The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860

V >> Various >> The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860

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Now, for the first time in my life, do I experience the benefits of a
sentimental name, which has rather troubled me before, as belonging to a
quite unsentimental and commonplace person, and thereby raising
expectations, through hearsay, which actual vision dispelled with
painful suddenness. But now I find its advantage, for nobody believes it
is my own, but confidently expects that Ann Tubbs or Susan Bucket will
appear from a long suppression, like a Jack-in-a-box, and startle the
public as she throws back the cover.

Indeed, I am told that not long since a circle of literary
experimentalists, discussing a recent number of a certain magazine, and
displaying great knowledge of _noms-de-plume_, ran aground all at once
upon "Who is Matilda Muffin?"--even as, in the innocent faith of
childhood, I pondered ten minutes upon "Who was the father of Zebedee's
children?" and at last "gave up." But these professional gentlemen,
nowise daunted by the practical difficulties of the subject, held on,
till at last one, wiser in his generation than the rest, confidently
announced that he knew Matilda Muffin's real name, but was not at
liberty to disclose it. Should this little confidence ever reach the
eyes of those friends, I wish to indorse that statement in every
particular; that gentleman does know my name; and know all men, by these
presents, I give him full leave to disclose it,--or rather, to save him
the trouble, I disclose it myself. My name, my own, that would have been
printed in the marriage-list of the "Snapdragon" before now, if it had
not appeared in the list of contributors, and which will appear in its
list of deaths some day to come,--my name, that is called to breakfast,
marked on my pocket-handkerchiefs, written in my books, and done in
yellow paint on my trunk, _is_--Matilda Muffin. "Only that, and nothing
more!" And "A. B.," which I adopted once as a species of veil to the
aforesaid alliterative title, did not mean, as was supposed, "A Beauty,"
or "Any Body," or "Another Barrett," or "Anti Bedott," or "After
Breakfast," but only "A. B.," the first two letters of the alphabet.
Peace to their ashes!--let them rest!

But, dear me! I forgot the Memorial! As I have said, all these
enumerated troubles do not much move me, nor yet the world-old cry of
all literary women's being, in virtue of their calling, unfeminine. I
don't think anybody who knows me can say that about me; in fact, I am
generally regarded by my male cousins as a "little goose," and a
"foolish child," and "a perfectly absurd little thing,"--epithets that
forbid the supposition of their object being strong-minded or having
Women's Rights;--and as for people who don't know me, I care very little
what they think. If I want them to like me, I can generally make
them,--having a knack that way.

But there is one thing against which I do solemnly protest and uplift
my voice, as a piece of ridiculous injustice and supererogation,--and
that is, that every new poem or fresh story I write and print should be
supposed and declared to be part and parcel of my autobiography. Good
gracious! Goethe himself, "many-sided" as the old stone Colossus might
have been, would have retreated in dismay from such a host of characters
as I have appeared in, according to the announcement of admiring
friends.

My dear creatures, do just look at the common sense of the thing! Can I
have been, by any dexterity known to man, of mind or body, such a
various creature, such a polycorporate animal, as you make me to be?
Because I write the anguish and suffering of an elderly widow with a
drunken husband, am I therefore meek and of middle age, the slave of a
rum-jug? I have heard of myself successively as figuring in the
character of a strong-minded, self-denying Yankee girl,--a
broken-hearted Georgia beauty,--a fairy princess,--a consumptive
school-mistress,--a young woman dying of the perfidy of her lover,--a
mysterious widow; and I daily expect to hear that a caterpillar which
figured as hero in one of my tales was an allegory of myself, and that a
cat mentioned in "The New Tobias" is a travesty of my heart-experience.

Now this is rather more than "human natur" can stand. It is true that in
my day and generation I have suffered as everybody does, more or less.
It is likewise true that I have suffered from the same causes that other
people do. I am happy to state that in the allotments of this life
authoresses are not looked upon as "literary," but simply as women, and
have the same general dispensations with the just and the unjust;
therefore, in attempting to excite other people's sympathies, I have
certainly touched and told many stories that were not strange to my own
consciousness; I do not know very well how I could do otherwise. And in
trying to draw the common joys and sorrows of life, I certainly have
availed myself of experience as well as observation; but I should seem
to myself singularly wanting in many traits which I believe I possess,
were I to obtrude the details of my own personal and private affairs
upon the public. And I offer to those who have so interpreted me a
declaration which I trust may relieve them from all responsibility of
this kind in future; I hereby declare, asseverate, affirm, and whatever
else means to swear, that I never have offered and never intend to offer
any history whatever of my personal experience, social, literary, or
emotional, to the readers of any magazine, newspaper, novel, or
correspondence whatever. Nor is there any one human being who has ever
heard or ever will hear the whole of that experience,--no, not even
Dunderhed Van Nudel, Esquire, should he buy me to-morrow!

Also, I wish to relieve the minds of many friendly readers, who, hearing
and believing these reports, bestow upon me a vast amount of sympathy
that is worthy of a better fate. My dear friends, as I said before, it
is principally toothache; poetry is next best to clove-oil, and less
injurious to the enamel. I beg of you not to suppose that every poet who
howls audibly in the anguish of his soul is really afflicted in the said
soul; but one must have respect for the dignity of High Art. Answer me
now with frankness, what should you think of a poem that ran in this
style?--

"The sunset's gorgeous wonder
Flashes and fades away;
But my back-tooth aches like thunder,
And I cannot now be gay!"

Now just see how affecting it is, when you "change the venue," as
lawyers say:--

"The sunset's gorgeous wonder
Flashes and fades away;
But I hear the muttering thunder,
And my sad heart dies like the day."

I leave it to any candid mind, what would be the result to literature,
if such a course were pursued?

Besides, look at the facts in the case. You read the most tearful
strains of the most melancholy poet you know; if you took them
_verbatim_, you would expect him to be found by the printer's-boy, sent
for copy, "by starlight on the north side of a tombstone," as Dr.
Bellamy said, enjoying a northeaster without any umbrella, and soaking
the ground with tears, unwittingly antiseptic, in fact, as Mr. Mantalini
expressed himself, "a damp, moist, unpleasant body." But where, I ask,
does that imp find the aforesaid poet, when he goes to get the seventh
stanza of the "Lonely Heart"? Why, in the gentlemen's parlor of a
first-class hotel, his feet tilted up in the window, his apparel
perfectly dry and shiny with various ornamental articles appended, his
eyes half open over a daily paper, his parted lips clinging to a cigar,
his whole aspect well-to-do and comfortable. And aren't you glad of it?
I am; there is so much real misery in the world, that don't know how to
write for the papers, and has to have its toothache all by itself, when
a simple application of bread and milk or bread and meat would cure it,
that I am glad to have the apparent sum of human misery diminished, even
at the expense of being a traitor in the camp.

And still further, for your sakes, dear tender-hearted friends, who may
suppose that I am wearing this mask of joy for the sake of deluding you
into a grim and respectful sympathy,--you, who will pity me whether or
no,--I confess that I have some material sorrows for which I will gladly
accept your tears. My best bonnet is very unbecoming. I even heard it
said the other day, striking horror to my soul, that it looked literary!
And I'm afraid it does! Moreover, my only silk dress that is presentable
begins to show awful symptoms of decline and fall; and though you may
suppose literature to be a lucrative business, between ourselves it is
not so at all, (very likely the "Atlantic" gentlemen will omit that
sentence, for fear of a libel-suit from the trade,--but it's all the
same a fact, unless you write for the "Dodger,")--and, I'm likely to
mend and patch and court-plaster the holes in that old black silk,
another year at least: but this is my solitary real anguish at present.

I do assure all and sundry my reporters, my sympathizers, and my
readers, that all that I have stated in this present Memorial is
unvarnished fact, whatever they may say, read, or feel to the
contrary,--and that, although I am a literary woman, and labor under all
the liabilities and disabilities contingent thereto, I am yet sound in
mind and body, (except for the toothache,) and a very amusing person to
know, with no quarrel against life in general or anybody in particular.
Indeed, I find one advantage in the very credulous and inquisitive
gossip against which I memorialize; for I think I may expect fact to be
believed, when fiction is swallowed whole; and I feel sure of seeing,
directly on the publication of this document, a notice in the
"Snapdragon," the "Badger," or the "Coon," (whichever paper gets that
number of the magazine first,) running in this wise:--

"MATILDA MUFFIN.--We welcome in the last number of the
'Atlantic Monthly' a brief and spirited autobiography of this
lady, whose birth, parentage, and home have so long been wrapt
in mystery. The hand of genius has rent asunder the veil of
reserve, and we welcome the fair writer to her proper position
in the Blank City Directory, and post-office list of boxes."

After which, I shall resign myself tranquilly to my fate as a unit, and
glide down the stream of life under whatever skies shine or scowl above,
always and forever nobody but

MATILDA MUFFIN.
BLANK, _67 Smith Street_.

SOME ACCOUNT OF A VISIONARY.

"Dear old Visionary!" It was the epithet usually applied to Everett Gray
by his friends and neighbors. It expresses very well the estimation in
which he was held by nineteen-twentieths of his world. People couldn't
help feeling affection for him, considerably leavened by a half-pitying,
half-wondering appreciation of his character. He was so good, so kind,
so gifted, too. Pity he was so dreamy and romantic, _et cetera, et
cetera_.

Now, from his youth up, nay, from very childhood, Everett had borne the
character thus implied. A verdict was early pronounced on him by an
eminent phrenologist who happened to be visiting the family. "A
beautiful mind, a comprehensive intellect, but marvellously
unpractical,--singularly unfitted to cope with the difficulties of
every-day life." And Everett's mother, hanging on the words of the man
of science, breathless and tearful, murmured to herself, while stroking
her unconscious little son's bright curls,--"I always feared he was too
good for this wicked world."

The child began to justify the professor's _dictum_ with his very first
entry into active life. He entertained ideas for improving the social
condition of rabbits, some time before he could conveniently raise
himself to a level with the hutch in which three of them, jointly
belonging to himself and his brother, abode. His theory was consummate;
in practice, however, it proved imperfect,--and great wrath on the part
of Richard Gray, and much confusion and disappointment to Everett, were
the result.

Richard, two years younger than Everett by the calendar, was at least
three older than he in size, appearance, habits, and self-assertion. He
was what is understood by "a regular boy": a fine, manly little fellow,
practical, unsensitive, hard-headed, and overflowing with life and
vigor. He had little patience with his brother's quiet ways; and his
unsuccessful attempts at working out theories met with no sympathy at
his hands.

After the affair of the rabbits, his experiments, however certain of
success he deemed them, were always made on or with regard to his own
belongings. The little plot of garden-ground which he held in absolute
possession was continually being dug up and refashioned, in his eager
efforts to convert it successively into a vineyard, a Portuguese
_quinta_, (to effect which he diligently planted orange-pips and manured
the earth with the peel,) or, favorite scheme of all, a
wheat-field,--dimensions, eighteen feet by twelve,--the harvest of which
was to provide all the poor children of the village with bread, in those
hard seasons when their pinched faces and shrill, complaining cries
appealed so mightily to little Everett's heart.

Nevertheless, and in spite of all his care and watching, it is to be
feared that very few of the big loaves which found their way from the
hall to the village, that winter, were composed of the produce of his
corn-field. More experienced farmers than this youthful agriculturist
might not have been surprised at the failure of his crop. He was.
Indeed, it was a valiant characteristic of him, throughout his life,
that he never grew accustomed to failure, however serenely he took it,
when it came. He grieved and perplexed himself about it, silently, but
not hopelessly. New ideas dawned on his mind, fresh designs of relief
were soon entertained, and essayed to be put in practice. These were
many, and of various degrees of feasibility,--ranging from the
rigorously pursued plan of setting aside a portion of his daily bread
and butter in a bag, and of his milk in a can, and bestowing the little
store on the nearest eligible object, up to the often pondered one of
obtaining possession of the large barn in the cow-field, furnishing the
same, and establishing therein all the numerous houseless wanderers who
used to come and ask for aid at the hands of Everett's worthy and
magisterial father.

That father's judicial functions caused his eldest son considerable
trouble and bewilderment of mind. He asked searching questions
sometimes, when, of an evening, perched on Mr. Gray's knee, and looking
with his wondering, steadfast eyes into the face of that erewhile stern
and impassible magistrate. The large justice-room, where the prisoners
were examined, had an awful fascination to him; and so had the little
"strong-room," in which sometimes they were locked up before being
conveyed away to the county jail. Often, he wandered restlessly near it,
looking at the door with strange, mournful eyes; and if by chance the
culprit passed out before him, under the guardianship of the terrible,
red-faced constable,--Everett's earliest and latest conception of the
Devil,--how wistfully he would gaze at him, and what a world of thought
and puzzled speculation would float through his childish mind!

Once, he had a somewhat serious adventure connected with that dreadful
strong-room.

There had been a man brought up before Mr. Gray, charged with
poultry-stealing; and he had been remanded for further examination.
Meanwhile, he was placed in the strong-room, under lock-and-key,--Roger
Manby, as usual, standing sentinel in the passage. Now Roger's red face
betokened a lively appreciation of the sublunary and substantial
attractions of beef and beer; and it seems probable that the servants'
dinner, going on below-stairs, was too great a temptation for even that
inflexible constable to resist. Howbeit, when the prisoner should have
been produced before the waiting bench, he was nowhere to be found. He
had vanished, as by magic, from the strong-room, without bolt being
wrenched, or lock forced, or bar broken. The door was unfastened, and
the prisoner gone. Great was the consternation, profound the
mystification of all parties. Roger was severely reprimanded, and
officers were sent off in various directions to recapture the offender.

Mr. Gray seldom alluded to his public affairs when among his children;
but that evening he broke through the rule. At dessert, with little
Everett, as usual, beside him, he mentioned the mysterious incident of
the morning to some friends who were dining with him, adding his own
conjectures as to the cause of the strange disappearance.

"It is certain he was _let out_. He could not have released himself.
Circumstances are suspicious against Manby, too; and he will probably
lose his office. Like Caesar's wife, a constable should be beyond
suspicion, and he must be dismissed, if"----

"Oh, papa!"--and Everett's orange fell to the floor, and Everett's face
was lifted to his father's, all-aglow with eager, painful feeling.

"You don't like old Roger," said Mr. Gray, patting his cheek. "Well, it
is likely you won't be troubled by him any more."

"Oh, papa! oh, papa! Roger is an ugly, cross man. But he didn't,--he
didn't"----

"Didn't what, my boy?"

"Let the man out. He was in the kitchen all the time. I heard him
laughing."

"_You_ heard him? How?"

"I--I--oh, papa!"

The curly head sunk on the inquisitor's shoulder.

"Go on, Everett. What do you mean? Tell me the whole truth. You are not
afraid to do that?"

"No, papa."

He looked up, with steady eyes, but cheeks on which the color flickered
most agitatedly.

"I only wanted to look at the man; and the men had left a ladder against
the wall by the little grated window; and I climbed up, and looked in.
And, oh! he had such a miserable face, papa! And I couldn't help
speaking to him."

"Well, go on."

The tone was not so peremptory as the words; and the child, too ignorant
to be really frightened at what he had done, went on with his
confession, quite heedless of the numerous eyes fixed upon him with
various expressions of tenderness, amusement, and dismay. And very soon
all came out. Everett had deliberately and intentionally done the deed.
He had been unable to withstand the misery and entreaties of the man,
and he had slipped down the ladder, run round to the unguarded strong
door, and with much toil forced back the great bolt, unfastened the
chain, and set the prisoner free.

"And do you know, Everett, what it is you have done?--how wrong you have
been?"

"I was afraid it was a little wrong,"--he hesitated; "but,"--and his
courage seemed to rise again at the recollection,--"it would have been
so dreadful for the poor man to go to prison! He said he should be quite
ruined,--quite ruined, papa; and his wife and the little children would
starve. You are not _very_ angry, are you? Oh, papa!"

For Everett could hardly believe the stern gaze with which the
magistrate forced himself to regard his little son; and sternly uttered
were the few words that followed, by which he endeavored to make clear
to the childish comprehension the gravity of the fault he had committed.
Everett was utterly subdued. The tone of displeasure smote on his heart
and crushed it for the time. Only once he brightened up, as with a
sudden hope of complete justification, when Mr. Gray adverted to the
crime of the man, which had made it right and necessary that he should
be punished.

"But, papa," eagerly broke in the boy, "he hadn't stolen the things. He
told me so. He wasn't a thief."

"One case was proved beyond doubt."

"Indeed, indeed, papa, you must be mistaken," cried Everett, with
tearful vehemence; "he couldn't have done it; I know he couldn't. He
said, _upon his word_, he hadn't."

It was impossible to persuade him that such an asseveration could be
false. And when the little offender had left the room, various remarks
and interjections were indulged in,--all breathing the same spirit.

"What a jolly little muff Everett is!" was his brother Dick's
contingent.

"Innocent little fellow!" said one.

"Happy little visionary!" sighed another.

And Everett grew in years and stature, and still unconsciously
maintained the same character. It is true that he was a quiet, sensitive
boy, with an almost feminine affectionateness and tenderness of
heart,--and that keen, exquisite appreciation both of the joyful and the
painful, which is a feminine characteristic, too. Yet he was far enough
from being effeminate. He was thoughtful, naturally, yet he could be
active and take pleasure in action. He was always ready to work, and
feared neither hardship nor fatigue. When the great flood came and
caused such terror and distress in the village, no one, not even Dick,
home from Sandhurst for the midsummer holidays, was more energetic or
worked harder or more effectually than Everett. And the boys (his
brother's chums at Hazlewood) never forgot the day when Everett found
them ill-treating a little dog; how he rescued it from them,
single-handed, and knocked down young Brooke, who attacked him both with
insults and blows. Dick, not ill-pleased, was looking on. He never
called his brother a "sop" from that day, but praised him and patronized
him considerably for a good while after, and began, as he said, "to have
hopes of him."

But the two brothers never had much in common, and were, indeed, little
thrown together. Everett was educated at home; he was not strong, and
was naturally his mother's darling, and she persuaded his father and
herself that a public school would be harmful to him. So he studied the
classics with the clergyman of the parish, and the lighter details of
learning with his sister. Between that sister and himself there was a
strong attachment, though she, too, was of widely differing temperament
and disposition. Agnes was two years older than he,--and overflowing
with saucy life, energy, and activity. She liked to run wild about the
woods near their house, or to gallop over the country on her pony,--to
go scrambling in the hedges for blackberries, or among the copses for
nuts. The still contentment that Everett found in reading,--his
thoughtful enjoyment of landscape, or sunset, or flower,--all this might
have been incomprehensible to her, only that she loved her dreamy
brother so well. Love lends faith, and faith makes many things clear;
and Agnes learned to understand, and would wait patiently beside him on
such occasions, only tapping her feet, or swinging her bonnet by its
strings, as a relief for the superabundant vitality thus held in check.
And she was Everett's _confidante_ in all his schemes, wishes, and
anticipations. To her he would unfold the various plans he was
continually cogitating. Agnes would listen, sympathizingly sometimes,
but reverently always. _She_ never called or thought him a Visionary. If
his plans for the regeneration of the world were Utopian and
impracticable, it was the world that was in fault, not he. To her he was
the dearest of brothers, who would one day be acknowledged the greatest
of men.

And thus Everett grew to early manhood, till the time arrived when he
was to leave home for Cambridge. It was his first advent in the world.
Hitherto, his world had been one of books and thought. He imagined
college to be a place wherein a studious life, such as he loved, would
be most natural, most easy to be pursued. He should find a
brother-enthusiast in every student; he should meet with sympathy and
help in all his dearest aspirations, on every side. Perhaps it is
needless to say that this young Visionary was disappointed, and that his
collegiate career was, in fact, the beginning of that crusade, active
and passive, which it appeared to be his destiny to wage against what is
generally termed Real Life.

He was considerably laughed at, of course, by the majority of those
about him. Some few choice spirits tried to get up a lofty contempt of
his quiet ways and simple earnestness,--but they failed,--it not being
in human nature, even the most scampish, to entertain scorn for that
which is innately true and noble. So, finally, the worst that befell him
was ridicule,--which, even when he was aware of it, hurt him little.
Often, indeed, he would receive their jests and artful civilities with
implicit good faith; acknowledging apparent attentions with a gentle,
kindly courtesy, indescribably mystifying to those excellent young men
who expended so much needless pains on the easy work of "selling Old
Gray."

However, from out the very ranks of the enemy, before he left college at
the end of his first term, he had one intimate. It would, perhaps, be
difficult to understand how two-thirds of the friendships in the world
have their birth and maintain their existence. The connection between
Everett and Charles Barclay appeared to be of this enigmatical order.
One would have said the two could possess no single taste or sentiment
in common. Charles was a handsome, athletic fellow, warm-hearted,
impassioned, generous, and thoughtless to cruelty. He had splendid
gifts, but no application,--plenty of power, but no perseverance.
Supposed to be one of the most brilliant men of his years, he had just
been "plucked," to the dismay of his college and the immense wrath of
his friends. Everybody knew that Barclay was an orphan, left with a very
slender patrimony, who had gained a scholarship at the grammar-school.
He was of no family,--he was poor, and had his own way to make in life.
It was doubly necessary to _him_ that he should succeed in his
collegiate career. It was probably while under the temporary shadow of
the disgrace and disappointment of defeat, that the young man suddenly
turned to Everett Gray, fastened upon him with an affection most
enthusiastic, a devotion that everybody found unaccountable. He had
energy enough for what he willed to do. He willed to have Everett's
friendship, and he would not be denied. The incongruous pair became
friends. Whereupon, the rollicking comrades, who had gladly welcomed
Barclay into their set, for his fun and his wit and his convivial
qualities, turned sharp round, and marvelled at young Gray, who came of
a high family, for choosing as his intimate a fellow of no birth, no
position. Not but that it was just like the Old Visionary to do it; he'd
no idea of life,--not he; and so forth.

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