seats in the small gallery, where with great difficulty we found them.
"The preacher, who had already begun, was a commanding-looking gentleman, clothed in black, and, like most of our dissenting clergymen, without gown or surplice; his features were large and well-formed; his forehead lofty beyond any thing I have ever seen, but falling back at the top until it was lost in little short bristly curls; his attitudes were lofty and dignified. He had, as I said before, announced the portion of Scripture which he was attempting to elucidate, before we entered the church. The subject seemed to be, the practicability and means of a direct re
velation from God! When he spoke of the Great Spirit who rules our destinies revealing himself, and his manner of doing it, he was almost sublime. I must try to recollect a few passages for your edification, but you must remember that they are transposed into my own language.
"He painted in vivid and striking colours, the utter incapacity of man to conceive identically of such a being as God. 'The little puny brain of man,' said he, 'which you may hold in the hollow of your hand, cannot contain a true conception of God in all his majesty! the little arteries and fibres of our poor heads would rend and burst asunder with such an idea.
"'To form one single correct thought of so great a Spirit, you must first conceive of those things which surround him; as, when we view a painting of some earthly object, there must first be a background to relieve the eye. So when you would conceive of that great Being truly and fully, you must be able to realize the duration of eternity, obliterate the little periods of time and chronology, which require a starting and a resting-place in our human minds,--soar out of the reach of the sickly atmospheres which surround these little planets, and stand erect in the broad and fathomless light of God's own atmosphere! Could the human eye see with such rays, and stretch its glances over the great waves and boundless oceans of light in which he dwells, one single ray of it would blast your optic nerves.
"'Even here upon earth, if we are suddenly brought from a dark dungeon into the bright rays of his reflected glory, our little optical machinery quails and dances with the shock; but take that same creature from his gloomy dungeon, and place him in the glassy sea of light in which God dwells! The utter horrors of such a moment, if they did not instantly explode the soul into its elements, would be worse than the terrors of convulsions, and earthquakes, and the black and fathomless chasms of the sea. And yet! some of us desire in our hearts a direct revelation to ourselves from this sublime Being! Know you what you desire? You desire that God should stretch out his mighty power, and draw away the friendly veil of the heavens, and burst upon an astounded world in all his fearful attributes! Before such an immediate presence, the sun and moon would become dark in contrast. The natural laws which he has given us for our protection, of gravitation, electricity, and magnetism, would burst loose from their reflected positions, and all animate and inanimate nature would fall before their First Great Cause! We cannot have direct physical intercourse with God. We are physically incompetent to encounter him, either in his goodness or in his wrath.
"You say in your hearts, that there is mystery in this revelation of the Bible! Can mystery be separable from sublime or profound greatness, when viewed through human powers? Are not height, and depth, and space, and air, all mysterious to your minds, when beyond the reach of the eye? Is not darkness alone profoundly mysterious? mysterious in its effects and in its properties! Can any mind analyze darkness? Is it positive or negative? Does it extend through eternal and measureless space? or is it only a creative property dependent upon the functions of the eye? Our darkness is to one part of creation light, and our light their darkness.
"Is measureless space a positive creation, or a negative nonentity! No human intellect can fathom these subjects; not from any of their delusive properties, but from our limited capacities! These then are but the beginning of those things which interpose between us and our great and sublime Creator!
"You can now, perhaps, form some idea of the difficulties of revealing God to man!
"What would you have with a more powerful and sublime revelation than this? Would you disorganize the minds of the whole human family, by opening to them frightful volumes which would craze and bewilder, rather than direct them? Do you complain of mystery, and yet call upon God for more?
"But the greatest difficulty between us and a direct revelation from our Creator, has yet to be considered.
"This revelation of the Bible was necessarily conveyed to us through the medium of human language. Now let us examine what this human language is. It is a system of words or signs, which convey to our minds the ideas of things. These words only represent such ideas as we ourselves have formed from the things we have seen, and their various combinations. How then can these signs and symbols convey identical ideas of God and his attributes? All the imperfections of this revelation then are confessedly owing to our imperfections, both as it regards mind and language.
"I have given you but a faint outline of this powerful and vehement speaker's discourse. During its delivery I once or twice turned to Lamar and the Kentuckian, to see how they were affected. The former had insensibly risen during the fervency of the preacher's eloquence, and stood leaning over the balustrade, drinking in the sounds of a voice which are truly powerful though not musical, until he came to a pause; he then sank into his seat, a grim smile passing over his pale sickly features, clearly showing to those who knew him, how intently he had listened. Damon chewed tobacco at a prodigious rate, and the more eloquent the speaker became, the more energetic was the action of his jaws. His eye was wild and savage, like that of a forest animal when it suddenly finds itself in the midst of a settlement. He sometimes cracked his fingers together, for the same purpose, I suppose, that he used to crack his whip when travelling on horseback, to give emphasis and round his periods.
"But I had not long to consider these effects upon different characters, for at this moment Lamar pointed over the balustrade at two moving figures on the lower floor. You already guess, if you are any thing of a Yankee, what these were. Lamar and I simultaneously arose to our feet and gazed at the heads which filled up every crevice, as a veteran soldier would have gazed at so many bristling bayonets upon an impregnable bastion. We soon heard the steps of a carriage let down, and then the rolling of the wheels. Lamar bit his lip till the blood almost started from it. Whether the pressure was increased by his having seen that Arthur joined the ladies near the door, I shall not undertake to say.
"The sermon now being over we had merely to throw ourselves into the tide of human figures which moved down stairs, to be carried safely to the bottom.
"When there, Damon drew one long and whistling breath, and an inarticulate sound not unlike the snort of a whale.
"'I'm flambergasted! if that ain't what I call goin the whole cretur, he'd go to Congress from old Kentuck as easy as I could put a gin sling under my jacket. O Christopher! what a stump speech he could make, if he would only turn his hand to it, instead of wasting his wind here among the old wives!'
"'Well, Lamar, what did you think of him?'
"'Think of him! (rousing himself from a brown study), I never knew before that I had nerves in the hairs of my head.'
"'And where did you now obtain that precious piece of anatomical news?'
"'In the church, to be sure! Were not my locks dancing all the while to the music of that eccentric man's voice? The cold chills ran over me, as if I had been under the influence of miasma.'
"I watched Damon through an unusually long silence, while he several times snapped his fingers and took a fresh chew of tobacco.
"'I'll tell you what it is, that's what I call a real tear-down sneezer,' ejaculated he; 'he's a bark-well and hold-fast too; he doesn't honey it up to 'em, and mince his words--he lets it down upon 'em hot and heavy; he knocks down and drags out; first he gives it to 'em in one eye and then in 'tother, then in the gizzard, and at last he gits your head under his arm, and then I reckon he feathers it in, between the lug and the horn; he gives a feller no more chance nor a 'coon has in a black jack.'
"'Then you give him more credit for sincerity than you usually do men of his cloth,' said I.
"'Yes, yes! there's no wh
ippin the devil round the stump with him; he jumps right at him, tooth and toe-nail, and I'm flambergasted if I don't think he rather worsted the _Old Boy_ this morning; and he's the best match I ever saw him have, he looks so stout and soldier-like; and then his eye! Did you see his eye, stranger? I'm shot if he didn't look as if he could'a jumped right a-straddle of the devil's neck, and just run his thumbs in, and scooped out his two eyes, as easy as I would scoop an oyster out of his shell.'
"'You don't go to church often when you are at home?'
"'No; but I _would_ go, if we had such a Samson as this; he raises old Kentuck in me in a minute. I feel full of fight, and ready for any thing now! But our old parson! he's an entirely different cut in the jib. He whines it out to us like an old woman in the last of pea-time; he doesn't thunder it down to 'em like this chap, and like old Hickory did the grape-shot at New-Orleans.'
"We had now arrived at that point of the street where we were to separate. Damon abruptly informed us of his intention to return soon to Baltimore. I asked him if he was not pleased with New-York.
"'O, yes;' said he, 'it's a real Kentuck of a place, a man can do here what he likes; they don't look at the cut of a feller's coat, but at the cut of his jib. I could wear my coat upside down here, and my hat smashed all into a gin-shop, and nobody has time to turn round and look at me. Yes, yes, stranger, they are a whole-souled people, and I like 'em, but I have staid long enough.'
"Here we separated for the day. Lamar intends to try and prevail upon him to accompany us to the theatre, and the Italian opera. I have great curiosity to see him at the latter place. Pedrotti, they say, can tame a tiger with her melodious and touching voice. As you may suppose, I am anxious to hear it myself, and to see its effects upon one so unschooled in the music of luxurious and effeminate Italy.
"I have written you more at length than I intended, but I could not do otherwise in return for your amusing, friendly, and satisfactory epistle. We shall meet again, as in days of yore, and then we will gather up all these scribblings, and enjoy these scenes again. In the mean time, believe that I wish you success in your present suit, for the sake of three of us,--but more particularly and selfishly that of
"V. CHEVILLERE."