This retirement, which may almost be considered seclusion, was enjoyed by Col. Butler nearly twenty-five years, when he was called out by the Democratic party to redeem by his personal popularity the congressional district in which he lived. It was supposed that no one else could save it from the Whigs. Like all the rest of his family, none of whom had made their military service a passport to the honors and emoluments of civil stations, he was averse to relinquish the attitude he occupied to enter on a party struggle. The importunity of friends prevailed; and he was elected to two successive terms in Congress, absolutely refusing to be a candidate a third time. He spoke seldom in Congress, but in two or three fine speeches which appear in the debates, a power will readily be detected which could not have failed to conduct to the highest distinction in that body. Taste, judgment, and eloquence, characterized all his efforts in Congress. A fine manner, an agreeable voice, and the high consideration accorded to him by the members of all parties, gave him, what it is the good fortune of few to obtain, an attentive and gratified audience.
In 1844 the same experiment was made with Butler's popularity to carry the state for the Democracy, as had succeeded in his congressional district. He was nominated as the Democratic candidate for governor by the 8th of January Convention; and there is good ground to believe that he would have been chosen over his estimable Whig competitor, Governor Owsley, but for the universal conviction throughout the state that the defeat of Mr. Clay's party, by the choice of a Democratic governor in August, would have operated to injure Mr. Clay's prospects throughout the Union, in the presidential election which followed immediately after in November. With Mr. Clay's popularity, and the activity of all his friends—with the state pride so long exalted by the aspiration of giving a President to the Union—more eagerly than ever enlisted against the Democracy, Col. Butler diminished the Whig majority from twenty thousand to less than five thousand.
The late military events with which Maj. Gen. Butler has been connected—in consequence of his elevation to that grade in 1846, with the view to the command of the volunteers raised to support Gen. Taylor in his invasion of Mexico—are so well known to the country that minute recital is not necessary. He acted a very conspicuous part in the severe conflict at Monterey, and had, as second in command under Gen. Taylor, his full share in the arduous duties and responsibilities incurred in that important movement. The narrative of Major Thomas, senior assistant adjutant-general of the army in Mexico, and hence assigned by Gen. Taylor to the staff of Gen. Butler, reports so plainly and modestly the part which Gen. Butler performed in subjecting the city, that it may well stand for history. This passage is taken from it. "The army arrived at their camp in the vicinity of Monterey about noon September 19th. That afternoon the general endeavored by personal observation to get information of the enemy's position. He, like Gen. Taylor, saw the importance of gaining the road to Saltillo, and fully favored the movement of Gen. Worth's division to turn their left, &c. Worth marched Sunday, September 20th, for this purpose, thus leaving Twiggs' and Butler's divisions with Gen. Taylor. Gen. Butler was also in favor of throwing his division across the St. John's river, and approaching the town from the east, which was at first determined upon. This was changed, as it would leave but one, and perhaps the smallest division, to guard the camp, and attack in front. The 20th the general also reconnoitered the enemy's position. Early the morning of the 21st the force was ordered out to create a diversion in favor of Worth, that he might gain his position; and before our division came within long range of the enemy's principal battery, the foot of Twiggs' division had been ordered down to the northeast side of the town, to make an armed reconnoisance of the advanced battery, and to take it if it could be done without great loss. The volunteer division was scarcely formed in rear of our howitzer and mortar battery, established the night previous under cover of a rise of ground, before the infantry sent down to the northeast side of the town became closely and hotly engaged, the batteries of that division were sent down,and we were then ordered tosupport the attack.Leaving the Kentucky regiment to support the mortar and howitzer battery, the general rapidly put in march, by a flank movement, the other three regiments, moving for some one and a half or two miles under a heavy fire of round shot. As further ordered, the Ohio regiment was detached from Quitman's brigade, and led by the general (at this time accompanied by Gen. Taylor) into the town. Quitman carried his brigade directly on the battery first attacked, and gallantly carried it. Before this, however, as we entered the suburbs, the chief engineer came up and advised us to withdraw, as the object of the attack had failed, and if we moved on we must meet with great loss. The general was loath to fall back without consulting with Gen. Taylor, which he did do—the general being but a short distance off. As we were withdrawing, news came that Quitman had carried the battery, and Gen. Butler led the Ohio regiment back to the town at a different point. In the street we became exposed to a line of batteries on the opposite side of a small stream, and also from atête de pont(bridge-head) which enfiladed us. Our men fell rapidly as we moved up the street to get a position to charge the battery across the stream. Coming to a cross-street, the general reconnoitered the position, and determining to charge from that point, sent me back a short distance to stop the firing, and advance the regiment with the bayonet. I had just left him, when he was struck in the leg, being on foot, and was obliged to leave the field."
"On entering the town, the general and his troops became at once hotly engaged at short musket range. He had to make his reconnoisances under heavy fire. This he did unflinchingly, and by exposing his person—on one occasion passing through a large gateway into a yard which was entirely open to the enemy. When he was wounded, at the intersection of the two streets, he was exposed to a cross-fire of musketry and grape."
"In battle the general's bearing was truly that of a soldier; and those under him felt the influence of his presence. He had the entire confidence of his men."
The narrative of Major Thomas continues:
"When Gen. Taylor went on his expedition to Victoria, in December, he placed Gen. Butler in command of the troops left on the Rio Grande, and at the stations from the river on to Saltillo—Worth's small division of regulars being at the latter place. Gen. Wool's column had by this time reached Parras, one hundred or more miles west of Saltillo. General Butler had so far recovered from his wound as to walk a little and take exercise on horseback, though with pain to his limb. One night, (about the 19th December,) an express came from Gen. Worth at Saltillo, stating that the Mexican forces were advancing in large numbers from San Luis de Potosi, and that he expected to be attacked in two days. His division, all told, did not exceed 1500 men, if so many, and he asked reinforcements. The general remained up during the balance of the night, sent off the necessary couriers to the rear for reinforcements, and had the 1st Kentuckey, and the 1st Ohio foot, then encamped three miles from town, in the place by daylight; and these two regiments, with Webster's battery, were encamped that night ten miles on the road to Saltillo. This promptness enabled the general to make his second day's march of twenty-two miles in good season, and to hold the celebrated pass of Los Muertos, and check the enemy should he have attacked Gen. Worth on that day, and obliged him to evacuate the town. Whilst on the next, and last day's march, the general received notice that the reported advance of the enemy was untrue. Arriving at the camp-ground, the general suffered intense pain from his wound, and slept not during the night. This journey, over a rugged, mountainous road, and the exercise he took in examining the country for twenty miles in advance of Saltillo, caused the great increase of pain now experienced."
The major's account then goes on to relate Gen. Butler's proceedings while in command of all the forces after the junction of Generals Worth and Wool—his dispositions to meet the threatened attack of Santa Anna—the defences created by him at Saltillo, and used during the attack at Buena Vista in dispersing Miñon's forces—his just treatment of the people of Saltillo, with the prudent and effectual precautions taken to make them passive in the event of Santa Anna's approach. It concludes by stating that all apprehensions of Santa Anna's advance subsiding, Gen. Butler returned to meet Gen. Taylor at Monterey, to report the condition of affairs; and the latter, having taken the command at Saltillo, transmitted a leave of absence to Gen. Butler, to afford opportunity for the cure of his wound.
This paper affords evidence of the kind feeling which subsisted between the two generals during the campaign, and this sentiment was strongly evinced by Gen. Butler, on his arrival in Washington, where he spoke in the most exalted terms of the leader under whom he served.
In person Gen. Butler is tall, straight, and handsomely formed, exceedingly active and alert—his mien is inviting—his manners graceful—his gait and air military—his countenance frank and pleasing—the outline of his features of the aquiline cast, thin and pointed in expression—the general contour of his head is Roman.
The character of Gen. Butler in private life is in fine keeping with that exhibited in his public career. In the domestic circle, care, kindness, assiduous activity in anticipating the wants of all around him—readiness to forego his own gratifications to gratify others, have become habits growing out of his affections. His love makes perpetual sunshine at his home. Among his neighbors, liberality, affability, and active sympathy mark his social intercourse, and unbending integrity and justice all his dealings. His home is one of unpretending simplicity. It is too much the habit in Kentucky, with stern and fierce men, to carry their personal and political ends with a high hand. Gen. Butler, with all the masculine strength, courage, and reputation to give success to attempts of this sort, never evinced the slightest disposition to indulge the power, whilst his well-known firmness always forbade such attempts on him. His life has been one of peace with all men, except the enemies of his country.
Matthew Mizzle
How could he help it? Born with an inquiring turn of mind, and gifted from the first with a disposition toward experimental philosophy, by what processes would you undertake to change the current of Mathew Mizzle's mind? He is one of those who take nothing for granted. A weight of authority is little in his mind when compared to the personal investigation of the fact—facts for the people, and for himself as one of the people—that's the pivot on which Mathew Mizzle turns and returns, one fact being to his mind worth whole volumes of speculative assumption; and to Mizzle all facts, let them relate to what they may, are of peculiar interest. It is useless to tell him so. He must go, see and examine for himself. Often, for instance, as he had been told that Gruffenhoff's big dog would bite at the aspect of strange visitations, do you think that this species of information would content the youthful Mizzle? No—he must see into the matter for himself, and ascertain it beyond the possibility of a doubt, by touching up Gruffenhoff's big dog with a stick, as the aforesaid big dog lay asleep in the sun, whereby the demonstration was immediately afforded. The big dog would bite—he did bite severely; and thus the little Mizzle added another fact to his magazine of knowledge, as well as an enduring scar to his person, which placed the result upon record, and kept memory fresh on the subject. One dog, at least, willbite; and thenceforth, Mathew Mizzle admitted the inference that dogs are apt to bite, under circumstances congenial to such dental performances. If you doubt it, there's the mark.
"Burnee—burnee, baby," are the notes of warning often heard in the nursery, when heated stoves become an object of interest to little human specimens just learning to creep. But "burnee, burnee," conveyed no precise idea to the infantile Mizzle during his preliminary locomotive operations; and in consonance with the impulses of his nature, he soon tried the stove in its most intense displays of caloric, and in this way determined that "burnee, burnee," was unpleasant to the person, and injurious to the costume and raiment of that person, to say nothing of its threatening dispositions toward the whole establishment. "Burnee, burnee," to the house, as well as "burnee, burnee," to the baby. And so also as to lamps and candles—that they would "burnee" too, was placed, painfully, beyond the impertinent reach of a doubt in minds of the most sceptic order. Mathew Mizzle can show you the evidences to this day, scored, as it were, upon the living parchment, and engrossed in characters not to be misunderstood upon the cuticular binding of his physical identity.
It was useless, also, to place the little Mathew at the head of stairs, with information that any further advance on his part would prove matter of injury. How could he know until he had tried? Indeed, it required several clear tumbles down an entire flight to satisfy his judgment on this point, and to imprint it on his mind, through the medium of his bumpology, that the swiftest transition from one place to another, especially when effected by the downward movement, is not always the safest and the most agreeable. But afterward, none knew better than he what is meant by the word "landing," as applied to the staircase. "The Landing of Columbus" may be celebrated in pictures; but Mathew Mizzle accomplished landings that made very nearly as much noise as that effected by "the world-seeking Genoese," and the voyages of both were accompanied by squalls.
But it was not by the touch alone that Mathew Mizzle sought after information in his earlier career. His taste was equally curious. Strange bottles were subjects of the most intense interest, so that like Mithridates, he almost became proof against injury by the frequent imbibings of poison. He knew that pleasant draughts came from bottles, but had to learn that because a bottle has contents, it does not necessarily follow that these contents are either safe or agreeable. Ink, for instance—a copious mouthful of ink—however literary one may be, ink thus administered is not a matter over which the recipient is inclined greatly to rejoice. It did not appear so, at least, when Mathew Mizzle, in frock and trowsers, astonished, after this fashion, his mouth, his clothing and the carpet—so astonished himself that he forgot to reverse the bottle, but permitted it to pour in a steady stream right into the aperture of his lovely countenance. No one probably in the wide world ever acquired a greater variety of knowledge, as to the effect of substances of all kinds upon the human palate, than was obtained by Mathew Mizzle in the course of his earlier investigations into the relative qualities of solids and liquids. A spoonful of Cayenne pepper probably afforded him as much of surprise as any thing of the same portable compass. The varied expressions of his countenance would have been a study to a Lavater. The opera-house never witnessed a dance more remarkable for force and for expression; and if ever Mathew Mizzle was wide awake—wider than on any previous occasion, it was when he had seasoned himself highly with Cayenne. It made Mathew piquant to a degree; and something of the same kind might have been said of him when under the influence of mustard. He was then the warmest boy anywhere about; and fully appreciated the cheering influence of "the castors"—he did not go upon castors for a long time afterward, and never again to the same extent.
There was another source of trouble to Mathew Mizzle. His eyes proper were sharp enough; but the knowledge they acquired was not sufficient to satisfy his devouring thirst for information, and therefore much of his seeing was done with the tips of his fingers, or the grasp of his hands. He must touch every thing, and of course spoilt many things. Leave him alone in the room for a moment, and he would open all the letters, peep into every drawer, smell at every unknown substance, displace your china, spoil your musical-box, climb up the piano-forte, and pull over the vases of flowers. If you did not hear a crash this time, do not flatter yourself. Some secret, but equally important mischief has been accomplished, though it may not be apparent for days. The Mathew Mizzles always leave their mark; and when a gun went off in his hands, the shot that fractured the mirror rendered it fortunate that the mark was only a mirror, as Mathew Mizzle roared with terror at "the sound himself had made."
Mathew Mizzle, grown as he is now to man's estate, has perchance changed the objects of his pursuit, but the activity both of his mind and of his body remains undiminished. Curious as ever to ascertain facts. He is one of those who have ever an eye upon their neighbors. He follows people to ascertain whither they are going. It is a favorite amusement of his to peep through the blinds of an evening, to ascertain what you and your family are about. He listens at doors, and he peers through cracks and patronizes knot-holes. If he can learn nothing else, it is a satisfaction for him to ascertain what you are about to have for dinner, and who stopped in to tea. Speak over loud in the street, and Mathew Mizzle saunters close at your elbow, but with such an unconscious look, that you would never dream that he had come merely for information.
No one knows better than he all about the domestic difficulties of families. His sources of intelligence are innumerable. Sometimes you may find him on the back fence, taking observations of the domestic circle; and he has been seen of an evening up the linden-tree in front of domiciles, for similar purposes. The servants of the vicinage are all on confidential terms with Mathew Mizzle; and—have you notnoted the fact?—when you would have secret discourse with a friend, Mizzle comes upon you, as the birds of prey scent a battle-field. All secrets appear to hold a species of telegraphic communication with our friend Mathew Mizzle, as to the fact at least, that there is a secret in existence, as well as a regard to its local habitation.
Ubiquitous Mathew Mizzle, yet invariably out of place. Open the door suddenly, and Mathew Mizzle is almost knocked down. Throw out a bucket of water at night, and Mathew Mizzle is there to receive its contents. Pass a stick through the key-hole, and it's Mizzle's eye that suffers the detriment. You stumble over him in dark entries—you find him lying perdu in the closet. Go where you will, there is Mizzle, if it be in the wrong place for Mizzle's presence.
Behold him prowling round the scenes to investigate the mysteries of a theatrical performance. There he is, just where he was told not to be, and William Tell was not in fault that his arrow has stricken Mathew Mizzle breathless. What business had Mizzle there in Switzerland, lurking near the walls of Altorf?
Mizzle's last catastrophe, like the last catastrophe of many other distinguished citizens, was effected by means of a ladder, which he had ascended cautiously by night, after the painters had left their work, to see what was going on in the chamber of a second story. Suddenly, there was a dog at the bottom of the aforesaid ladder, and a cudgel at the top, presenting the alternatives of a dilemma. Switches above and bark below, what could the unfortunate Mathew Mizzle do but surrender himself a prisoner of war? Poor Mizzle! They put him under the pump, and made him acquainted with the nature of ducks.
Is it not a pity that the system of "espionage" does not obtain in America, that Mathew Mizzle might have a field for the exercise of the qualities which are so remarkably developed in his constitution? It would be a perfect union of duty and of pleasure, if he could be employed to find out every thing that goes on in town and about, and it is a great pity that means could not be devised to save so fine a young man from the waste of his genius.
"People are so fussy about their secrets," says he, "as if there were any use of having secrets, if it were not for the fun of finding them out and talking about them. It's mean and selfish to abridge intelligence in that sort of way, and if I knew of any country where they manage matters on a different system, I'd emigrate right away, I would. A pretty piece of business, to put a man under the pump, because he seeks after knowledge."
Before the plough had scattered fields of grainAnd grassy orchards midst the oaken woodsOf Shawangunk, upon the mountain's topStood a wood-cutter's hut. Himself and wifeShared it alone. The spot was green and sweet.The earth was covered with a velvet sward,Grouped with low thickets, here and there a treeRearing its dark rich foliage in the heavens.Pleasant the echoes of his fast plied axe,Merrily rattling through the mountain-woods,To those who sought the old surveyor's roadFor shade and coolness; and amidst the soundsWould boom deep heavy shocks of falling trees,Like growls of thunder in the noontide-hush,So that the eye would glance impulsivelyUp to the tree-tops, to discern the peakOf the ascending cloud.His forest-life,Though rude, was joyous. When the mellow charmOf sunset on the smiling mountains lay,The creaking of his high-piled cart would blendWith song or whistle blithe, as, dipping downThe road, he sought the village in the midstOf the green hollow. This slight mountain-roadWent slanting to the summit, with blazed trunksOn either side, and soft delicious grassSpreading its carpet; one faint track aloneTelling that wheel had e'er its beauty scarred.Close to the hut it passed, then downward plunged,And sought the level of the opposite side.'T was at the close of one cold winter dayThat down this road I trod. My weary steps,With efforts vain, had tracked, for hours, the deer,And now, with empty flask and rifle, swift,I journeyed homeward. Nature's great bright eyeLow beaming in the west, still poured sweet lightUpon the mountain. The pure snow, all round,In delicate rose-tints glowed. The hemlocks smiled,Speckled with gold. The oak's sear foliage, stillTight clinging to the boughs, was kindled upTo warm rich brown. The myriad trunks and spraysTraced their black lines upon the soft snow-blushBeneath, until it seemed a tangled maze.Upon the mountain's top, a thread of smokeFrom the low cabin rose, as though a streakOf violet had been painted on the air.I heard the ring of the wood-cutter's axe,And, through an opening, saw his instrumentFlashing into a walnut's giant stem,Whose upborne mass, in the fast lowering light,Seemed cut in copper. A broad wind-fall nearLet down my eyes upon the hollow. WhiteIn snow it lay, with long and dusky linesOf fences crossing—groups of orchard-trees—Hay-barracks—barns and long low dwelling-roofs.Straight as an arrow ran the streak of roadAthwart the hollow. As I looked, the eyeIn the red west sank lower, till half quenchedBehind the upland, then a shred of lightGlittered and vanished, and the sky was bare.Whilst gazing on this splendor, suddenlyI heard a shriek. Shrill, ringing midst the woodsIn piercing clearness, through my ears it cut,And left a sense of deafness. Startled, roundI gazed. Again the horrid sound thrilled past.I knew it then as the terrific cryOf the fierce, bloody panther. In our woodsNaught fiercer, bloodier dwells, when roused by rageOr hunger. Oft our hunters had of lateMarked the huge foot-prints of the ravenous beast,And heard his scream at midnight, but no eyeAs yet had seen him. With a nervous graspUpon my useless weapon, and a weightOf helplessness, like lead, upon my soul,I started on my path. At every stepI thought his tawny form and fierce green eyeWould meet my sight, upon some limb o'erhead.But naught was seen. The village soon I reached,And gladly crossed the threshold of my home.The long, cold, breathless night came swiftly down.The clear, magnificent moon seemed not inlaidIn the bright blue, but stood out bold, distinct,As though impending from the cloudless skiesGlittering with frost. Upon the sparkling snowThe rich light slept in such sweet purityAs naught on earth can match. The hours sped on,The silver day still shone serene and clear,And twinkled on the crystals shooting round.Gazing once more upon the splendid scene,Before I sought the couch, my wandering eyeGlanced at the mountain. There it grandly stoodA giant mass of ivory. On the spotWhere the steep slanting road the hollow joined,My sight a moment dwelt, for there I lastHad swept around a quick and piercing gaze,In search of the gaunt monster whose keen cryStill echoed in my ears. Is that a spotOf shadow flickering in some transient breeze?No. O'er the hollow, gliding swift, it comes.Is it the ravenous panther, fierce for blood,Seeking the village? Closer as it speedsA clearer shape it shows—a human form—'T is the wood-cutter's wife! She loudly shrieks,"My husband—lost—wake, wake!" the moonlight fallsUpon her features swollen with tears. A bandOf villagers was soon aroused, and forthWe sallied toward the mountain. So intenseThe cold, the snow creaked shrilly at our tread,And the strewed diamonds on its surface flashedBack the keen moonlight. As we trod along,The wife in breathless haste, her story told,How, when the sunset fell, she watched to seeHer husband's form swift speeding up the road,From the side-clearing, at that wonted hour,Toward his low roof. The sunset died, and nightSprang on the earth; the absent one came not.The moon moved up; the latch-string was not pulledFor entrance in the cabin. Hours sped on.And still, upon the silvered snow, no formHer gaze rewarded. Once she heard afarA panther's shriek. Her fear to frenzy rose.To the side-clearing sped she; naught was thereBut solitude and moonlight. As she toldHer tale I shuddered. In my ear againRang the fierce shriek I heard as sunset glowed,And my flesh crept with horror. Up we trodOur mountain snow-path speedily. At length,To where the narrow opening in the woodsLed from the road, we came. 'T was at this spotI stood, and watched the form and flashing axeOf him, the lost. We passed within. The moonThrew on the little clearing a full floodOf radiance. There the crusted wood-pile stood;There was the walnut with a ghastly notchDeep in its heart. A ledge of rock rose upBeside the wounded tree, and at its baseA space of blackest hue proclaimed a chasm.No life was stirring on the brilliant waste;The trees rose like a wall on every sideBut where the ledge frowned darkly. As I checkedMy footsteps at the half-hewn walnut, dropsThick sprinkled round—the snow stamped down—an axeLying upon the high wreathed roots, my gaze,As with a charm, arrested. From this spotLarge prints and a broad furrow stretched alongTo the black chasm within the rocky ledge.We clustered round the mouth. A low, deep growlCame from the depths. Two orbs of flashing fireGlared in the darkness. Brace, the hunter, aimedHis rifle just between the flaming spots,And fired. Fierce growls and gnashings loud of teethBlent with the echoes, and then all was still.The spots were seen no more. A few had broughtSplinters of pine for torches, and the flintSupplied the flame. With one hand grasping tightA hatchet keen, the other a bright torch,The dauntless hunter ventured, with slow steps,Within the cavern. Soon a shout we heard,And Brace appeared, with all his giant strengthDragging a lifeless panther. In againHe passed, and then brought out a human form,Mangled and crushed. A shriek pealed wild and high,And, swooning, sank the wife upon the snow,Beside the dead. With silent, deep-felt aweWe bore both to the hut. A sudden cloudRose frowning from the north, and deep and fierceHowled the loosed tempest. From her death-like swoon,Roused by our care, the hapless wife poured outHer cries and wailings. Through the livelong nightWe heard her moans and screams and ravings wild,Blending with all those stern and awful tonesThat the scourged forest yields. But morning dawned,And brought the widowed and the broken heartThe peace of death. Beside the lonely hut,Two graves were opened in the frozen snow,And silence then fell deeply on the spot.No more the smoke curled up. No more the axeRang in the mountain; and a few short yearsLeveled the cabin with the forest-earth,Midst spreading bushes, fern and waving grass.
Let me, lamb-like, share caresses,From thy hand that knows not stain;Flowers that woo, the smile that blesses,Hours that pass and leave no pain!Be with me in sleeping, waking;Be with me in toil and rest;Living, thine; and, life forsaking,Let me slumber on thy breast!
Innocence
To Geo. R. Graham, Esq.
New York, December1, 1847.
Dear Sir,—By to-night's mail should go to you a piece of mental statuary, which is yet in a marble block of the reluctant quarry of my brain—due to you by agreement on the first of December, one unconceived tale! But though we do so strangely bargain the invisible wares of the imagination, deliverable, like merchandize, on a certain day, the contractor is still liable to the caprices of the world he trades from, and your order on me for fancy yet undug, must, I fear, be protested. You would not believe me if I were to tell you literally why. But the truth is that I, and a certain cave (mentioned by Humboldt, on the banks of the Oronookoo, which he calls a "subterranean organ,") can only give out music in certain states of the weather. With the dry, sharp, icy north wind of the last few days, I could no more write than I could supply electricity to Morse's wire.But—no failure isquitetwenty shillings in the pound. What say you to the assets? The statue will not be forth coming—but will you have the model, after which the undug block was to have been chiseled? Shall I send you the literal truth which I had intended to drape with imagination—tell the facts of real life which I had designed to weave into a story. I shall thus, at least, clearyourselfof the non-fulfillment of the promise of your pre-advertised contents, and (engaging to send you a story properly completed for the next number) shall effect, perhaps, a compromise for my delinquent punctuality.This, then, is the thread of literal truth which was to have run through the fancy-woof of my story.Some years ago, after a year or two of residence in different cities of Italy, I found myself very much at home in Naples. It was an unusually gay season—the concentration of the rank and fashion of the floating society of travelers varying between Rome, Florence, and Naples, very much as it does, in our country, between the different watering-places—by caprices that no one can foresee. The English people of rank, more particularly, were in very great force; and the blonde moustaches, so much admired in the dark-haired South, and the skins of alabaster and rose, so envied by the brunettes of Italy, abounded at the balls and in the public places. The king kept very gay court, the royal entertainments accessible to all strangers properly introduced, and the ambassadors and bankers, nobles and wealthy strangers, seemed to want twice as many nights and mornings in the week, so conflicting were the balls and breakfasts, driving-parties and dinners.As, of course, an unobserved looker-on in scenes of such brilliant rivalry and display, I had more attention to spare than most whom I met; and I soon found myself—eyes, mind, fancy, and interest, absorbed in one study—a new revelation of a type of woman. We are accustomed to see the sex in classes—hundreds of a kind—and find them sufficiently absorbing as nouns of multitude. It is probably one of Heaven's principles of human safety, that women are made in "lots" so like, that a transfer of a slighted heart, from an unwilling beauty to some willing likeness of her, safely vents the volcano. Proportionately dangerous, however, are those rare women—of whom a man sees, perhaps, one or two in his life—who are the only ones of their type and kind; for, out of love for them, their is no exit but through their hearts.You are going too fast if you fancy I am about to record a fruitless passion of my own. Though of "easy wax," I am not stamped, except by will of the imprintress; and my only cobweb thread of personal remembrance is a horseback excursion to Camaldoli, in which I played the propriety-third to the best of my discretion. It is necessary to define thus much, to redeem my estimate of the lady from the imputation of mere fancy. Had I known her intimately, or not known her at all, my judgment of her would be less reliable. In just the position for untroubled and most favorable observation, I studied her in silence through that brilliant season, and laid away her image (as one does without more than one or two choked-down aspirations) to people castles in the air, and fill niches in the temple of dreams.The foregoing prepares you for a portrait of the proposed heroine of my story—but that you would have had, had the story been written. I never could draw a picture of a woman but from the life, and to that fictitious tale I should have transferred, with studied and careful truthfulness, the enamel portrait burnt in upon my memory, and which you would have admired my fancy for conceiving. Oh! the mistake of supposing that we can imagine things brighter than we have seen with our eyes—that there is any kingdom of air, visitable by poets, which is comparable to the glorious world we live in, with itssomewomen,somesunsets,somestrains of music, andsomefore-tasted heaven-thrills of emotion.The heir to one of the oldest titles of England was the husband of this lady. The fortunes of his family had been wasted; and they had lived for a generation or two in comparative obscurity, when the present Lord —— came of age. He had been educated carefully, but was of great personal beauty, and I thought when I first saw him, was as fine a model as I had ever seen of the quiet, reserved, self-intrenched school of modern English manners. With his beauty and his title, though with little or no estate, he had easily married a lady of fortune—the only daughterof a retired banker. And this heiress, Lady ——, is the one whose story I would have told through a veil of fiction.The Countess of —— was an unsurpassed horsewoman, and rode constantly. Her blood-horses had been sent round by ship from England; and she was always mounted on an animal whose every fibre seemed obedient to her thought, and with whose motion every line of her own tall and slenderly-rounded person, and every ringlet of her flowing, golden curls seemed in a correspondence governed by the very spirit of beauty. She rode with her rein loose, and her mind apparently absorbed with any thing but her horse. A turn of her head, or the pressure of her foot upon his shoulder, was probably the animal's guidance. But, of an excessively impassioned nature, she conversed in the saddle with the expression and gesture of the most earnest untrammeling of mind, and, in full speed, as in the repose upon a lounge in a saloon, she carried away the listener with her uncalculating and passionate absorption—no self-possession, however on its guard it might be, able, apparently, to withstand the enveloping and resistless influence which she herself was a slave to. Unconsciousness of every thing in the world, except the feeling she was pouring from her soul, seemed the only and every-day condition and law of her nature; and supreme as she was in fashion of dress, and style of manner, these seemed matters learned and lost thought of—she having returned to nature, leaving her triumphs as a belle to be cared for by infallible habit. A separate spirit of light, speaking from the lips of the most accomplished and best perfected of women—the spirit, and the form possessed, being each in full exercise of their best faculties—could scarcely have conveyed more complete impressions of wondrous mind, in perfect body, or have blended more ravishingly, the entireness of heavenly with the most winning earthly development. She was an earnest angel, in the person of a self-possessed and unerringly graceful woman.I chanced to be looking on, when Prince ——, one of the brothers of a royal family of central Europe, was presented to the Countess ——. It was at a crowded ball; and I observed that, after a few minutes of conversation with her, he suddenly assumed a ceremonious indifference of manner, and went into another room. I saw at once that the slightness of the attention was an "anchor to windward," and that, in even those few minutes the prince had recognized a rare gem, and foreseen that, in the pursuit of it, he might need to be without any remembered particularity of attention. Lady ——- conversed with him with her usual earnest openness, but started a little, once or twice, at words which were certainly unaccompanied by their corresponding expression of countenance; and this, too, I put down for an assumption of disguise on the part of the prince. It was natural enough; with his conspicuous rank, he could only venture to be unguarded in his attentions to those for whom he had no presentiment of future intimacy.That the progress of this acquaintance should assume for me the interest of a drama—a scene of it played every night, with interludes every day, in public drives and excursions—would not be wonderful to you, could I have drawn the portrait of the principal performer in it, so that you would understand its novelty. I had never seen such a woman, and I was intensely interested to know how she would bear temptation. The peculiar character of the prince I easily understood; and I felt at once, that of all stages of an accomplished man's progress, he was at the one most dangerous to her, while, perhaps, no other kind of woman in the world would have called upon any but very practiced feelings of his own. He was of middle age, and had intellect enough to have long anticipated the ebb of pleasure. With his faculties and perceptions in full force, he was most fastidious in permitting himself to enjoy an enthusiasm, to admire, to yield to, or to embark upon with risk. The admiration of mere beauty, mere style, mere wit, mere superiority of intellect in woman, or of any of these combined, was but a recurrent phase of artificial life. He had been to the terminus, the farthest human capability of enjoyment of this, and was now back again to nature, with his keenest relish in reserve, looking for such outdoings of art as nature sometimes shows in her caprices. In the Countess —— he recognized at once a rare miracle of this—a woman whose beauty, whose style, whose intellect, whose pride, were all abundant, but, abundant as they were, still all subservient to electric and tumultuoussensation. Her life, her impulse—the consciousness with which she breathed—was the one gift given her by Heaven in tenfold measure, and her impression on those she expanded to, was like the magnetizing presence of ten full existences poured into one. The heart acknowledged it before her—though the reason knew not always why.Lord —— would scarce have been human had he not loved such a woman, and she his wife. He did love her—and doubtless loves her at this hour with all the tenderness of which he could ever be capable. If they had lived only on their estates in England, where seclusion would have put up no wall of concealment to his feelings, she might have drawn from the open well of his heart, the water for which her ardent being was athirst. But with the usage of fashionable life, he followed his own amusements during the day, leaving the countess to hers; and in scenes of gayety they were, of course, still separated by custom; and all she enjoyed of nature in her rides, or of excitement in society, was, of course, with others than her husband. Naples is in the midst of palace-gardens, and of wonders of scenery—in seeing which love is engendered in the bosom and brain with tropical fruitfulness—and Lady —— could no more have lived that year in Italy without passionate loving, than she could have stayed from breathing the fragrance of the orange blossoms, when galloping between the terraced gardens of Sorrento.When abroad, a little more than a year ago, I made a visit to a friend, whose estate is in the same county with that of the father of Lady ——, and betweenwhose park-gates and his extends the distance of a morning's drive through one of the loveliest hedged winding-roads of lovely England. A very natural inquiry was of the whereabout and happiness of the Countess of ——, whom I had left at Naples ten years before, and had not been in the way of hearing of since; and I named her in the gay tone with which one speaks of the brilliant and happy. We were sitting at the dinner-table, and I observed that I had mis-struck a chord of feeling in the company present, and with well-bred tact, the master of the house informed me that misfortunes had befallen the family since the period I spoke of, and turned the conversation to another topic. After dinner, I heard from him the following outline of the story, and its affecting sequel.Near the close of the season when Lord —— was at Naples, he suddenly left that city and returned with his wife and their one child to England. To the surprise of the wondering world, Lady —— went to her father's, and Lord —— to the small estate of his widowed mother, where they remained for a while in unexplained seclusion. It was not long before rumors arrived from Italy, of a nature breathing upon the reputation of the lady; and soon after a formal separation took place, Mr. ——, her father, engaging to leave his whole fortune to the son of Lord ——, if that nobleman would consent to give him to the exclusive keeping of his mother. With these facts ended the world's knowledge of the parties, the separated pair remaining, year after year, in absolute seclusion; and Lady —— never having been known to put foot beyond the extending forest in which her home was hidden from view, and the gates to which were guarded from all entrance, even of family friends.It was but a few days before this sequel was narrated to me, that the first communication had been made from the Countess of —— to her husband. It was a summons to attend, if he wished, the burial of his only child—the heir of his name, and the bringer-back, had he lived, of wealth to the broken fortunes of his title. A severer blow could hardly have followed the first—for it struck down heart, pride, and all that could brighten this world's future. Lord —— came. The grave was made in a deep grove of firs on the estate of the boy's mother. There were but three mourners present—herself, her father, and her husband. The boy was ten or eleven years old when he died, and one of the most gifted and noble lads, in mind and person, that had ever been seen by those who knew him. On his horse, with his servant behind him, the young boy-lord was a constant sight of pride and beauty to the inhabitants of the county, and was admired and beloved every where he rode in his daily excursions.The service was read; the two parents stood side by side at the grave, while the body was laid in it—the first time they had met since their separation, and both in the prime of life, and with hearts yearning—both hearts, beyond a doubt—with love, and longing for forgiveness; and when the earth rang on the coffin, theyparted without exchanging a word. The carriage of Lord —— waited for him in the avenue; and with the expiring echo of his wheels through that grove of fir-trees, died all hope and prospect, if any had been conceived, of a re-union, in grief, of these proud broken-hearted.I have told you thus, with literal truth, all that I could know of this drama of real life; but, of course, its sketchy outline could be easily filled out by fancy. Your readers, perhaps, will like to do this for themselves.
Dear Sir,—By to-night's mail should go to you a piece of mental statuary, which is yet in a marble block of the reluctant quarry of my brain—due to you by agreement on the first of December, one unconceived tale! But though we do so strangely bargain the invisible wares of the imagination, deliverable, like merchandize, on a certain day, the contractor is still liable to the caprices of the world he trades from, and your order on me for fancy yet undug, must, I fear, be protested. You would not believe me if I were to tell you literally why. But the truth is that I, and a certain cave (mentioned by Humboldt, on the banks of the Oronookoo, which he calls a "subterranean organ,") can only give out music in certain states of the weather. With the dry, sharp, icy north wind of the last few days, I could no more write than I could supply electricity to Morse's wire.
But—no failure isquitetwenty shillings in the pound. What say you to the assets? The statue will not be forth coming—but will you have the model, after which the undug block was to have been chiseled? Shall I send you the literal truth which I had intended to drape with imagination—tell the facts of real life which I had designed to weave into a story. I shall thus, at least, clearyourselfof the non-fulfillment of the promise of your pre-advertised contents, and (engaging to send you a story properly completed for the next number) shall effect, perhaps, a compromise for my delinquent punctuality.
This, then, is the thread of literal truth which was to have run through the fancy-woof of my story.
Some years ago, after a year or two of residence in different cities of Italy, I found myself very much at home in Naples. It was an unusually gay season—the concentration of the rank and fashion of the floating society of travelers varying between Rome, Florence, and Naples, very much as it does, in our country, between the different watering-places—by caprices that no one can foresee. The English people of rank, more particularly, were in very great force; and the blonde moustaches, so much admired in the dark-haired South, and the skins of alabaster and rose, so envied by the brunettes of Italy, abounded at the balls and in the public places. The king kept very gay court, the royal entertainments accessible to all strangers properly introduced, and the ambassadors and bankers, nobles and wealthy strangers, seemed to want twice as many nights and mornings in the week, so conflicting were the balls and breakfasts, driving-parties and dinners.
As, of course, an unobserved looker-on in scenes of such brilliant rivalry and display, I had more attention to spare than most whom I met; and I soon found myself—eyes, mind, fancy, and interest, absorbed in one study—a new revelation of a type of woman. We are accustomed to see the sex in classes—hundreds of a kind—and find them sufficiently absorbing as nouns of multitude. It is probably one of Heaven's principles of human safety, that women are made in "lots" so like, that a transfer of a slighted heart, from an unwilling beauty to some willing likeness of her, safely vents the volcano. Proportionately dangerous, however, are those rare women—of whom a man sees, perhaps, one or two in his life—who are the only ones of their type and kind; for, out of love for them, their is no exit but through their hearts.
You are going too fast if you fancy I am about to record a fruitless passion of my own. Though of "easy wax," I am not stamped, except by will of the imprintress; and my only cobweb thread of personal remembrance is a horseback excursion to Camaldoli, in which I played the propriety-third to the best of my discretion. It is necessary to define thus much, to redeem my estimate of the lady from the imputation of mere fancy. Had I known her intimately, or not known her at all, my judgment of her would be less reliable. In just the position for untroubled and most favorable observation, I studied her in silence through that brilliant season, and laid away her image (as one does without more than one or two choked-down aspirations) to people castles in the air, and fill niches in the temple of dreams.
The foregoing prepares you for a portrait of the proposed heroine of my story—but that you would have had, had the story been written. I never could draw a picture of a woman but from the life, and to that fictitious tale I should have transferred, with studied and careful truthfulness, the enamel portrait burnt in upon my memory, and which you would have admired my fancy for conceiving. Oh! the mistake of supposing that we can imagine things brighter than we have seen with our eyes—that there is any kingdom of air, visitable by poets, which is comparable to the glorious world we live in, with itssomewomen,somesunsets,somestrains of music, andsomefore-tasted heaven-thrills of emotion.
The heir to one of the oldest titles of England was the husband of this lady. The fortunes of his family had been wasted; and they had lived for a generation or two in comparative obscurity, when the present Lord —— came of age. He had been educated carefully, but was of great personal beauty, and I thought when I first saw him, was as fine a model as I had ever seen of the quiet, reserved, self-intrenched school of modern English manners. With his beauty and his title, though with little or no estate, he had easily married a lady of fortune—the only daughterof a retired banker. And this heiress, Lady ——, is the one whose story I would have told through a veil of fiction.
The Countess of —— was an unsurpassed horsewoman, and rode constantly. Her blood-horses had been sent round by ship from England; and she was always mounted on an animal whose every fibre seemed obedient to her thought, and with whose motion every line of her own tall and slenderly-rounded person, and every ringlet of her flowing, golden curls seemed in a correspondence governed by the very spirit of beauty. She rode with her rein loose, and her mind apparently absorbed with any thing but her horse. A turn of her head, or the pressure of her foot upon his shoulder, was probably the animal's guidance. But, of an excessively impassioned nature, she conversed in the saddle with the expression and gesture of the most earnest untrammeling of mind, and, in full speed, as in the repose upon a lounge in a saloon, she carried away the listener with her uncalculating and passionate absorption—no self-possession, however on its guard it might be, able, apparently, to withstand the enveloping and resistless influence which she herself was a slave to. Unconsciousness of every thing in the world, except the feeling she was pouring from her soul, seemed the only and every-day condition and law of her nature; and supreme as she was in fashion of dress, and style of manner, these seemed matters learned and lost thought of—she having returned to nature, leaving her triumphs as a belle to be cared for by infallible habit. A separate spirit of light, speaking from the lips of the most accomplished and best perfected of women—the spirit, and the form possessed, being each in full exercise of their best faculties—could scarcely have conveyed more complete impressions of wondrous mind, in perfect body, or have blended more ravishingly, the entireness of heavenly with the most winning earthly development. She was an earnest angel, in the person of a self-possessed and unerringly graceful woman.
I chanced to be looking on, when Prince ——, one of the brothers of a royal family of central Europe, was presented to the Countess ——. It was at a crowded ball; and I observed that, after a few minutes of conversation with her, he suddenly assumed a ceremonious indifference of manner, and went into another room. I saw at once that the slightness of the attention was an "anchor to windward," and that, in even those few minutes the prince had recognized a rare gem, and foreseen that, in the pursuit of it, he might need to be without any remembered particularity of attention. Lady ——- conversed with him with her usual earnest openness, but started a little, once or twice, at words which were certainly unaccompanied by their corresponding expression of countenance; and this, too, I put down for an assumption of disguise on the part of the prince. It was natural enough; with his conspicuous rank, he could only venture to be unguarded in his attentions to those for whom he had no presentiment of future intimacy.
That the progress of this acquaintance should assume for me the interest of a drama—a scene of it played every night, with interludes every day, in public drives and excursions—would not be wonderful to you, could I have drawn the portrait of the principal performer in it, so that you would understand its novelty. I had never seen such a woman, and I was intensely interested to know how she would bear temptation. The peculiar character of the prince I easily understood; and I felt at once, that of all stages of an accomplished man's progress, he was at the one most dangerous to her, while, perhaps, no other kind of woman in the world would have called upon any but very practiced feelings of his own. He was of middle age, and had intellect enough to have long anticipated the ebb of pleasure. With his faculties and perceptions in full force, he was most fastidious in permitting himself to enjoy an enthusiasm, to admire, to yield to, or to embark upon with risk. The admiration of mere beauty, mere style, mere wit, mere superiority of intellect in woman, or of any of these combined, was but a recurrent phase of artificial life. He had been to the terminus, the farthest human capability of enjoyment of this, and was now back again to nature, with his keenest relish in reserve, looking for such outdoings of art as nature sometimes shows in her caprices. In the Countess —— he recognized at once a rare miracle of this—a woman whose beauty, whose style, whose intellect, whose pride, were all abundant, but, abundant as they were, still all subservient to electric and tumultuoussensation. Her life, her impulse—the consciousness with which she breathed—was the one gift given her by Heaven in tenfold measure, and her impression on those she expanded to, was like the magnetizing presence of ten full existences poured into one. The heart acknowledged it before her—though the reason knew not always why.
Lord —— would scarce have been human had he not loved such a woman, and she his wife. He did love her—and doubtless loves her at this hour with all the tenderness of which he could ever be capable. If they had lived only on their estates in England, where seclusion would have put up no wall of concealment to his feelings, she might have drawn from the open well of his heart, the water for which her ardent being was athirst. But with the usage of fashionable life, he followed his own amusements during the day, leaving the countess to hers; and in scenes of gayety they were, of course, still separated by custom; and all she enjoyed of nature in her rides, or of excitement in society, was, of course, with others than her husband. Naples is in the midst of palace-gardens, and of wonders of scenery—in seeing which love is engendered in the bosom and brain with tropical fruitfulness—and Lady —— could no more have lived that year in Italy without passionate loving, than she could have stayed from breathing the fragrance of the orange blossoms, when galloping between the terraced gardens of Sorrento.
When abroad, a little more than a year ago, I made a visit to a friend, whose estate is in the same county with that of the father of Lady ——, and betweenwhose park-gates and his extends the distance of a morning's drive through one of the loveliest hedged winding-roads of lovely England. A very natural inquiry was of the whereabout and happiness of the Countess of ——, whom I had left at Naples ten years before, and had not been in the way of hearing of since; and I named her in the gay tone with which one speaks of the brilliant and happy. We were sitting at the dinner-table, and I observed that I had mis-struck a chord of feeling in the company present, and with well-bred tact, the master of the house informed me that misfortunes had befallen the family since the period I spoke of, and turned the conversation to another topic. After dinner, I heard from him the following outline of the story, and its affecting sequel.
Near the close of the season when Lord —— was at Naples, he suddenly left that city and returned with his wife and their one child to England. To the surprise of the wondering world, Lady —— went to her father's, and Lord —— to the small estate of his widowed mother, where they remained for a while in unexplained seclusion. It was not long before rumors arrived from Italy, of a nature breathing upon the reputation of the lady; and soon after a formal separation took place, Mr. ——, her father, engaging to leave his whole fortune to the son of Lord ——, if that nobleman would consent to give him to the exclusive keeping of his mother. With these facts ended the world's knowledge of the parties, the separated pair remaining, year after year, in absolute seclusion; and Lady —— never having been known to put foot beyond the extending forest in which her home was hidden from view, and the gates to which were guarded from all entrance, even of family friends.
It was but a few days before this sequel was narrated to me, that the first communication had been made from the Countess of —— to her husband. It was a summons to attend, if he wished, the burial of his only child—the heir of his name, and the bringer-back, had he lived, of wealth to the broken fortunes of his title. A severer blow could hardly have followed the first—for it struck down heart, pride, and all that could brighten this world's future. Lord —— came. The grave was made in a deep grove of firs on the estate of the boy's mother. There were but three mourners present—herself, her father, and her husband. The boy was ten or eleven years old when he died, and one of the most gifted and noble lads, in mind and person, that had ever been seen by those who knew him. On his horse, with his servant behind him, the young boy-lord was a constant sight of pride and beauty to the inhabitants of the county, and was admired and beloved every where he rode in his daily excursions.
The service was read; the two parents stood side by side at the grave, while the body was laid in it—the first time they had met since their separation, and both in the prime of life, and with hearts yearning—both hearts, beyond a doubt—with love, and longing for forgiveness; and when the earth rang on the coffin, theyparted without exchanging a word. The carriage of Lord —— waited for him in the avenue; and with the expiring echo of his wheels through that grove of fir-trees, died all hope and prospect, if any had been conceived, of a re-union, in grief, of these proud broken-hearted.
I have told you thus, with literal truth, all that I could know of this drama of real life; but, of course, its sketchy outline could be easily filled out by fancy. Your readers, perhaps, will like to do this for themselves.
Yours truly,
N. P. Willis.