Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859

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"Don't you want to come and sit out in the lot?" she said, after
sitting awhile, twirling her bonnet-strings with the air of one who has
something to say and doesn't know exactly how to begin upon it.

Mary cheerfully gathered up her thread, scissors, and ruffling, and the
two stepped over the window-sill, and soon found themselves seated
cozily under the boughs of a large apple-tree, whose descending
branches, meeting the tops of the high grass all around, formed a
seclusion as perfect as heart could desire.

They sat down, pushing away a place in the grass; and Cerinthy Ann took
off her bonnet, and threw it among the clover, exhibiting to view her
black hair, always trimly arranged in shining braids, except where some
glossy curls fell over the rich high, color of her cheeks. Something
appeared to discompose her this afternoon. There were those evident
signs of a consultation impending, which, to an experienced eye, are as
unmistakable as the coming up of a shower in summer.

Cerinthy began by passionately demolishing several heads of clover,
remarking, as she did so, that she "didn't see, for her part, how Mary
could keep so calm when things were coming so near." And as Mary
answered to this only with a quiet smile, she broke out again:--

"I don't see, for my part, how a young girl _could_ marry a minister,
anyhow; but then I think _you_ are just cut out for it. But what would
anybody say, if _I_ should do such a thing?"

"I don't know," said Mary, innocently.

"Well, I suppose everybody would hold up their hands; and yet, if I
_do_ say it myself,"--she added, coloring,--"there are not many girls
who could make a better minister's wife than I could, if I had a mind
to try."

"That I am sure of," said Mary, warmly.

"I guess you are the only one that ever thought so," said Cerinthy,
giving an impatient toss. "There's father and mother all the while
mourning over me; and yet I don't see but what I do pretty much all
that is done in the house, and they say I am a great comfort in a
temporal point of view. But, oh, the groanings and the sighings that
there are over me! I don't think it is pleasant to know that your best
friends are thinking such awful things about you, when you are working
your fingers off to help them. It is kind o' discouraging, but I don't
know what to do about it";--and for a few moments Cerinthy sat
demolishing buttercups, and throwing them up in the air till her shiny
black head was covered with golden flakes, while her cheeks grew redder
with something that she was going to say next.

"Now, Mary, there is _that creature_. Well, you know, he won't take
'_No_' for an answer. What shall I do?"

"Suppose, then, you try '_Yes_,'" said Mary, rather archly.

"Oh, pshaw! Mary Scudder, you know better than that, now. I look like
it, don't I?"

"Why, yes," said Mary, looking at Cerinthy, deliberately; "on the
whole, I think you do."

"Well! one thing I must say," said Cerinthy,--"I can't see what _he_
finds in me. I think he is a thousand times too good for me. Why, you
have no idea, Mary, how I _have_ plagued him. I believe that man
_really is a Christian_," she added, while something like a penitent
tear actually glistened in those sharp, saucy, black eyes. "Besides,"
she added, "I have told him everything I could think of to discourage
him. I told him that I had a bad temper, and didn't believe the
doctrines, and couldn't promise that I ever should; and after all, that
creature keeps right on, and I don't know what to tell him."

"Well," said Mary, mildly, "do you think you really love him?"

"Love him?" said Cerinthy, giving a great flounce, "to be sure I don't!
Catch me loving any man! I told him last night I didn't; but it didn't
do a bit of good. I used to think that man was bashful, but I declare I
have altered my mind; he will talk and talk till I don't know what to
do. I tell you, Mary, he talks beautifully, too, sometimes."

Here Cerinthy turned quickly away, and began reaching passionately
after clover-heads. After a few moments, she resumed:--

"The fact is, Mary, that man _needs_ somebody to take care of him; for
he never thinks of himself. They say he has got the consumption; but he
hasn't, any more than I have. It is just the way he neglects
himself,--preaching, talking, and visiting; nobody to take care of him,
and see to his clothes, and nurse him up when he gets a little hoarse
and run down. Well, I suppose if I _am_ unregenerate, I do know how to
keep things in order; and if I should keep _such_ a man's soul in his
body, I should be doing some good in the world; because, if ministers
don't live, of course they can't convert anybody. Just think of his
saying that I could be a comfort to _him_! I told him that it was
perfectly ridiculous. 'And besides,' says I, 'what will everybody
think?' I thought that I had really talked him out of the notion of it
last night; but there he was in again this morning, and told me he had
derived great encouragement from what I had said. Well, the poor man
really is lonesome,--his mother's dead, and he hasn't any sisters. I
asked him why he didn't go and take Miss Olladine Slocum: everybody
says she would make a first-rate minister's wife."

"Well, and what did he say to that?" said Mary.

"Well, something really silly,--about my looks," said Cerinthy, looking
down.

Mary looked up, and remarked the shining black hair, the long dark
lashes lying down over the glowing cheek, where two arch dimples were
nestling, and said, quietly,--

"Probably he is a man of taste, Cerinthy; I advise you to leave the
matter entirely to his judgment."

"You don't, really, Mary!" said the damsel, looking up. "Don't you
think it would injure _him_, if I should?"

"I think not, materially," said Mary.

"Well," said Cerinthy, rising, "the men will be coming home from the
mowing, before I get home, and want their supper. Mother has got one of
her headaches on this afternoon, so I can't stop any longer. There
isn't a soul in the house knows where anything is, when I am gone. If I
should ever take it into my head to go off, I don't know what would
become of father and mother, I was telling mother, the other day, that
I thought unregenerate folks were of some use in _this_ world, any
way."

"Does your mother know anything about it?" said Mary.

"Oh, as to mother, I believe she has been hoping and praying about it
these three months. She thinks that I am such a desperate case, it is
the only way I am to be brought in, as she calls it. That's what set me
against him at first; but the fact is, if girls will let a man argue
with them, he always contrives to get the best of it. I am kind of
provoked about it, too. But, mercy on us! he is so meek, there is no
use of getting provoked at him. Well, I guess I will go home and think
about it."

As she turned to go, she looked really pretty. Her long lashes were wet
with a twinkling moisture, like meadow-grass after a shower; and there
was a softened, childlike expression stealing over the careless gayety
of her face.

Mary put her arms round her with a gentle caressing movement, which the
other returned with a hearty embrace. They stood locked in each other's
arms,--the glowing, vigorous, strong-hearted girl, with that pale,
spiritual face resting on her breast, as when the morning, songful and
radiant, clasps the pale silver moon to her glowing bosom.

"Look here now, Mary," said Cerinthy; "your folks are all gone. You may
as well walk with me. It's pleasant now."

"Yes, I will," said Mary; "wait a minute, till I get my bonnet."

In a few moments the two girls were walking together in one of those
little pasture foot-tracks which run so cozily among huckleberry and
juniper bushes, while Cerinthy eagerly pursued the subject she could
not leave thinking of.

Their path now wound over high ground that overlooked the distant sea,
now lost itself in little copses of cedar and pitch-pine, and now there
came on the air the pleasant breath of new hay, which mowers were
harvesting in adjoining meadows.

They walked on and on, as girls will; because, when a young lady has
once fairly launched into the enterprise of telling another all that
_he_ said, and just how _he_ looked, for the last three months, walks
are apt to be indefinitely extended.

Mary was, besides, one of the most seductive little confidantes in the
world. She was so pure from selfishness, so heartily and innocently
interested in what another was telling her, that people in talking with
her found the subject constantly increasing in interest,--although, if
they really had been called upon afterwards to state the exact portion
in words which she added to the conversation, they would have been
surprised to find it so small.

In fact, before Cerinthy Ann had quite finished her confessions, they
were more than a mile from the cottage, and Mary began to think of
returning, saying that her mother would wonder where she was, when she
came home.

[To be continued.]

* * * * *

LION LLEWELLYN.

Singing, shining, beautiful May
Lureth me, draweth me, all the day.
Once, when the season wooed me so,
Lion Llewellyn, thou lovedst to go,
Pacing before or close beside,
Reticent, quaint, and dignified,
Roaming with me, wandering wide;
And if ever thy feet inclined,
Weary with roving, to lag behind,
When were my arms to aid thee slow?
"Muver will cahwy her darlin'! So!"

Not to the pines, my warrior gray,
Gray and stately and scarred as they,--
Not to the hill, or the valley glen,
Shall we wander together again.

Nevermore, in the dead of night,
Shall I waken in cold affright,--
Waken at sounds I know too well,
Growl defiant, and horrid yell,
Sounds that bristle the hair, and tell
Strife is raging, and blood is shed,
Blood and--fur, in the conflict dread.
Nevermore, from my bed, shall I
Unto the chamber-window fly,

There, by the wintry moon, to spy
Thee on the well-sweep mounted high,--
Mounting still, from the crafty foe
Creeping and crawling up below;
And, when thou canst no farther go,
See thee crouch for the fearful leap
Off the top of the old well-sweep,
Then, with a swift and dizzy sweep,
Plunge in the crusty snow knee-deep.
Nor, for a lameness gotten so,
Shall I nurse thee again,--all, no!

Nevermore, from my willing hand
Winning the all I can command,
Shall be heard the pathetic tone,
(Solvent sufficient for heart of stone,)
Making thy simple wishes known;
Nor shall the vibrating long-drawn "Mr--r"
Of thy tranquil thunderous purr
Breathe again, to my ear attent,
Bliss o'erflowing and deep content.

As I fondly muse on thee,
I recall the spreading tree
Of thy goodly pedigree,
Which, of shapely branch or bough,
Hath no fairer growth than thou;
And my glance caressing now
Sweeps Alas, and Och Oh-Ow,
Chryssa, Christopher, What-Not,
Zabdas, Bunch, Longinus, Dot,
Tom, Zenobia, Nonesuch,
Turvy, Topsy, Inasmuch,
Zillah, Zillah Number Two,
Fremont, Dayton, Tittattoo,
Hiawatha, And, and If,
Minnehaha, But, and Tiff,
Kitty Clover, Kitty Gray,
Flossy, Frolic, Fayaway,
Quip, and Quirk, and Dearest Mae,
Nippenicket, Dido, Puck,
Minnesinger, Friar Tuck,
Periwinkle, Winkle Less,
Quiz, Albeit, Bonnie, Bess,
Midget, Budget, Mayaret,
Jocko, Sancho, Hans, Coquette,
Daisy Du Da, Ditto, Pet,
Pancks, and Peepy, Tilly, Tarn,
Tattycoram, Zoe, Clam,
Little Dorrit, Uncle Sam,
Tomtit, Pug, Penelope,
Ike, Ulysses, Rosalie,

Punch, and Judy, Ferny Fan,
Cowslip, Hecate, Caliban,
Filibuster, Jonathan,--
Name them all who may, who can;
For the half has not been told
Of the branches I behold
On the honored parent-stem,
And the later growth from them.

Lion Llewellyn, faithful friend,
Brave and gentle to the end,
Would that I once more might hail,
Like a banner on the gale,
Waving slow, thy jet-ringed tail!
And thy furry coat of mail,
Like the striped and spotted skin
Of thy savage leopard kin,
Would I might again caress
With the old-time tenderness!

Why do I talk of what may not be?
For the pillow of him I fain would see
Was changed long since from my motherly knee
To the garden, under the willow-tree,--
Weeping-willow and flowering moss.
Over it riseth nor pile nor cross;
We, who only have felt his loss,
Needing no sculptured stone to tell
How he battled, and how he fell,
Or where sleepeth who sleeps so well.

What is the destiny of his race?
Is there, I wonder, no other place
Whence they come or whither they go?
Earth-existence the all they know?
Does the living intelligence
Die in them with the dying sense?
Or, from the body passing hence,
Does it find in another sphere
Being in higher form than here?

For summers twain, the willow kept
Its watch where low the warrior slept,
But, on the third, a blight had crept
Upon the vigor of its frame;
Nor knew we how or whence it came.

Whisper it low and fearfully,
The tale of ghostly mystery;
For toothless crones and graybeards said
That from the presence of the dead
An influence around was shed,

Like warlock's foul, unholy spell,
Of malisons and curses fell,
Which steeped that soil with venom dank,
Of which the fated willow drank.

Whether it were or were not so,
At least so much as this we know,
That on the willow fell decay;
And though, when all things else grew gay,
It feebly strove to look as they,
Yet was its summer crown of pride
Worn lightly, and soon cast aside,
And when Spring found it, it had died.

A mound, and a stump with moss o'ergrown,
Now mark the place of his rest alone.

I see that the soft west-wind to-day
From the cherry-trees beareth their blooms away,
And wherever its fitful currents flow,
Rising or falling, swift or slow,
The tender petals like white wings go,
Floating, eddying, wavering low,
Wheeling and sinking in showers of snow;
And under their light and flickering fall,
The mound, and the flowering moss, and all,
Grow blanched and white as a billow's crest.

Thou that often these arms have pressed,
Nestled warm to thy mistress's breast,--
Thou that takest thy colder rest,
Now, in the breathless and pulseless ground,
Close, but untenderly, folded round,--
Ever, by thy drifted mound,
Sleep, the Mystery, be found
Most mysterious, most profound!
And through her enchanted air,
Lighter than petals fair,
Brooding Peace sink downward there;
And the blasted willow make
Haunt perpetual, for thy sake!

TOM PAINE'S FIRST APPEARANCE IN AMERICA.

"It were wise, nay, just,
To strike with men a balance: to forgive,
If not forget, their evil for their good's sake."--_Saul_, A Drama.

In the year 1774, David Williams, a gentleman with deistical theories
and scientific tastes, lived at Chelsea, near London. It was the same
Williams whose tract on Political Liberty, published eight years
afterward, and translated by Brissot, earned for him the dignity of
_citoyen Francais_, when that new order was created by the Revolution.
At the time we speak of, Mr. Williams kept a school for boys. Dr.
Franklin, who knew him well, often visited him. On one of these
occasions, it is said that Williams introduced to the American agent a
bright-eyed man approaching to middle age, named Thomas Paine, who had
been usher in a school and was desirous of trying his fortune in the
New World. After a short conversation, Franklin was so much pleased
with the intelligence of this man, that he gave him full advice with
regard to his voyage and to his movements after reaching his
destination, and wrote in his behalf a letter to his son-in-law, Bache,
introducing him as an "ingenious, worthy young man," very capable of
filling the post of "clerk, or assistant tutor in a school, or
assistant surveyor."

The "young man" was thirty-seven years of age when he landed in
Philadelphia in the autumn of 1774, to begin the real business of his
life. He had been a staymaker, a sailor, an exciseman, a teacher, a
shopkeeper, and an author, to say nothing of his twofold matrimonial
experience. Such a long and various course of schooling had fitted him
to become an American citizen.

His father was a staymaker, a Quaker, and poor. The son was sent to a
free school, where he was taught reading, writing, and arithmetic,
--enough learning to be given to any man at the public expense.
With these three keys, if he is made of the right material, he
can open the world. At thirteen, he worked at his father's trade; at
sixteen, he ran away and shipped on board the privateer "Terrible,"
Captain Death: the names of both craft and captain suggest the black
flag and cross-bones. Before the vessel sailed, his father interfered
and brought him ashore. Luckily for him; for, on her next cruise, the
"Terrible" was taken into St. Malo, a prize to the "Vengeance," after
one of the most desperate sea-fights on record. Her captain was killed;
out of a crew of two hundred men, only twenty-six were found alive,
most of them badly wounded. Visions of sea-life again lured Paine away
from the shop-board. He shipped in another privateer, and this time
actually served out the cruise. In 1759, we find him living at
Sandwich, a staymaker and a married man. In 1761, he was a widower and
an officer of the excise. From this position he was dismissed, for some
reason which escaped both Cobbett and Cheetham, and eleven months
afterward was reinstated on his own petition. In the interval, he found
employment in London as usher in a school, at twenty-five pounds a
year. His leisure moments he devoted to lectures on Natural Science. In
1768, he took a second wife at Lewes, the daughter of a tobacconist;
and the father dying soon after, Paine kept the shop. Here he wrote for
his brother-excisemen a petition to government for an increase of
salary. Four thousand copies were published by subscription. This piece
introduced him to Goldsmith, and a letter from the author to the famous
Doctor still exists, requesting "the honor of his company at the tavern
for an hour or two, to partake of a bottle of wine."

The year 1774 was an eventful one for Paine. He failed in the shop, was
separated from his wife, and dismissed from his office as exciseman.
After petitioning in vain to be reinstated, he determined to emigrate.

His first scheme was, to establish a school for girls in Philadelphia;
but Bache procured him an engagement as assistant editor of the
"Pennsylvania Magazine," at fifty pounds a year. Paine's contributions
were much applauded, and soon attracted subscribers. His "Reflections
on the Life and Death of Lord Clive" were considered admirable, but do
not suit our present taste. A song on the Death of General Wolfe, still
occasionally reprinted, does not rise above a low level of mediocrity.
But here is a paragraph on the Mineral Riches of the Earth, which, many
years later, found favor in the eyes of the surly Cheetham, and may
still be read with some interest:--

* * * * *

"Though Nature is gay, polite, and generous abroad, she is sullen,
rude, and niggardly at home; return the visit, and she admits you with
all the suspicion of a miser, and all the reluctance of an antiquated
beauty retired to replenish her charms. Bred up in antediluvian
notions, she has not yet acquired the European taste of receiving
visitants in her dressing-room: she locks and bolts up her private
recesses with extraordinary care, as if not only resolved to preserve
her hoards, but to conceal her age, and hide the remains of a face that
was young and lovely in the days of Adam. He that would view Nature in
her undress, and partake of her internal treasures, must proceed with
the resolution of a robber, if not a ravisher. She gives no invitation
to follow her to the cavern,--the external earth makes no proclamation
of the interior stores, but leaves to chance and industry the discovery
of the whole. In such gifts as Nature can annually recreate, she is
noble and profuse, and entertains the whole world with the interest of
her fortune, but watches over the capital with the care of a miser. Her
gold and jewels lie concealed in the earth, in caves of utter darkness;
and hoards of wealth, heaps upon heaps, mould in the chests, like the
riches of a necromancer's cell."

* * * * *

An essay against African Slavery, written for Bradford's paper,
introduced Paine to the notice of several distinguished men,--among
others, to that of Dr. Rush. Many years afterward, in a letter to
Cheetham, the Doctor described his first interview with Paine. In this
communication, he insinuates that he suggested the famous pamphlet and
the no less famous signature, "Common Sense." But in 1809, the
venerable Doctor was an old man; and even in earlier days, his keen
appreciation of "_Ille ego qui quondam_" and "_Quorum pars magna fui_,"
as the choicest passages in Virgil, was good-naturedly noticed by his
contemporaries. [1]

[Footnote 1: See "Climenole" in The Portfolio, 1803.]

Paine's own account of the work is probably the true one:--

* * * * *

"In October, 1775, Dr. Franklin proposed giving me such materials as
were in his hands towards completing a history of the present
transactions, and seemed desirous to have the first volume out the next
spring. I had then formed the outlines of "Common Sense," and finished
nearly the first part; and as I supposed the Doctor's design in getting
out a history was to open the new year with a new system, I expected to
surprise him with a production on that subject much earlier than he
thought of."

* * * * *

The times were more suggestive than doctors, even when Franklin was one
of them. When Paine came to America, he found the dispute with England
the all-absorbing topic. The atmosphere was heavy with the approaching
storm. The First Congress was in session in the autumn of that year. On
the 17th of September, John Adams felt certain that the other Colonies
would support Massachusetts. The Second Congress met in May, 1775.
During the winter and spring the quarrel had grown rapidly. Lexington
and Concord had become national watchwords; the army was assembled
about Boston; Washington was chosen commander-in-chief. Then came
Bunker's Hill, the siege of Boston, the attack upon Quebec. There was
open war between Great Britain and her Colonies. The Americans had
drawn the sword, but were unwilling to raise the flag.

From the beginning of the troubles the Colonists had been consistent in
their acts. Public meetings, protests, burnings in effigy, tea-riots,
militia levies, congresses, skirmishes, war, followed each other in
regular and logical succession;--but theoretically they did not make
out so clear a case. They had fine-drawn distinctions, not easy to
appreciate at this day, between taxes levied for the purpose of raising
revenue and duties imposed for the regulation of trade. Parliament
could lay a duty on tobacco in a seaport, but might not make the weed
excisable on a plantation,--could break down a loom in any part of
British America, could shut out all intercourse with foreign nations by
the Navigation Act, but had not the legal right to make the Colonial
merchant write his contracts or draw his bills on stamped paper. As to
independence, very few desired it. "Independence," it was the fashion
to say, "would be ruin and loss of liberty forever." The Colonists
insisted that they were the most loyal of subjects; but they had men
and muskets ready, and were determined to resist the obnoxious acts of
Parliament with both, if necessary. These arguments of our ancestors
led them to an excellent conclusion, and so far are entitled to our
respect; but logically we are afraid that King George had the best of
it.

Before many months had passed, lagging theory was left so far in the
rear by the rapid course of events, that the Colonists felt it
necessary to move up a new set of principles to the van, if they wished
to present a fair front to the enemy. They had raised an army, and
taken the field. Unless they declared themselves a nation, they were
confessedly rebels. And yet almost all hesitated. There was a
deep-seated prejudice in favor of the English government, and a strong
personal liking for the people. Even when it was known that the second
petition to the King--Dickinson's "measure of imbecility"--was
disregarded, as it deserved to be, and that the Hessians were coming,
and all reasonable men admitted that there was no hope for
reconciliation, they still refused to abandon the pleasing delusion,
and talked over the old plans for redress of grievances, and a
constitutional union with the mother country. With little or no belief
in the possibility of either, they stood shivering on the banks of the
Rubicon, that mythical river of irretrievable self-committal,
hesitating to enter its turbid waters. A few of the bolder "shepherds
of the people" tried to urge them onward; but no one was bold enough to
dash in first and lead them through. Paine seized the opportunity. He
had a mind whose eye always saw a subject, when it could perceive it at
all, in its naked truth, stripped of the non-material accessories which
disturb the vision of common men. He saw that reconciliation was
impossible, mere rebellion folly; and that, to succeed in the struggle,
it was necessary to fight Great Britain as an equal,--nation against
nation. This course he recommended in "Common Sense," published in
January, 1776.

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