Harriet Beecher Stowe : Three Novels (118 page)

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Page 687
thoughtful blue eyes; he felt with his fine, instinctive tact, that the soul within was infolded in some crystalline sphere of protection, transparent, but adamantine, so that he could not touch it. What was that secret poise, that calm, immutable centre on which she rested, that made her, in her rustic simplicity, so unapproachable and so strong?
Burr remembered once finding in his grandfather's study, among a mass of old letters, one in which that great man, in early youth, described his future wife, then known to him only by distant report. With his keen natural sense of everything fine and poetic, he had been struck with this passage, as so beautifully expressing an ideal womanhood, that he had in his earlier days copied it in his private
recueil.
"They say," it ran, "that there is a young lady who is beloved of that Great Being who made and rules the world, and that there are certain seasons in which this Great Being, in some way or other invisible, comes to her and fills her mind with such exceeding sweet delight, that she hardly cares for anything except to meditate on him; that she expects, after a while, to be received up where he is, to be raised up out of the world and caught up into heaven, being assured that he loves her too well to let her remain at a distance from him always. Therefore, if you present all the world before her, with the richest of its treasures, she disregards it. She has a strange sweetness in her mind, and singular purity in her affections; and you could not persuade her to do anything wrong or sinful, if you should give her all the world. She is of a wonderful sweetness, calmness, and universal benevolence of mind, especially after this great God has manifested himself to her mind. She will sometimes go from place to place singing sweetly, and seems to be always full of joy and pleasure; and no one knows for what. She loves to be alone, walking in fields and groves, and seems to have some invisible one always conversing with her."
A shadowy recollection of this description crossed his mind more than once, as he looked into those calm and candid eyes. Was there, then, a truth in that inner union of chosen souls with God, of which his mother and her mother before her had borne meek witness,their souls shining out as sacred lamps through the alabaster walls of a temple?

 

Page 688
But then, again, had he not logically met and demonstrated, to his own satisfaction, the nullity of the religious dogmas on which New England faith was based? There could be no such inner life, he said to himself,he had demonstrated it as an absurdity. What was it, then,this charm, so subtile and so strong, by which this fair child, his inferior in age, cultivation, and knowledge of the world, held him in a certain awe, and made him feel her spirit so unapproachable? His curiosity was piqued. He felt stimulated to employ all his powers of pleasing. He was determined, that, sooner or later, she should feel his power
With Mrs. Scudder his success was immediate; she was completely won over by the deferential manner with which he constantly referred himself to her matronly judgments; and, on returning to the house, she warmly pressed him to stay to dinner.
Burr accepted the invitation with a frank and almost boyish
abandon,
declaring that he had not seen anything, for years, that so reminded him of old times. He praised everything at table,the smoking brown-bread, the baked beans steaming from the oven, where they had been quietly simmering during the morning walk, and the Indian pudding, with its gelatinous softness, matured by long and patient brooding in the motherly old oven. He declared that there was no style of living to be compared with the simple, dignified order of a true New England home, where servants were excluded, and everything came direct from the polished and cultured hand of a lady. It realized the dreams of Arcadian romance. A man, he declared, must be unworthy the name, who did not rise to lofty sentiments and heroic deeds, when even his animal wants were provided for by the ministrations of the most delicate and exalted portion of the creation.
After dinner he would be taken into all the family interests. Gentle and pliable as oil, he seemed to penetrate every joint of the
ménage
by a subtile and seductive sympathy. He was interested in the spinning, in the weaving,and in fact, nobody knows how it was done, but, before the afternoon shadows had turned, he was sitting in the cracked arm-chair of Mary's garretboudoior, gravely giving judgment on several specimens of her spinning, which Mrs. Scudder had presented to his notice.

 

Page 689
With that ease with which he could at will glide into the character of the superior and elder brother, he had, without seeming to ask questions, drawn from Mary an account of her reading, her studies, her acquaintances.
"You read French, I presume?" he said to her, with easy negligence.
Mary colored deeply, and then, as one who recollects one's self, answered, gravely,
"No, Mr. Burr, I know no language but my own."
"But you should learn French, my child," said Burr, with that gentle dictatorship which he could at times so gracefully assume.
"I should be delighted to learn," said Mary, "but have no opportunity."
"Yes," said Mrs. Scudder,"Mary has always had a taste for study, and would be glad to improve in any way."
"Pardon me, Madam, if I take the liberty of making a suggestion. There is a most excellent man, the Abbé Léfon, now in Newport, driven here by the political disturbances in France; he is anxious to obtain a few scholars, and I am interested that he should succeed, for he is a most worthy man."
"Is he a Roman Catholic?"
"He is, Madam; but there could be no manner of danger with a person so admirably instructed as your daughter. If you please to see him, Madam, I will call with him some time."
"Mrs. Marvyn will, perhaps, join me," said Mary. "She has been studying French by herself for some time, in order to read a treatise on astronomy, which she found in that language. I will go over to-morrow and see her about it."
Before Colonel Burr departed, the Doctor requested him to step a moment with him into his study. Burr, who had had frequent occasions during his life to experience the sort of paternal freedom which the clergy of his country took with him in right of his clerical descent, began to summon together his faculties of address for the avoidance of a kind of conversation which he was not disposed to meet. He was agreeably disappointed, however, when, taking a paper from the table, and presenting it to him, the Doctor said,

 

Page 690
"I feel myself, my dear Sir, under a burden of obligation for benefits received from your family, so that I never see a member of if without casting about in my own mind how I may in some measure express my good-will towards him. You are aware that the papers of your distinguished grandfather have fallen into my hands, and from them I have taken the liberty to make a copy of those maxims by which he guided a life which was a blessing to his country and to the world. May I ask the favor that you will read them with attention? and if you find anything contrary to right reason or sober sense, I shall be happy to hear of it on a future occasion."
"Thank you, Doctor," said Burr, bowing. "I shall always be sensible of the kindness of the motive which has led you to take this trouble on my account. Believe me, Sir, I am truly obliged to you for it."
And thus the interview terminated.
That night, the Doctor, before retiring, offered fervent prayers for the grandson of his revered master and friend, praying that his father's and mother's God might bless him and make him a living stone in the Eternal Temple.
Meanwhile, the object of these prayers was sitting by a table in dressing-gown and slippers, thinking over the events of the day. The paper which Doctor Hopkins had handed him contained the celebrated "Resolutions" by which his ancestor led a life nobler than any mere dogmas can possibly be. By its side lay a perfumed note from Madame de Frontignac,one of those womanly notes, so beautiful, so sacred in themselves, but so mournful to a right-minded person who sees whither they are tending. Burr opened and perused it,laid it by,opened the document that the Doctor had given, and thoughtfully read the first of the "Resolutions":
"Resolved, That I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God's glory, and my own good profit and pleasure
in the whole of my duration,
without any consideration of time, whether now or never so many myriad ages hence.
"Resolved, To do whatever I think to be my duty and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general.
"Resolved, To do this, whatsoever difficulties I meet with, and how many and how great soever."
Burr read the whole paper through attentively once or

 

Page 691
twice, and paused thoughtfully over many parts of it. He sat for some time after, lost in reflection; the paper dropped from his hand, and then followed one of those long, deep seasons of fixed reverie, when the soul thinks by pictures and goes over endless distances in moments. In him, originally, every moral faculty and sensibility was as keenly strung as in any member of that remarkable family from which he was descended, and which has, whether in good or ill, borne no common stamp. Two possible lives flashed before his mind at that moment, rapidly as when a train sweeps by with flashing lamps in the night. The life of worldly expediency, the life of eternal rectitude,the life of seventy years, and that life eternal in which the event of death is no disturbance. Suddenly he roused himself, picked up the paper, filed and dated it carefully, and laid it by; and in that moment was renewed again that governing purpose which sealed him, with all his beautiful capabilities, as the slave of the fleeting and the temporary, which sent him at last, a shipwrecked man, to a nameless, dishonored grave.
He took his pen and gave to a friend his own views of the events of the day.
"My dear,We are still in Newport, conjugating the verb
s'ennuyer,
which I, for one, have put through all the moods and tenses.
Pour passer le temps,
however, I have
la belle Française
and my sweet little Puritan. I visited there this morning. She lives with her mother, a little walk out toward the seaside, in a cottage quite prettily sequestered among blossoming apple-trees, and the great hierarch of modern theology, Dr. Hopkins, keeps guard over them. No chance here for any indiscretions, you see.
"By-the-by, the good Doctor astonished our
monde
here on Sunday last, by treating us to a solemn onslaught on slavery and the slave-trade. He had all the chief captains and counsellors to hear him, and smote them hip and thigh, and pursued them even unto Shur.
"He is one of those great, honest fellows, without the smallest notion of the world we live in, who think, in dealing with men, that you must go to work and prove the right or the wrong of a matter; just as if anybody cared for that! Sup-

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