-
THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
LOYERS AND THINKERS.
Nobel,
HEWES GORDON.
"And hail once more to the banner of battle unrolled!
Though many a light shall darken, and many shall weep
For those that are crushed in the clash of jarring claims,
Yet God's just wrath shall be wreaked on a giant liar ;
And many a darkness into the light shall leap,
And shine on the sudden making of splendid names,
And noble thought be freer under the sun,
And the heart of a people beat with one desire."
TENNYSON'S MADD.
NEW YORK:
CARLETON, PUBLISHER, 413 BROADWAY.
MDCCCLXV.
Entered, according 'to Act of Congress, in the year 1865,
BY GEO. W. CARLETON,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York.
E. CRAIGHEAD, PRINTER,
Caxton Building S3 Centre street.
C541JL
LOVERS AND THINKERS.
CHAPTER I.
NEW YORK, our Commercial Metropolis. That
is, the centre of activity, wealth, amusement,
of sloth, indigence, misery, the great symbol of the
country's daily life. Boston may be its Athens, the seat
of intelligence and culture ; this is its Rome, the vast
arena of concentrated effort and practical skilL The
aim of the average American, but especially of the
New-Yorker, is riches, material success. Pick out any
one, of a morning, from its thousands rushing down
town, and ask him why he thus tears along ; his
answer, if he shall stop long enough to give it faith-
fully, will be, " Money, money : what do we live for ? "
Stella Maign was a child of this city, though not of
its spirit and circumstances. Her father was, perhaps,
one of its " representative men." He was a merchant,
doing an extensive and prosperous business, when she,
his only daughter, was born. He was a man of the
i* (5)
1670S93
6 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
world, still more, a man of New York. He was
active and enterprising, and believed in precisely the
qualities which he himself possessed. All others he
undervalued. He had accumulated considerable prop-
erty, and was called rich. Respecting and applauding
business qualifications, these, combined with wealth,
made, in his eyes, a man of men, one to be sought
and honored. Thinkers, scholars, men of ideas, held
but a corner of his esteem. They were well enough,
he thought ; they contributed aliment to the leisure of
the rich ; they afforded him amusement : but they were
always poor fellows, of little account in the world.
Here we have his estimate of the world: he meant
Wall street, Broadway, and the fine houses up town,
of which his own was one of the best, and in the midst
of the best.
Mrs. Maign, his wife, had been, when young, a some-
what aspiring and superior maiden ; but, without de-
cided force of character, she had settled down, soon after
her marriage, quite to the level of the circle around her.
Now she presided over her husband's mansion as he
thought a woman of means and fashion should do.
Costly pictures were hung on its walls ; statues digni-
fied the appropriate niches. The parties given in it
were among the gayest of the season. And outside,
was the lady's carriage, with driver and footman in
waiting, whenever she desired to take the air. Mr.
and Mrs. Maign scanned their establishment with proud
satisfaction. " I have come to think with you, Mr.
M.," she said, " that it would be quite impossible for
one who really is anybody r , to do without the like."
This mutual thought very naturally entered into their
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 7
I
plan of education for their daughter, and into their de-
termination regarding her future career. At fourteen
years of age, after fitting studies near home, she was
sent away to be placed in the well-known seminary of
Madam de Villier, at Ironton. Here it was supposed
she could receive as thorough and accomplished an edu-
cation as any young lady of wealth and superior pros-
pects would require. Graduated from such an institu-
tion, her father deemed she would be fitted to adorn
any man's drawing-room as well as the good Mrs.
Maign had herself done, and in exactly the same way.
Stella's conduct, during the three years she was in
charge of Madam de Villier, was satisfactory to parents
and teachers. She was a keen, appreciative scholar, a
healthful, cheerful, dignified person, with whom but lit-
tle fault of any kind was found. Though spirited, and
occasionally wilful if opposed when she regarded herself
in the right, she seldom broke over, or evaded, the pre-
scribed limits of restraint, which, at a school like Mad-
ame de Villier's, were necessarily rather strict. She
was allowed to leave the seminary only once a week, to
visit some friend known to her parents, or for shopping,
unless, indeed, when in company with forty or fifty
others, she took a morning or evening walk for exer-
cise. The latter practice she did not at first wholly
enjoy. It seemed very strange scarcely ever to appear
in the street except as one of a long double file of
young ladies maiden soldiers of culture.
And the line was not always viewed by spectators as
martial and imposing. Now and then an imaginative
urchin was evidently reminded by it of a flock of sheep,
and would apostrophize it with the bleating cry by
*
8 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
which those innocent and pretty creatures seem wont to
express their ordinary emotions.
On one occasion, largely in sport, though with much
pretended vexation, Stella caught hold of a child who
was thus shouting near her, and shook him completely
beyond any further display of his wit or wits, a feat
which was a palpable breach of decorum, but which
caused much merriment in the street. She looked
up and saw the eyes of a handsome, stately youth fixed
upon hers, and fairly dancing with mirth. She broke
into a ringing laugh, blushed to her temples, and hast-
ened back to her place in the ranks, without looking
back. The stripling regarded her admiringly for a
moment, and murmuring, " What a dear Amazon to
be sure," he too passed on.
The incident was simple enough to have been unre-
membered and unrecorded. But it appears they were
to meet again, and to one of them it was to be rather
singularly recalled.
Stella's education was, at the end of the appointed
time, called finished. She left Madame de Villier's
seminary, one of the most accomplished of its scholars,
as well as one of the fairest and most attractive. She
had been placed there to study ; and though extraordi-
nary application was not the most prominent of her
good qualities, she had attended faithfully to all her
allotted tasks.
She had, at this period, a passion for the beautiful,
which distinguished her in all matters of taste, and was
remarked by every one about her. But it penetrated
deeper than their glances, unconsciously, even to her-
self, underlying her success in particular studies. She
LOVERS AND THINKERS. d
did not know, for instance, why she learned French
without effort almost intuitively. It was much more
difficult to many of her classmates, who in other
branches were her equals. It was the same with music,
in which she at last excelled both scholars and teachers.
But French is the high-bred language of courtly ele-
gance. In it, if one cannot cry, it is said: "il n'Stoit
plus le maitre de verser des larmes" * It is the mother
tongue of formal taste, as Italian is that of harmonious
witchery. Music again, as far as it goes and that
certainly is far is the most beautiful of all vehicles of
expression. Roses and the choicest flowers, may in
their way and sphere compare with it. What else
can?
When Stella returned home to New York, it was
to be married. Yes, that was the goal of her youthful
destiny, as her father had settled it. She must be mar-
ried and located. It must be well done too. This he
had figured. It was a most important business trans-
action, in which he must not fail to do himself credit.
Did he not love his only daughter? Certainly he
did. He would have affirmed it as strenuously as any
man. Only he supposed that he knew her best interests
a great deal better than she did. He did not believe in
"overmuch sentiment;" in any "undue weight of
love." Taste should have its proper influence, to be
sure. But affection had never taken an all-engrossing
hold upon him : why should other people go crazy
about it?
* Madame de Stael's dubious hero "Oswald" (in "Corinne") will
be remembered as " no longer the master of shedding tears."
10 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
" Happiness, my dear sir," he was accustomed to say,
" that consists of a proper establishment, and easy,
agreeable surroundings. There is nothing in the world
like position and plenty. These, I believe, sir, are
available when kisses and notions have melted away."
So he reasoned, after the manner of heavy Saxons.
Stella had dreamed of love, of some one unspeak-
ably dear to her, to whom she could be as dear. What
maiden has not ? But she had found no one who re-
alized her vision. She had of course seen those whom
she preferred to others, those whom she fancied for the
time that she could love, whom perhaps she fancied
that she did love. But they had all quickly waned in
brightness, and disappeared from her heart, without
leaving any deep traces of their fulness or decline. She
began to feel that perhaps she should never meet a man
who could call forth such vivid emotions as she had
imagined ; to whom she could devote her whole nature ;
on whom she could lavish her whole existence, content
with being received and being loved.
Her father, however, had seen one to whom he was
quite content that she should be given in marriage,
a Boston gentleman of wealth, station, and forty-five
years. During the year previous to her last at Mad-
ame de Villier's, she had met him at a fashionable sum-
mer resort, where she had gone with her mother and a
friend, to spend a portion of her usual vacation.
He was much pleased, from the first, with her ap-
pearance, and as he was a friend of her father's, and
she had met him a few times at her own home, she did
not hesitate to receive such customary attentions as he
chose to offer. Neither did she decline to make herself
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 11
agreeable to him by any of the accomplishments in her
possession. He liked music, he said ; and she played
for him. At the piano she was conscious of excellence,
though she never displayed her power with the least os-
tentation.
Of all self-love, that whicli.is gratified by gratifying
others, is certainly the most delicate, and the least lia-
ble to detection. It can scarcely be unlovely or wrong
in the practice, only in the motive. Perhaps a tinge
of vanity, possibly the slightest touch of coquetry,
mingled, unsuspected by herself, with Stella's endeav-
ors. For say what we will, the desire to please even
those we care little for, is everywhere a temptation to
the amiable.
But the idea of loving Mr. Torson never entered her
mind. She accepted his offerings of French books and
of flowers, very much in the spirit in which he said they
were tendered, "as partial payments for the pleasure
she gave him by her playing."
But he cared less for the music than he asserted.
He gave her the books and the flowers, because he was
aware that she was fond of them, and because it was
no trouble to him ; just as he would have caressed any
pet that he had begun to desire should follow him. He
had grown attached to Stella, as far as he was capable
of attachment, and had determined to ask her hand of
Mr. Maign. He had been a bachelor up to this time,
but now there was no need of it. He had made money
enough money and could have everything it could
buy. What more could any young woman want ?
He, too, reasoned very much like Stella's father, and
supposed himself quite good enough for Stella herself.
12 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
But he had the subtilty and tact not to exhibit all he
felt. He accepted the assertion, that language is to
" conceal thought," as well as to express it. He ad-
mired Stella, and wanted her as a finish to his leisure,
his house, and equipage. He sometimes felt there was
something about her that he could not completely un-
derstand. But what of that? He had no misgiving
about his being able to conceive and appreciate all that
was worth the while.
He knew that she was to remain with Madame de
Villier one more year, and that her parents would then
be quite willing she should marry, provided the mar-
riage were one of wealth and the proper social position.
He thought that his friend, his old business acquaint-
ance, Mr. Maign, would not object to a still nearer
intimacy. So, fully assured that he would encounter
no opposition from him, he broached the subject, a
month or two afterward, in a plain, unhesitating, com-
mercial way, saying that, with his friend's consent, he
should like to pay his addresses to Stella, and subse-
quently, with the consent of the young lady, he should
like to marry her. He added that he had a couple of
hundred thousand dollars, could take good care of a
wife, and that he thought Stella excellently well fitted
to take charge of his mansion on B street, which
he had no doubt she would consider one of the best.
This conversation, this manner, was precisely after
Mr. Maign's own heart. Nothing could have suited
him better. He scratched his head, pulled the ends of
liis side-whiskers, and said :
" Ah, yes, certainly, my boy ; I see no objection ; I
think we may call it as good as settled. Stella would
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 13
be very silly to hesitate, very unreasonable to refuse
you ; and it seems to me, she is a pretty sensible girl.
My old friend too ! No, she can't be so foolish as to
deny us : we could never allow it ; could we ? It
would put my mind quite at ease to see her well estab-
lished, and with you. Besides, girls sometimes get
strange freaks into their heads ; it is best to put them
on the right track early. If permitted to go any way,
she might fancy some poor devil who could do nothing
but paint a picture or write a song. That would bring
me to the grave-digger at once. I will speak to Stella,
myself; and you may rest perfectly content. And
come to our house as often as your time warrants.
Make it your home. You and I understand each other
perfectly. Mrs. Maign will be glad to know you
better."
Mr. Jabed Z. Torson had reason to be satisfied with
this conversation. His friend's reply was about as he
had expected. It was, if anything, more flattering and
unreserved. He felt certain of possessing Stella Maign
without half trying. He saw that her own father
would be an energetic suitor in his behalf, and would
end by dropping her into his arms. This was all the
better. It would save a long, perhaps a difficult woo-
ing, which might be romantic and engaging to some,
but was without charm for him. The end to be
attained was herself; the easiest and speediest way to
it, he regarded as the most desirable.
When the winter holidays came, Stella went home
for a week, and her father spoke to her, as he had said
he should do, in reference to Mr. Torson.
" Stella," he began, " Mr. Torson, whom you met
2
14 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
at Saratoga last summer, has long been a friend of
mine ; he wishes to become my son ; in short, he wants
you for his wife. Treat him well ; you will like him.
He is one of the smartest fellows in Boston. He is a
solid. He is worth a quarter of a million, and has
made it himself. He is a self-made man. In ten years
he will double his fortune. He can take the very best
care of you, and place you in a circle you are fitted for.
Stella, it is a good thing. You have always placed
some confidence in my judgment. Don't belie your-
self now ; don't stand in your own light, in this most
important instance. I told him you were a sensible
girl, who knew a man from a humming-bird. I am
sure you will prove that I was right."
Stella was somewhat surprised at her father's direct-
ness, and his disposal, as it could not but seem, of her
person and affections. She saw at once that he was
determined upon the match ; that with him it was
already a decree. But she was not wholly unprepared
for the information he gave her. Hints in her mother's
letters had signified that Mr. Torson had been " very
much taken " with her, and would probably find occa-
sion to visit New York and her father's house, oftener
than he had previously done. But she did not love
him : how could she, why should she love him ? She
had regarded him as a substantial, complaisant gentle-
man, silver-gray, rather high-fed, quite as strict in
manners as in morals, of sound business qualifications,
and a handsome fortune. She had seen him occasion-
ally, since she could first distinguish one person from
another. For the past three years he had been abroad
much of the time, regulating and closing up some com-
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 15
mercial transactions in England and France. Mean-
while she had sprung up from girlhood to womanhood ;
and now it was plain that he desired to add her to his
list of valuables.
" But, father," she said, " it would appear very-
strange for me to marry him. It appears very strange
that he wants me. Pardon me, but if I had been
accustomed to respect him a little more, I should think
of him as an uncle, your brother, and scarcely a
younger one. I have often heard you speak of his
ability and industry. I ought, certainly, to respect his
good qualities. But have I not heard even you touch
depreciatingly upon some of his frailties ? Have I not,
for example, heard you speak of .him, with a slight
shrug of the shoulders, as ' a little wild,' in his younger
days ? It is unnecessary to hide from you that others
have alluded to him in the same manner. He has been
courteous and respectful to me ; I have found no fault
with his deportment. But, my dear father, now that I
know his intentions, I can't help a slight shrinking
from him."
" Well, well, Stella," responded Mr. Maign, " that
will do. ' Frailties ! ' 'a little wild,' indeed ! One
would think you were a Beecher, and had gone to
preaching infidelity over in Brooklyn. What do you
suppose you know about the world as it is ? * Have you
learned from a few books, and two or three languages,
that men are mixed of sanctity, sprinkled with cologne,
and set on their feet so as never to slip and get the
least soiled ? Do you imagine, child, that I have lived
over fifty years without knowing a thing or two ? Is
there anybody that can have your interest nearer at
16 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
heart than I? Can anybody manage it better? I
have considered all your objections. Torson isn't Saint
John, nor Adam before the fall ; but he is a sensible,
sober man, who has attended to his affairs and got rich.
Any spirited woman in the country would be glad to
catch him. He moves in the most respectable society,
and nobody but a British peer could carry you higher.
He hasn't done anything so very bad, either. Old
men shrug their shoulders over young ones, and, at
fifty, over themselves at twenty-five. Torson had a
few wild oats to sow. Now they are all disposed of,
and done with. He is established and sure, much
more so than any youngster I could trust you to. If
he had been married, twenty years ago, perhaps you
would have heard no pretty stories about him. As it
is, all the stories are old ones, and, like the scars of an
old soldier, they have brought experience with them.
He will treat you better than any boy, believe me.
Ask your mother if I'm not right."
" I know already," replied Stella, " from what she
has hinted and looked, what she will say. I do not
mean to be capricious or undutiful. Certainly I have
no want of confidence in my parents. I will try to look
upon Mr. Torson as you do. Perhaps by the time my
term at school is finished, I can view him more favor-
ably. I ar to be there six months yet ; then I will
try to do as you think best."
Stella shut herself up in her room, and wept. The
reality, then, had come. She must try to love Mr. Tor-
son. Or could she marry him without loving him ?
without at least respecting him ? She felt as though
she would throw herself on his pride and generosity,
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 17
and flatly beg him not to persist in his suit. But no.
He wanted her. He was cool, unenthusiastic, and not
used to being thwarted. He would think her disincli-
nation for him a mere freak, which he could easily
overcome. Her father, too, would so declare it. And
might it not be so ? she asked herself. He had en-
deavored to please her. He would probably be kind to
her ; and, at any rate, all the pleasures to be procured
by affluence and society would be at her command.
He had travelled, and in particulars and details, could
make himself interesting. He would soon go to Eu-
rope again, her father had told her, and she should go
with him, thus fulfilling a dream of her youth which
had so often transported her to the scenes of the old
world. Love ? well, would she ever really love any
one as she had fancied ? Would she ever see any one to
love thus ? She could only answer that her ideal had
not appeared. But if he should appear, what then ?
God alone could tell. It seemed to her that her father
did not appreciate her nature, that he could not un-
derstand the .depths of her feeling ; but only judged of
her as of others about her, whom she felt to be more
selfish and frivolous. But had he not experienced all
that had agitated her ? Perhaps so, and that all had
passed away as her illusions would vanish. Oh, yes !
he must know best. Yet she trembled, as though fate
itself thrilled her with a denial of the thought. There
was a clogging, painful sensation in her chest, as if an
opinion, gross and monstrous, had become a material
substance, and lodged there.
She went to the window, and threw back the cur-
2*
18 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
tains. The day had been murky and dismal. But as
she stood there, a flood of sunshine poured out of the
heavens, and filled the horizon. It lasted but a mo-
ment ; then all was again gray and sombre.
Stella had scarcely a tinge of superstition in her
mind. But her eye was quick to note all phases of
nature that appeared applicable to persons and condi-
tions of feeling. She paid no attention to them as
signs or warnings ; but they intensified her emotions.
" Foolish child that I am ! " she exclaimed, " yet
what if I should sometime stand for an instant in the
sunlight of an absorbing fondness, then be thrust back
again into the remorseless, abiding gloom ! "
When New-year's had passed, Stella returned to
school. She was more sad and thoughtful than for-
merly, but confided her feelings to nd one, and uttered
no complaints. She had grown dreamy, and seemed
constantly debating within herself, some question that
she could not decide. Still, her conduct was not such
as to cause remark. Her recitations were as promptly
and faithfully rendered as ever. Only when she sat at
the piano, and there threw out her soul in strains \vhich
seemed to sob, and beg, and bewail ; to rave, to pray,
to doubt and tremble, only then was it plain to those
to whom music was a living tongue, that there was a
weight upon her soul, a terror within her heart.
As the term drew to a close, she prepared to leave
the school, and proceed home to fulfil her father's
behest. Her heart had succumbed to his will.
" Yes," she said, " I must do as Fate and he to-
gether demand."
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 19
Sad and tearful, but loaded with compliments and
prizes, Stella bade adieu to Madame de Villier, and in
a few hours was once again in her father's mansion.
Two months from that day she was married, and be-
came Mrs. J. Z. Torson. Forgive her: she was not
yet eighteen.
CHAPTER II.
MR. AND MRS. TORS ON, after making an
American tour of about a month's duration,
during which they visited some of the most notable
places in the country, repaired to their residence in
Boston, where they remained a few days, and then
sailed for England.
Stella had not loved her husband when he was her
lover, nor had she since learned to love him more.
But she had determined to be a reasonable and faithful
wife. This was all he could ask, she thought ; for he
had known her feelings when he took her.
She had anticipated much pleasure from her visit to
the old world. To look upon the parent countries of
her own fair land, had been, as we have seen, one of
the constant longings of her youth. But she connected
their distinguished places, their time-worn edifices, their
charming natural scenes, with momentous epochs full
of aspiration and endeavor, and with majestic men or
noble women who had made them hallowed. Apart
from these, palaces, parks, or ruined piles of granite,
had no more interest for her than other grand or beau-
tiful objects, which she could see without the fatigue
and exposure of travel. They were pleasant enough,
(20)
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 21
even to the eye alone ; but she demanded that, in
viewing them, the eye should reflect upon the soul, en-
lightment and elevation.
Her husband was wholly different. He could give
her the square feet of St. Paul's, and catalogue its dec-
orations ; he could point out the statues and relics of
kings, or queens, or lords, and gaze on them with
reverence, whether the dead had, when living, done
aught but eat, drink, and misgovern, or whether their
presence and action had been a lever and a blessing to
the race. He could designate castles, altars, monu-
ments, telling when they were built, their height, and
bulk, and material. Then he supposed he had told all
that was to be said. 'He delighted in meeting and
associating with the nobility, and could remember the
day or hour when he conversed with Lord Bigburgh,
or was at the palace of the Earl of Sundryland. For
the sake of their society, he would cater to their tastes,
their desires or excesses. To him, they were the dis-
tinguished men of the realm.
But Stella cared nothing for them, or for their society
and attentions. A few of their number she would have
delighted to honor for their large public capacity and
worth, which she had read of, and well understood.
But she felt that she would not consume the time of
these great and busy men, even if the opportunity were
offered her. She venerated real power and nobleness
so highly, that the famed possessors of these qualities
were like distant and almost sacred beings to her. But
titled mediocrity, still more, titled vulgarity, however
lofty they appeared to others, she looked upon partly
with indifference, partly with pity.
22 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
She could not, at this time, fully understand her own
nature why she lived in the world, or what she most
desired in it. She was, however, a persistent, though
unconscious realist, searching below customs and con-
ventionalities, for their meaning and essence, and through
the multiplied ambitions, endeavors, and performances
of men, to the underlying spirit and end.
Her husband's mind dwelt wholly amid surfaces
the commonplace affairs and spectacles of the world
and could no more comprehend hers, than Bonaparte,
with all his boasted knowledge of ordinary persons
Frenchmen and others could comprehend a patriot or
saint. Mr. Jabed Torson thought, too, that all which
he could not appreciate in his young wife, was senti-
mental and girlish ; that her enthusiasms were weak-
nesses with which no man like him should be soft
enough to sympathize.
She plainly read this opinion in his words and
actions, and felt, for her part, that, like most others, he
was merely one side of a man : that his mind was
stationary and executive, without the perception of en-
largement and progression ; that he had practical tal-
ent, but no spiritual insight. To him, she was " an
idealist," a word which he used without knowing its
meaning, except that it signified something for which
his own nature had no correlative, and consequently
something which must be dreamy, exaggerative, and
futile. But to her, he was no mystery. She could de-
fine and classify him, placing him where he belonged ;
because she possessed the properties of his nature
the practical, the definite and with them also, even
at this time, the . perception of higher properties by
which those were included.
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 23
But he was her husband ; and she must love, honor,
and obey him, as she had promised to do by becoming
his bride. Indeed, she had no inclination to disregard
the obligations of a faithful wife; though at times,
when enraptured by some mighty work of nature or
of art, she longed, with a full heart, for a companion to
whom the scene would not be one of mere cubic mag-
nitude and regularity, or solely of material wealth and
grandeur.
Stella remained in England about six weeks, when,
Mr. Torson's business being at an end, they crossed
" the Channel," and were in France. Stella had not
seen in Britain all that she had desired and expected to
see ; but she was quite willing to leave it, and now
looked forward with equal willingness to the time when
she should quit France and return to Boston. In a
foreign land, the one nearest her person far from her
heart, in spite of her efforts to love him as a duty
he having little real sympathy with her in the objects
which most interested her, and sometimes deprecating
her loftiest qualities, of which he had 110 adequate con-
ception she had become weary of the very objects
from which she anticipated deriving the most pleasure.
Her stay in France was brief and unsatisfactory ; and,
in another month, it was a relief to be again in New
York, at her father's house. There she was to remain
a few days, before proceeding to Boston.
" Well, Stella," inquired Mr. Maign, soon after her
arrival, " didn't I do a pretty good thing for you, after
all ? "
"I fear not," she replied. "I shall have much to
forgive you. But we cannot improve the matter now.
24 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
1 shall try to do my duty, and shall do my best to be
content."
Mr. Torson could not help observing that, although
Stella was kind and gentle to him, it was from a sense
of right, not from love. He eould not fail to see that,
sometimes, when she could not impose her wonted re-
straint upon herself, she appeared to regard him as only
her conventional lord, but as her real and natural infe-
rior. This irritated him almost beyond endurance.
Only a thoughtful and noble man, as we have often
heard, can bear the self-consciousness of superiority in
a woman.
In society he was proud of Stella, and not without
cause. As soon as she became fairly settled in her
new home, she had paid more attention than ever to
her music, as by it she expressed to herself all her joys,
her regrets, and sorrows. And when, in social circles,
she sat at the piano, she was at once the queen of a
charmed and almost breathless group of listeners. Her
rather tall and perfectly symmetrical figure ; her fine
shoulders ; her delicate features, not strictly of the fem-
inine Grecian mould, but rather suggestive of the intui-
tive, thoughtful, Grecian spirit as a whole ; her long,
heavy hair, dressed low at the sides, with no ornament
save its own large glossy twist at the back, seemed
to reanimate, with bat little change, the simplicity and
power of antique classic beauty. Her appe'arance itself
was an instantaneous assertion of the delight which her
first touch of the keys would certainly afford. Others
were often asked to play out of compliment, or to fill
up the time ; she, never except for the pure gratifica-
tion to be derived from the music itself. Her perform-
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 25
ance was always unaffected and genuine, never for
the sake of performance, never with any attempt at
display of execution. Every note was palpable, per-
fect, and in its place. But all endeavor, all labor, was
subordinate to the end deliciousness of sound har-
mony and still deeper, the expression of emotions,
and even powers of nature, by this entrancing utterance
of the boundless. Children would gather round her,
delighted with some gay waltz or polka the ear alone
tickled with time and tune ; young men and maidens
would name some piece which, as she played it, would
utter in melody, perhaps unconsciously to themselves,
their own vague ideas and dreamy longings. Then, if
she struck up the air of a powerful song, or some deep,
threatening march, through which she was now and
then secretly wont to throw off her combative and dis-
agreeable emotions, a sensitive person could scarcely
listen without clenched hands and the fire of conflict in
his eye. To be sure, most of the sturdy, moneyed
friends and acquaintances of Mr. Torson were not
people who, with Novalis, thought to music, delving to
find its inmost spirit. But they could easily perceive
its outward fascination, and thus compliment Stella
with earnest looks and words of unfeigned admiration.
Yes, Jabed Torson was proud of his wife on such
occasions, and pleased with the praises bestowed on one
of his possessions. It would have been the same,
though no doubt in a somewhat less degree, had the
encomiums been lavished upon his carriage or country
residence. He knew that Stella played remarkably
well. He could even enjoy the music himself, to a
limited extent. But he regarded the wondrous gift as
26 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
merely an expert and graceful accomplishment, which
his position and his money encouraged and sustained.
Stella continued to cherish it, because she loved it.
Her piano was now one of her chief comforts, a par-
tial solace for many regrets and wearisome reflections.
Mr. Torson had, in his house, what would be termed
a handsome library. It contained a fair proportion of
the miscellaneous works of the time. As a book be-
came fashionable, or was talked of, he bought it, some-
times looking into it, but much oftener placing it on a
shelf where others could see it, and know that it be-
longed to his collection. Old books, which the ages
had venerated which there was high authority for
possessing, if not reading were better represented
there than any others : they gave repute to the whole
assemblage. The poets had their allotted space, but
were seldom so much as glanced at by the owner of the
volumes. Modern thinkers, too, had their position on
the shelves, but small place in Mr. Torson's mind.
The Journal of Commerce, a paper published in New
York, was, in general, his daily literature.
But for Stella, this library became every day a richer
treasure. She was not disposed to be a book-worm,
to hunt amidst the dust of the ages for words, and
maxims, and innumerable facts. She was not disposed
to convert herself into an encyclopedia. So many his-
torical incidents and actions seemed to proceed from
some one impulse, or foible, or desire, that she regarded
it frivolous and mechanical to catalogue a thousand
symbols of the same thing. She sought rather for the
cause, the explanation, and end of the desire or emo-
tion itself, out of which the multiplicity of facts pro-
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 27
ceeded. Her soul asked questions which ordinary-
minds that she met in her parlors, and stronger, but
not deeper minds, such as she commonly heard from
the pulpit or rostrum, could not answer. Partly on
this account, partly to lure her thoughts from immedi-
ate distasteful surroundings, she spent many hours in
her husband's library, while he was on State street or
at the Revere House, as his business or his leisure dic-
tated.
As Stella had intimated in conversation with her
father, Mr. Torson had not always in his younger days
been strict in morals, though discreet and guarded in
manners. We know that such men, when advanced
in life, especially if they have young wives, are the
most exacting and suspicious of husbands.
As Mr. Torson knew that Stella had only kindness,
not love for him, he had occasionally asked himself if
any one else enjoyed, or had ever engaged her affection.
But her unexceptionable deportment in society, and
her coveted seclusion at home, gave him no chance for
a response injurious to her. One peculiarity offended
him, as he watched her in the social circle. When
occasionally some young thinker, uninterested in the
ordinary topics of the street and the drawing-room,
would speak to her of an interior meaning to some
strain of music, or to some painting or statue, or would
allude to certain men whose names were largely un-
der the ban of popular odium, but who had, as she
knew, devoted their time, their lives and fortunes, to
elevating public sentiment, and particularly to lifting
their countrymen up to the principle of universal free-
dom, her eye kindled with an admiring enthusiasm,
28 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
she lost all restraint, and speaking from the depths of
her soul, her face beamed upon her companion with
sympathetic generosity and fervor.
" What a fool she is," muttered her husband, when
he saw her thus ; " I believe she could love a painter
or scribbler, while she would make nothing of snub-
bing a governor ! How many grandiloquent words she
has, too, for those miserable devils, the fanatics, who
have wellnigh brought the country to disruption and
ruin ! Bah ! she makes me sick of her ! "
But he never discovered anything else in her con-
duct, to afflict him with sickness of head or heart.
Mr. Torson and Stella lived thus together, " very
pleasantly," as people said, " she having everything
that heart could wish, and he proud of so beautiful
and accomplished a wife."
But on the fourth anniversary of their marriage, he
was suddenly and severely attacked with a malady
which seemed at first much like bilious colic (un-
pleasant even to speak of), but which settled into a
fever, and finally affected his brain. His physician de-
clared that he could not live.
The day preceding the first attack, he had attended
a large dinner at the Revere House, given in honor of
a distinguished Southern politician, who had many
times threatened the dissolution of the Union and the
cessation of Southern trade, unless slavery, the para-
mount interest of his section, should be more effectu-
ally established and supported. Boston merchants and
lawyers conservative men of wealth, influence, and
standing had met him on this occasion, to toast his
sentiments, and to show him that no one of conse-
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 29
quence in the city, possessed the smallest particle of
unfriendliness for him, or held any weak, fanatical
opinions regarding the chivalrous South.
Mr. Torson was a forward and delighted participant
in these festivities. He was eager to eat with, drink
with, smoke with, and in every way felicitate, the great
and distinguished guest. He showed much capacity
for solids and fluids, and was profuse and voluble in his
attentions. But alas ! his geniality was too sumptuous
for his health ! He passed one troubled, confused night,
then grew dangerously ill, and in five days the banquet
of life had itself closed. Jabed Z. Torson was dead.
Stella had faithfully attended him during these five
days, and had bestowed upon his distress every allevia-
tion that kindness and duty could suggest. She had
even wished, as she saw him lying helpless before her,
that Heaven had given her a commoner nature, and
that she could have sympathized with her husband,
and loved him. But she had done what she could,
and now, at twenty-two years of age, she was a widow.
3*
CHAPTER III.
Torson is dead. Very sudden, isn't it ? What
a magnificent fortune he must have left his wife !
o
I've heard he was worth half a million."
Such were the remarks which Mr. Loudun Braigh
addressed to Simeon Ecrit, Esq., Mr. Torson's attor-
ney, the morning after Mr. T.'s death.
" Not so much," replied the attorney. " 'Twill do
no harm to speak of it now, and to you. 'Tis a good
deal under half a million ; but then, 'tis a clean three
hundred and fifty thousand. But Torson was a man
of sense ; he was rather particular about putting even
that modest sum completely into the hands of his wife.
He had his wits about him, and she, you know, is
touched with some slight peculiarities. Besides, her
father's money went by the board in '57, a year after
her marriage ; and of late, he and Torson haven't been
such good friends as formerly. I suspect Jabed desired
that the old man shouldn't have too much benefit from
anything the daughter could control. Anyhow, there
are certain pretty little provisions and restrictions in the
will. But she can be comfortable enough if she
O
pleases, notwithstanding."
The fact was, as Mr. Ecrit continued to explain, that
(30)
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 31
Mr. Torson had devised to Stella, as long as she should
remain unmarried, any sum not exceeding ten thousand
dollars annually, that she might choose to expend for
her own support and convenience.
He premised that he wished her to live like a lady,
as his wife always had done. But he had noticed traits
of her character which he had been reluctantly obliged
to condemn. He thought her imaginative far more
than practical ; and not likely to use his fortune, if
placed entirely at her disposal, in a manner that, if liv-
ing, would merit his approbation. He had observed,
too, that she admired, not only works of art, together
with poetry and literature generally, but that her
nature inclined her also to the producers of these
things ; and as they were seldom competent, either to
appreciate money or to take- proper care of a wife, he
had determined that, if he could prevent it, neither his
wife nor his fortune should fall to the lot of any indi-
vidual of their class.
Moreover, Stella, unlike himself, had a tendency to
particular fanaticisms. He had no doubt that a design-
ing man, by an appeal to her sympathies, could per-
suade her to give thousands of dollars to the cause even
of abolition itself, which had always received his fre-
quent and hearty curse. He had resolved that his
money should float in no such channel.
Considering all these matters, he had concluded to
make her an annual provision of the ten thousand dol-
lars, or any smaller amount which she might wish to
draw for the actual expenses of living, for conducting
her household, travelling, etc.
He had provided that the remainder of the income
32 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
should be employed for the accumulation of the prin-
cipal.
No part of Stella's income was to be drawn by her,
except for the actual purposes specified ; and in no one
year was she to expend in charity, more than three
hundred dollars, a sum which he thought sufficient
for any lady of sane mind to dispose of in that way.
His house was to be retained as a part of the estate ;
and he made a moderate yearly allowance for improve-
ments and changes upon the place, and repairs of
equipage. This residence was designed for the occu-
pancy of his widow.
But if she should marry, or should disregard any of
the specifications of his will, she should be at once de-
prived of her income, and all benefit arising from his
property, except one third, the value of the residence,
furniture, etc. her lawful claim on his only real
estate.
In such case, the entire residue of the property was
to go to one Clara Summers, a niece, whom he had
seen but once, but who was supposed to be resident
somewhere at the South ; unless, indeed, she had died
there, in which event the estate was to be devoted to
the diffusion of arguments and facts opposed to the
" disseminations of the American Anti-Slavery Society,"
and to the lamentable tendency to " rationalism, tran-
scendentalism, and other forms of infidelity," which he
stated that he had observed were fast gaining ground
throughout New England.
O
But in case his wife should do nothing, during her
life, to deprive herself of the advantages of his will,
at her death the fortune was still to go to Clara Sum-
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 33
mers, if living, and if not, to be divided among the
heirs of one of his distant relatives, who was himself
very wealthy.
Thus Stella was left the serf of a considerable for-
turfe. She was surrounded by every material comfort
and luxury that her tastes could crave, but was debarred
from opening her heart to love, or her conscience and
generosity to their natural action and satisfaction. On
the other hand, if she sought to free herself from her
' O
bondage disregarding the will and spurning its aid
it would immediately be turned against objects and
ideas which she regarded as the most sacred and benefi-
cent then agitating the mind and heart of the world.
For Clara Summers, evidently a Southern woman,
would doubtless use the property in Southern fashion,
investing perhaps the whole of it in slaves. Or if she
were dead, the matter would be yet worse, the
money being hurled directly against the mental and
moral revolutions of New England, which, instead of
anarchical and infidel in their tendency, as Mr. Torson
had considered them, Stella deemed grand, and highly
important to the progress of the human race.
She felt as if bound hand and foot ; which had of
course been intended by her husband. His interest in
political questions had been keen, and his negative
attachment to certain religious forms had been conspic-
uous ; but not sufficient to secure his deliberate inten-
tion to award them his whole property. His will was
unmistakably designed to be a chain for Stella, which,
with her ideas and convictions, would irresistibly fetter
her to a course of life prescribed by his wishes.
CHAPTER IV.
MR. JABED Z. TORSON died in September,
1860. Stella appeared at the funeral in deep
mourning, which she continued to wear during that
month and the one following, and then exchanged for
less heavy and dismal, but still plain dark colors.
Her independence of thought had for several years
led her to interrogate fashions and customs of all kinds.
" These sombre weeds," she said to herself, " are the
natural expression of our emotions when we are obliged
to resign a friend to the dead. We are sad within ;
how can we be gay without ? If we loved and re-
spected the one who is with us no more, we receive a
melancholy solace, as well as food for our self-respect,
in bearing with us a constant suggestion of his former
presence, and of the void now caused by his absence.
How could we be worthy of the departed if we should
not constantly think of him? should not constantly
surround ourselves with objects impelling us so to
think? Thus the custom inevitably sprung from
human sentiments, and when not carried to a hollow
mockery or a formal excess, it is appropriate and beau-
tiful. Other sentiments, however, which are less ad-
mirable, often mingle in it. Material minds generally
(34)
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 35
associate death with fearful gloom and ungainly terror.
They have painted him as a bony skeleton on a spec-
tral horse. These follies sometimes enter into their
mourning robes, which are then typical of mysterious
blackness. Faith is not beneath them, and nothing
bright can be seen beyond the solid earth. Could we
behold the spirits of those who have passed away from
us, being ourselves able to rise above our own selfish
sorrow at the separation, I suppose we should follow
them to the tomb with roses on our brows, rejoicing
that, if noble and beautiful of soul, they had gone to a
sphere of increased and increasing enjoyment, and if
gross and sensual here, they had now become freed
from the temptations and downwardness of a bulky
body, and by being severed from it, could have scope
for the reception of higher powers and satisfactions than
it had been possible for them even to imagine, much
less to know."
Stella could not feel that her husband's condition had
been changed for a worse, by his death ; nor could she
mourn him for her own sake, like one who had been
loved by him, had been understood and trusted. But
she deemed it proper to respect the usual customs of the
society around her, and to act as nearly as she could,
in accordance with, what she thought would be his own
wishes.
Her most immediate reason for such compliance,
was, perhaps, that she would not tolerate in herself the
smallest vengeful impulse toward Mr. Torson, on ac-
count of the narrowness of his will. As he had exhib-
ited meanness, she must beware of entertaining hatred.
She must not condescend in anger, to even an appear-
ance of insult.
36 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
Mr. Torson's mansion was closed to music and fes-
tivities : there was silence in the unopened shutters, and
an air of solemnity in the faces of even the domestics.
So it remained several months; and there, a placid
young woman with mild voice and tender eye, seemed
to lament, though with sufficient moderation, the de-
cease of a worthy husband.
Indeed, Stella felt that, even if he were not greatly
missed, there was sufficient cause for quiet consideration,
if not for mourning, in the strangely-fettered circum-
stances in which she had been placed, and in the mis-
taken endeavors of those who, when she was scarcely
more than a child, had thrust her forward to such an
untoward destiny.
But she did not complain of her lot with peevish in-
anition. She settled into it serenely, with the determi-
nation to consider, carefully and leisurely, what she
could best do for her own happiness and that of others.
As Mr. Ecrit observed in his colloquy with Mr.
Braigh, her father had lost his property. He had been
obliged to sell even his house, the house of her in-
fancy and childhood. It was through no fault of his.
He was an energetic and able merchant, as it was his
ambition to be. But he had become involved in large
transactions with parties whose credit was unlimited,
and whose resources were supposed to be almost un-
bounded. Then came the "panic" of '57. Every
merchant began to distrust his neighbor. The alarm
increased. The best paper, thrown on Wall street,
could not be converted into money without an enormous
sacrifice, if at all. But he had resolved, as he said, to
" go through." His notes, which, in the height of the
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 37
calamity, amounted to fifty thousand dollars a week,
" must and should every one be paid." At first he
sacrificed thousands of dollars in real-estate and the best
fabrics, rather than " suspend." Then came a large
loss through fire and the insolvency of several insurance
companies which had been presumed to be perfectly
sound. At last the notes of some Eastern manufac-
turers, whose paper, as everybody had declared, was
"A No. 1 " the best, or as good as any in America
proved almost valueless not worth fifteen cents on
the dollar. Mr. Maign held a large amount of this
paper, and when it was protested, he could no longer
meet his own notes. Still, perhaps, he might have
weathered the storm, and come out with a little canvas
flying, a few thousands left, but as previously he
had been over-confident and self-reliant, now he was
wholly dispirited. He became emaciated and sleepless,
and it was even feared that he would be insane. He
allowed his property to pass into other hands for settle-
ment, and soon it was reported on 'change that Rums
Maign was " completely wound up."
He was now a poor man, unable to commence busi-
ness anew in his own name. But, his depression gone,
his knowledge of trade made him a valuable assistant to
others, and he could still live comfortably. Yet this
was a steep and long descent for so proud a man. Be-
sides, he had lived in affluence twenty-five years, be-
coming so fully accustomed to wealth, with its many
attendant. luxuries, that the loss of his mansion or his
carriage was like the amputation of a limb. He could
not resign himself to such a fate. He had no ambition
but a commercial one, and no simple, inexpensive tastes,
4
88 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
by the gratification of which he could pleasurably oc-
cupy his mind.
Stella pitied him with all her heart. Moreover, as
he had imperiously insisted on her marriage, and as the
older she had grown, the more her heart had been
estranged from his, she was fearful that, in not wholly
respecting his characteristics, she might also be prone to
overlook a daughter's duty toward a parent now un-
fortunate and fast growing aged. Here was a point
upon which she was extremely sensitive ; and she de-
termined to soothe his declining years by every comfort
that she could possibly offer him.
Thanks either to an oversight of Mr. Torson, or else
to a mitigating disinclination on his part to prevent her
from making any congenial or conscientious use of her
income, he had indirectly left one way open in the will,
for her to aid her parents. He had not specified whom
she should have in her house, what company she should
receive, or how much she should pay any person or
persons for managing her household, if she should
choose to put it in charge of others than herself.
In fact, the will paid her one very flattering compli-
ment. It explicitly forbade the bringing of an action
against her for breaking it, provided that when any
question might arise on the subject, she should first sol-
emnly affirm that she had neither avoided nor infringed
any of its provisions.
Mr. Torson asserted, in this connection, that what-
ever might be his wife's faults and singularities which
he wished to correct, he had never known her to devi-
ate, in a single instance, from what she regarded the
exact truth ; and he firmly believed she would forego
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 39
all the benefits of his fortune rather than tell a down-
right lie.
Mr. Ecrit, when drawing up the document, had in-
clined to sneer at this clause, intimating that it would
counteract all the others. But Mr. Torson told him
that he knew what he was about, and needed no dicta-
tion ; that the will began by affirming him to be in
sound mind, which he felt himself to be. Moreover,
he begged the attorney to bear in mind that it was his
will they were preparing, not that gentleman's own.
Mr. Ecrit thereupon proceeded without further com-
ment, and the testament was completed.
Stella gladly owned that, in this one instance, her
husband had done her justice. It filled her with sur-
prise. She could with difficulty understand how he
could so implicitly trust a conscience which he could
still so meanly restrain. But she was thankful that he
had comprehended her even sufficiently to rely thus
upon one virtue, her sincerity.
" It is true," said she, " that ' we can see only that
which we ourselves are.' He, too, possessed a sort of
coarse, common honesty, and could accredit me with
unbending truthfulness. He meant well in other
things, I doubt not, as far as he could see ; but his
higher perceptions were dwarfed and bounded. Sor-
row I must feel for him ; unkindness, why should I
cherish ? "
When Stella perceived that she could yet aid her
parents, or indeed any one else whom a young woman
of rectitude could include in her household, she wrote
to her father, stating that as his daughter, fully appre-
ciating his pride and his former independent position,
40 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
she blushed to make him a proposition which she was
about to offer, though still she felt it proper, and even
necessary to her own happiness, to do so.
" You know, my dear father," she continued, " that
I am young, and, as you used to say, rather ' enthusi-
rnusy.'* Especially during the last year or two, I have
given myself up to being musical when not literary,
and a blue-stocking when away from my piano.
" I intend to remain, at present, where I am ; yet I
don't want the trouble of superintending affairs in the
house.
" You know how I am situated, money enough, a
fine house, equipage, servants, comforts, luxuries, all
around me, and I their prisoner, a poor little chippy
in a golden cage.
" I can't lend you ten or twenty thousand dollars, as
I should like to do, and which, with your business ca-
pacity, you could treble in a few years. But I can do
something for you, nevertheless, while I can relieve
myself of many annoying cares.
" Now if you and mother will come to Boston, and
take charge of your little girl's house for her, as she
dares not give or lend, she will pay you three thousand
dollars the first year, or more if you desire it. Then
you can do some sort of business, and be with business
men, just as well on our Washington or State street,
as on your Broadway or Wall street. Why not ?
" My carriage, too, shall always be at your disposal,
and you can ride as often as you like. Now it is idle
and almost useless. As for myself, I scarcely ever
ride ; as when I go into the street, I need a walk ;
and, like most of our ladies, I get too little air and
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 41
exercise at that. Once in awhile I ride out to Cam-
bridge or Mount Auburn. But you can have the car-
riage six days in the week, and with my company for
one or two rides, you can have it the whole seven.
" Mother may arrange everything in the house to
suit herself, except the library and a small room next
it, which I am going to turn into a kind of retired mu-
sical sanctum. These two apartments will be conse-
crated to my own tastes and habits, to order or disor-
der, silence or sound. All the rest may be as nice and
as much like old times as you please.
" Tell mother how much I need her, and do come
as soon as you can.
" Lovingly,
STELLA."
Mr. Maign was deeply affected by this letter. Like
so many daily occurrences in the world, it caused him
both pleasure and sadness. It seemed, at first thought,
a terrible event, for that haughty merchant, whose
mustache was now gray, to become a dependant upon
his daughter. Yet such a fate promised him the indul-
gence of all his former habitudes, with even the means
of gradually mending his fortune. He was touched,
too, by the manner in which Stella made him her
offer, by the feeling of need which she expressed for
having him and her mother near her, and her delicacy
in volunteering to give up to them the arrangement of
almost her whole house, that they might feel at home
in it.
" The dear child ! " he exclaimed, " she would do
this too ; she who was always so particular herself,
4*
42 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
and from childhood had the best taste imaginable!
Well, she is as singular as ever. I never did know
exactly what to make of her ways. But she is the
best girl in the world: I'm sure of it. Besides, she
shrunk so from the marriage ! Yes, we will go and live
with her ; and perhaps I shall learn something in my
old age ; who knows ? "
Accordingly, Mr. and Mrs. Maign went to Boston,
where they were soon settled in the Torson mansion.
The old gentleman made arrangements to close up
some few debts that still hung over him, and to engage
again in business. As he became accustomed to State
street, he forgot to pine for Wall street, and as Stella
converted her stately house into his home, he could
even recall the Fifth Avenue without a shrug of the
shoulders or a sigh.
CHAPTER V.
OEVERAL months passed quietly away, during
^ which Stella remained with her parents in their
new home. Much of the time she was secluded in the
two rooms she had set apart for herself, and every one
in the house became accustomed to her habits of soli-
tude.
But a few days before the beginning of April, in
the spring following her husband's death, she prepared
to leave Boston for a brief visit to Ironton, where she
had spent three years of her girlhood with Madame de
Villier.
While at school she had formed several pleasant at-
tachments ; but Cora Clandon, a girl of about her own
age, had been her favorite and most intimate friend.
Cora Clandon, like Stella, was the daughter of an
enterprising merchant. But he was older than Mr.
Maign, and had retired from business with a large
property. His wife was dead, and Cora was his only
daughter. He had one son who was in the army, and
was most of the time absent from home.
Cora was a pleasant, handsome person, not much like
Stella, but very fond of her. Her nature was lighter
and gayer than her friend's, but she was very brilliant,
(43)
44 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
good-hearted, and agreeable. She was constantly
striving to please Stella, while at school, almost every
day bringing her delicacies from home, and making her
little presents. She regarded her, in fact, with an
affection only less ardent than she would have felt for
a lover. When they had parted, she had made Stella
promise to visit her sometime, and had written to her
occasionally, ever since. Stella's marriage, and the
four years or more which had now elapsed, made no
difference with Cora. She had visited her friend in
Boston, and was still determined that the promise
should be fulfilled.
Stella thought that a slight change would be benefi-
cial to her health and spirits, while it would be very
pleasant to revisit the scenes of her school-days, at the
same time gratifying Cora. The season was forward,
the weather already sunny and genial. She sent Cora
a few lines to tell of her approach, and the day after
the letter was received, she herself arrived at Iron ton.
Not long afterward, as she sat chatting with Cora, a
young gentleman called. Cora introduced him as Mr.
Merlow, and when she addressed him, she familiarly
called him Charley. He was a person rather above
the medium height, of slender proportions, quick and
someAvhat angular motions, having keen, but frank, ex-
pressive eyes, and short curling brown hair. When he
spoke,* there was noticeable in some of his words the
trifling difference between the New England and the
New York pronunciation, and Stella at once located
him as a Massachusetts boy who had spent more or less
of his time a little west of that State.
" It will be a fine evening for those exercises," said
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 45
he to Cora, after they had conversed some minutes on
general topics, and he had addressed a few pleasant re-
marks to Stella. " I suppose there is nothing to pre-
vent your going with me."
Then he looked suddenly up, first at Stella, and from
her to Cora, as though he had spoken carelessly, and
was annoyed at it.
"I must disappoint you, Charley," replied Cora,
" unless my friend would like to go too ; and I think
she had better not: she has been in the cars all the
morning, and will be tired to-night.
" We were speaking, Stella," she continued, " of the
closing exercises of a literary society that Mr. Merlow
is interested in. The members close the season, this
evening, with ' efforts of overflowing eloquence, effu-
sions of inspiriting poetry, and accordant examples of
impassioned song,' as one of our newspapers has it : all
of which means, I presume, that they are to have a
pleasant affair.
" Now I don't care about it at all," she added, smil-
ing, " except that this young man invited me to attend
with him, and hear a poem read by a friend of his,
whom he calls superior, profound, and many other nice
adjectives. The friend evidently has no taste ; for he
has been invited several times by Mr. Merlow, to come
here with him and call on me, which the youth has
never done. But not wanting to break Mr. Merlow's
heart over a small matter, I accepted his invitation, and
we were to hear the poem to-night. Now there's the
whole story ; and the point of it is, that I shall be de-
lighted, not to go with you, Charley, but to stay at
home with you, Stella."
46 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
Charley Merlow's dark eyes leaped and capered at
this sally.
"Good!" he exclaimed, "but I hereby invite and
implore your friend, Mrs. Torson, to accompany us.
Who knows but she may herself prefer hearing the
poem, to the enjoyment of your charming though soli-
tary attention ? "
Thus appealed to, Stella said that she should be much
pleased to go ; that she could not, in fact, be persuaded
to withstand the temptation of such an entertain-
ment.
Her decision settled the matter, and at the appointed
hour they started for the hall in which the exercises
were to be held.
On the way, Charley Merlow talked incessantly
about his friend, Earnest Acton. The subject of his
poem was to be, " Chivalry."
" It is a minor effort," said he, " what Earnest him-
self calls a little affair, something he has almost ex-
temporized. I haven't seen it ; but I am sure of one
thing he never writes a line that is not thoughtful, at
least. He has had a more than ordinary inward ex-
perience, and never thinks or speaks from mere au-
thority. His mind has much less than the customary
respect for names, and perhaps much more than the
customary veneration for men whom he regards as the
exponents of truth. It grasps individuals, standards
and customs, not accepting them because they are such,
but demanding on what final and absolute grounds they
rest. Comparatively few think and act from such a
stand-point."
Stella was much interested in these observations.
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 47
She was aware that friendship easily praises the objects
which attract it ; but this criticism touched her own ex-
perience, and a part of it seemed as though it might
have been said of herself. She felt that she already
liked Mr. Merlow, and was prepared to look with favor
on his friend.
As for Cora, she bantered, and laughed at her escort,
the whole way, telling him that he repeated Mr. Acton's
ideas constantly, and was " a second little Bozzy, with
by no means a second Dr. Johnson."
CHAPTER VI.
AS soon as Earnest Acton appeared on the rostrum,
Stella remembered having somewhere seen his
face. But her attention immediately recurred to his
poem, which was as follows :
" In ages old, but when those lands were young
Which gave the fathers of our fathers birth ;
When Europe, strong of arm and fierce of tongue,
Had newly broken from the sombre girth
" Of tangled forests which encompassed her ;
When men almost as savage a^ the beast,
Had bristled out from wilds of oak and fir,
Slaying the Roman Empire for a feast ;
" And by their strife to root all culture up,
Had shaken off a portion of their own
Huge shagginess had learned to taste the cup
Of that refinement first despised alone ;
" In those old times which wear the name of ' good,'
When worldly honor shone but from the sword ;
W T hen all of labor save the trade in blood
The battle's reeking barter was ignored ;
" When kingship's pride was to dethrone a king ;
A noble's, to subject nobility ;
(48)
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 49
And strength and will to slay a foe, the thing
Most sought, and felt the greatest need to be ;
" When freedom was by chance of birth controlled,
And man as man, in vain the boon might crave ;
When he who sowed and reaped, or bought and sold,
Or delved the arts, was everywhere a slave ;
" In ' good old times ' like these for such they were
When rudeness was the background of the scene,
And in the front, with warriors circling her,
Arrayed most loosely, Anarchy sat queen :
" One figure gleamed with bright attractive mien,
Though belted like the rest, and wrapped in steel ;
For sense of duty, like its armor's sheen,
Cased it in length of light, from head to heel.
" Its helm thrown up, there glistened on its brow,
Like diamond flash, the glow of piety ;
Not soft, but sharp ; and men began to bow,
And said with awe and fervor : ' Chivalry ! '
" The figure passed : it traversed many a land,
And grew in grandeur as it fared along ;
And sometimes, lance in rest, leisure in hand,
Attuned its spirit, thus perchance, to song :
" ' There is wrong in the world, and the strength of the flesh,
With skill like the spider, hath woven a mesh
Where the wings of the harmless, the limbs of the fair,
Are tortured and torn by the monster that's there.
" ' The castle of stone, though its lord mounts a crest
That looms as with honor, is often a nest
Whence the robber swoops down, a mere hawk on his prey,
And returns with the booty his beck reft away.
5
50 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
" ' The trader is spoiled of his wares on the road,
And they crush down the poor as ye tread on a toad ;
The highways are swarming, as bees from the hive,
With bandits whose sting scarcely leaves you alive.
" ' The pilgrim who journeys to tire out his sin,
Holy man, doing penance for that which hath been ;
Aye, even the priest, though the people revere,
Must mix with his mission the bitter of fear.
" ' And we know what a shame ! that the Mussulman horde
Rear the impious mosque near the grave of our Lord ;
That the infidel Turk has encompassed the shrine
Where once lay incarnate, the Ruler Divine !
" ' Yes, there's wrong in the world, and who shall protect,
Where the plague-spots of harm the defenceless infect,
Or where God's holy Church must to Mahomet bend,
If the arm of the knight is not raised to defend ?
"' So I wend through the world, and my home is my steed;
My shelter is serving the weak in their need ;
For though storms swell above me, or carnage sweep round,
Where I rest on good deeds, there my safety is found.
" ' My lance is a pillar that props up the saints ;
And my sword, a support when the wayfarer faints ;
My axe is a fate unbelievers confess ;
And my shield an asylum for those in distress.
" ' My course bears me East or it hurries me West,
Where a grief can be soothed, or a crime be redressed ;
God guards and rewards me, the good give me fame,
And the bad do me honor by cursing my name.'
" So sang that ancient rider, Chivalry,
And was refreshed while chanting martial deeds,
In stormy days of hate and bigotry,
Of rapines, legends, signs, and counted beads.
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 51
" Then sturdy Talbot, honest in his thought,
Had said that God, were He a man-at-arms,
Would be a pillager : as Talbot fought
For spoils, he deemed that God must feel their charms.
" Then cried La Hire, who always bent the knee
And prayed before he fought : ' O God ! be near,
And do for me, this day, what I for Thee
Would do, if I were God, Thou wert La Hire ! '
" Old stormy days, harsh men, fantastic dreams,
They lie as ashes in their stately urn,
The solemn past ; and only flitting gleams,
The ghosts of what they were, we now discern.
" But Chivalry, the generous, the grand,
Has that impassioned figure lost its fire
And chilled to ashes too ? its flaming brand
Sunk quenched in selfishness and Mammon's mire ?
" Or has it leaped the centuries, and found
Its chosen foothold, as some lips assert,
Beneath those fervid skies, on Southern ground
The ' sacred soil,' unlike all other dirt ?
" High-blooded Chivalry ! has it disdained
The world that works, and trades in common ware,
To roam where Barbarism, enervate-brained,
Struts peddling men and maids by piece or pair ?
" 'Tis there, methinks, though sadly masked and bent,
And bowed in sackcloth of self-sacrifice ;
But there, if there at all, its arm is lent
To stay oppression, help the crushed to rise.
" Its symbol never was the curling lash,
Nor ever was its boast the cringing back :
For God and man was lit, its sabre's flash
A sunbeam e'en when blood imbrued its track.
62 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
" And when no more was seen that mail-clad form,
As it had lived its time in such stern guise,
Its spirit lingered still to cheer and warm,
And lead each lofty, hallowed enterprise.
" The castle was not now the robber's den ;
His corselet shielded not the shark of gain :
A savage little imp had come to men,
To batter walls and cut them to the grain.
" They called him ' Gunpowder.' He crashed at sight,
Straight through the bandit's thickest iron hide ;
Where he appeared the vulture-flock took flight,
And despots in his presence grew sore-eyed.
" The Christians, too, such Christians as they were,
No longer rumbled East, to belch God's wrath
At those who held the holy sepulchre,
And speed each Moslem soul to endless scath.
" Two millions of their bodies strewed the way
To Palestine ! two hundred years they fought !
Still God permitted Mahomet his sway ;
Had they not done all mortals could or ought ?
" Stout Christian hearts ! there was a deeper sense
In their religion than their eyes could see :
The tomb of Jesus was its own defence,
And he had died for all humanity !
" But when what seemed a duty to perform,
Filled their horizon, and they strove, and bore,
And wrought it conscience-bound in that war-storm,
(God bless them ! ) men or saints could do no more.
" And when, the storm at end, they sank away,
Their glory arched the broad historic sky,
As though 'twere Iris, veiled in light and spray,
There smiling at their deeds through tears on high.
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 53
" Then Chivalry threw off its mail and helm,
And taking on itself a plainer suit,
It gladly entered a more modern realm,
Where newer thought was bearing richer fruit.
" Had it once slain the Mussulman, to wrench
Him from his miry faith ? iJow through the one
Itself so long had held it cut a trench,
That standing pools of life might freely run.
" It spoke from Luther's lips, when firmly braced
On conscience, he defied authority ;
When true to truth, all other powers he faced,
And said : ' Here must I stand, God helping me ! '
" It spurred Columbus to his weary task
Of groping for a .hidden continent :
To age through manhood doomed in vain to ask,
That he might bless the world, the world's consent.
" ' He dreams a golden dream,' the schoolman said ;
' Yes,' cried the priest, ' a dream of unbelief ! '
While urchins, pointing, pitied his poor head,
Who was that misty epoch's mental chief.
" But like true errant knight, his gaze was set
On God above and distant lady's smile ;
Till her, at last, our mother-land, he met,
In person of the blooming Indian isle.
" Thus rolled the orb of progress to the West,
And Chivalry, whose soul had wandered through
The olden world with each exalted breast,
From many a port took passage for the new.
" But cavaliers, who claimed its pristine shape,
Oft lost its meaning by repressing man ;
While sad as if all heaven were hung with crape,
It sojourned with the gloomy Puritan.
5*
54 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
" 'Twas far from noble then to giddy eyes ;
To them solemnity but veiled deceit.
Yet 'neath that veil, though choked with needless sighs,
Duty to God and freedom found retreat.
" When later still, the youthful continent
High prizes for heroic feats had won,
What choicest flowers of chivalry were blent
In one bright wreath the life of Washington !
" The boy who, erring, would not tell a lie ;
The chief who conquered but would not be crowned ;
Enriched by slaves, the man who would not die
Until their broken fetters touched the ground !
" Great soul exhaled, and childless borne away !
Yet Father to America the fair !
Oh ! would that she would imitate to-day
Her sire's last blessed act, his kindest care !
" ' God give her speed ! ' I heard that voice exclaim
Which filled the medieval ear with song
The voice of Chivalry and then there came
These parting accents, as it throbbed along :
" ' Still there's wrong in the world, though the features of crime
Have softened their red with the changes of time,
Since housed in the glitter of ponderous steel
I crushed the iniquities nothing could heal.
" ' The plundering chief is a handful of dust ;
His armor is food for the hunger of rust ;
For the hawk of the castle, the buzzard his shade,
Is filching the poor by extortions of trade.
"'And there breaks on my ear the fetter's dull clank,
As I heard it whilom in the realms of the Frank ;
But harsher, and sadder, and worse it must be,
Where nature established the home of the free.
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 55
" ' No hermit-led armies now surge to the East,
Though the cross has won strength, and the crescent decreased ;
From the creed of the Christian the edge of the sword,
Has been ground by the cultured to sharpness of word.
" ' But an idol has often been reared in the fold,
For the chosen to worship the Dollar of Gold !
While the spirit of faith has been bundled in form,
Until smothered itself, it was lifeless to warm.
" ' So I've leaped to the saddle for truth and the right,
And levelled their lance with a sacred delight,
Dismounting old errors and checking the new,
While freeing the many from bonds of the few.
" ' The foolish have laughed, and the heartless have sneered,
Not knowing me now as I freshly appeared ;
They have shot at me arrows empoisoned with blame,
By the venom distilled from some odious name.
" ' Then saddened when wounded, not turned from my way,
1 have fought the hard fight, gaining ground with each day ;
But I hoped that this Nation would need not again,
The blow from my hand that would leave the blood-stain.
" ' I trusted that mind, not the battle-axe broad,
Would hew roughest hatreds to kindly accord ;
Yet a monster seems raising his head for a stroke
That will drench it in crimson 'mid thunder and smoke.
" ' If oppression must die by the gash it would make,
Once again to the clangor of arms I must wake :
For the virtue heroic now leading the van,
Is fealty to God by freedom to man ! ' "
CHAPTER VII.
"TT7ELL, what do you think of my friend? and
what about the poem ? " inquired Charley Mer-
low, of the two ladies, after the exercises of the evening
had concluded.
" Yes," replied Cora, " I supposed you would ask
that, the first thing. Know, then, that the poem was
tolerable for a young man, just passable nothing
more. There wasn't a thing to laugh at from the be-
ginning to the end of it, not a single right down spicy
line, unless the one about the ' sacred soil, unlike all
other dirt ; ' and that was bitter.
" It was a fling at the South, and our Southern
brethren," she added, looking up mischievously at
Stella.
Charley Merlow laughed.
" Very well, Miss Lively," he said ; " now we have
your weighty opinion, which I know you will hold at
least five minutes; but, Mrs. Torson, may I ask for
yours ? "
He had seen from the expression of her face, that his
new acquaintance had listened to Earnest with close at-
tention and keen sympathy. Her eye had kindled with
his, and had softened as his voice was modulated to the
(56)
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 57
key of some tender or beneficent sentiment. It was
evident that she had been deeply interested. But thus
far Charley knew nothing about her, except that she
was a young widow from Boston, rich, and accustomed,
as he understood, to " the best society." He was very
naturally surprised, therefore, at this deliberate response
which she gave to his question :
" I was not disappointed, Mr. Merlow, in your
friend's poem. I will not speak like our sprightly Cora
here ; but quite as I feel. The poem seems to me a
brief history of Chivalry, a criticism on it, and an im-
personation, in the two songs, of its real spirit in ancient
and modern times. The distinction between the hero-
ism of the soldier and that of the self-sacrificing thinker,
is clearly drawn, perhaps, while I fancy that your
friend's preference for the latter is more decided than
he has portrayed it. His allusions to pseudo Chivalry,
which vaunts itself as real, because six and a half cen-
turies after Richard Coeiir de Lion, it still surrounds
itself with the worst faults and barbarisms of his epoch,
is, as Cora asserts, bitter. I think nothing on that point
can be too bitter, if spoken from the indignation of
justice, not from anger. The closing lines of the poem,
viewed from the highest possible stand-point, are not the
wisest that could be. They are local and temporary,
then* application being to immediate time and place. I
have sometimes thought that the highest art should
always close its efforts by lifting us out of locality into
what Plato has called ' that one sole science which em-
braces all : ' into insights of the infinity of absolute
wisdom, love, beauty. There the mind always finally
loses itself; there is the natural climax, the natural
58 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
peroration of all its perceptions and endeavors. But
one can hardly compress the ordinary and actual, then
time and space, into a few stanzas which he is called
upon to make interesting to a thousand different listen-
ers.
" Chivalry," she continued, " in its early and usual
sense, was, as the poem paints it, the much-needed ap-
plication of warfare, in a rude age, to justice, magna-
nimity, love, mercy. And as, in the minds of the many,
a special glory has always hovered about the pursuit of
arms, the era when the brilliant knight was lawgiver,
protector, lover, friend, has always lingered long both in
memory and imagination. But Chivalry itself its
spirit, its essence - can of course pertain as much to an
age of commerce, as to an epoch of tournaments and
courts of love. It is with us in the world ; it has
always been so. I think one of its most signal examples,
in the medieval, physical sense, was before us not long
since at Harper's Ferry. For the most exalted spirit-
ual instance known, we must look back through
eighteen centuries, to Mount Calvary and the Cross."
As Stella spoke thus, she had given herself wholly up
to the impressions presented to her mind, and for the
moment had nearly forgotten where she was, or with
whom she was conversing. It is true that her first
words were uttered partly with a special design. She
hud been really charmed with Earnest, and she wished
to know him. It seemed as though he might be a
friend with whom her inmost soul could commune. So
she had intended that her criticisms should not appear
to Charley Merlow as altogether commonplace, and
that he should repeat them to his friend. This inten-
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 59
tion had soon been overpowered by the thoughts which
pressed upon her, and she had spoken even more ideally
and enthusiastically than she anticipated.
"Upon my soul!" cried Cora, "how completely
you sermonize ! Did you ever preach, over there in
Boston, where everybody does such strange things ? I
shall have to look after you, my dear ; you never were
quite like any one else. But in these parts there is a
great deal of decorum. The ladies think highly of
Saint Paul : they don't speechify much, unless, indeed,
about the clothes and the frailties of their neighbors.
There now, your ' sprightly Cora,' as you call her, has
delivered Tier little address ; here is the moral of it."
And as they entered the hall of her father's house, she
put her arms about Stella and kissed her.
Charley Merlow said but little. He appeared to
have been stunned into a sort of deferential silence,
which pleased Cora amazingly. She kept looking at
him in a way which signified, " How now, Charley ?
Perhaps somebody else has a friend too ! "
He soon took leave of the ladies, and made straight
for Earnest.
" Great guns, my boy ! great guns ! " he exclaimed,
as soon as he saw the latter ; " I've a peach for you to
peel now blooming, ripe, and rosy a desperately
charming widow, just well, I should say just twenty-
three. I took her with Cora, to-night, to hear your
poem, and asked her opinion of it. Straightway she
threw bonnet and strings clean over the moon in her
criticism, went up out of sight, with high art, Plato,
philosophy, Richard the lion-hearted, Jerusalem, and
John Brown. You shall go with me to see her, to-
60 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
morrow night ; and if you don't talk the lights out of
her, I'll disinherit you from every penny-weight of my
affection. Now don't say no : she's Aspasia, Lucretia
(the Mott), Cleopatra, Mary Queen of Scots, and
Mother Ann Lee."
Charley finally sobered down to an explanation of
his meaning, and repeated Stella's remarks as nearly as
he could recall them.
" Now there's no need of your reading and writing,
twenty-five hours to-morrow," he persisted; "you
shall go to Cora's with me in the evening."
Earnest said that he should certainly like to meet so
charming a person as Charley had described, and that,
if he still insisted, after sleeping off his " afflatus," they
would visit her and Cora on the coming evening.
But the call was intercepted by a somewhat singular
and unpleasant occurrence.
CHAPTER VIII.
V
THE next clay, while Stella and Cora were in the
street together, they were accosted by an unusu-
ally bright, pretty child, who asked something from
Stella in chanty. The little one's feet were bare, and
she appeared to be clad in but two garments a tat-
tered dress, and a small, miserable shawl, pinned about
her head and shoulders. But her features were deli-
cate, her eyes were soft and truthful. She seemed to
possess the germs of intelligence and refinement, which
even a tolerable fate might develop into beauty and
goodness.
Stella's soul always shrank from extreme poverty,
which so generally forces upon its victims an existence
scarcely more than animal. But the sight of a pretty
little girl, thrown on the street, with its vices, to beg,
caused her the saddest pang that she ever felt for the
poor. She longed to raise every such child above a
need so wretched. But she could not help all, and she
could not refuse to help any, without feeling that per-
haps she had added an impulsion to the ultimate career
of "one more unfortunate" society's worst sorrow
and disgrace. She gave the child now before her .a few
6 (61)
62 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
bits of coin, asked where she lived, and said that she
would perhaps go to see her some time during the day.
" That child, at any rate," said she to Cora, " ought
to have one decent change of clothing, and a few kind
words to touch her with hope. She shall have them.
I will do so much for her, if I cannot do more."
Accordingly she procured a small bundle of such
articles as were required, and immediately after tea, she
and Cora started to find the house where the child lived.
It was fast growing dark ; but they expected to be
back again in half an hour. There were a few dubious
clouds to be seen, and Stella took with her a small
iron-framed umbrella.
Just east of Ironton, and on which, in fact, the city
is partly built, is a range of steep, high grounds, which
the Irontonians call " the Hill." Somewhat less than
half-way up this hill, a street called High street, runs
north and south, opposite the central and upper por-
tions of the city. One section of the street was at this
time but little more, than a road, except that a double
stone-wall, built against the upper division of the hill,
for purposes of drainage and for security against land-
slides, made a good foot-path as well as carriage-way.
It was near this portion of High street, that Stella
and Cora went in search of the little girl. It was some
time before they could find her, and when their errand
was done, it had grown pretty dark. They thought
nothing about it, however, but stepped briskly along,
intending to come down into the city by a different
cross-street. They soon came to the stone-wall ; but
as the road was hard and free from dust, they continued
on that.
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 63
From the foot-path or sidewalk above them, which
was often, in summer, the resort of promehaders, one
could look down the hill, seeing the portion of it below,
then the streets and houses, and extending the view,
could have a fine prospect beyond the city, north, south,
and west. From the east side of the road, where Stella
and Cora were now walking, all this could be seen ex-
cept the lower portion of the hill itself.
As they reached the most deserted part of the street,
yet were within a hundred and fifty yards of some
small tenant houses, they were met by a coarse, hard-
featured young man, who, as he came near them,
glanced quickly about him, then attempted to snatch
Cora's watch-chain, and tear the watch from her
pocket. Her shawl had blown aside, leaving the
chain partly exposed, and the thief's quick eye had
detected it.
But Cora's motions were almost as quick as his
glance. She instinctively sprang aside just enough to
avoid his clutch, at the same time shouting with sur-
prise and terror. She placed her hands firmly over her
watch, but trembled, and begged that she might not be
molested.
" Give it up, right away ! " said the man, " or I'll
kill you ! "
" I think not ! " sharply responded a voice, which
this time astonished all parties ; and as the words were
spoken, the blow of a fist, from a person . running,
sounded from the face and teeth of the ruffian. It
knocked him away from Cora, but though he stumbled
and staggered, he did not quite fall. He was a desper-
ate as well as cool fellow, and on recovering his bal-
64 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
ance finding that his new antagonist was unarmed
and breathing heavily, as though exhausted he drew
a short club from under his coat, and struck the man
with it, partly upon his head, partly upon his arm,
which was raised to protect the head.
" He will kill Mr. Acton," cried Cora. " Murder !
murder ! "
Stella, too, screamed, and in her exasperation she
struck the robber full across the face with her umbrella,
and broke it so that it held together only by the silk
covering.
Half a minute had passed since he attempted to
snatch the chain. Earnest Acton for it was he who
had interfered was on the ground, nearly senseless.
But still another person was now seen approaching
the group. He came running toward them, with an
uneven, bandy-legged gait, shouting, swearing, and
brandishing a huge knotted stick.
"Wait till I git forninst ye, ye divl ! " he exclaimed,
with a savage Irish accent. " Ye'll be in the middle
uv Hill afore iver ye'll murther agin ! "
But the " divl," as he was called, would not wait.
He saw that now he was fairly foiled, and the best he
could do for himself was to hurry away, which he did
with all the celerity his legs could command. In
another instant he was out of reach, and very soon out
of sight.
" Oh ! it's Jerry Kay, it's Jerry Kay ! " cried Cora,
as the Irishman came up to them. " Jerry, it's I
Cora Clandon ; you came just in time ; we were fright-
ened almost to death ! Come and help Mr. Acton ! "
" Oh ! the grace uv God now ! and is it yersilf, Miss
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 65
Clandon ? " responded Jerry. " And what mid that
thafe uv the wurld be doin' wid ye ? Luk at the way
now he's kilt Misther Acthon the nischest young
man in the city, that's allays had a good wurd for me
and the ould ooman ! If it wasn't the damn bad pair
uv ligs I have on me, I'd uv been up to the schoun-
dhrel and shlivered the brain out uv 'im ! "
And here, poor old Jerry Kay burst into tears of
sorrow and wrath.
" Misther Acthon, and are ye much hurted now ? "
sobbed he. " Shure ye wouldn't be goin' to die for the
sthroke of a blaggard ! "
But Earnest had received an ugly blow near the top
of his head, which had stunned him for the time, and
left a gash from which the blood was flowing copiously.
In a short time, however, with the assistance of Jerry,
he was able to rise. Supported by him on one side,
and by Stella on the other, he walked slowly to Jerry's
house, which was near by. There a bandage was ex-
temporized by the "ould ooman" and the young ladies,
the blood was washed from his face, and at Jerry's
urgent solicitation, he took a " small smather uv whis-
key."
*' Now, Jerry," said he, " if you can get me a car-
riage, I will ride home. Miss Clandon, if I may, I will
ask you and your friend to accompany me. The car-
riage can leave me at my door, then carry you straight
to yours."
This proposal was at once accepted ; for Ernest was
pale and weak, and would be liable to faint at any mo-
ment on his way home.
" Mike," said Jerry, to a boy about fourteen years
6*
66 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
old, who had betaken himself to a corner, out of tho
way, " Mike, git yersilf sthraight dooun till the
daypo, and bring up a carriage a nische one d'ye
mind ; and luk now, if iver ye got a lickin' in yer life,
think of the one ye'll git now, if ye'r long gone."
Admonished by this very palpable suggestion, Mike
soon returned with a carriage.
" Say now, Misther Acthon," said Jerry, after Earn-
est and the ladies had entered it, " may I go dooun to
luk at ye to-morry ? Shure I'm thinkin' ye wudn't
objict."
" Object ! my good old friend ? " replied Earnest,
" of course not. Why should I ? Come down by all
means, if you should feel like it ; I shall be especially
glad to see you."
" Ah ah, now ! luk a' that ! " still continued Jerry.
"But I'm remembrin' ye niver were too proud way
up intirely over a poor man. Good luck t'ye, Misther
Acthon ; God 'Imighty bless yersilf an' the darlint
ladies. Dthriver, kape yer eyes roound aboout ye ; for
ye've got the most gintlemanly load uv the sexes that
iver yer mares was forninst."
Saying this, Jerry bowed and scraped a still further
adieu, while the carriage rolled away.
The next morning The Ironton Daily JPitchforJc and
Maker , contained the following account of the event.
" A DARING ATTEMPT AT ROBBERY AND MURDER.
A sad Catastrophe. Last evening, just at dusk, as
Miss Cora Clandon, a worthy and estimable young lady
of our city, the daughter of Richard Clandon, Esq.,
was walking along High street, in company with a
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 67
lady friend, whose name we have not learned, they
were suddenly attacked by a ruffian, supposed to be the
notorious Himmer Gilspe, who demanded her watch
and chain, threatening violence in case of refusal.
" With rare presence of mind, Miss Clandon imme-
diately placed her hands over her watch, which is said
to be a very valuable article, and importuned the
scoundrel to desist.
" At this moment, Earnest Acton, Esq., who was
taking an evening walk, approached High street by the
steep, unfrequented acclivity between Crag and Bow-
dry, having selected that mode of ascending the hill,
as affording him the most vigorous exercise. Of course
he could not be seen, even when near the top of the
acclivity, by persons on the upper side of High street.
The intended robber deemed himself perfectly secure
in his depredations, when suddenly he was knocked
down by a blow from Mr. Acton. But the young
gentleman was unarmed, and was, besides, much fa-
tigued by his exertions in climbing the hill. The
ruffian, seeing this, drew a ' billy ' and a knife, striking
and stabbing him on the head and neck.
" Meanwhile our old friend, Jerry Kay, well known
about Bugsley Corners and the Grumby Market, hear-
ing the disturbance and cries of ' murder ! ' hastened to
the scene, bearing in hand his inevitable * purty little
cane,' as he terms it, which many who have noticed it,
will remember as a knotted ' shillaly ' about the size of
a heavy flail. At his appearance the thief ran.
" If the precious villian should be detected, he will
probably be found considerably bruised, as apart from
the punishment inflicted by Mr. Acton, Miss Clandon's
68 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
friend who by no means contented herself with faint-
ing broke an iron-framed umbrella, as we are in-
formed, three times across his face, while he was mal-
treating that gentleman. Our principal informant
(Jerry Kay himself) says he is sure ' she painted a
very nate picture of Purgatory about both eyes of 'im.'
It is quite probable that but for her coolness and per-
tinacious courage, Mr. Acton might have fared much
worse than he did. As it is, he was in a critical condi-
tion when we last heard from him.
" Every effort should be put forth to find the detestable
villain who was the cause of this sorrowful calamity,
and to bring him to condign punishment. Our present
police-force is not, we think, exactly what it should be,
and not, as we stated before the last election, what it
would be, if in the hands of the party we have the
honor to represent. But we give due notice that the
least negligence or carelessness in looking after this
matter, will not be lightly criticised by the Pitchfork
and Raker"
CHAPTER IX.
THE main points of this account, as we have seen,
were true. Earnest Acton, however, at ten
o'clock the next morning, was sitting up in an easy
chair, and was pretty comfortable for one who had been
so severely handled the previous night. He was read-
ing Tlie Pitchfork and Raker, rather enjoying the arti-
cle in reference to the " daring attempt at robbery,"
etc., and smiling at the remembrance of Jerry Kay,
when the latter called, desiring to see him.
" Is he sittin' up and dthressht did ye say now ? "
asked Jerry of the girl who went to the door. " And
I dramed the doctor had 'im kilt ! Thanks to God !
Shure I'm thinkin' ye may show me up to 'im ; but
go an ax 'imsilf. Till 'im its Jerry Kay."
Jerry was of course invited in.
A few minutes afterward, Stella and Cora called.
They said they did not expect to see Mr. Acton, but
had heard conflicting rumors regarding him, and wish-
ing to learn in the most direct manner how he really
was, they had stopped to inquire.
Earnest heard their voices from the room in which
he sat talking with Jerry, and said, so that they heard
him :
(69)
70 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
" Request the ladies to walk in, if they have time
and the wish to do so."
" You will find here," he continued, with a smile,
as he met them, " both the vanquished opponent and
the conquering hero ; for our friend, Jerry, has come
in to see me."
Their attention thus directed to Jerry, he arose, and
suddenly dropping the upper half of his body to a
line nearly parallel with the floor, he made an exceed-
ingly angular but very defefential bow.
" Good morning t'yes, ladies," said he. " I hope yes
are both will after the runcontry uv th' avenin'. Mis-
ther Acthon, I'm thinkin', is gittin' on fine, only he's a
little pale, like a sisther uv marcy. He'll be hardy
agin in a couple uv days."
" And how is yer arm ? " he inquired of Stella.
" Wasn't it some pursuacliu' welts ye gave the thafe
wid yer umbril ! He'll think a wake was hild on his
face, if he looks in aere a glass this mornin'."
Stella was slightly annoyed at this compliment to a
sort of prowess which she was far from priding herself
upon ; but smiling, she answered Jerry that her arm
was still in good condition, though she trusted that she
should never be obliged to use it again in the manner
he alluded to.
"I trust not, indeed," said Earnest, who had no-
ticed her momentary annoyance ; " although now that
we have all escaped with so little injury, I shall
scarcely regret, in one sense, having given you the
trouble. Had I been armed, as sometimes I am in the
evening, perhaps I should have shot the man dead on
the spot. By doing so, I should have saved your
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 71
womanly delicacy a few twinges of vexation ; for it
instinctively shrinks from striking a person; but I
should have had something it may be to disturb me
during my life. For the old Scandinavian fierceness of
the race shoots through our blood at such a sight as
suddenly appeared before me last evening, and is liable,
for the time, to deprive us of all considerateness. Yet
I always feel that if, by any misfortune, I should kill
even the worst man on earth, the act would cloud my
calmer moments with sadness. The laws might justify
it, but I fancy I should constantly see the dead with
pity and anguish."
" And I, the divl a bit ! " roared Jerry Kay.
" Why, man ! if ye'd a shot the thafe, all yer sins wud
been forgiven ye for that ! I wudn't mind crackin' the
head uv 'im more nor a louse. Didn't Miss Clandon
till me he said he wud be wiolent wid her if she didn't
give up the watch ? Shure the baste hadn't a soul in
'im at all at all : he was the manest scut intirely that
iver unbuttoned a lip to threaten a lady."
Jerry had settled the point to his own satisfaction,
and no one contradicted him.
The young ladies soon arose to go. After Cora had
invited Earnest to call on her and Mrs. Torson, as soon
as he should be able to appear again in the street, she
turned to Jerry.
" My good old friend," said she, " let me give you
this ; " and she tried to put a gold eagle into his hand.
" Don't think I mean to pay you for your kindness,
by any such bit of money : you were worth more to us
than our gold can be worth to you ; but you, and your
wife, and the boy all busied yourselves for us ; so we
72 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
want you to get a few little things to recall the occa-
sion, and to remind you how much we think of you."
At first Jerry withdrew his hand. He looked at
Cora, then at the piece of gold.
" Well, God bliss ye, Miss Clandon," he finally
exclaimed, " I know ye've got plinty more uv um, an'
I'm thankful to God for it. Ye raelly want to give it
me now, I know. Yis, I'll take it.
" It's purty hard," he added, with a very extended
smile, " for a poor divl to shut his fisht agin a thing
like that. Shure, Misther Acton, I know ye'll till me
the thrath : 'Tisn't ungintlemanly for me to be takin'
the gould-pace, is it ? "
Earnest had viewed the scene, not without interest
and emotion. Cora's hesitation ; her delicacy in im-
pressing upon this poor Irishman, to whom ten dollars
was certainly a temptation, that she was not paying
him for services, but rather conferring a favor on her-
self in doing him a kindness ; his reluctance to receive
compensation for what he had been so glad to do ; his
innate perception of her feelings and the right of the
matter : all this was very touching to Earnest.
When Jerry looked up to him and made the final
appeal to his judgment, there was a bright, pleas-
ant gleam on his face, there was also moisture in his
eye.
" Take it, Jerry," said he ; " you would hurt Miss
Clandon's feelings far more by refusing it, than you
would please yourself by accepting it."
"Well, now, I thought jusht that," returned Jerry;
" for that wud be the way wid yersilf."
" Ladies, if ye'll hould on, the half of a minit, I'll
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 73
till ye a story about Misther Acthon when he was a
little boy, so, up to me hip.
" He was fishin' dooun beyont there, at the dock, in
a yawl that was tied to a schooner. He got a bite, and
began to pul up. It came tufer and tufer ; and when
the thing got nare till the top of the wather, it was an
ael nare the lingtli uv one uv yersilves, so it was.
That ael was the divl. He was nigh till pulin' Misther
Acthon out of the yawl. I was goin' by jusht thin,
and a nagur. Me and the nagur tuk oursilves dooup
into the yawl lively. Afther a while the three of us
had the ael in ; and he was more nor the lingth uv the
breadth uv the yawl. He was like the schooner's
cable. Well, well, wasn't Misther Acthon tickled
thin ? He hadn't got a cint of money wid im ; so
what does he do but give the nagur the fish-line, a
moighty nische fish-line it was too. Me, he takes
along wid 'im up to his fadther's house, and afther
measurin' the ael roound aboout and ivery way, he
turns the coddy over to me. I has a wathery mouth for
aels, and this feller made a slammin' dinner for me, and
the ould ooman, and Mike, and siveral uv the naburs."
" Not a very commendable business transaction on
my part ; was it, ladies ? " said Earnest, as the laughter
subsided, which had arisen from Jerry's method of tell-
ing the story, and still more from his gestures.
" Perhaps it was so, after all, in the highest sense of
all such transactions," replied Stella; and she looked
at him with both of her deep, pure eyes so full of frank
kindness and sympathy, that he felt the glance pene-
trate and warm his blood, while that beautiful face, in
one of its loveliest moods, was impressed upon his soul.
74 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
"Yes," lie responded, looking, in his turn, with that
peculiar smile of mingled sadness, earnestness, and gen-
tleness, which is so often the reflection of a deep, sensi-
tive nature; "yes, you are right; I have not received
the last instalment in the matter, I find, until now ;
but that alone should compensate me a thousand times."
This was said in so honest a manner, as if every
word were weighed and completely felt ; with so little
the appearance of any mere compliment of gallantry ;
and with so rapid a change of subject, as though Ear-
nest's delicate acuteness predicted some slight pleasing
embarrassment on her part, at the turn he gave to her
remark ; that, although a gentle tinge, like a ray of
"the sunset, consciously glowed on Stella's cheek, her
heart found no fault ; she was pleased, and still further
charmed.
" Now, Jerry," said Earnest, after the ladies had left
them, " I am going to take a glass of light wine which
the doctor prescribed for this hour. If you were not
an old man, always accustomed to your ' wee drop,' I
should hesitate to ask you to drink. I am rather par-
ticular about it. But as it is, you must take a glass of
wine with me, or, if you prefer it, a glass of brandy.
There is some brandy in the house, made from the
vineyard of a gentleman of this country a friend of
mine. It is very nice. Would you rather have some
of that ? "
" Thank yer honor," replied Jerry, " I will take a
small, healthy snifther uv that, if ye plase ; but I'm no
grate jooudge uv th'article. If ye shud put the bist
glass uv brandy forninst me, and the worst, maybe I
cudn't till ye the differ between urn, but I cud dthrink
both."
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 75
Jerry took his " small, healthy snifther," which by
no means restrained his loquacity. He sat quiet for a
moment, then broke out thus :
" I say, Misther Acthon, that's a very nische lady
with the dark dhress the Miss Thorson, I blave ye
called her. What a swate eye she has; it almost milts
out uv her lied intirely on ye. Shure I'm thinkin' she
has a punchang for you, as the Miss de Gusty says
aboout the roses she picks in the gardin."
" A what ? " asked Earnest.
" A punchang, shure," persisted Jerry ; "a takin'
to a thing a likin' of it."
" Oh ! yes, I understand ! a penchant," laughed
Earnest.
" Well, I don't know about any special penchant that
Mrs. Torson may have for me ; but I suspect she is a
noble, kind-hearted, intelligent young lady, and such a
person almost always finds something to like in every-
body. Don't you think so ? "
" Indade I do, thin," Jerry answered ; " and they
ain't proud nather : they allays spakes to a poor man.
There's the Gineral Gineral Bull ; he allays siz,
' Jerry, how ar ye,' when he mates me ; and he's one
of the grate min intirely boss of all the sogers roound
aboout. But there's more uv urn nor doesn't spake
nor luk at me. But they's the cods the small fish
wid very disfragrant airs. The min wid the high
^stations, like the Gineral, and the min wid the brains
in um like yersilf, Misther Acthon, savin' yer mod-
esty thim's the min that don't go by me."
Thus Jerry rattled away for several minutes, till be-
thinking himself that perhaps Earnest had been sitting
76 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
up too long, and was becoming too much fatigued, he
snatched up his hat and stick, and saying that it would
be too bad to kill Mr. Acton with himself after saving
him from a thief, the strange old man hurried away
into the street.
CHAPTER X.
" TT seems to me, our dear young widow has been
J- struck by something. What is her dream all
about?"
Such were the words which Cora addressed to Stella,
after their interview with Earnest Acton, and when
they had proceeded some distance toward Cora's home,
while Stella had remained silent and pensive.
" I was thinking," Stella answered, " how very dis-
similar are different people, and yet how nearly alike at
heart are all of us who are well disposed, and who trust
ourselves to our own natures."
" Yes," suggested Cora, with a little chuckle, " and
how much nicer, how much more sensitive and elegant
some young men are, whom one meets occasionally, than
most others whom one sees every day."
" Perhaps so, if you will, my dear Cora," was Stella's
reply ; " but we must not form such preferences too
hastily."
" Oh, no ! certainly not," said Cora ; " and especially
if we are from Athens the Hub ; if we are scholarly
and profound ; if we are staid, dignified, queenly, and
have arrived at the venerable age of twenty-three. But
if we should happen to be myself now a pleasant
7* (77)
78 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
body only twenty-two, who clearly loves her friend, but
who doesn't think a great deal, and whose mouth opens
easily to chatter or to kiss, why, then we should de-
clare that we can't help entertaining preferences rather
nimbly and speedily; we should. own right up, for in-,,
stance, that we liked Charley Merlow amazingly, and
were inclined just now to take a friend of his into our
heart, but generously forebore doing so, because we
thought the friend himself would like a dear friend of
ours much better than he would like us."
" Child of twenty-two," retorted Stella, with mock
gravity, " do you settle fates too, with as much celerity
as you form preferences ? What have I to do with your
Charley's friend ? How do you know that we have
seen anything in special to admire in each other ? "
" How do I know ? Why, bless you, I feel it. The
heart has big eyes sometimes, even when the head isn't
so very spacious. When Charley Merlow and I were
setting our caps for each other, didn't he use to look at
me in the very way I saw you look at Mr. Acton, and
the very way, moreover, in which Mr. Acton returned
the look ? Of course he did. J suppose Charley and I
didn't fully know what we were doing at first ; but we
found out, after awhile."
If Cora had thoroughly understood Stella, and the
position in which she had been placed by Mr. Torson's
will, she would not have talked to her as she was now
doing, partly in earnest, partly in jest, and partly to
afford herself the pleasure of referring to Charley Mer-
low. But Stella had said as little as possible concern-
ing her husband. All that Cora knew about him, was
that Stella had married him reluctantly, that afterward
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 79
they had lived together kindly, though not with perfect
congeniality, and that now Stella had discarded her
mourning, as also the frequent mention of his name.
She had heard the will spoken of as a strange one ;
but had not learned the particulars of it.
At first Stella could return badinage for badinage j
but as she continued listening to her friend's playful,
bantering, confiding words, feeling that Cora's heart
was happy in its love and trust of one who seemed
worthy of its overflowing affection ; that her own heart,
which throbbed with such vehement, impassioned, ex-
alted emotions, had found no rest for its yearnings ; that
now it could scarcely dare hope for such rest in any
event ; now, too, that she had seen one who, as she
acknowledged to herself, caused the suggestion that her
youthful vision of love might be a possibility in the
world: poor Stella, with all this in her soul, how
could she suppress the single crystal drop that melted
through those long, dark lashes, suffiising with still
deeper tenderness and beauty the look of affection and
sympathy which beamed from her eye upon her joy-
ous companion.
Cora noticed it, and her playful smile was immedi-
ately an exile. A troubled cloud of sadness and regret
spread itself over her face, and not a trace of lightness
was left. But they were near her father's house, and
she did not speak again until they had reached her own
room, where they went to dispose of their street apparel.
She hastily threw off her own, then, going to Stella,
untied her bonnet-strings, drew off her mantle, and
putting an arm about her friend's waist, hastened into
the little parlor adjoining, where, seating herself in front
80 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
of the cheery grate, she pulled the young widow down
into her lap.
" What have I done to you, my dear Stella?" she
inquired, now just ready to weep. " I am so full of
nonsense that I am always wounding the feelings of
somebody. But I did not mean anything by what I
said. I should think you would have known the harm-
less sound of my rattle-box, especially when I am so
fond of you. I know you are not frivolous and giddy,
but very thoughtful and good. Was I foolish enough
to attribute to you, even in a joke, any injustice to
memories of the past? What was it, my darling
friend ? "
"Why, nothing, Cora, child, nothing, at any rate,
worth wet eyes ; so don't let me see tears between your
laughing lids, even if one foolish drop did fall from my
own. I have but few memories of the past to trouble
me in the way you were thinking of. I was only
touched by your happiness, and was comparing, perhaps
selfishly, the fulness of your heart with the void in my
own, though Heaven knows I would not take a single
joy from your life, if by doing so I could wreathe mine
with constant delights. But you are frank and honest,
my Cora ; you are sympathizing ; you can be reticent
too, if you know I wish it. I will tell you a story of
my past three or four years, which you are not wholly
acquainted with. I trust the good angels will not let
me be unjust in the very manner you were fearful that
I shrank from being ; for I shall speak to you of my
husband, a man whom I remember with kindness
only, not with love, not even with complete respect."
Then she told Cora of her marriage ; of her reluct-
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 81
ance to it at the beginning; of the wide difference
between Mr. Torson's nature and tastes and her
own ; of her struggles, as a conscientious woman, to
love him, which only ended in driving their souls still
farther apart ; and last, she gave the particulars of the
will. But she told nothing of her husband's rudest
vices, for there were some such to be locked forever
in her own breast ; she palliated some of his harshest
evident faults, and appeared to tremble lest any re-
vengeful sentiment should enter into her statement.
" You see, Cora," she said, in conclusion, " that Mr.
Torson did not mean to be a very vicious man. I don't
know but many a better girl than I would have been
content in my position. He wished to leave me, too,
with every material comfort, and his will was largely
generous in that respect. But my integrity was almost
the only one of my qualities he would trust. It was
impossible for him to understand me. Those of my
virtues that I knew to be the highest before God and
man, he regarded as visionary weaknesses even
wicked absurdities. I could look through his mind and
comprehend his motives, because I stood above both,
having experienced, as it were, his characteristics, in
my commonest and lowest moods ; while he could not
know what his nature had never reached. He was
honest, in the ordinary Business sense ; he was lavish,
not to say liberal, of mere physical surroundings,
wanting me to have everything that conventionality re-
quired ; but he had, and could have, no conception of
the demands of an aspiring soul. He was of the earth
and was earthy, a common man, who had accumu-
lated a third of a million of dollars, and in that, con-
82 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
sidered the great aim of life accomplished. He was no
worse than a thousand others I saw every day, my
heart has always acknowledged it ; and for him, as
for all such, it has never had at least for more than
an occasional moment any feeling harsher than pity.
" Well, I have told you of my husband. You know
something about my own views, and what I conceive
to be my duties. You see the position in which I am
placed virtually forbidden to love ; my heart pitted
against my conscience, with a third of a million for the
wager. If love should win, I shall not only be poor,
which, perhaps, I could bear well enough, but the
money will be used to crucify conscience and duty
themselves. I have never loved ; but God knows how
dearly I could love. You have sometimes attributed
superiority of intellect to me. Others have been kind
enough to do so. Some have called me mental and
frigid. It is true, that my heart, yearning for deep,
full, responsive throbs, baffled by the living, has turned
to the dead. I could not be the bride of a beloved,
for I found no one whose nobleness forced me to adora-
tion. So I gave myself up to the lovers and poets
of. all ages and all climes. Their sentences and songs
wooed my spirit pressed themselves to my inmost
life. They knew me. Our souls sympathized in truth,
in justice, in beauty. Thus was a vacant place in my
heart partly tenanted, while thus it could not, of course,
be wholly filled.
" You spoke of ~$fi\ Acton. I was not troubled by
that. As I have talked with you so freely now, why
should I hesitate to tell you, as far as I know, the
impression I have received from him ? I don't love
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 83
him, certainly. How could I so soon? I don't be-
lieve in ' love at first sight.' A person's first glance, a
single word, a tone of voice, may strike vividly and
pleasurably upon some related chord of our nature, and
oblige memory to reproduce it a hundred times. We
want to see the glance, to hear the word again. If
other properties correspond to this, and the whole nature
inclines to us, we love. My heart would never risk the
mention of love for ope I had seen but two or three
times. We all have some good phases \ we all have so
many bad ones !
" Yet I will own that Mr. Acton has revived visions
of mine that had almost faded away ; that I began to
see vanish with considerable resignation. Here is a
young man who suggests to me, by his presence, that
the earth could perhaps afford me the happiness of
pouring out my whole soul into another. But by the
time I have seen him again, it may quite easily be,
that through some one of his words or actions, the veil
will fall once more over my eyes, the dreams still be life-
less. And perhaps I ought to tremble if it were not so."
" I don't think you ought to do anything of the
kind," cried Cora, who had listened to her friend, first
with glances of sorrowing sympathy ; then with
flushes of indignation and scorn, as she gave the par-
ticulars of Mr. Torson's will ; and then with patient
silence while she drew her inferences of a general na-
ture.
" It was monstrous to fetter you so ! How can you
speak with a sort of kind, reasoning indifference of so
mean a man ? I would have soaped the stairs to break
his neck ! No, I wouldn't, either ; but I would love
84 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
somebody, if I could, with all my heart, now he had
taken himself decently out of the way. You needn't
smile : I would, anyhow ! How ridiculous it was of
the conceited old dollar-grab, to say that no other sort
of man than himself amounted to anything, or would
be able to take care of you ! That's all he knew
the old stomach ! I'm glad you didn't love him any
more than you did. But you shall Jove Mr. Acton
now, if you like, or anybody but my Charley. Let
the money go to the dogs. More can be got. I shall
have plenty, I suppose, and you can have some of that.
And if your ideas are right, God will take care of
them. How is a big pile of pennies going to outweigh
Providence ? "
Cora stopped to breathe, and laughed at her own
questions and statements. Stella could not help joining
her.
" True, my dear Miss Impetuous," she said, when
Cora was ready to listen : " No amount of money, no
mountain even, of present wrong, should at all trouble
our serene faith in the ultimate right. But that is
scarcely the question. Would it be possible, in any
case, for nle to do as much by yielding to love, toward
performing the duties I regard highest in life, as a
large fortune, hurled directly upon them, could do
against them ? "
" Well," responded Cora, " I don't know : but I
think God intended we should enjoy such a dear bless-
ing as love."
" Certainly, Cora ; He intends we should enjoy
every dear blessing ; He made us to enjoy ; but He
made us to do our duty first and foremost ; for that,
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 85
in the end, is always the sweetest, the loftiest enjoy-
ment."
" Yes, I suppose so ; " still insisted Cora : " but <i
body would think that in a case like this, you would
be the last to be hampered and imposed upon. You
value money so lightly ; it passes through your hands
so easily, and, as I have often thought, with a kind of
contemptuous indifference. You know everything
best, my dear Stella ; but let me ask you a question on
your own ground. I've heard you speak with enthu-
siasm of certain men in this country, for instance, as-
the leaders of great reforms. Now my good papa, and
Captain Bub, my brother, don't think much of these
men. But you do, and Charley Merlow does. But
take one of these notables say Mr. Curtis. Do you
think that any sum of money, used by common or bad
men against the truths he utters in his beautiful way,
could be at all the measure of his influence ? "
" Surely not, my sweet little Meno," answered
Stella ; " but what then ? "
*' Not Meno, if you please," said Cora, with much
pretended dignity ; " for I read somewhere, the other
day, that he was the man that Socrates twisted out of
his sandals so neatly that he couldn't tell the meaning
of the very things he had talked about a hundred
times. Let me cure you of the illusion that I am any
other than Socrates himself. You acknowledge, then,
that no sum of money could measure the influence of a
great man ? "
" Yes, Socrates," laughed Stella, " you are going
right at it in your ancient method, I find."
" Well, now," continued Cora, " haven't I heard
8
86 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
you say that one of your friends, whom you regard as
among the greatest minds of the time, has often ac-
knowledged that more than half of his power and per-
severance came from the heroic sympathy and encour-
agement lavished on him by his wife ? You know I
have heard you say it. Now, finally, you could love
only a superior man, and you know well enough that
nobody in creation could hold such a man up to his
task of greatness and goodness, better than yourself.
So, unless you would cut a man's influence in two,
and spoil it wholly, by declaring that your half in it
were worth less than some fellow's money-bag, I'm
sure my argument ' has laid you out,' as the boys say,
flat and clean.' "
" Precisely, my Cora," was Stella's response ; " I
fancied I knew the end you were approaching, and
have frequently thought of it myself. But I should be
obliged to have a great deal of confidence in my own
worth before I should dare avail myself of your infer-
ences.
" However, now that we have finished arguing, can
you tell me anything more than I have already learned
about the young man who was the cause of the argu-
ment ? What do you know of your Charley's friend ?
I shall be with you several weeks, and shall meet him.
I shall be enticed to his acquaintance, for the study of a
marked human soul that has come to me differently
from others, if for nothing else. I am interested in
him, and feel curious concerning his history. What
has Charley Merlow told you about him ? "
Cora felt, and was determined to feel, that Stella, in
case her great, noble soul should flame into passion,
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 87
would not be called upon to sacrifice its fondness, as
she seemed to contemplate. Something of this prepos-
session might have colored the account she gave of
Earnest ; for she spoke of him ardently and sincerely,
though partly still with the capricious pleasantry in
which she delighted.
CHAPTER XL
" A LMOST all I know about him," she began,
-*- "*' Charley has told me ; but Charley, as you
have observed, is very fond of him, and talks about
him a great deal. They have known each other ever
since they were children. The way they became ac-
quainted was odd, and a bit romantic ; but ask Charley
to tell you that part of the story himself. You won't
have to ask him but once. He would spend the day,
any time, in conversing with you about Earnest.
They used to live in the same town, somewhere in
Massachusetts, I forget the name of it. Earnest
came here when he was a little boy, ten or eleven
years old, and afterwards Charley came on and stayed
awhile with him, attending the same school. Charley
is rather older than Earnest, though he looks younger.
Earnest's face is so quiet and meditative ; I suppose
that is the reason. He has entirely changed, (Charley
says, since he was about fifteen. Before that, he used
to be full of activity and sport, not what you would
cull a downright bad boy, but always ready to run,
frolic, be saucy, or fight. Isn't it a shame that little
boys all will fight ? They're not half so nice as little
girls. My brother, Captain Bub, used to worry the
(88)
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 89
life out of me. He would have had a bloody nose
every day, if papa hadn't talked to him, and whipped
him, and shamed him constantly. He went into the
army, at last, as it was. But he has sobered down into
a very pleasant relation.
" Charley and Earnest were not a great deal to-
gether, for the few years before they became young
men. But they used to correspond ; and at last Char-
ley came to Ironton, and went into business. I have
known him a year, and he has started several times to
bring Earnest here ; but something has occurred to
prevent, on each occasion. So we have known each
other well enough, have bowed as we met in the street,
yet we had hardly spoken a dozen words to each other,
until that scapegrace tried to steal my watch."
" Well," inquired Stella, " what has Earnest been
doing, all his life ? That, you know, is one of the first
questions we all ask about each other. What profes-
sion, or business, has he been engaged in ? "
" He hasn't any profession," replied Cora ; " and
now, I believe, he isn't in any business. A little while
Ago, he was with Mr. Wether, a produce merchant,
as a salesman and accountant, I suppose. But he had
a good deal of leisure, which he occupied by reading
and hard study. Charley says he understands business
very well, but has little taste for it. Besides, some of
the most customary transactions connected with it, ap-
pear to him so hard and selfish as to be almost dishon-
est. He says that, particularly in speculative seasons,
when he has stood and regulated the price of a product
more by one's need than by its real value, stretching
the market a little, if possible, squeezing out the last
8*
90 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
cent, lie lias felt that, although pleasing his employer
and showing the smartness of a salesman, he was pretty-
nearly picking a pocket ; only he was doing it lawfully,
and more dexterously than the coarse blackleg. When,
too, he has seen Mr. Wether selling a cargo of grain
or salt ; worming the price up to the highest notch ;
declaring he would not sell so low to any other man,
and, in his excitement, meaning it, although he would
say the same thing to the next comer; declaring,
protesting, whining even in the voice of an old woman,
all for ten or twenty extra dollars, on perhaps five
thousand ; then the clerk has pitied the employer,
who had grown rich while his face had grown narrow
and pinched, and while his soul had been crammed
into his purse.
" When Charley told me this, I said I didn't think
his friend had cause to feel so ; that it was necessary
for people to have money, and, as they couldn't do
without it, they must try their best to get it. Charley
said yes, and told me Earnest saw the fact as plainly
as anybody ; that he liked business men, and often
declared that the very excess of the accumulative spirit,
which he deprecated for himself, was the means of
developing vast material resources ; levelling moun-
tains, filling up swamps, making corn grow, and com-
forts increase. ' You mustn't think,' he continued,
' that Earnest despises any class of men, or sort of
vocation. He says that men are dependent on each
other throughout, and are brothers in spite of them-
selves ; that he should be without a coat and a break-
fast, if it were not for some enterprising tailor or
butcher among his friends.'
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 91
" Then Charley went on to tell me a lot of stuff
about its being right for men to do what they think
right, until they can take higher views and so higher
grounds of action ; and about its being right, in that
sense, for men to do things that Earnest could not do.
He told me that I mustn't judge such a person by
common rules ; for he was rather a representative of the
future, when men would be better, than a mere dweller
in the present time. Perhaps I didn't quite understand
all these nice distinctions. At any rate, I'm not going
to risk getting into the dusk myself, by trying to bring
them to the light for you,"
" But in spite of himself and his ideas, Mr. Acton
did, it seems, sell produce for Mr. Wether, and keep
accounts for him," said Stella.
" Yes," answered Cora ; " but he never liked it,
Charley says, even at first, when a mere boy ; though
he always had the reputation of attending to it con-
scientiously and well. But, according to his friend and
my oracle, he wasn't made for success in that direction.
He was too thoughtful, scrupulous, and independent.
" You remember the passage in ' Corinne,' that we
used to read at school :
" ' Les hommes frivoles sont trtjs-capables de deve-
nir habiles dans la direction de leur propres inte*-
rets ; car, dans tout ce qui s'appelle la science politique
de la vie privde, cornme de la vie publique, on rdussit
encore plus souvent par les quality's qu'on n'a pas, que
par celles qu'on possede. Absence d'enthousiasme,
absence d'opinion, absence de sensibilite, un peu d'esprit
combind avec ce tre'sor ndgatif, et la vie sociale propre-
inent dite, c'est-a-dire la fortune et le rang, s'acquidrent
ou se maintiennent assez bien.'
92 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
" Now I missed my lesson once, on this same choice
bit of French, and I've never seen any truth or beauty
in it since ; but I remember it only too well. Charley
quoted it in reference to his friend ; and I could antici-
pate him at every word, not allowing him to air his
scholarship singly, you perceive. He declared that
nothing could be better applicable to Earnest ; and that
every syllable of it was true. He said that he met,
every day, a score of his friends, who had grown rich
far more from qualities which they had not, than from
those which they had ; that ' absence of enthusiasm, ab-
sence of opinion, absence of sensibility, a little smart-
ness ' say a little more than the mere average not
only ' acquire and maintain fortune and rank, but are
always the absolute and necessary foundation of fashion-
able power and respectability.
" ' For,' said he, ' superiority is inevitably trying to
improve conventionality, while mediocrity struts satisfied
with it, and is active and important in presenting and
insisting upon its forms.'
" That is the way Charley sermonizes to me. But,
you see, he knows a thing or two, as well as Earnest.
" In his opinion, his friend has, of course, just the
reverse of the dear Madame de Stael's requisites for
fashionable success. He has enthusiasm, opinion, sen-
sibility, and almost no ' smartness,' in the sense, at least,
of that calculative sharpness which thrives itself by the
suppression and injury of others.
"You have seen plainly enough that he has some
strange ideas. In fact, his ideas about religion, politics,
and everything are strange. But I believe, in my heart,
he is a good fellow, or Charley wouldn't think so much
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 93
of him. Besides, my dear Stella, I can't help thinking
he is a great deal like you. You and he would make a
right nice match, the most harmonious pair in exist-
ence. I'm sure you are bound to like each other.
" Don't interrupt me now : I'm going to tell you
something more about him.
" While with Mr. Wether, he grew from a boy to a
man. His mind formed, and on many subjects he
differed from his employer. I know Mr. Wether. He
is a kind-hearted, quick-tempered man, well-meaning
and honest, but old-fashioned, narrow-minded, and
prejudiced. Earnest never talked much with him, be-
cause he knew that the old gentleman was fixed in his
convictions, and because he thought it wasn't in good
taste to force discussion where it would be of no use.
But Mr. Wether was aggressive in his views, and often
very severe in his comments upon men whom Earnest
regarded as among the greatest and best in the world.
At such times, when directly addressed, he always said
exactly what he thought. Charley used to ask him
why he didn't smooth the subject over, and let it
drop.
" ' Not at all,' he replied ; ' when a person asks me
a question, he shall be answered. The honesty which
would preserve me from taking money from a man's
till, would never permit me to give him a dishonest
opinion. If I could do one of these things, I could do
both.'
" It seems to me, he carried the point too far ; but
that was what he said.
" After awhile, Mr. Wether began to look on Earn-
est as an Abolitionist, then as an Infidel. The old
94 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
gentleman is very religious, a strong Presbyterian,
and a constant reader of the Observer.
" By the way, it was over that newspaper that he
and Earnest at last fell completely out with each
other.
" Mr. Wether began a conversation, and quoted the
Observer to maintain something or other, when Earnest
called that journal itself in question. He said it wasn't
always more scrupulous than even the Herald. For
only a few days before, he had seen a sentence of Theo-
dore Parker's warped and misconstrued by it in the
most dishonest and shameful manner. Mr. Wether de-
fied him to prove it. Earnest found the paper, and
showed him that it quoted Theodore Parker as saying :
' Since my eighth year, I have had no fear of God,' and
then it took the text: 'the fear of the Lord is the
beginning of wisdom,' and expatiated on Theodore
Parker's infidelity and wickedness.
" ' Well, now,' said Earnest, ' hear the whole sentence
as it is : Since my eighth year I have had no fear of
Grod, only an ever greatening love and trust. Your
paper, Mr. Wether, cut a sentence in two, and pilfered
half of it to defame a great man.'
" This was too much for Mr. Wether. He couldn't
see anything wrong on the part of his theological
weekly, but he was very indignant at Earnest.
" A few weeks afterwards it was whispered-, at a
meeting of the Ladies' Sewing Society of the reverend
Mr. Defogy's church (Mr. Wether is a member of it),
that the young * infidel and abolitionist,' Earnest Acton,
had been tolerated quite long enough by his employer,
and that, in another month, his place was to be occupied
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 95
by a more pious and useful member of society. It was
Deacon Jewer, of their own church. Deacon Jewer was
twenty years older than Earnest, and had himself been
a merchant. But fire and flood had suddenly broken
him down.
" ' What can be done for him ? ' asked one of the
Greeds his particular friends and Mrs. Crutch
and Dea. Longswell, at a circle held two or three
weeks before the one that I spoke of.
" ' Perhaps Mr. Wether could be persuaded to
change assistants,' suggested another of the Greeds.
" ' What a fortunate suggestion,' said Mrs. Crutch ;
* and undoubtedly it would be a pious duty to bring
about such a change. I have heard sad reports about
that fellow Acton ; and they say lie hasn't any rever-
ence for God, or respect for good people. He told
Mrs. Orter, the other day, that I was a woman who
meant well enough, but was a busy-body and a gossip,
and that my superior righteousness was all in my eye.
What a vulgar expression wasn't it ? and everybody
knows that I never gossip, but only say what comes
into my head, and what is on everybody's tongue. I
think we had better use our exertions for Deacon
Jewer. I know Mrs. Wether, very well : she is an
intimate friend of mine. She is veiy partial to Mrs.
Jewer too. She has much influence over her hus-
band : some say, in fact, that she wears the Well, I
don't like to use every common phrase that we hear in
the wicked world ; but I have often been told that she
manages matters much in her own way.'
" O Stella ! I thought I should die laughing, when
96 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
Charley told me all this, and imitated the different
persons, some of whom I knew very well."
" But how did the affair terminate ? " asked Stella.
" Oh ! " said Cora, the conversations at the Sewing
Circles were of course repeated, and it wasn't long be-
fore the reports came round to Earnest. He went im-
mediately to Mr. Wether, stated their substance, and
asked if it was true. Pie thought, if so, he ought to
have been informed of it as soon as the old ladies
from whom he had indirectly heard. Yet he had few
doubts on the subject. Mr. Wether coughed a few
times, tugged away at the muscles of his throat, and
finally said : ' Yes, he had thought it best to make a
change.' Earnest found no fault ; and Deacon Jewer
soon presented himself.
" Some of Earnest's friends called him foolish, al-
together too docile and easy.
" ' Put the accounts into a fog,' said one or two of
them : ' make everything as hard as possible.'
" ' No indeed,' said Earnest ; ' I have not been
treated quite after my own heart, as no breath of fault
or warning ever came to me. But what of that ?
Men must think and act according to their light, Mr.
Wether as well as I. I am not docile and easy, but
tough and heady. I don't think that a single trader,
or a church-full of his goodish friends, can be a feather
in my path ; especially if God has given me anything
worth doing on his earth. And if not, what matter
little circumstances of this kind, one way or the
other ? ?
" That was an odd view to take, wasn't it, Stella ?
It seems to me, Earnest has no appreciation of the
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 97
events and interests which make up the life of our
kindly, good and bad, every-day people of the world ;
but looks so intently upon the great that he forgets
there is a common and a little.
"But Charlotte Bronte says something like that, of
one of her characters in 4 Jane Eyre,' doesn't she ?
" At any rate, I don't altogether like such people.
Charley suits me much better than Earnest would.
That's fortunate for you, my lady : who knows but /
might get him, if I should try ?
" The very indignation he felt over the affair I've
been telling you about, seemed only an indignation of
the head. He disliked it because he thought it ought
to be disliked : scarcely more because he had been its
victim, than as though he hadn't been at all interested
in it. Here's philosophy for you, perhaps, mental
power, with other ' lofty tumbling,' but where's the
flesh and blood ?
" No, positively ; I wouldn't have him. I should
find, some fine morning, that the man had dissected
himself, to ascertain or confirm some theory or other.
" Mr. Wether he regards with no unfriendly feeling,
but merely as one more specimen of the genus homo, to
be encountered thankfully, considered attentively, then
shelved in his cabinet. The same with Deacon Jewer.
To Earnest, the Deacon, too, is merely pictorial, re-
garded as part of a scenic effect ; though he had some
reason to disrelish him before they came directly in
each other's way.
" He laughed with Charley, a while since, and told
him the Deacon would be a far more valuable employ^
than himself, being sure to save every penny, which he
9
98 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
knew how to value above all tilings ; and that his
efforts, indeed, had already been praiseworthy as an
agent for others.
" It appears that, several years ago, a pew in Mr.
Defogy's church fell into the hands of Earnest's father,
for some debt, or through some business transaction,
and was estimated to be worth about a hundred dol-
lars. The old gentleman Acton is quiet and easy;
and believing, as Charley says, less in theology and
more in religion, than Mr. Defogy and his congrega-
tion, he seldom used the pew himself, or was present
by the proxy of any member of his family. So Dea-
con Jewer, Deacon Longswell, and the other trustees
let the pew and pocketed the proceeds ; ' for the Lord,
of course,' added Earnest ; ' for no one ever supposed
they did it for themselves.'
" The paternal Acton, hearing of the disposal of his
pew, made no objection to the result, but disliked the
method. The easy man felt as though there would
have been some propriety in consulting him in the
matter. He was content that they should use the pew
for the occupancy of strangers ; he said that he would
give it to the church right out, if he could afford to do
so ; for, although Mr. Defogy's preaching wasn't very
high, nor wholly Christian, still his church and his
sermons did much good, by holding up even to their
standard, certain men who wouldn't believe in any-
thing better, and who would doubtless be worse than
they were, if they couldn't believe in these. But he
said he couldn't give the pew absolutely away ; and as
the trustees had taken it to themselves to let, he
wished them to have a legitimate title to it, and would
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 99
sell it to them for fifty dollars, half its estimated value.
The matter was referred to Deacon Jewer, and he
offered fifteen.
" ' Yes ! ' exclaimed Earnest, ' if I were the Lord,
and would own that church, I would certainly displace
any such individual as I am myself now conscious of
being, for the sake of having Deacon Jewer attend to
my affairs. How, then, can I blame Mr. Wether for
wanting so valuable a person ? '
" It was horrible in him to say so, wasn't it, Stella ?
Yet Charley persists in telling me that his friend has
more real, sensible reverence for God, than Mr. De-
fogy's whole assembly have.
" Now, Stella, I've told you almost all I know about
the man you're going to break your heart over ; and
the bell has just been touched for dinner. Let's go
down. Pa will wait for us at table."
Thus Cora finished, or rather broke off, her chatty,
rambling account of Earnest Acton, and she and
Stella, with their arms around each other, went to join
Mr. Clandon in his dining-room.
CHAPTER XII.
IN the evening Charley Merlow called. He had just
come from Earnest, he said, who was quite as
well as when the ladies had seen him in the morning,
and would be out in a day or two.
" Then," Charley continued, " I shall bring him
here. We were coming last night ; but the High-
street adventure spoiled our plan. How glad I am,
Cora, that neither you nor Mrs. Torson sustained any
injury from that rascal Gilspe, or whoever he is."
"And I am quite as much delighted," said Stella,
" that your kind friend fared no worse than he did. Cora
and I have been speaking of him to-day, and I already
know him sufficiently well to appreciate many reasons
for your attachment to him."
" As for Earnest," replied Charley, " he takes the
matter so complacently, pitying himself so little, that I
may as well do the same. He regards the occurrence
as one more item of experience ; the thief, as an indi-
vidual who aided him to know from the fact itself, how
indignation rises against villainy, and how pleasant it is
to thwart a ruffian ; his pains he watches, to see what
effect they have on his moods ; .and if he should be
disfigured, I have no doubt he will scrutinize the scars,
(100)
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 101
to ascertain how sucli things appeal to personal vanity.
So you perceive he is occupied and content in his mis-
fortune. But don't think I have for a friend, a man
without a heart. He acknowledges the best of the oc-
casion is, that he has made two warm friends, at first
sight, by a condensation of events.
" 'A man can afford to be knocked down, and carry
an inch or so of scars for that,' as he said to me just
before I left him.
" ' Moreover,' he added, ' these two friends are both
very beautiful and noble examples of our dear humanity ;
and if I am not mistaken, one of them is quite the
loftiest woman I have seen for many a day.'
" Now, Cora, if Earnest had said that of you, I should
have been jealous ; so, Mrs. Torson I beg your par-
don I ventured to think he referred to you."
Stella could not help smiling, and even blushing, with
just perceptible confusion ; and Charley felt that she too
was "penetrable stuff."
If, on his return from hearing Earnest's poem, he
had been slightly surprised and startled by Stella, now
he was determined to be completely at his ease. He
had not been provoked at her, but piqued with himself,
at that time ; and he intended to go to the other
extreme, being almost saucy, rather than at all discon-
certed again, especially in the presence of Cora.
" I have been told by Cora, as well as by yourself,"
said Stella, taking up the cue of the conversation a short
distance back, " that Mr. Acton is what they term
* philosophical,' considering whatever happens to him,
good or bad, as a contribution to his knowledge and
advancement. I, too, am a good deal interested in
9*
102 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
such views of the world, and as much so in those who
entertain them. You told me, the other evening, that
your friend had been favored with a somewhat extra-
ordinary inward experience. Cora has detailed for me,
some of the facts of his external life. You have known
him from childhood. May I ask you to tell me, by
and by, or whenever you please, something more about
him ? We shall meet, now and then, I presume, while
I am in your city. I always like to know my friends,
when I can, before actually coming in contact with
them. It gives one the advantage, perhaps, of a
speedier intimacy, and is certainly very pleasant. You
will not, I am sure, be surprised at my request, or look
upon it as causing you too much trouble, when it refers
to one you have commended so highly, and spoken of
with so much interest."
Charley Merlow was appeased and happy in an
instant. Stella's kind smile ; her frankness and sim-
plicity; her freedom from any intention of being
imposing, her care not to make stricken subjects,
but happy companions, which he could not but
perceive, in spite of his own accidental moment*of con-
fusion ; and still more, her acknowledged interest in his
chosen friend : drew Charley directly into the circle
of her sympathies, making him heartily ashamed of the
suggestion of pertness in her presence. She was so far
above it, that Tie must not sink to its level.
He said that the most important portions of Earnest's
experience, his revolutions and successions of thought
and feeling, he should prefer to have his friend state
for himself.
" I have travelled so often," said he, " or at least
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 103
attempted to travel in the orbit of Earnest's mind, that
I might possibly draw a tolerable picture of it. But I
incline to dread the task. Few things, however, would
be more agreeable to me, than to recount all that I can
do justice to. He has been my friend almost from
infancy. If some facts of his childish and youthful days,
with what he thinks of them, would be interesting to
you, nothing would suit me better than to begin the
recital of them as soon as you like. I have no doubt he
will tell you the rest himself. He likes very much to
talk in that strain, as he deems his perceptions and
emotions, his convulsions, his ' regenerations,' as he
terms them, largely expressive and confirmatory of the
present epoch in the world's history. It will be easy
enough to draw him out. When shall I commence my
part? Now?"
" Bless me ! no, not yet ! " exclaimed Cora ; " I have
been discoursing all day myself; and now you'll dis-
course all night. But don't be frightened : I won't
stop you but a minute, just to place myself in position
where I can be easy, and enjoy my share of the exhi-
bition."-
So saying, she sat down on the tete-a-tete, and,
taking Charley's hand, put his arm around her waist.
" Now the other hand and arm you may have for
gestures, my good fellow," she said, with a shrewd smile ;
" but this set, please bear in mind, is reserved for me,
these fine evenings. Be perfectly quiet now, perfectly
unabashed. If a couple of young people think a good
deal of each other, and my dear, deep, wonderful Stella
can't comprehend it, what's the use of all her Plato and
the other mighties ? But it won't trouble her, I assure
104 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
you. I couldn't help telling her I thought you a very
sweet young man. Now see that you act like one, and
go straight on with your sermon."
What could Charley Merlow do, but smile, in his
turn, take up the small caressive hand which rested
partly on his knee, kiss it, and proceed ? For he was
a sensible person of twenty-six.
CHAPTER XIII.
" TTTHBN I first saw Earnest," Charley began, " he
was only four years old. His home was just out
of the village of Laurel, twenty miles from Boston. I
was a year older than he. My father had recently moved
from another part of New England, and had settled
with his family in that village. He started from our
house, one pleasant summer evening, an hour before
dark, to take a walk. I asked, as usual, to go too. He
seldom refused me. I trotted along at his side, and he
walked out of the village, on the road to Boston. We
passed the house of Alger Acton Earnest's father
and having proceeded a short distance beyond it, were
returning, when we saw coming down the road toward
us, a high-spirited white horse, of Arabian mould, draw-
ing a light single carriage, in which were two children.
They were very young, the smallest being scarcely more
than an infant. The other seemed a year or two older.
He sat up straight and important, holding the reins.
The horse quickened his trot, and approached us faster
and faster. My father felt assured that something was
wrong. He scanned the horse quickly, then the chil-
dren, and as they came up, he stepped in front of the
horse, spoke to him, and stopped him.
(105)
106 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
' My young friends,' he asked, ' where are you
going with this large fiery horse ? '
" ' Just to take a little ride, sir,' replied the oldest
child.
" ' What is your name,' continued my father.
" ' Earnest Acton, sir ; I live in the first house back
there.'
" ' Well, how old are you, my bright young horse-
man?'
" ' I'm four years old, sir, and my cousin D^ty Tetson
here, is two and a half.'
" My good father was sure he had made no mistake
in stopping this precocious party.
" We heard, now, another voice on the road, and,
in an instant, a middle-aged, blue-eyed man, with a
look of vexation, humor, and gratitude commingled on
his face, was added to the group. He glanced at the
children, at the horse, then at my father.
" ' I thank you, sir,' he said, ' for taking the respon-
sibility to check the pleasures of these hopefuls. The
eldest is my son ; the other is my nephew. They were
in a fair way to be killed in a very few minutes. The
least flourish of the whip over that horse, would have
been their destruction. I allow no one to drive him
but myself.'
" The affair was explained to us. Mr. Acton had
returned, a few minutes before, from a drive to a neigh-
boring village. He had left the horse fastened near
his barn, and had entered the house. The little boys
were together near by. When he had disappeared,
Earnest had proposed to Doty that they should take a
ride. Earnest said he could drive, of course he could.
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 107
He helped Doty into the carriage, unhitched the horse,
and climbed in himself. The horse, without much
guidance, turned the vehicle round, and started off on
the turnpike, toward Boston.
" But my father had interfered with this proceeding.
" Earnest was directed to get out of the carriage,
and walk hcrme. Mr. Acton permitted Doty to ride
back to the house with him. But Earnest was in dis-
grace. He started along the road with his head down.
" In the mean time, however, I had made a hero of
him. Such a little fellow, driving that big horse, in so
much danger, yet perfectly confident, was surely worth
knowing. I must make him my friend.
" Well, said I, going up to him, you brought the
horse along pretty well, as far as you came, anyhow.
" My opinion seemed partly to dispel his shame.
We walked together, chatting, until we reached his
father's house ; then my father and I proceeded home.
But Earnest and I knew each other ; we had come
to a good understanding, and were to be friends.
" But the particulars of our attachment, during the
next ten years, the actions of my friend, a mere child,
though no doubt interesting to ourselves, at the time,
could hardly be entertaining to others.
" When he was ten years old, his father moved,
with the family, here to Ironton. Earnest was thus
torn away from me, and for four years I saw him only
twice. But on parting, we promised to remain friends
forever. We frequently wrote to each other. When
he had grown to be a fine fellow of fourteen, I visited
him, and we attended the same school for a year.
During the year, several little incidents which the
108 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
school-boys regarded exciting, occurred in Earnest's
life, and were impressed upon my memory. Do you
think it would be worth while to recount them ? "
" Yes," said Stella, " let us have them."
" Yes," echoed Cora, with a wink at Stella, " if I
must listen, I like to hear about people before they
grow to be so big and stupid, that when you continue
their history, no one can believe or understand it."
Charley proceeded.
*' Our instructor was Mr. Tome.
" ' Earnest Acton,' said he, one day as the boys
came in from recess, ' Earnest Acton, come here.
What did you kick Henry Logbun for, from one end
of the yard to the other, as I saw you do just now ? '
" ' I kicked him a few times, sir, to show him what
I thought of tell-tales ; but I didn't hurt him much.'
" Such was the question that Mr. Tome askecf, and
such the answer he received.
" Earnest was called up before his teacher, and
Henry Logbun was told to stand at his side.
" Logbun was older than Earnest, and was taller and
stouter. He was a dull, heavy boy, remiss in his
studies, and clumsy in play. He had acted the part
of an informer against Doty Tetson, Earnest's cousin
the little fellow that was riding with him on the day
our acquaintance began. They had lived together
ever since, and were like brothers.
" Doty was a favorite. He was now twelve years
old. He was loved by Earnest, loved by all others.
He was crammed so full of fun that no amount of re-
pression could quite hold it. If he laughed aloud, or
if his chubby mouth took to whistling, it was as
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 109
nearly a matter of spontaneous combustion as could
possibly occur, where the tempering waters of free-will
were supposed to be bottled with the qualities which
caused the explosion.
" Doty Tetson whistled. Mr. Tome knew well
enough it was Doty, and no one else ; but he turned
round, with severe dignity, desiring to know who had
made that noise.
" The many blank faces which met his inquiry, the
many surprised, wandering eyes, turned eveiy way but
the right one, assured him unmistakably, that his
scholars had all been wholly devoted to their books, at
just that important juncture, and couldn't possibly give
him satisfactory information.
" Earnest sat directly behind Doty ; but when Mr.
Tome spoke, he was very busy with his lesson, or ap-
peared to be so. The expression of his face, if any in-
ference could be drawn from it, showed that the whole
affair, the whistling and the investigation of it, was a
matter entirely beneath his smallest attention.
" Mr. Tome passed him by without a word. He
knew that if directly questioned, Earnest would not lie ;
he would flatly refuse to answer, taking the conse-
quences. This would be a point of honor with him.
" Besides, Mr. Tome didn't really desire to be told
that Doty Tetson was a culprit who, as a matter of ex-
ample at least, deserved the rod. In his heart he
didn't want to punish the little fellow. But his school
must be kept quiet and orderly. It wouldn't do to ig-
nore a case of plain, round, palpable whistling. So
he repeated his question.
" * Who made that noise ? '
10
110 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
" If no one had answered it, this time, he would
have soundly rapped some bench near his hand, then,
holding up the ruler, would have reminded the boys of
what would be the fate of him who should again trans-
gress.
" This was one of his methods of government that
his brightest scholars had long since discovered, and
made application of.
" But dull Henry Logbun had not. Trembling,
and at the same time grinning, he whined out :
" ' It was Doty Tetson, sir.'
" Doty Tetson, was it ? ' replied Mr. Tome. ' Well,
Logbun, sit up in your seat ! stop your laughing imme-
diately ! I will have nothing of the kind.' And down
went the ruler across Logbun's fat shoulders.
" He screamed, then whimpered for a moment, and
as soon as Mr. Tome turned away, made a face at
him.
" Earnest saw it, and a word from him would have
insured Henry another and a heartier admonition of the
rod. He said nothing, however, but, as Doty Tetson
followed Mr. Tome out on the floor, in front of the
benches, there to be feruled, Earnest looked savagely
at the tell-tale, shook his fist at him, and pointed to the
grounds connected with the building.
" This was plainly a threat. What it signified, ap-
peared at recess, when, as Earnest admitted, he kicked
Henry a few times, but without hurting him much.
" Then Earnest himself held out his hand, and took
half a dozen hard, conscientious blows from Mr.
Tome's ruler. He received them without any shrink-
ing, as something expected, and with which he had no
LOVERS AND THINKERS. Ill
fault to find. Two or three tears silently dissolved
from pain, were brushed quickly from his cheek, then
he turned, and with no sign of disrespect for his
teacher, but with a look of ungovernable haughtiness
and self-satisfied triumph, he took his seat.
" Henry Logbun carried a few bruises on his person
for a day or two, and so careful a remembrance of
them while his school-days lasted, that there was no
further occasion to beat him for gratuitous tattling.
" But a second rupture grew out of this first one.
James Groby was the largest boy at school. A few
days after Doty Tetson's freak of whistling, Groby
said to him :
" ' Oh, nonsense, Doty ! you think, of course, there's
nobody .like your Cousin Earnest. He took your part
against that lummox Logbun. What if he did ? Log-
bun's a baby, if he is big. Earnest wouldn't have
tried anything of that sort on me?
" ' Hadn't better give him a chance,' replied Doty :
' you're almost a man, and he's only fourteen ; but if
you wind him up, he'll strike like a clock, every time ;
mind that.'
" James Groby by no means relished Doty's opinion,
that any boy in school would dare oppose him. But
the conversation was cut short by the bell, and the boys
were soon engaged with their lessons.
" Earnest came in late, and knew nothing of what
had been said. That afternoon he was to be very busy.
A long and tedious algebraic problem had taken up a
good part of his time in the morning, and as soon as he
entered the school-room, he sat down to finish it.
" His slate was full of figures. Mr. Tome was hear-
112 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
ing a recitation in a part of the room farthest from
Earnest's seat, with his back turned toward it. James
Groby sat about a dozen feet from Earnest, in an arm-
chair, having a movable board attached, which could be
used as a writing-desk ; and beneath the seat was a
drawer in which Groby kept his books. Next him was
an unoccupied chair, with an old cushion in it.
" As Mr. Tome was so far from the boys who sat in
this part of the room, some of them had grown restless,
and were throwing at each other such bits of paper, and
crumbs of sweet-meats, as their pockets contained. It
was seldom that Earnest participated in such vagaries ;
not because he was always obedient, but because he
considered them beneath him, ^ too small a business.
Now he was so much occupied, that he paid no attention
to anything around him. He had pretty nearly worked
out his problem, and was eager to finish it. Several
times, small missiles had hit him, and had caused him
some irritation. He told the boys that he was in no
mood for play, they had better let him alone:
" James Groby heard it, and, whispering to a boy
who sat near him, said that Earnest Acton was ' putting
on the man a little too high, and must have his steeple
dropped off.' Then, catching up the old cushion from
the unoccupied chair, he tossed it directly on Earnest's
slate. It rubbed out a portion of his figures. The
problem couldn't be finished, unless by beginning almost
anew, and his day's labor was lost.
" He looked for an instant at his slate, then at the
face of James Groby, who sat laughing at him, knowing
that he would bring no complaint before Mr. Tome,
and fearing nothing worse. Then Earnest laid his slate
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 113
and the cushion on his desk, got deliberately up, and
walking to Groby's chair, struck him so furiously, as he
leaned on one side to avoid the blow, that Groby and
his chair, his writing-board, books and inkstand, all
tumbled on the floor in one confused and noisy heap.
" The boys arose in their seats, astonished and
frightened. Groby extricated himself from the chair,
but was so completely astounded, that he made no
attempt to retaliate. Mr. Tome hurried across the
room, bidding the boys sit down. By a few inquiries,
he learned the cause and circumstances of the quarrel.
After expressing his surprise, that one so old as James
Groby, should, as he said, ' seek instruction for his
mind in the peccadilloes of children,' he addressed Ear-
nest Acton.
" ' My child,' said he, ' you do not mean to be vicious,
but you have a temper which I sometimes fear will
prove your ruin. You have good qualities with it,
and if these should by-and-by yoke it to themselves in
the pursuit of noble objects, you will perhaps rise to
superiority by reason of this very fault. But if not
if such a force should be connected with evil aims
the misery you will bring upon yourself and others,
will be greater than any human being should inflict or
endure.'
" Having said this, the good man returned to the
class he had left, and never again alluded to the after-
noon's outbreak.
"But his words were rooted in my memory. They
partly expressed my own vague imaginings. I had
dimly marked out in my mind a lofty career for my
friend. I couldn't tell what it would be, but I pictured
10*
114 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
it as powerful, while I couldn't believe it would be
ruinous and disgraceful."
" Was your friend uncommonly studious," asked
Stella, who seemed to desire that Charley should still
continue his account of Earnest.
" By no means," said Charley. " His recitations were
always creditable, as his lessons were easily learned.
Usually one or two depended more or less upon him at
classes. But here, he didn't seem ambitious to excel,
only to show that he could do so if he desired. He was
a boy. His ambition was that of a boy : it was of a
physical cast. Once out of the school-room, he was the
head and life of all sports and contests. No one of his
age and size could match him in most of them. Was it
wrestling ? He was always ready. Was it running ?
Few would attempt to catch him. Had the season
come for snow-balling ? His own snow-ball was almost
as sure as a gun-shot, and as hard as a stone.
" Of course this endeavor for mere physical excellence
soon passed away. But now he can enter into, and
appreciate all tones of mind, not only that of the in-
tellectual saint, but also that of the rough boxer ; for,
to some extent, he has himself been both.
" I must tell you one further instance of his boyish
dash, and impudence, and daring. It also speaks of the
command he exercised over his school-fellows.
" His cousin and pet, Doty Tetson, had again got
into trouble, and was again punished, but, as Earnest
imagined, with some injustice, and undue severity. It
was just before school was dismissed in the afternoon.
As the boys rushed out, Earnest, pale with anger, col-
lected them together, marshalled them up in front of
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 115
the door, and actually drove them into giving three
groans for their respected teacher.
"But for years, he didn't forgive himself for this
insult to Mr. Tome, whom he really loved and revered.
It was the source of acute bitterness to him, for many
days, and more than one sleepless night. His .kind
preceptor knew him much better than he himself could,
and easily pardoned even this indignity, pardoned it
with tears in his eyes. Perhaps it was for this reason
that Earnest regretted it more than any other single act
of his boyhood. It was difficult to intimidate him ;
but beneath the rays of kindness, his whole nature
would melt."
CHAPTER XIV.
" TT is Earnest's theory," continued Charley, " that
J- the record of childhood is necessarily uninterest-
ing, unless the eye is fixed on the future of the child.
As ' father of the man,' the boy is engaging. Apart
from that, save in our own love of the little one we
protect, we pass over his history. It is an account of
romping ; the chasing of objects symbolized by the but-
terfly ; of heedless endeavor for the gratification of im-
pulses ; of loving the nearest objects, but fearing and
shrinking from the many ; of sportive cruelty toward
insect and animal. Each child is a little hunter, a little
savage, afraid of all things, yet, having the strength,
he would clutch the stars for his playthings. We scru-
tinize the early days of the prominent, and of our
friends, only that we may see how and why their later
days were so vivid and important to us.
" I have told you of Earnest when a child, placing
him, to begin with, where every child is naturally
placed, I suppose, in a period of impulse and ac-
tivity, awaiting higher things. How do you like the
picture of his spirit and ability, his faults, his antago-
nisms, on the low plain, boyhood ? "
" Oh ! very well," cried Cora, so hastily that Stella
(116)
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 117
had no chance to speak ; " very well indeed, for the
edification of philosophers and prize-fighters, and other
such people. But I thought you told Stella, the man
had a heart. What was he doing with it all the while
when he was young ? Didn't he ever love anybody ?
Wasn't there even one sweet-heart who, at least from
pity, could condescend to just a little tenderness for
such an ugly and outrageous boy ? Why, Charley,
either he was only half a boy, after all, or else you've
told us only one side of a story."
Charley Merlow was silent for a moment, under this
storm of raillery, and then said :
" Yes, Cora, you are right. You shall have the
other side of the story now, while I am in the humor.
But to punish you for the terror inflicted on me by
your criticism, I shall leave you for at least ten min-
utes, while I go home and get a letter which Earnest
wrote to me four or five years ago. He shall speak for
himself on the love-question. That is a matter I know
nothing about.
" Excuse me, meanwhile," he added, and bounding
to the door, he shut it behind him before Cora could
retort. But he returned immediately, bringing the
letter.
" Earnest would as soon I should read it to you, as
not," said he ; " for he has often told me, it contains, in
effect, no more the affairs of his own heart than of a thou-
sand others. Now listen."
' Love, my dear Charley, is a reality the most
beautiful, perhaps, of all. But there are many follies
and vanities, many affectations and fibs, constantly
clinging to it. I think it has seldom been deeply un-
118 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
derstood or naturally portrayed by the writers. A fa-
vorite theory, for instance, is a first love, at first sight,
enduring forever. Has not any one who has once
looked into himself, lived long enough to know better ?
I suspect a first love is commonly an illusion vouch-
safed merely to open our eyes."
" There, that will do," Cora interrupted, " it's a
most shocking epistle ! "
But Charley persisted in reading.
" 'Tis true, the affections are precocious. I suppose
we have but a very limited perception of the beautiful,
before we see it in the glances of a maiden. What of
that ? By the time she has well aroused the percep-
tion, it enables us to see others lovelier than herself.
If we have heart, we shall be thankful to her. But is
our love often ' love forevermore ? ' Is hers so ?
" My friend, open your ear for a confession. I have
a string of loves for you, that, if they were beads, would
reach half round your neck ; and if they wholly encir-
cled it, I should not now be jealous.
" When you and I first knew each other, I was four
years old, I believe. Never mind the occasion : you
have laughed at me sufficiently over it. But I insist
that I was simply affording my father's Arab an expert
driver. Well, young as I was, you, my friend, were
not my first love ; and I had several of your gender
prior to the other sort. I am serious. Love does not
begin in any distinction of sex ; and if we gaze far
enough, I fancy it does not end in any such distinction.
" Before your time, I used to see a little chap, in our
village I presume he was of about my own age
who charmed me magically. I was in love with him.
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 119
I knew the symptoms. I pined to become acquainted
with him ; yet I was shy, and scarcely durst approach
him. I wanted to do him some favor anything that
would please him, and be accepted. I would have
given him my candy the whole stick gladly. I
wished he might fall off his door-step, that I could pick
him up, and comfort him. Yet my fondness was un-
selfish. I would have thrown myself off, rather than
that he should have really been injured in the smallest
degree. Poor youngster ! I have no doubt he was
worthy a better fate than befeU him the other day in
my memory : so untrue to him had I been, that I could
not even recall his name.
" You perceive, my good friend, that you were my
second love. We met, and promised, and neither has
proved false. This they call friendship.
" However, after moving here to Ironton, I had sev-
eral passions similar to my first.
" One was for a child whom I courted assiduously
for a considerable time, and loved dearly. I gained
him as a companion and playmate. He did not corre-
spond with the darling my imagination had pictured him
to be, and soon he was deserted. His heart remained
whole, and his body grew fat. He is now one of the
coarsest, commonest, heaviest young men in the county.
" But when somewhat beyond thirteen, I had une
grande passion, which lasted me well, it must have
been six months. Here now was an experience to be
respected. It was fervid, exalted, even religious. I
remember her well, Miss Grey, the dear charmer, as
she then appeared. She was a year older than I,
which, you know, in a girl, is the same as two or three-
120 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
years with us. She was pretty, had dark hair, in
ringlets, black eyes, a clear, fresh face, and considera-
ble body. She was rather stout. My ideal was not a
chalk-fed fairy, but a woman with blood in her. I was
not yet Byronic enough even to ' hate a dumpy
woman.'
" I used to see the young lady at church. What
set my heart a-fluttering for her I never knew. There
she was, in the pew, where I could always look at her
wholesome, quiet, and well-behaved.
" AVhile this love possessed me, there was a revival
connected with the church. My mind had not been
exercised upon religion. I believed what I heard, sup-
posing that the preacher understood the truth, and was
right. I was impressed by his sermons, and trembled
for my soul. Miss Grey, too, was deeply moved. I
was in an agony of fear for her. Hell was depicted in
the most shocking colors. Perhaps I could not escape
it. I felt myself to be an intolerable sinner. But I
prayed in secret, with all my strength, that my adored
might be saved.
" O God ! I cried, if either of vis, let me be the
sacrifice ! I am unworthy ; but spare her innocence
and beauty from everlasting fire !
" I would have given myself to perdition for her
eternal welfare. Was not this love ?
" Meanwhile I was comforted ; I thought I had
found rest among the faithful, and the tempest of my
soul was assuaged. Still, I hesitated to join the
church. I waited to become a- little better ; to try
myself a little longer. It seemed that I ought to be
very good, wholly free from guile, to take upon me the
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 121
vows and duties of church-membership, to enter the
holy of holies.
" Miss Grey became a communicant. She was con-
fident of her salvation, and I would not doubt it. I
was delighted, and gave thanks with a full heart.
"But the young lady knew nothing of my struggle
or my happiness. Notwithstanding I loved her with
such intensity, I had scarcely spoken to her in my life.
We were almost strangers. Indeed, I hardly durst
speak to her. I supposed that so much sweetness, so
much worth, could not lavish themselves upon my un-
worthiness. Circumstances were such that we seldom
met, except in the church ; and had we been constantly
together, I could not at that time have mustered suffi-
cient courage, it is probable, to display my tenderness.
Daring, to that extent, would have seemed insane te-
merity.
" It was well that this absorption did not long con-
tinue. It was acute, even to pain and debility. But
it went as it came, telling not how or why. I looked
upon that lovely face, until it was not so lovely, and
yet it had not changed. Yesterday I saw it, as I
walked the street. It was still pretty and placid, but,
as I deemed, somewhat lifeless. For me, in all save
kindness and pleasant recollections, it was dead.
" I awoke from my religious frenzy even sooner than
from my dream of love. For some time, as you are
aware, there was nothing but darkness and mist in its
place.
" After the pure and silent adoration for Miss Grey,
I attended a school at which there were both maidens
and young men.
11
122 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
" Here were two pretty girls who severally inspired
me with emotions similar to those connected with my for-
mer angel, only not so severe. One was slender, gentle,
and yielding, Avhose chief beauty was a kind smile.
Her eyes were blue ; her hair would be called auburn,
if you disliked to pronounce it a still sunnier hue.
She is the worthy wife of an industrious shoemaker.
The other enchantress had sparkling black eyes, and
hair not a shade lighter. Her laugh was round and
loud, her person, large and slightly masculine in move-
ment. She also is married. Pier husband is a police-
man, saloon-keeper, and expositor of ' the manly art
of self-defence.' He is much superior to her quondam
lover, both in the immensity of his mustache and the
compactness of his muscles.
" After the reign of the sturdy brunette, my heart
was for a considerable time freer and colder. Still, it
was once or twice punctured, if not pierced. I re-
member particularly well, one strangely simple little in-
cident which occurred to set it fluttering. I was in the
street of a morning, and met our Madame de Villier's
studious demoiselles, walking in their pretty file of
couples, when a small boy cried out at them : ' Sheep !
sheep ! ' Suddenly, and from sheer fun, as I fancied,
the loveliest and most regal maid of the flock, stepped
out of it, caught hold of the child, and shook him into
a simple bundle of red astonishment. Just then,
ready to burst with laughter, I caught her merry, yet
most intense and spiritual eye. She laughed, blushed,
and resumed her place, without looking back. Would
you believe it ? for weeks I could not drive her or
the incident from mind, and I have asked myself a
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 123
hundred times since, if that dash of independence,
connected with her dignity and those spiritual eyes,
was not indicative of higher phases of the same trait,
and of something very near and dear to my own
nature.
" Now I am touched by memories which bow my
head in tender respect. Affie Brantome my friend,
you knew her. She rose in the horizon of my bright-
ening manhood, after a long night of gloom. For three
desolate years I had not loved the world, I had not
loved myself, when she came, with a softened picture
of the summer heaven in her eyes, to glide into my
heart, lighting up with her own faith and loveliness,
that too dismal shelter. I have told you the sequel.
How could I forgive myself, if I did not know that she
has forgiven me, and is happy! How her lingering
illness veiled that sunny spirit in clouds of melancholy !
She thought it would prevent her from becoming a
helpful companion, a useful wife. She had lighted my
pathway ; her own was now dark. She counted on my
love that it would increase with her misfortune ; but
she would not live a useless pensioner on its bounty.
She remembered my pride : I would bear no coldness,
no wavering. Poor child ! she sent me chilling letters,
though it tore her heart to write them. They gave me
a sense of uncertainty. Was she trifling, then, after all ?
I could not know of her saintly renunciation. I wrote
'her a few kind words, saying they would be the last.
She said, in return, that I did not understand her, that
she did not understand herself: pleading not to be
forgotten, yet a little while to be loved ; but alas ! ex-
plaining nothing. I persisted in silence, unbroken,
124 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
complete. God forgive me ! I was but nineteen. Is a
boy fit to love, or only to be proud ?
" Indirectly, and a long time afterward, the explana-
tion came. It bruised and stunned me like the shock of
a fall. I was stung to the core of my being. But to
what purpose ? Affie had regained her health ; and
the tendrils of her beautiful nature, which must nestle
near to some kind support, had partly twined themselves
about another existence. I prayed he might be worthy
of that lovely flower, wearing it on his breast more
carefully, more sacredly, than I had done. I could not
ask it now : it was his.
" But I am growing sad. I have written too long,
not dreaming, at the outset, where my pen would carry
me. In my soul, I press your hand.
"EARNEST."
As Cora brushed away a tear, Charley asked her if
he had now completed the story to her satisfaction.
" Yes," she replied, " as far, perhaps, as you can.
But we shall yet add a lady more charming than all, as
the last on his list."
She looked at Stella. But the young widow's face
was buried in her hands, perhaps in thought.
CHAPTER XV.
ON the second subsequent evening, Charley Merlow
came again ; and this time his friend was with him.
Earnest was still pale. A narrow patch on one side of
his forehead, almost concealed by the long, clustering
chestnut hair which fell over it, was yet a perceptible
souvenir of his late rencounter.
Cora met the young men ; but Stella was not visible.
" Cora, where is Mrs. Torson ? " asked Charley, who
was now always perfectly at home in the house of
Richard Clandon.
" Know, Mr. Impertinence," was the reply, " that
the lady isn't quite ready to come down stairs. If you
wish, I'll step and ask her what she is doing at just this
instant : it might be interesting, it might not. Or if
you'll wait a few minutes, tolerating my company mean-
while, then, I presume, my friend will appear. Mr.
Acton, now, would be perfectly content with me, I'm
sure. But our Charley is very difficult to please."
These last words were addressed to Earnest, with
Cora's usual look of merriment ; and as he knew the
goodness of her heart, her light words and her bright
face seemed, just then, two of the most agreeable
features of the world.
11 (125)
126 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
" You are certainly right, Miss Clandon," he respond-
ed ; then, with the gentle look of admiration lingering
in his eyes, he turned toward Charley, seeming to say
by his glance, Well, my good fellow, you have a
treasure, I think.
The three conversed for a few minutes, when Charley
stepped to a window to see something that suddenly
attracted his attention. Cora called him, and as he did
not come back soon enough, she started toward him,
with the evident intention of accelerating his move-
ments. Earnest rose, and as the piano stood at his
hand, he touched it.
" He is very noble and very good, isn't he ? and
very handsome besides," whispered Cora to Charley,
as a noisy carriage rattled by the window. " How he
and Stella could love each other ! "
Then she returned immediately to Earnest, pulling
Charley by the sleeve. She had heard a boy in the
street, whistle a tune, that morning, she said ; and
now, while two or three notes that Mr. Acton had
struck, reminded her of it, she must try to play it.
So down she sat at the instrument. But she was un-
able to recall the whole of the melody, and Earnest,
who had also partly caught it, somewhere, aided her
by humming portions she could not remember.
When she had run it over once or twice, to her sat-
isfaction, she struck off into some sprightly operatic
music, playing with precise execution and good taste.
Earnest told her so, frankly and respectfully.
* " Oh, yes ! " she said ; " I'm among the champions
about here of the so-sos. But I'm glad I happened
to play for you in advance of Stella Mrs. Torson
LOVERS AND THINKERS, 127
I .mean. After listening to her, one never asks any-
thing more of poor Cora. The child may go talk
nonsense then, a feat hi which she has few supe-
riors. But Stella is a genius. She carries music to a
science. She will make the ocean roar, or the ele-
phant tread for you, on the piano ; or she will make
the saint pray and the lovelorn maiden moan. Then
she will give you a sound that will correspond to a
toothache you felt sometime, and you wonder if it's
going to begin again. Or, in strict truth and soberness,
her playing is the most expressive I ever heard, except
from one or two great artists, the best in the country.
I've heard her play when I've even preferred her to
them. But and now I'm going to put in a modifi-
cation, for they say a lady always finds one, when she
extols another lady Stella has a big hand. The
man, though, who gets her heart, will find that bigger.
Bless me ! I wonder why she doesn't come down ! "
While Cora was thus entertaining Earnest and
Charley ; chatting, joking, flying from one subject to
another ; and never forbidding the mouth to utter the
thought, the fancy, or oddity that popped into her
mind ; Stella, alone in her apartment, was very
differently engaged.
When Earnest and Charley came, they had been
expected. As their voices sounded in the hall, Stella
had begged Cora to go down and meet them alone.
" I want a few minutes, dear, to myself," she said :
" then I will be with you.
Cora did as her friend desired. Meanwhile Stella
had tried to dream out of a problem, its yet impossible
solution.
128 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
The truth was, notwithstanding her declaration to
Cora that she did not love Earnest ; that she could not
love any one so suddenly ; she felt an indefinite, pro-
phetic dread of meeting him, though she would not
give herself up to it.
"No," she soliloquized, "I have seen him but three
or four times in my life. Surely I am not so weak
that I need fear meeting him as many times again,
before permitting myself such a thought as love. And
in any event, is there more than one course ? to
walk on till I see when and where I ought to turn ?
And what if I should love ? Where is the danger ?
Who knows that he would respond to my longing ?
His heart seems to have passed away from special
objects, to a mellowed kindness for all who are noble,
and gentle, and fair. But yes, it would be so ! He is
young ; he is generous ; he could not repel a heart
knowing his, if it painfully leaped out to meet him.
It is only too easy for such a soul to love ! "
Then Stella experienced once more the heavy, clog-
ging sensation over her heart, which she had felt before
her marriage, as she looked out of the window from
her father's house, into the sunshine, which blackened
instantly to cloud and gloom.
" I know it," she murmured : " he can love ; and I
can love only him. Yet neither of us must love.
The reality of my youth's dream is before me. Can I
myself now drop the veil to hide it from my sight?
Yes, I am strong enough to do my duty ; I can."
Stella sat awhile in deep, silent meditation, then she
bent her body, and bowed her head ; but her spirit
rose on high.
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 129
" My Father," she murmured, " let my soul grow
calm by approaching Thee. I know not what to ask ;
Thou knowest all things best to give. Guide me to
see my life's duty, and, seeing it, to shrink not away.
Let the example of the world's greatest spirit be ever
near me. He was thy noblest Son, my loftiest
Brother, by giving all to Thee. In his spirit, grant
me to live, grant me to die, asking no dearer pleas-
ure, no sweeter reward."
Stella rose, and soon joined her friends in the
drawing-room. Her face was thoughtful and a little
sad. Her brow was very white almost pallid; but
a flush was on her lips and on her cheeks. Her hair
was, as usual, plain and glossy, brushed "madonna-
wise." Her dress was a black silk, elegantly fitted,
but as plain as her hair. It was finished at the neck
and wrists by the simple lustre of pure linen the
collar and cuffs. A white, fleecy knit shawl, almost
as soft and delicate as lace, was thrown across her
shoulders, and yielded pliantly to every motion.
Small golden crosses, enamelled with a blue like the
azure of her eyes, and closely set with little pearls as
the centre of the skyey tint, these for ear-rings, and
a larger cross of the same kind for a breastpin, were
her only jewels. She was very fond of the Christian
symbol ; and in some color black, or blue, or the
gleaming yellow of plain gold it was almost con-
stantly worn upon her person.
" Why, how long you've staid away from us-," said
Cora, as Stella entered the room.
" I began to find myself veiy dull to the gentlemen
without you," she continued, as Earnest and Charley
130 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
advanced to meet her friend, who extended a hand to
each of them, the right to Earnest, as he happened
to be on that side, the left to Charley, who did not
wait for the other to be disengaged.
" I was not aware it was long," replied Stella. " As
for the dulness, it seems to me, the gentlemen's faces
and their merry voices flattered my Cora wonderfully,
if she had really lost the least particle of her e#psrvt"
" Tut, tut ! " persisted Cora, " don't you know it's
shocking to contradict people ? "
She said this with one of her ever-ready kisses, still
declaring that Stella had been up-stairs such a great
while, that she couldn't tell without tasting, whether
she yet loved her or not.
From Stella's solicitous glance at Earnest's forehead,
and her inquiries after his health, the conversation
turned once again to the affray on High street, then
especially to Jerry Kay.
" What a kind-hearted, quick-witted, demonstrative
old blarney he is," said Cora. " I think he's the most
Irish specimen of Ireland I ever saw. What fun it is
to hear him swear ! I know it's dreadfully wicked in
me to say so ; but whenever I hear him, I can't help
laughing. I couldn't to save my ears. Stella, why do
people swear? "
" A fair question, truly," replied Stella, " but not so
easy as some others, it may be, for me to answer. I
believe, however, if you really want to know, there
are reasons for the practice in human nature, as there
are such reasons for all other human practices. I
might give you my opinion, but I should prefer to hear
one. Mr. Acton, suppose you tell us why people
swear."
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 131
Stella spoke thus, partly because she wished to hear
Earnest talk ; partly because, in spite of herself, and
needlessly, as she knew, she felt slightly awed by his
presence and bearing. It was perfectly simple even
childlike ; but there was a certain depth, a certain
directness in his most careless actions, in his very
motions, which others might not perceive, but which
she could as little fail to see. The perception might
increase rather than hamper her own powers, she
would be sure of being understood. Still, she wished
at first to listen, rather than to speak.
" I am disappointed ; " was Earnest's answer to her
request. " I expected to hear a much better response
to our friend Cora's question, than I could myself offer.
I will obey you however; but you must promise to
correct me if I should err.
" Swearing," he continued, when the promise was
given, " is confined to no locality, I presume. It is a
failing of mankind. Men swore by the gods, as they
also worshipped them, before their minds rose completely
to the conception of one God. Or they swore by some
special deity, or by Jove, the ' Father of gods and men.'
The name of Jehovah had evidently been used with
lightness, before it was necessary to write the command-
ment : ' Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy
God in vain.' Profanity seems to me the reverse and
dark side of prayer. We instinctively believe in a
power above us. We call on it to bless us. If ignorant
and filled with hate, we call on it to curse the objects
of our hatred. If wrapped in excitement, even over
trifles, we are apt to feel as though nothing we conceive
as limited, can represent our agitation. So we appeal
132 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
to the Boundless. An oath is thus a recognition of
God, in a low and hasty manner. But our reverence
demands that the All-High shall be recognized loftily,
never as we bandy trifles. The third commandment
is an inevitable decree of the soul, as inevitably
broken by frivolity and heat.
" But the man who thinks and defines, putting things
in their places, has no need to invoke his Creator as he
brushes away a fly or describes a toy. We say ' the
gentleman does not swear.' The ' gentleman ' we ac-
count to be thoughtful and cool.
" I have noticed that the French swear glibly and
commonly ; the Irish, invariably. These people are
hot-hearted, enthusiastic, and light. Their profanity
usually means nothing more than that they have a word
to say which they cannot say strongly enough to suit
them. It is so with our kind old friend, Jerry Kay.
He intends no harm, but can hardly breathe without
mentioning God or the Devil _the highest good, the
greatest evil. Well, the human spirit itself can scarcely
throb in any direction, but it shall instantly come upon
these : reverence and love in their own way, violence
and anger also in their way."
" Thank you, Mr. Acton," said Cora, when Earnest
had concluded ; " I've found out then, at last, why I do
really ache sometimes to say well ' fiddlesticks ! '
I thought there were roots for it in my blood ; I rather
suspected the roots were a sort of natural growth in
blood generally. They sprout especially in mine,
I see now ; for somewhere, at the other end of my
pedigree, the Clandons were French-Irish. Charley,
don't you like Irish girls ? "
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 133
" Certainly I do," replied Charley, " and French
girls too."
" Well, then," said Cora, " come here, and sit by me
a minute, which you haven't done this whole blessed
evening. Mr. Acton, as I know, likes the Germanic
blood, or the old Grecian. That means Stella. Come,
let us arrange ourselves according to our attractions for
blood, not gentlemen with gentlemen, and ladies with
ladies, as some evil genius has now assorted us. It's
dreadfully stiff. For my part, I always liked to sit
with the boys, even for a punishment at school."
With this, she took Stella's arm, and pushed her
gently into a chair beside Earnest, at the same time
taking Charley's arm and pulling him into the chair
beside herself, which had been occupied by Stella.
Both obeyed easily ; for everybody obeys a humorous,
capricious, irresistible young woman.
" Now," she exclaimed, " this group pleases me.
We'll resume, if you please, our researches into blood,
with its morals, manners, and customs."
But they had not conversed long, before she was
ready for something else.
" Stella," she said, " I told Mr. Acton, before you
came down, about your musical proclivities. My criti-
cisms were very impressive : were they not, Mr. Acton ?
And haven't you been dying ever since, to hear her
play ? "
Earnest said he was at that very moment on the
point of requesting her to do so ; and now, that the
opportunity had been given him, he must urge her.
" I need but little urging," Stella replied. " I am so
very fond of music that I am always glad to be at the
12
134 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
piano, when others are really glad to listen. Cora,
what will you have? "
" Oh ! a jig for me, by all means ! " Cora answered.
"But I think Mr. Acton wouldn't like that. He's
been telling me that he likes the German music, con-
sidering it equalled in power and richness only by the
profundity and research of German literature. I be-
lieve that's your opinion too. Well, suppose we have
a toucn of Mynheer Meyerbeer, to begin with, say
the ' March ' from the ' Prophet.' That's Teutonic
enough to charm the glass out of the windows."
Once on the stream of music, with Stella as pilot, the
minutes passed to Earnest like seconds. He was
entranced. Charley Merlow was again completely
amazed, and Cora was radiant with delight at her
friend's success.
" A queen, isn't she ! " was her exclamation as she
and Charley stood listening together.
If Stella was now absorbed in the elysium of har-
monies which she seemed to create, Earnest would
have been as deeply so, if it had not been for his in-
terest in her on whom such felicity depended. At first
he could not give his thoughts wholly to the music ;
for music itself appeared to be embodied in her. He
saw at once that Cora had not exaggerated her merits.
He acknowledged to himself that he had seen no one
who could at all compare with her, except, as Cora had
asserted, one or two public performers, and they among
the most noted in the world. It would have been diffir
cult to convince him that even these could have ex-
celled her, unless, possibly, in their own favorite efforts.
But she played everything, from ballad to oratorio, and
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 135
all perfectly. Yes, perfectly, in as far as that Earnest
could ask for nothing more, in conception or execu-
tion, than she was able to render.
In his reading of different authors, Earnest had
tried to understand them, not through prepossessions of
his own mind, but by creeping into their minds ; by
sympathizing with them for the time being ; by making
their outlook his stand-point of vision. A book which
he esteemed worth reading, he thought deserving of
this compliment. The writer once permeated, once
comprehended as he comprehended himself, then the
reader must judge as to there being a higher outlook
than the one just occupied. Earnest now fancied
that Stella had done the same in music. Her perform-
ance seemed different from that of others, not merely
in the faultlessness of the touch, but in the inmost
sense of the theme. Her style was her own ; yet it was
evidently nothing but the most sensitive and accurate
appreciation of the grand masters of the art, most dex-
terously declared by her fingers instead of her words.
She had truly " thought to music ; " to her it had not
been merely a sensuous revel.
To Earnest, sounds were representative of things.
He had not made music a study, but he could never
listen to it without knowing that he had come in con-
tact with one more phase of that intelligence which is
the centre and substance of the universe. He per-
ceived that it expressed his joy, his sorrow, his wor-
ship, his mirth. It uttered his attractions, his repul-
sions. He had asked if gravitation had a heart, and
this were the murmurino;s of its love. He had sat in
O
church when he could bow to God only through the
136 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
prayer of the organ ; and as some receptive, melodious
nature which had no utterence at the lips for its aspi-
rations, but could praise Heaven for blessings, and beg
their continuance, by the thanksgiving and the suppli-
cation of the key-board, as genius had thus directly
communed with the Father, and Earnest had heard it
cease its petition, that perhaps some fleshy face and
husky voice in a surplice might say : " We will now
begin the service of God," the young man's soul
had sunk within him, and all worship had fled.
As Stella now sat at the finest piano that Richard
Clandon* could procure for his daughter, pouring out all
the harmonies of which it seemed capable ; as Earnest
stood admiring that superb woman, how soon and
how easily they understood each other ! how impalpa-
bly, yet how surely, their spirits conjoined ! She struck
up the wild, terrific battle song of Rouget de Lisle 's.
The storm gathered on Earnest's brow, the spring of
the tiger seemed flashing from his eye, and his right
hand was clenched, as though a sword was in its grasp.
She looked up into his flushed face, anticipating, yet
almost recoiling from the effect she had produced, and
suddenly that epitome of the French Revolution died
from her fingers. It melted into an operatic aria of
love and hope. As she looked again into his face, how
different must have been the emotions it expressed !
For her eye, all softness, turned away, and a deep
blush was on her cheek.
CHAPTER XVI.
AGAIN the friends met at Richard Clandon's.
It seems that after Earnest and Stella had been
drawn so near to each other by the charm of music,
on that early April evening of our last chapter, Stella
had spoken of her pleasure in meeting one with whom
so close a communion of the kind could be established.
Earnest, in return, had applauded her gift with simple
directness and fervor. He had said what he thought,
with no strain at personal encomium, with no fear of
it ; but as though the gift itself were above all persons,
and separate from them. She had alluded to his poem,
to Charley's remarks on it and on him, and to having
somewhat interested herself in his history.
"I find we are both given," she said, "to looking
for a life deeper than this life, for the undercurrents
of affairs about us. Let me ask a favor of you. I
always have a strange curiosity to know what picture
of God and man is painted on the thought of a person
who strikes me as in any way remarkable for good or
ill. I regard it as the index of his actions. In it I
look for him. You like to talk, I know, on subjects
which men have deemed the highest. Would you
(137)
138 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
think your time wasted in talking upon them to me ? I
wish you would promise to do so sometime."
It was pleasing for Earnest to give the promise she
desired. It might have been a fancy of his, but he re-
garded his inward experience as in some degree a
mirror of great facts and tendencies about him, as Char-
ley Merlow had intimated to Stella. And why should
he decline to hold this mirror up to the fair, sympathiz-
ing friend whose image had already sunk deeply into
his heart ?
When now they met, Stella soon reminded him of
their last conversation.
" I have not forgotten it," he said, " but with your
permission I must modify my promise. Such an ac-
count of myself as you wish me to give, requires
compression and exactness, or it cannot be worth your
while. It must relate too, you know, to the deepest
questions that have ever engaged the human mind.
Now if our friend Cora were obliged to listen to it, she
would scarcely hesitate to call it dull, I fear ; and per-
haps obscure and heterodox besides. Then the experi-
ence is such that I should have to speak of myself in
connection with some very strong minds and illustrious
names. Not at all in comparison, of course, so far as
strength and action are concerned ; but as having been
in, and passed through although in my youth and
weakness the general phases of thought and feeling,
which they, in their might of personalty, represented
to the world in their time and place. To any one not
having the clearest perception that great men are al-
ways representative of ideas and epochs of history,
that they are merely strong embodiments of a common
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 139
progressive humanity, I should labor under the dis-
advantage of much apparent egotism. In conversa-
tion, too, my narrative would be almost interminable,
as it would lack order. But not long ago, I wrote out
a summary of the matter, as well as I could, for a
young friend, who was earnest, inquiring, and thought-
ful ; but sceptical to the last degree ; and who yet
needed to believe in something, needed some faith
which could be reconciled with his reason, and on
which he could rest. Mine was radical enough ; but I
gave it to him for what it was worth, and at the same
time pointed out to him those who had helped me
reach it. I have brought the paper with me to-night.
It is rather long, and would be tedious to many. But
you may take it, if you wish, and read it at your
leisure, or brand it 'heavy,' and return it to me
unread."
Stella accepted it gladly, and after Earnest and
Charley went home, she sat up late, and read it very
patiently, as follows :
" At sixteen years of age I was at school. During
the last year I had lost my boyish vivacity, had grown
thoughtful, retiring, and was sometimes much depressed.
I had begun to perceive, to reflect, and consider. Who
was I ? What was around me ? What should I do ?
These are hard questions, and, in general, the last one
only is persistently put. But they had all occurred to
me, and I could not rest without an answer.
" I did not consciously say so : I merely opened my
eyes, commencing a secret and silent questioning of men
and things. I felt strong impulses, premonitions, and
powers. I had been a leader among boys. But now
140 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
circumstances and regulations displayed their checks. I
was in a world of fashions, precedents, establishments.
Wealth was the special crown of endeavor, and every
one was seeking to wear it. It was a despot. It or-
dained castes, like the Hindoo theology. It was the
great Bramin of American society. I saw that it
partially excluded me from certain circles into which
some of my companions might enter. These circles
dubbed themselves the highest, and people accepted the
assumption. My father was not rich : he had accumu-
lated and lost : comfort was left, not opulence. Even
then, I did not care for the magnates of society, as I saw
them, or for their favors. But to be excluded, looked
down upon, slighted, by those whom I could not regard
as my superiors, if really my equals, enraged me beyond
measure. Madame Roland herself never hated the
supercilious rich more fiercely than I.
" Pardon me ; but I fancy that if my insight had been
less clear,' I should have now started with the rest, in
the foot-race for dollars. In a country free to my ex-
ertions as to those of others ; a country not yoked by a
titled aristocracy, only by" a moneyed class, why
could I not climb the Mammonic hill? So I asked
myself. But I turned, scanned the hill, and pro-
nounced it a lie. I said there was no hill, no height
there, nothing but an ant-heap which small eyes had
magnified to the Andes. I said that nothing was high
but lofty manhood, which was all running to claws for
the grasping of ingots.
" I was not wholly wrong ; I was not wholly right.
I was ambitious, imaginative, enthusiastic. The petti-
ness of the rich, and their meanness in accumulating
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 141
wealth, caused me to detest them, to wonder at the
respect paid them by others, and at the airs they took
upon themselves. They seemed to me among the least
of civilized men. Of course I could not yet perceive
their place and use in the world, though it is as definite
and necessary as any. But, as I have told you, they
sometimes preferred to walk alone, not at my side.
Once in awhile they tossed me a sneer. How I scorned
and cursed the presumption. They were superficial
and selfish ; I had already thought and loved. I was
really as snobbish as they ; only I would not recognize
their special idol. They bowed before lucre ; I before
culture and intellectual strength. My worship was the
better, but not the best. That, I could not yet per-
ceive.
" Thus I doubted society, spurning its notions and
ways. Its ideas of life were not mine ; nor its ideas of
death. Even the God I heard it proclaim, I could not
worship. But I was unable to peer through the objects
of my antagonism, and through my own position in the
midst of them. So I sank into gloom, without a
guide.
*' My father, a man like the spectral Dane,
' take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again,'
could neither gratify my longings, nor teach me the
wisdom to forego them. His kind, self-sacrificing, trust-
ful heart, had no experience by which to interpret mine.
He was astonished at what he had never before seen
settled misanthropy in a mere boy. He was cheerful,
142 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
upright, and simple-minded, with such perfect faith in
the ultimate right, that he did not ask to see it. He
was a good man, without caring a great deal whether he
was regarded so, or not ; an honest man, who would have
been just as honest if there had been no courts or jails
in the universe, simply because he felt it sweet and
pleasant to be honest ; and he was practically a Christian
man, without knowing or believing much of ecclesiasti-
cal doctrine, but conceiving, in his tender, upright soul,
that the Golden Rule contained the substanc of
religion. In short, he was a natural man in an arti-
ficial epoch. He could not help me. Who could ?
" About this time I became interested in the strange,
sad poetry of Byron, which appealed directly to my
disconsolate, combative state of feeling.
" Prior to becoming acquainted with the ' noble bard,'
and while at school, I had gobbled my share of the
common novels very properly termed of the ' blood and
thunder ' description, and a few books of better quality.
Of the novels I soon forgot even the names ; but if they
had all been piled together, and called ' The Long-
Bearded, Big-Booted, Bloody-Branded Rover, or the
Magic Jib-Boom of the Bay of Biscay,' this appellation
would perhaps have rendered a general notion of their
calibre.
" When about eleven years old, I had delighted in a
well-known sporting paper, and had read accounts of
the principal English, Irish, and American pugilists.
Then I was ambitious to be short and thick-set, a per-
son of superior muscle, handy at ' straight-out ' blows,
' upper-cuts ' and ' under-cuts.' I did not quite want
to go into the ' ring*' but imagined it would be a posi-
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 143
tive accomplishment to have the prowess and the
4 science ' to go there, while yet remaining out.
" This view of things soon passed aw r ay, as also the
desire to become a sailor, with which * the Magic Jib-
Boom of the Bay of Biscay ' had inoculated me to such
an umvholesome degree, that like many another foolish
lad, I occasionally determined to pack up my trunk,
depart from my dear old father and loving mother, and
become a second and mightier ' Jib-Boom.'
" The ring and the sea having faded from my vision,
the martial hero appeared. Napoleon what a man was
he among the giants ! though Murat, his dashing mar-
shal, with the high, waving plume, seemed in some
points the more dazzling leader.
" Thus my reading had advanced from the idea
of strength marvellous and monstrous, to the idea of
strength more natural. But still the heroes of my
collection were all strong men, not necessarily good ones.
There were no saints among them. They were up-
right and generous, and truthful enough ; because it
would have detracted from their greatness to be other-
wise ; good fellows as well as mighty, but not too
much hampered by any strict sense of duty.
*' The heroes we Avorship, are our ideals embodied and
accomplished. What I was at this period, in my cen-
tral tone of mind, in my feelings and wishes without,
of course, any ability to execute them Achilles, and
Alcibiades, and Themistocles, had lived and acted in
Greece, Caesar and Antony in Rome, and Napoleon in
modern Europe. These were all powerful, selfish men
of the world, who could secure what they sought in it,
and who could do as pleased them best.
144 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
" At this time I encountered the fiery soul of Lord
Byron, through his ' Harold ' and ' Corsair,' his ' Vision,'
his ' English Bards,' and his ' Don Juan.'
" Here, again, was depicted, in the most wildly fasci-
nating colors of feeling and imagination, mere strength
ambitious, dark, wasted strength. Yet the devil in
such guise seemed more beautiful than an angel ; and
who but Byron should thenceforth be my criterion of
greatness ; and what but poetry was worth man's while
beneath the sun.
" But it was decided that I must engage in some kind
of business. I was offered a position in a mercantile
establishment, and took it. My duties were light, and
I had several hours of leisure each day. Sometimes, in
fact, I could have almost the whole day. Without
neglecting my business, I was sure to occupy the spare
time, book in hand.
" Here my outward life was floating along in the
quiet, ordinary channel. But my mind and heart were
rolling, surging, and tumbling, far out on a stormy sea.
My body was amid the surroundings of commerce. My
soul was scudding on chaos, impelled by one restless
motor ambition, toward one goal poetical glory.
" How could I be happy ? When alone, if not apply-
ing myself relentlessly to some book, I was sure to be
munching my sorrow. I took every occasion for retire-
ment that I possibly could. I seemed out of place in
the world, and the world seemed sadly out of place
itself.
" But was such a state of mind independent? Was
it not derived from Byron's influence ?
" The writings of Byron first brought to my mind
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 145
a keen inherent taste for literature, and especially for
poetry. Then followed the ambition to convert the
taste into a power. From the exercise of the power, I
desired greatness, glory. So far, then, the influence of
Byron merely discovered to me what finally appeared
to be my ' effectual call,' my dearly beloved, my chosen
pursuit.
" But why the melancholy ? Was not that the fruit
of the bard's morbid hold upon a young, plastic mind ?
" No. Byron's influence was again a stim-ulant, not
a cause. It only came to properties ready and waiting.
" What covered Byron himself with gloom ? He
broke into a world which he regarded as foolish, frivo-
lous, and unkind; its people little in aspiration and
endeavor ' tickled with a straw ' ; large in selfish-
ness grasping each at the all of every other man.
Their pursuits, so important and engrossing to them-
selves, seemed to him the mere strivings of children for
a larger kind of toy-houses than their infancy delighted
in, and for a play-ground increased in extent while
diminished in innocence. Their conception of God
was, to him, a variable and dubious ogre ; and their
conception of their own relation to their Creator, a
matter of mere assent to uncertain formulas, a thing
of belief, which he could not believe, a matter of set
devotions, church-presence, and water-drops. And he
himself what was he ? Where was his place in this
odd, interminable labyrinth? How was he different
from the rest? unless, indeed, in knowing that they
could not be right, that they were far from wise, and
that he, too, was more distant from wisdom than even
from sympathy and harmony with them. Was he not,
13
146 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
in fact, more miserable, more pitiable than they ? They
could rest secure in their credence, and satisfied with
their vocations. However sandy the foundation of the
one, or trivial the pursuit of the other, to them, these
things were stable, and important, and real. While he,
searching for absolute truth, could find no resting-place
for the sole of his foot ; enamored of perfect beauty,
must everywhere drag with him, in quest of it, a poor
body touched with distortion ; and loving justice and
right, as the ideals of his inmost soul, must still be as
painfully conscious of incumbent flesh-pots, of muddy
promptings, and selfish, savage passions, as any honest
parson that ever accepted the notion of total depravity,
or dreaded an outward, personal, hotly-located Devil.
" Strong, wilful, sad man ! a groping colossus
amid a thousand wondrously charming mirages, where,
for want of an abiding, greenly-growing faith, all was
still a desert ! He stood on the crust of the world in his
time, knowing that beneath him it was hollow, the
philosophy, theology, ethics, all mummies dead and
buried, but wrapped in cerements still costly and vener-
able, which to him were curious, like all idols of man's
historical worship, yet which could not seem more
than dreams, and could inspire no higher sentiment
than an occasional half-tremor of fear, as at the possi-
ble reality of ghosts. Yes, he stood on the surface of
creeds and customs, and stamping with his heel, broke
them through, beholding their shallowness and falsity.
Then he strained his eye toward the heavens, trying
to see an angel who could yet explain to him how this
might be, and be well ; how altars might crumble
and fall, and still the altar of worship be ever holy ;
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 147
how creeds might totter and tumble, and belief still be
man's halo of happiness ; how systems of religion
could be false, and religion itself be true ; how imper-
fection, sin, misery, could universally abound, and man
still be the child of God, created for a blessing to him-
self, and a joy to the spheres. He strained his eye to
the heavens, but the heavens gave no sign. He had
not yet the innate charm to invoke the angel, and she
could not come. He rolled and tossed on the waves
of doubt and denial, scarcely even approaching the
terra firma of faith, until just as he was called away
from the shrine of muse and sage, to a realm which
faith alone, as it seems, can discover and vivify.
" It was left for other and later minds to accept the
same doubt and denial, to perceive the barrenness of
creeds, and systems, and establishments ; then to rec-
oncile this perception with a higher, a purified belief.
Byron in youth, Goethe in youth, were the symbols
of an inevitable dissatisfaction, an unavoidable scepti-
cism, which the ripeness and decay of old institutions
necessitated for the regeneration of Europe. Byron,
the young man, flamed high, and then went out, while
the symbol was unchanged ; Goethe, the old man,
lived to see that the youth, Goethe, was miserable and
fantastic, because, perceiving the falsity and rottenness
of the world's standards of truth, he could not see
beyond his own scepticism. But to the old man,
truth was not doubtful or dead, while many things
which had been commonly accepted as truths, were
forever inhumed.
" But what could a poor child, like myself, know of
all this ? Before I could comprehend it, my own mind
148 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
must be lifted into the sunlight. I must be dashed
against some sharp, ragged juts of experience ; must
often be thrown violently in upon my inmost soul,
to wonder, and reflect, and suffer ; must mount high
on many a towering peak of thought, borne up by
other intellects, as a traveller on the shoulders of some
clear-headed, sturdy guide. Now I was a boy. I had
thought, and felt, and read enough to doubt, to dis-
credit, to hesitate. I had stumbled on questions I
could not answer ; had wept and despaired over
defects, sins, and sorrows my own and others'
which I could not penetrate and solve. In short, my
tone of mind epitomized in miniature the chief phase
of the general advance of mind in the last half of the
eighteenth centuiy, and the earliest part of the nine-
teenth. This epoch was strangely foreshadowed in
Shakespeare's character of ' Hamlet ' ; Britain incar-
nated it in Byron, and Germany in the early manhood
of Goethe and Schiller. Voltaire was a partial embod-
iment of it ; but the sprightly Frenchman, though the
essence and full-bloom of intellectual scepticism, had
scarcely the central earnestness of nature to be un-
happy about any thing. Germany, however, possessed
this trait in a most remarkable degree. While doubt-
ing to the depths of negation, the German soul grew
sorely sick of doubt. It must break through denial, to
something better, or die. So Germany built up the
new faith of to-day ; and her children have been those
* semi-Greeks ' who ' think for Europe,' and for man-
kind.
" Their thought is now' the thought of the nations.
Byron passed away from Britain ; and what he might
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 149
have been had he longer lived ; what Goethe was in
mature years ; came largely to life in an odd, sono-
rous, angular Scotchman, Thomas Carlyle. France,
whose Pere Bonhours was suspended over the pool of
oblivion by a single thread, according to that same
Scotchman, in memory of having once asked : ' Si un
Allemand pent avoir de V esprit ? ' France received
the new wine into her very best mental bottles, from
Madame de Stael to Victor Hugo ; and it has become
even a popular beverage, spiced as only France
nicely discriminating, critical, executive France can
flavor the riches of her sunny vineyards. In America,
flowing especially through the deep, deep, but clear
crystal goblet of Emerson, and through the broad,
heavy Saxon mug of Theodore Parker, it has done
much more than editors and the clergy know, to
shatter unsightly decanters of Church and State, and
to infuse into the gigantic young Republic, freedom of
body, freedom and vigor of soul.
" I said that the frame of mind which enveloped me,
and which I have been trying to describe, was a sort
of summary and likeness of the first part of our
century.
" I had lived, as it were, within myself, the history
of the world's life, up to a certain stage of its develop-
ment.
" Man, as his records portray him, was at first a
simple, cruel, superstitious, pettish being, robust and
shaggy in body, and constantly at war, family with
family, tribe with tribe. Large physical bulk, with cor-
responding force and activity ability to crush ene-
mies was the desire of the aspiring, was the one constit-
13*
150 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
uent of greatness. Some Samson or Hercules was the
great man, the admired of swains and maids. Mankind
took one step forward, and force of mind, applied to the
same end war constituted greatness and achieved
glory. The man who could plan an ambush, invent an
arrow or spear, was plainly more powerful than one of
huger body, with his weighty fist, or a club. Bigness of
proportion brute bulk was first eminence ; then
came a sort of cultivated animalism of the intellect :
first the fighter, whose art lay in his height, his arms,
his thighs ; then the handy bowman, or swordsman, or
organizer of men into companies.
" In my feelings, in my ambition and imagination,
I had been each of these. The pugilist, sporting-
paper in hand, proud of his ' manly art,' is nothing
more or less than primordial man the savage, of I know
not how many thousand years ago. The alphabet and
broadcloth have not essentially changed him. When I
pictured myself as ' The Long-Bearded, Big-Booted,
Bloody-Branded Rover,' fighting for fame, for revenge,
for riches, I had advanced one degree, and become the
fillibuster Romulus, or Norman William, Spanish
Pizarro, or William Walker.
" Then I took another step.
" In recognition of the absolute supremacy of intelli-
gence, the pen had been declared mightier than the
sword. I, too, felt that it was greater to think, to
know and declare, than to wield the blade of the soldier.
Now I was in the realm of intellect, looking down upon
physical ambition and force. I wanted them not ; but
longed to command fame and power through the exer-
cise of thought and feeling. How far had I grown in
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 151
my wishes and objects ? From the savage to the man
of letters. It seems a good distance. But ambition
was the incentive ; glory, power, the end. For fame I
would have brandished the pen as ferociously as ever a
Carib his club, or a Gallican his battle-axe. Not quite
indiscriminately, right or wrong, against friend or foe ;
yet almost any way to accomplish the purpose.
" Here was a ' power-man,' a Mandingo carried
up into the sphere of intelligence and refinement.
" It is a most unfortunate temper of mind. It is an
exalted mental cannibalism. It is still mere strength,
grasping for its object fame, wealth, enjoyment,
power: not literally eating up the body of its victim,
not necessarily delighting in his torture ; for the
senses have become sublimed ; but heedless of any
fate that may befall him, willing to submit him to any
fate, if only he stands in the way. What cares it, re-
ally and inherently, for man or woman ? ' Self ! self ! '
is its cry, ' Give ! give ! ' ' What I crave, that will
I have!'
" Yet such, on the one hand, has been the shout of
men, the shout of the ages, from barbarism to the high-
est civilization.
" On the other hand, there has been a censor and di-
rector conscience, religion, God. Men have asked,
when self demanded a thing, ' Shall I do it ? Dare I
take it ? ' They have said, ' There is One above ;
there is duty to him. Is it not better to forego this
pleasure, to resist this temptation, than to disobey Him
who must know and order best ? ' They have bowed
and believed ; they have constructed systems of faith ;
they have obeyed.
152 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
" But they have grown also. The faith, the truth
of one age, has been the doubt, the falsehood of the
next. And the breaking-up of a special faith, too
often, perhaps always for the time, brings universal
misgiving and disbelief. Men deny a certain concep-
tion of God, a certain standard of right, which they
perceive to be not God, not right ; but alas ! they often
see no farther than the contradiction : they doubt God
himself, and are not clear that right exists. Still,
sense clamors for its dinner, the body for its joys, the
mind for the indulgence of its appetites and tastes.
Now where is the censor, the director ? What voice
shall say : ' Peace ; be still ? ' At most, nothing better
than the higher attributes of selfishness refined
calculations and fears can control and rectify. Hu-
manity may then be courteous, dignified, sparkling ; it
cannot be conscientious, it cannot be good. ' Vol-
taire,' said one who knew, ' was the cleverest of all men
past or present ; but a great man is something more,
and this he surely was not.' No, the doubter, the
denier, cannot be truly great, but merely strong and
smart. Cultivated antagonism is dexterity, not ability.
Ability journeys with the stars in celestial orbits. It
sits in God's hand, and moves with that. Where that
moves, let not mere power man's selfish strength
be stationed, thinking to stand. It must bow low, and
supplicate for light ; or it shall fall crushed, bleeding,
dead ! "
CHAPTER XVII.
STELLA leaned back in her chair, wrapped for a
few minutes in deep meditation. Then she took
up the manuscript and resumed reading.
" I have endeavored to account, from my own expe-
rience, for the cause of the sadness, violence, and
discontent, which have pervaded so many minds and so
much of our literature, in recent days. It came una-
voidably from the growth of mind itself, which had be-
come too large for its ancient forms of belief and action,
but was destined to grope awhile sullenly in the dark,
before it could clothe itself with better. It is necessary
for every soul to feel that it is of use in the world, and
to hope confidently for its future well-being, if it is to
have present content. How much we are dependent
on faith ! It smooths all our actual ills into future bless-
ings. The poorest faith is better than none. But
our faith is always dependent on our perceptions ;
even if we perceive nothing more than good grounds
for trusting our neighbor, and believing as he does.
" When thirteen years old, being of Puritanical,
orthodox stock, I was a Calvinist, just as I should
have been a Mohammedan, if born in Constantinople,
and my mother had attended a mosque. That is, the
(153)
154 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
weight of local circumstance was upon me, and I took
its assertions for granted.
" The first time I distinctly contradicted it, was
directly on this point of sect. A well-meaning man,
with a low forehead, preached the everlasting perdition
of all Pagans, Romanists, Jews and sundry, reserving
a contracted, insipid heaven for the mouthful of men
and women belonging to his own denomination. I
was not quite fourteen. I asked myself doubting
for the first time if the minister could be right. I
never insulted my God but once by so foolish a ques-
tion. In twenty seconds I had broken forever from
my accidental church.
" But I was driven to think. If here was not the
truth, where should I find it ?
" I never doubted, for an instant, the existence of
God. I could not doubt it, though I knew not the
reason. It seemed as much a fact, as my own exist-
ence. I should have doubted both, if one. I have
since read many writings on the subject, among others,
those of that wonderful anatomist of the human soul,
Immanuel Kant. I have seen that our faculties rest
directly upon the idea of God, that they cannot take
a step in consideration of themselves, or in any direc-
tion, without it, that it is the one pivot whereon
each and all of them swing. But at the time of
which I speak in my boyhood it was enough for
me, as for the world, to feel the fact ; I did not ask
why. Neither did I demand why there should be re-
ligion man's duty to God. Its germs and prompt-
ings were in the core of my being. I might as well
have ignored the whole of my nature as this part. It
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 155
was only the theology that I began to rebel against.
But they told me the theology was religion the
Christian religion. I must believe it, or be harried
along into the pit, with the Pagans, and Catholics. I
concluded to go, if that was the understanding. But it
did not trouble me much. The doctrine was too
absurd, too horribly wicked, to inhere long in a healthy
mind. It was a sort of pip, to which, at the time, as a
young chicken, I was liable.
" Yet now that I began to interrogate them, many
other doctrines seemed no better. Then came my dis-
avowal of money as the measure of worth ; my long-
ings for intellectual power and fame. They could not
be gratified ; and it was well. The period of negation
anc^ subversion had been fully represented. Construct-
ive minds were already in manly vigor, though I knew
not of them. Within a day's ride were two of the
loftiest in the world. But it was to be several years
before I could grope my way to them, as there was no
sympathetic soul to guide me. So what with my ambi-
tion, my doubts, and the knowledge of my sins and im-
perfections, down I dropped into the misanthropy that
I have referred to.
" Poetry, as a pursuit and solace, was here para-
mount. I loved Byron and his thrashings of hypocrisy,
with all my heart. I liked thrashings in general. I
thought the world needed all it ever received. I ached
to thrash it myself. But instead, it was giving me the
knout, as I needed.
" No modern poem helped me much, except ' Festus.'
For I craved something that would lift me to a sight of
the axis of the universe. Then I could perhaps dis-
156 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
cover why I was whirling around it. ' Festus ' is a
fair attempt to do this. It has been a strenuous aid to
many. It is the crystallization of Universalism, and
the doctrine, like the crystal, sparkles with manifold
hues of love. But the book and the teaching are theo-
logical and mythological. They are the half-way-house
between ' Orthodoxy ' and rational Christianity.
" Meanwhile I read some of the sceptical writers of
the eighteenth century. I could not but credit many of
their statements. But they appeared cold, suspicious,
mental. They did not sufficiently distinguish between
religion and theology ; but inclined to ridicule both. I
read some of the chief ' Evidences of Christianity,' an-
cient and modern ; but never found one that gave me
any satisfaction.
" At last, a plain, quaint man put into my hands a
book of Theodore Parker's sermons. Theodore Par-
ker ! Who was he ? I had seen his name in the
papers ; I had heard him called an * infidel.' That,
I knew, sometimes meant a man who doubted mir-
acles ; sometimes one who doubted the ' Fugitive Slave
Bill.' I had heard Beecher called an ' infidel ; ' but
on reading his discourses, had found only a great, mu-
nificent heart, near to God and man, but not very
different in leading ideas from my first good parson.
It seems astonishing now, that I did not sooner find
something to lead me to Theodore Parker. But I
fancied him a clever preacher, like Beecher or Chapin,
stronger, broader, better, but not mucl^ higher than
others. I loved these men ; but they had not the kind
of light I needed. My friend loved them too. But he
said, as he gave me the volume of sermons : ' You will
find your doctor here.'
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 157
" He was right. Here, indeed, was the first glimpse
I ever had of an American giant, standing up, head
and shoulders, with the loftiest thinkers of the human
race. The others had been cramped and insulated.
I had now come upon a spiritual cosmopolitan. Horsed
on a score of languages, he had sped through the
literature of all times and all places. What men
had anywhere thought, what they had felt, what they
had done, that he knew. Could Napoleon sit on his
horse sixteen or eighteen hours a day ? Here was an
iron man, who could keep the saddle of letters as long,
day in and day out, preaching, praying, and feed-
ing the poor besides. Where was the scholar out of
Germany, or even there, in the land of students, who
was so intent and so laborious ? Had there been col-
leges in New England or Old ? libraries at Alexandria
or Rome, Paris or London ? Their use was plain.
Here was a mind that engulfed them like a maelstrom.
He had watched the growth of his race from its baby-
hood to the year of our Lord 1855. It was refreshing
to get into the wake of this ' Great Eastern.' Of
course I had no silly fear of going down in so tremen-
dous a vortex as his intelligence. Only snivellers told
me that great knowledge made great demons and fools.
" It would take me too long to enumerate the par-
ticulars of the change through which my mind now
passed, and to mention all the sturdy aids to its reflec-
tion. Theodore Parker, however, immediately guided
me to the books and the men I had been groping to
find. He knew them all ; and still better, he had com-
pressed their labors into his own. What gave him a
great advantage, too, was that while the best new
14
158 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
thought and research glowed in his furnace, he could
pound as no other man, with the olden hammer of
Scotch logic. His facts were all in order and degree.
The executive English and American mind needed this.
It could understand him, while it could not grasp the
single deeper intellect, which he himself pointed out as
such, saying, as he referred to his friend Emerson :
' America had seen no such sight before.' Surely our
land had not. ' That great, new star, a beauty and a
mystery,' was the one orb which shed a brighter, a
keener effulgence, than the mammoth reflector at Music
Hall.
" But many minds, I think, have seen Emerson
through Parker. Many have received all the former's
light they could contain, by means of the latter, while
they could scarcely have received any of it without
him.
" A Boston merchant of practical sense, and a good
reader, once told me he did not believe Emerson ever
knew what he wrote or talked about. I considered it
preposterous to discuss the matter, and so asked him
what he thought of Theodore Parker.
" ' Theodore Parker,' he answered, ' was the greatest
man that ever lived ; he knew everything.'
" The difficulty was that my friend the merchant,
had a tough, formal, Saxon head, and could only per-
ceive truth by means of authority and the customary
arrangement. Ordered as it came immediately from
intuition, and in Emerson's hydraulic pressure of style,
in which sentences mean centuries, it was impossible
for the man to comprehend it.
"Well, Emerson and Parker became my sages, as
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 159
through them I could behold a universe fit to live in,
and a God large enough and good enough to be really
the Father of all his creatures. With the service of
an extra language or two, it was easy to consult and
compare other vast minds. In fact, the busy brains of
scholars were bringing every Grecian, Roman, Ger-
man and Frenchman, to speak first-rate English ; and
as I was after thought, not its clothes, I always struck
for the substance where I could obtain it most readily.
" In five or six years from the day I stumbled upon
the question of perdition for pretty nearly the entire
race of man, I had gone over considerable ground,
clearing up that matter, with several of its surround-
ings. I could take my ' catechism ' to pieces and put it
together again, so that it was intelligible to me. I had
ascertained when, how, and why, its component' parts
came out of that human nature which was my human
nature.
" I had found, to begin with, that ' Religion is no
more to be confounded with Theology, than the stars
with Astronomy.' Religion is always duty to God as
best one knows. Theology is always man's conception
of God ; and it varies according to the wisdom or folly
of the man. But to perform our duty to God, we
must have some idea of Him. So far, religion is
dependent on theology. Yet as soon as man acknow-
ledges himself to be finite, and God to be infinite, he
owns that he, the finite, cannot possibly have a com-
plete conception of the Infinite, only of some of its
attributes, as wisdom, justice, goodness. This is the
end of theology, which is the attempt of the mind to
construct God, and which, in one direction, invariably
160 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
leads to idolatry of a physical or spiritual kind. Theo-
logy is itself the breaking of the first two command-
ments. It carries the soul, however, if not to the
possibility of defining and picturing God, yet to an idea
of Him as all-wise, all-just, all-good : that is, Self-con-
ditioned Perfection. Let us not try to name It. It is
ineffable. Yet if we mean this, we may call it God.
" If we have found, then, that perfect wisdom, jus-
tice, goodness, is that of God which we may know,
what is Religion ? Is it not the imbibing by us of these
attributes ? the resignation of our nature to their
nature ? the approach to God by receiving God into
us ? Underlying all nominal religions, all forms of
worship, I found such to be their essence and intent.
" My Sunday-school teachers had told me that the
Jews alone, of all ancient peoples, were believers in
One God. I found that the foremost souls of all times,
had looked to one source whence all things proceeded,
quite as certainly as had any of my mistaken instruct-
ors.
" The contemplative Bramin among Hindoos, the
scientific priest of Amun or Osiris among Egyptians,
believed inevitably in the existence of One Supreme
God, and did not attempt to portray Him. But the
creative, the conserving, the destructive attributes of
this supreme One, were imaged in every variety of
form, and before these images the people bowed down
with orisons. The aristocratic priest despised the
masses, deeming it hopeless, even wicked, to teach
them religious truth, except by solemn ceremonies and
mystic symbols. Moses came. He was the religious
democrat of antiquity. He was the adopted son of a
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 161
king, and so educated, it is said, in the inner sense of
the Egyptian worship. At any rate, like every
thinker, he pierced through all emblems to their cen-
tre ; and taking the conception of One God, made him
the special deity of the Hebrews, as he had been the
God of Abraham and of every other lofty soul. The
conception was doubtless somewhat changed, somewhat
purified in his mind. But the principal change was in
popularizing it, in setting it up for the adoration of a
whole people. And more than a thousand years
elapsed, before the children of Israel could fully adopt
it, permanently casting aside the idols which Moses had
condemned.
" There has been Fetichism in the world ; there
has been Polytheism. The Egyptian prostrated him-
self before a winged bull, a serpent, or a cross. The
Persian saluted the orb of day at his coming. The
Chaldean kissed his hand to the starry host of heaven.
Often both priest and people mistook the symbol for
the sense, as now they do, in all nations and under all
forms of religion. But there never was a Moses, a
Minos, a Zoroaster, a Confucius, a Budha, a Pythago-
ras, never a great leader and type of a momentous
epoch, who did not reach the import of all rituals,
all representations, and bow lowly to the one God.
" Having learned the fact, I was no longer troubled
with the notion of a haughty and jealous Deity, the
patron of a chosen people. God had chosen all the
peoples to do his will.
" In fact, it was not so very difficult to dig to the
bottom of the many doctrines which had perplexed
and stung me. I ascertained that they had all some-
14*
162 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
thing to rest on. They were true in essence, false in
the acceptation. They were in nowise * mysteries,'
which could be accepted by faith alone. They were
fundamental facts of the soul, which had been warped,
at different historical epochs, into special and local
phases.
" The Trinity, of all doctrines, contradicted most
emphatically my favorite study of geometry. Three
Gods in one ; and each part equal to the whole ! The
conception turned one's mind upside down. Yet it
was true ; and now I could assert it. There is God
the Father, the infinite wisdom, justice, goodness.
He has created man to receive these properties infi-
nitely, and thus to be His infinite Son. The universe
is infinite in its means of suggesting holiness to man,
and of impressing rectitude upon him : it is the infinite
Holy Ghost.
" The Incarnation, really a part of the former doc-
trine, had also afflicted me. I found that five thousand
years ago, it had been believed in India. There,
devout, ascetic, mystical men, had retired from the
active world to the forest and the mountain, devoting
their lives to contemplation. They deemed matter and
its forms an illusion. Man's highest good was to
crucify and ignore the flesh, and to be absorbed into
the one only Being and Reality, Brahm. They imag-
ined that by prayers, and penances, and austerities,
they could become incorporated in the Divine Essence,
could incarnate God, could be God, as it were, while
yet on earth.
" This was the grandest effort of piety, the most ex-
alted dream of poetry, then or since in the world. On
LOVERS AND THINKERS.
the threshold of time, the sons of God lifted their
hands to Heaven, saying : ' Our Creator, let us come
to Thee. Let us come into thine inmost spirit, thine
inmost life ! ' What other prayer is worth our while ?
What other prayer has been uttered since, which this
supplication does not include?
" Our doctrine of the Incarnation was virtually a
portion of Asiatic theology, probably before the race
could write their record. It inheres in human nature
itself, and if we could trace it to its origin, we should
doubtless find it as old as man's aspirations for the
Better, for the Best. From India it appears to have
travelled to Egypt, or wherever there was a brain fine
enough to hold it ; from Egypt to Greece, with Py-
thagoras and Plato ; from Plato it entered the heads
of the Hellenistic Jews ; and from the author of the
gospel John, was finally reflected, with a special appli-
cation, into the Christian Church. Its essence and
meaning is, that man's nature may draw upon all the
omnipotence of the Divine, and by faithful obedience,
may become that which it serves.
" As I think of the age and venerableness of our
crude theological tenets, if understood in their deepest
and universal sense ; still more, as I think of their
underlying truth and value ; I do not wonder at the
tenacity with which strong and good men have held
them. I do not wonder I was told to believe, not in-
quire. The Christian Religion, which is pure love to
God and love to man, containing the most blessed
benefactions of morality, of mercy, of fidelity, ever pro-
claimed, was destined to wear for a garment through
the centuries, all the great philosophical truths of the
164 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
human intellect. If the garment has proved coarse
when the times have been rough, if it has been a
wolf-skin to the wolves' eyes of our shaggy Scandi-
navian sires, what matter ? It was to serve them as
they needed; then to be of finer service to more re-
fined epochs.
" As the doctrines I have referred to were relieved
of locality, and bore universal significance, the others
were soon enough cleared up.
" The Atonement, I had been taught, was the sacri-
fice of the Divine Nature to itself, for the good of men.
God sent his Son into the world, to suffer and die, that
the world might be saved. This idea, too, I found to
be as ancient as any primeval records. In the Hindoo
theology, Vishnu, representing the preservative powers
of God, had often been incarnated in mortal shape, to
fulfil some beneficent mission on the earth. Said
Nareda to Crishna : ' Men, who are buried in the pit
of their passions, have no possibility of escape from their
control, except by thy mercy in consenting to be born
into this transient world ! '
" True enough ! How shall we receive the spirit of
God our sole salvation unless some loftier brother,
by containing more of it than we possess, brings it down
to us ? But shall we accept it gladly when it comes ?
Oh, no ! We are dead in Mammon and in mummeries.
We shall say that our more gifted brother is not of God,
but of the devil ; for we cannot understand him. We
shall slay him, or banish him, for interfering with the
little gods we had been acciistomed to regard.
" If a Budha comes to love the poor Hindoo ; to throw
the yoke of caste from his neck ; to elevate him to a
*
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 165
more spiritual adoration ; the groveller will turn to
crash the saint or his disciples, to annihilate them, or
drive them into exile. Yet it shall be seen, in two or
three thousand years, that a third of the whole human
race shall worship God in the name of Budha, as we
see to-day. If a son of wisdom and sanctity is born in
Athens, believing that absolute justice is the one thing
to live for, he must go straight to prison, and drink
hemlock. Then, for a recompense, the sage of every
generation" shall borrow weight from him, and civiliza-
tion shall convert his thoughts into laws, for the govern-
ment of nations. If the most loving heart ever in flesh,
descends into Judea, they will crucify him between two
thieves, and afterward, impressed with his heavenliness,
will declare that it was the Creator himself who came
down to suffer and die.
" Yes, persecuted sons of God are ever atoning to
Him, with his own goodness embodied in them, for the
sins of all the children of men.
" Why dwell on the other doctrines that in my child-
hood I had heard preached? All the principal ones
were sectarian applications of universal truths, which
had always existed where there had been souls to aspire
and minds to reflect.
" Even the monster of Everlasting Punishment, which
I had so detested, I observed to have a true side. It is
this. Our souls are finite. If so, we must sometimes
err, we must sometimes sin. Only the possession of
absolute perfection could enable us to avoid doing so.
But then we should be God. When we err, or sin, the
retribution must follow, in this world, in any world,
in all worlds. It is our discipline ; it helps us to improve
166 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
upon the last act. In this sense, indeed, we are per-
petually punished, but perpetually blessed, as well.
" The doctrine, however, as established by the
Romish church, Avas unique. There was no such mad
. cruelty in the former Paganisms. Rome had become the
earth's cess-pool of blood and crime. The notion
emanated from the interpretations of this Roman people,
without imagination, who could perceive no second
sense in Oriental symbols, who for their daily pastime
tossed men and women to wild beasts, and whose hearts
fluttered with ecstasy, as human heads, limbs, and en-
trails were torn and strewn before them by the teeth
and claws of lions or tigers. Through no other medium
could the merciful teachings of Jesus have been dragged
and harrowed to such depth of distortion.
" Still, it is God's way that nothing is lost. The
doctrine had its use. For several centuries, many
rough-riding ancestors of some House of Lords, were
doubtless flogged into mercy to the poor, if not sympathy
with the free, by the threat of being everlastingly flayed
in Hell. And many a baronial or kingly foot-pad was
crushed by it into something like justice in governing
his people. It was a requirement of the times. Sav-
age men needed savage restraints. Now it is empty,
cumbrous, and almost ludicrous.
" But, my friend, Christianity itself is not at all
shaken or impaired, by riddling the doctrinal coat of
mail which has so long encased it. To the powerful
deniers of the last century, it sometimes seemed to fall,
as they stripped off contradiction and mythology, shred
after shred. But criticism has only left the per-
son, the character and mission of Jesus, as bright and
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 167
hallowed as ever, while it has rendered them clearer
and dearer, as being wholly consistent with the mind
and soul of man. Simply by a comprehension of the
Roman Empire in the year 1, it has disburdened
Christianity of the miraculous, in the sense that a
miracle is ever a monster which breaks a natural law ;
and at the same time it has relieved the manhood of
Jesus from all mythical and abnormal apotheosis.
" Nineteen centuries ago, almost the whole known
world had been sucked into the dominion of the seven-
hilled City ; and the talent of practical, executive
action, rendering such absorption possible, had en-
grossed about all the physical and mental energy of the
epoch, leaving scarcely any material for the embodi-
ment of imaginative, intuitive, spiritual natures. Old
faiths were breaking up. They retained but a slight
hold on the learned, but were regarded as a necessary
part of State. The people the populace the vul-
gar have now no parallel on earth. They were
submerged and overwhelmed in ignorance, superstition,
and every unspeakable abomination. Miracles were
universally credited, and were inevitably attributed to
the exponents of all religions. Magic was as eagerly
accepted as it is now contemptuously discarded.
" At such an epoch Jesus appeared. He came in
the midst, and out of the Jews, a people who, even
then, were a proverb for backwardness and superstition.
But they had held, through all dangers, trials, and diffi-
culties, to an unswerving and sublime trust in their god,
Jehovah, who was to unite their divided tribes, exalt
them to material power and splendor, and give them
regnancy over all nations. Jesus incarnated this
168 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
national trust ; but in him it was elevated to the bounds
of utmost spiritual insight, and was modified by the
most loving heart ever in flesh. So the haughty and
narrow Jewish conception of God the Jehovah be-
came in his mind the bounteous and merciful Father of
all mankind. Furthermore, ' he saw that God incar-
nates himself in man,' that man's nature is a germ
for the infinite reception of God's nature : and never
for an instant questioning the great truths which his
spirit prompted him to teach, he declared that the au-
thority for them was God himself. He proclaimed the
Father's truth. In that truth, then, the Father and
he were one.
" But who was rightly to comprehend this sublime
' Poet of the soul ? ' The whole epoch was sunk in
the lust of aggrandizement and the grossest materi-
alism. Probably there were not twelve minds on the
earth of sufficiently celestial texture to understand the
thought of Jesus precisely as he understood it. More
than once, it seems, he sickened and grieved at the ob-
tuseness of his very disciples. Then, when the innate
sweetness and truth of his precepts began to force their
acceptance, first among the poor and lowly, who
needed in that age of shocking corruption and innumer-
able rituals, some religion that could touch the soul and
purify the life, then all the notions, exaggerations, and.
subtilties of the time, began also to creep into the most
natural and beautiful faith ever breathed to mortal
ear. Then, for five centuries, the immense fabric of
theological dogmas was gradually constructed. Men
talked, and wrote, and contended about it, differing as
much as they differ now. They bruised each others'
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 169
faces in street-fights ; they skewered each others' bodies
in pitched battles. At last it became a thing settled
by authority. What authority. Practically the Ro-
man State. It rested on what ? The votes of a ma-
jority. It was a necessity of the time. Now it is
neither necessary nor true ; and therefore is so fast
dropping away.
" But the religion of Jesus, that perfect faith in
God as the Giver of his very Self to man, which
includes the Golden Rule, the Sermon on the Mount,
the Lord's Prayer, the fidelity of the blood which
dripped from the cross ^ symbol of man's last sublime
duty to his Maker : we need not fear that this relig-
ion can pass away from our faith. Its stability is its
truth. It is founded on human nature, which is
founded on God. It is, in one sense, the condition on
which every loftiest soul has been born into the world.
Plato was the philosopher of all time, because he saw
and expounded through the intellect, what Jesus per-
ceived and declared through the heart. Socrates was
wise and grand, because he too went down to death
for the same essential justice that Christianity affirms.
Budha has four hundred millions of followers, because,
long before Christ, he taught something of Christian
mercy to the downtrodden children of Asia. Confu-
cius was the sage of China, because some of his best
precepts are Christian commands.
" Let us truly understand this religion, my friend,
and we shall never be deprived of a bright, serene,
immovable faith."
15
CHAPTER XVIII.
" A RATHER strange-thinking, plain-speaking in-
J\. dividual, that same Mr. Acton," said Cora, after
Stella had finished the manuscript, which, notwith-
standing Earnest's warning as to its heaviness, had
been read aloud at Cora's request.
" I wonder how one dares attempt to unriddle the
world. Why not be as good as we can, without talk-
ing about it ? Now I shall lie awake half the night,
perhaps, and who knows but I shall be disputing,
pretty soon, with Pa, and Captain Bub, and my min-
ister, Dr. Bugle himself. How Earnest takes every-
thing to heart ! I never would have bothered myself
with all those questions. Yet his experience, he de-
clares, is the experience of thousands. Do you think
so, Stella?"
" I don't think it is literally so," Stella replied ; " I
don't think he means that. I think he means thou-
sands have had the same doubts as his, with the same
consequent gloom, which they have passed through, to
arrive at a similar result. Besides, every one has his
own special imp of darkness to harass him in life, in
addition to the foolish beliefs and fancies of the world.
With him, it was early ambition, the want of riches,
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LOVERS AND THINKERS. 171
which he yet despised for themselves, and a painful
consciousness of his defects. My demon has been,
as you know, a very different one, in most respects.
But the great object in life, appears to be the finding
of a faith by which we can overlook our present mis-
fortunes in the contemplation of future benefits, and
can have a smile and an eye-full of kindness for God's
other people whom He has placed beside us. Your
Charley's friend has found such a faith ; I have found
it, though not precisely in his manner. We are now
ready to live ; we are ready to die when it is best we
should. Perhaps there is more to be attained ; but I
scarcely know what. It is pretty nearly the whole
story of our lives, whether they are great or little.
" But Cora, my dear, let us go to bed and to rest.
To-morrow, perhaps I shall leave you. If not, I shall
go the next day. I begin to feel that I ought to be
making my way homeward. My silent retreat beck-
ons me to return to it, and there think over some
matters carefully and alone. My heart would keep
me longer here with you ; but I had better go. Fur-
thermore, sweet one, I am losing you in another,
who is beginning to look too steadfastly on me. Kiss
me, Cora, and forgive me ; you know what I mean.
So make up your mind for a farewell to-morrow noon,
or the next day morning, unless you will forsake Char-
ley and accompany me."
" Cora was in tears in an instant. She loved Stella
with an almost childish devotion, and could not bear
to part with her.
" I would go with you in a minute," she said, " if I
could. But Captain Bub is coming home on a fur-
172 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
lough, this week or the next, and of course I ought
to be at home with him. He has been away almost a
year. He's a dear, good brother, and very fond of
me. He wants me to go everywhere with him, when
he's here. I wish you would stay a little while longer.
I can't go with you. I could write to Charley, every
day, and that would do for a week or two ; but Pa
and Captain Bub wouldn't dispense with me. Come ;
you haven't been here but a little more than two
weeks. You ought to stay two months at least. But
I know there's no use of talking. What is said by
Stella, Stella does. I wish she were a trifle more
yielding, like poor C ora, whom she will certainly kill,
some day, by persistence, and absence, and conscience,
and such things."
Yes, Stella had determined to return to Boston. But
why so suddenly ? What so hastened her conclusion ?
It was a very simple incident of the evening. After
Earnest had handed her his " sermon," as Cora failed
not to call it, the conversation was turned to light gen-
eral subjects, and then to literature and music. During
the latter part of the evening, Stella had sat at the
piano again, and played, while the friends had gathered
about her and listened. When she had concluded,
Earnest casually took up a book, and after turning the
leaves mechanically for a moment, he looked at it. It
was a collection of Robert Browning's sweetest poems.
Earnest was excited. He turned to the short poem,
" Evelyn Hope," the gem of its kind in the English
language, then put the book aside, and without a pre-
liminary word, commenced to repeat the stanzas. His
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 173
friends sat motionless, and scarcely seemed to breathe.
Stella placed her hand on her forehead, and gave her-
self wholly up to the emotions of the piece. She seem-
ed to die, and to pass into other spheres, while one who
loved her was revealing his heart. When Earnest
his voice melted to the tone of utmost purity and ten-
derness came to the lines,
" I loved you, Evelyn, all the while ;
My heart seemed full as it could hold ;
There was place and to spare for the frank young smile ;
And the red young mouth, and the hair's young gold,
Stella looked up into his eye, which was beaming upon
her face. Could she be mistaken ? Was it not love
that was there, liquid and light, willing her to approach
and linger in it ? 'Twas with the greatest difficulty
she could keep her seat, she so longed to throw her
arms about his neck, and lie clasped to his heart. He
finished the poem, and she dropped her- head, unable to
speak. From that instant, she resolved not to remain
at Ironton another evening. The strong-souled Stella
shuddered, and felt an absolute dread of being charmed
beyond the full control of her will and judgment. How
she loved the spell ! But she must go home, yes,
home, to consider, to wonder, and now once more to
mourn.
" O God ! " she murmured, " would that I had found
this at seventeen ; but not now, not now ! "
They could not prevail on her to remain. The next
day, at noon, Mr. Clandon's carriage was on its way
to the dep3t, and Cora's friend was about to leave her.
Through a note from Cora to Charley, Earnest had
15*
174 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
received an intimation of Stella's departure. He was
surprised and saddened. He could not refrain from
presenting himself at the cars, to bid her farewell. He
looked into her face for the explanation her words
did not offer. Tenderness and regret were in the blue
eyes.
" I am very sorry," he said, " to lose, so soon, a
friend whom I do not know where to replace. Permit
me to say it, Mrs. Torson, I have spent a few of the
happiest hours of my life with yourself and your friends.
If anything should come to me that I should think you
would take pleasure in, may I write you a line ? "
Stella could not refuse.
" Yes," she answered ; " and you will visit Boston
sometime. Come and see me. No one will ever be
more welcome."
Thus the friends parted.
Stella told Cora that she might mention to Charley
the facts connected with Mr. Torson's will. She might
also acquaint Earnest with them, if she pleased. He
could then draw what inference he might from her
hasty departure, " though the Fates know," said she,
" that it will not be unfavorable to himself.
" Neither will he regard me as volatile and capricious,
for hastening away with some of our plans and pleas-
ures unfulfilled. We all had several walks, and talks,
and rides which I counted on. But here is the end of
them."
She kissed Cora, and stepped into the cars. In an-
other minute the train rolled away.
CHAPTER XIX.
STELLA arrived safe at her Boston home, though
on her way one of the cars was thrown from the
track, causing a temporary delay and inconvenience to
passengers, while no one was harmed. The accident
was mentioned in the Ironton papers a day or two
afterward, and the mention was noticed by Earnest.
He had been sad and restless, in spite of himself,
since he could no longer pass an occasional evening
with Stella. She presented herself constantly to his
thoughts. He read his books, but her image was be-
tween his eyes and the page, which now conveyed to
him only half its significance.
As yet, Cora had said nothing concerning the will.
He knew, however, that there must be some mysteri-
ous circumstance linked with Stella's procedure, and he
connected himself with it. For he did not require
words to arrive at human feelings. He was certain
that he had seen a more than ordinary tenderness in
those glances which had met his ; had heard a more
than ordinary tenderness in those tones of voice, as she
addressed him. He was not to be deceived. Stella
had told him she loved, as plainly as though her articu-
late vows had been communicated to him. He, too,
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176 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
had silently avowed the story of his heart to her. He
knew that he had done so. He felt that she knew it.
As he read of the slight accident to the train of cars
on which she was journeying, an accident which, as
the papers stated, might very easily have proved seri-
ous, an irresistible tremor came over him, as though
he had heard of a worse fate, as though some one
had told him that his beautiful friend had been crushed
and mangled, and snatched away from him forever.
What if it had been so !
Then he sat down to write her of his happiness in
learning that she had not been injured. His note was
merely expressive of kindness and the loneliness of her
friends, one and all, since she had left them. But in
it he enclosed a few stanzas of verse, which he said he
had picked up recently, and which he had thought
might interest her for the moment. He did not say
how he had picked them up. Probably there was no
need of doing so.
The note was dated the 10th of April, 1861. The
stanzas were these :
" I sat in the silence alone,
The peace of my quiet room j
I looked at the picture that hung on the wall ;
There were trees and a child and a tomb.
But something came and veiled the view :
How softly, friend, 'twas a thought of you.
" I turned to the boo.k in my hand ;
On its page were names of the great ;
Ideas that would soften savage men,
Words to be laws of the State.
But there on each line it would peep through
Again, my friend, AVUS a thought of you.
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 177
" I passed out into the street ;
'Twos a sunny April day ;
There were couples walking arm in arm,
There was leisure, was haste, was play.
I fancied now would be something new ;
But no, my friend, 'twas a thought of you.
" I was met by a gentle maid,
Whose locks the air-breath fanned ;
On her cheek she carried the summer rose, .
Though a daisy was in her hand.
She smiled and spoke ; but her eyes were blue.
I looked, and then 'twas a thought of you.
" I walked on the distant hills ;
I gazed up into the sky ;
Goodness and beauty lay stretched below,
God and the boundless on high.
There was Heaven. I wonder if Heaven knew,
And forgave me still, for the thought of you."
CHAPTER XX.
IT was nearly two weeks before Earnest received an
answer to his letter. But, in the interval, what a
startling change had overpowered the whole nation !
Fort Sumter had been bombarded ! The cannon
which first opened its mouth against those walls was
the symbol of destruction to the Union, to republican
liberty, to the natural laws of God to man. A few
saw all this at a glance, and knew that the second great
hour of American history had at last struck. The
many saw that the Union, the great idol never to be
questioned in the instinct of the masses, had been
threatened, and was liable to be thrown from its pedes-
tal. This was sufficient for them. The land, east and
west, was in a blaze of indignation, a storm of anger.
Massachusetts was rushing through Baltimore to
Washington ; New York was close behind her. God,
Liberty, Union, had come to mean something. Relig-
ion invoked its followers to take up a cross, heavy,
sad, dreadful war. They said : " We will : God help
us ! " The great " revival " had been granted of
Heaven, and a practical salvation was at hand. It was
a salvation of self-sacrifice, of manly deeds, of noble
duty. There is no other. The day of grace had
(178)
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 179
dawned, and the American people seemed worthy of its
resplendence.
To Earnest, the outburst was not wholly surprising.
He was young. He had trusted the intentions of men.
He knew that commonly their vision was very limited,
their views were very narrow. But he had been sure
that Americans loved America ; he had been sure that
they meant to love liberty. They had been so warped
and confounded by the littleness of politicians, and the
grovelling ambition of strong statesmen, who were yet
not strong enough to be great, who were too selfish to
be true, that they knew not whither they were drifting,
where they should find justice and safety. But all the
time they were bent on these things.
A few at the North really gloated over aristocracy
and slavery, believed them necessary and right.
These were virtually Austrians and Turks, accidentally
born under American institutions. A few others ac-
credited nothing in heaven or earth but a fat pocket.
These were of no special nationality. They were poor
fellows whom every thinker saw to be lingering in the
quadruped condition, attempting to be men, even sup-
posing they were such. But the fox, the jackal, the
spaniel, peeped out constantly under their pinched
brows.
There were these two classes. But the American
masses looked steadily at Mr. Jefferson's Declaration of
the Rights of Man. They trusted it would be fulfilled.
They had determined it should be fulfilled. But they
thought the Constitution good enough to make its
Preamble veracious. If not at once, then sooner or
later.
180 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
Earnest had scarcely ever talked with a sturdy,
honest man, of any vocation or any party, who did not
thus reconcile his present political action with the future
welfare of his country. He had seen and conversed
with many such persons. He had met, too, the sharks,
and the rhetoricians of the wind-bubble. But on
these he had wasted no time, He had paid but little
attention to the mere forms of law and legislation,
while he had studied closely the substance which these
forms are ever striving to comprise, -r- progressive hu-
man life. He knew himself; he knew others. He
prophesied, therefore, that in case of actual collision be-
tween the North and the South, there would be an up-
rousing of the people, and a merging of parties. Cun-
ning graybeards, versed in what they termed practical
knowledge, told him he had better wait and tremble ;
that the masses were chaff, blown one way as easily as
the other. Young attorneys reiterated the advice and
the assertion. These had felt of their own pulse.
Earnest had laid his hand on the nation's heart.
Plow he rejoiced in manhood now ! How his soul
leaped out to the people, who more than affirmed all
the soundness he had declared them to possess !
Now, also, he saw the use of the watchword Union !
which mealy hypocrites had so often mouthed, as they
favored meanest measures and filthiest harpies, that the
word itself had been coated with a secretion of their
own slime. By it they had meant lust of wealth, lust
of power, lust of rapine. They had meant the assas-
sination of freedom, the confederation of two hun-
dred and fifty thousand autocrats, to despoil man of his
birthright and make him a slave.
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 181
Here was the revulsion. Now again it was Union,
Union, Union forever ! Ah, yes ! and now it was a
cry to devour the hypocrite and the assassin himself.
In itself, and for itself, it was a low war-cry the
shriek of divers and dippers mud-fowls in quest of
worms. It deceived Europe. We seemed an army
of peddlers, who had thrown off our packs and gone
to a rat-hunt in our stinginess of corn ; an army of
snakes, full of venom now that we could no longer
burrow in all of our accustomed ground-holes ; an
army of alligators with the jaw thrown back when cer-
tain bayous were denied us to batten in.
Well, how many of us were ourselves deceived.
We must do justice to our tough democrats. They
had heard so much of Union! that they supposed it
meant, under God, everything good and great. They
supposed it synonymous with the integrity and sense
of Washington, the genius of Jefferson, and the grip
of Jackson. When the Hon. Vulgar Loudmouth
bawled Union ! they imagined he talked of liberty ;
not a mutton-chop and his glass of brandy.
This was the rule. Certainly there were many who
were ready to fight for the mere acres of ground, who
conceived there was nothing better to fight for. Their
shout of Union! was the wrath of man praising God,
mud turned into divine muscle. The end to be attained
in God's design, in good men's efforts, was human free-
dom as the immediate foundation of incalculable human
advancement. What a spectacle ! to see for once,
saints, scholars, hucksters, hunkers, and thieves, all
lending a hand to Heaven !
Earnest felt it was the one sight of a lifetime, and he
16
182 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
threw out all his faculties to the view. He had almost
forgotten Stella. But now her letter was before him,
and her sweet face rose from his memory, serene, intel-
ligent, sensitive, grand.
Yes, he would leave the gathering storm of war, and
dwell for a little while with his thoughts, and with the
image of his friend. His eye ran hastily over the letter,
as if to devour its substance at a glance. Then he
would read it more carefully.
But here were some verses. What ! was Stella fa-
vored of the Muse ? "Was this another of her accom-
plishments ? Her letter stated it was not. She partly
apologized for sending the stanzas.
" My friend," she wrote, " the floodgates of principle
have at last opened in battle, and as there is no other
way for them to open, God be praised for this way ! I
am here among the sons of the Puritans. I am not
ashamed of them. They were not dead : they slept.
I had sometimes feared the old blood was all out of their
veins. But in these last few days I have seen Otis,
and Adams, and Hancock, striding about our modern
Boston. What else than they and their spirit have I
beheld here since the 12th ? It is so with you ; it is so
in all parts of the North. What a time, after all, is
this we are fallen upon ! What history mtfst the
country now inevitably write during the next five or
ten years ! But I will not look forward. The present
is enough.
" I have done little but read the daily journals since
I left you. A few times I have sat down to my piano.
The wish came over me to throw something of the
passing hour into music. I made the attempt to thun-
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 183
der, and threaten, and proclaim, sounds descriptive of
the outburst around me. Then I tried to adapt the
sounds to words. Perhaps the words are lame. I feel
that they at least need the music to render them
complete. But I send them to you. Try to make me
some better ones. Then you and I can have a song for
the times."
" I think I shall not," said Earnest, as he read them.
They were these :
" It has come ! it has come ! the cannon's grim thunder
From threatening clouds that have flashed an the South !
Columbia, pallid with wrath and with wonder,
Darts fire from her eyes, fiery words from her mouth !
They have shot down the stars,
O Spirit of Mars !
Now cover, ye stripes, the palmetto with scars I
" That lazy-leaved tree has borne fruit for the nation,
That's poisoned its breath with a feculent lie !
And now that for crime, it would sever relation,
My banner, with thee, cut it down ! let it die 1
They have hated the good,
They have thirsted for blood :
Let them sink, if they must, in the reddening flood !
" Strong sons of the North, ye are roused from a slumber
That long has been rusting your glory away.
Ye dreamed not of battles, nor counted the number
Of deadliest foes ye were destined to slay.
Ye were drunken with gold !
But oh ! ye are bold !
And your grasp is a fate to the purpose ye hold !
" Ye meant in your hearts that our country should never,
No, never bow down to the whip and the chain !
184 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
But ye've borne and forborne till I marvelled if ever
Your blood could be nettled by insult or pain.
For ye waited to see
If the struggle must be :
Now God pity him who encounters the free !
" He has opened the death-dance, to wanton the longer
With her who has ever been mother of wrong.
Then war to the hilt ! with a will that is stronger
To burst all her shackles and scatter her throng !
There, down let her fall !
Here, put on the pall !
It is woven of groans and the curses of all !
" Yet ever remember, O Sons of the Union !
For better than vengeance your legions pour forth :
The Southron ye meet in yon gory communion,
Shall die or succumb to the men of the North !
But your flag is unfurled
Not that down he be hurled,
But for life, and for freedom, and peace in the world ! "
CHAPTER XXI.
SOON after Earnest had read Stella's letter, Charley
Merlow came into his room, and told him the cir-
cumstances connected with her marriage, and her de-
ceased husband's will. Cora had narrated them in full
to him on the previous evening.
" The secret is out, my boy ! " he exclaimed ; " and
now I scent the sole cause of her fury to regain the
classic cow-paths of Boston. A certain dear fellow,
over here, was making himself felt as such to my lady
the Torson. She has a heart. She fears it -is flesh.
She would tuck it away out of danger. She is con-
scientious. She is sensible. She has looked in the
glass. She knows she is somebody, quite somebody,
with several attractions, and doesn't believe you are
blind. "Well, there was a little conversation, I noticed,
between your eyes and hers. They had a way of
sparkling to each other that was growing serious. A
minus A equals ' ought,' as the boys used to say at
school. Heart minus the possibility of hand, equals
ought not plus a journey to Boston for consideration of
the matter.
" But you and she were made and foreordained for
each other from the beginning. Neither of you will
16* (185)
186 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
be content alone. She doesn't care a pothook for
wealth ; and her position, forced by the will, has almost
made her hate it. There's money in your brains, and
bread to be had outside the bakery of Jabed Z. Torson.
The question, 'then, before my side of the house, is
how to send his will to the devil. Furthermore, if one
storms Hades, I don't think he should be too tender
about the sort of fire he uses. Why not slop a dipper-
ful of his own brimstone into his black majesty's very
face ? But "
" Charley, Charley, you are going wild," interrupted
Earnest. " Listen a minute. You say the will de-
pends almost wholly on her word ? "
" Yes."
" Then may she break that word never ! You say
her parents rely on her. Then Heaven prompt her to
stick by the money ! You say that, if she disregards
the will, the property will probably slide into doctrinal
tracts and pro-slavery pamphlets. Well, that is not
of so much consequence. The flag that was shot down,
the other day, is all that ever gave slavery any real se-
curity in the country. It will die now in ten yeai's,
perhaps in five. All the corruption of earth can't
save it, to say nothing of a ghost's bank-account. The
other matter, too, is of as little importance. God's
great truths of faith and life vibrate to no pedant's
whim or his purse. Still, a personal inclination to any-
thing but a duty, cannot outweigh a third of a million
dollars. I should advise that noble woman, whom I
will own that I love, to think well, before allowing her
fortune to pass into other hands.
" My dear Charley, we will not send the Torson's
, LOVERS AND THINKERS. 187
will to the devil, for our own convenience. But I shall
have a little talk with Stella in a few clays, and tell her
that I have not do^ie myself such injustice as to see
her and keep my heart. The regal woman ! How I
long to be with her once more, if only for an hour ! I
shall not ask her love. I shall not ask for anything ex-
cept to be followed by her eye and her heart, as I walk
away from her with a sword by my side. Yes, one
thing more I shall ask, that we both live to hope.
" For, Charley, I who have outgrown all ambition
for feathers and the stuff they call glory ; who now
wish to live only for knowledge and truth ; I too must
strut off, like the rest, with gilt buttons and a cockade.
The times have brought us to this. How dearly have we
paid for our fostering of slavery, which now threatens
to devour the best fruit that Christianity has borne for
the ages ! And slavery knows no other argument than
war. It is a wild beast. To kill or be killed is all that
is left to civilization, religion, justice, peace. War is
wrong. It is the one great wrong next to slavery. But
my country is not going to war. It has shuddered at
the thought for years. I mean the nineteenth century
at the North. The middle-ages, at the South, have
hugged the sword, of course, and have compelled us to
wield it against our will, as in Mexico.
" I say my country is not going to war. It hates
war. It has risen above the spirit of military strife.
It loves peace, industry, culture. It is going forth to
slay a wolf, whose red eyes it now plainly sees, and
whose red jaws are agape to craunch the very life of
American principles. The wolf would eat up liberty,
light, and the sons of God. Not in hate, then, but
188 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
sorrowfully, and as mercifully as possible, these must
eat it.
" There was never slavery that did not bring war ;
and now it has fallen upon us. But we shall crush the
wolf, and then our wars, as I think, will be over. We
shall want no more of battles ourselves, and other
nations will not dare to force them upon us.
" Yes, Charley, since I was eighteen, fighting of all
kinds has had no charm for me ; unless the fighting
of truth with error and ignorance. But now I shall
go South, and with arms. I can put my hand in
God's, and feel that in this one instance He lifts me to
the great duty of slaying my brother for my brother's
good.
" In a few weeks I shall leave you, my friend.
There is no need of haste for me. Others will go to-
day, to-morrow. They will be needed. But our people
do not understand the South. The struggle will not
be the trifle they count on. Seventy years of merci-
less sin will not sink in a spoonful of vitriol. There is
work before us, hard, horrid work. The wondrous
development of mechanical forces in the world, will
alone preserve us from repeating the Germanic war of
thirty years. Possibly we shall finish ours in five. If
so, it will be the speediest on record. For, Charley,
the South will fight, will fight better than ourselves,
in proportion to numbers. Will they not ? How r was
it with Spain three hundred years ago ? How was it
with France when her cavaliers had their ten, twenty,
or thirty duels before breakfast, and when one of her
knights challenged the whole German nation to single
combat ? Oh, yes ! the barbarism of the middle ages
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 189
will fight ; for it believes there is nothing fit for a man
to do but to conquer and to domineer. The South is
that barbarism. Not wholly so in its outward cir-
cumstances, but completely so in the central tone of
mind from which all its actions proceed. No, there is
one main difference. It has not the faith in God
which inspired the Crusaders and their sons. Its only
great faith is a glittering dream of conquest, the con-
quest of the whole Western Continent.
" But, Charley, here is a letter from Stella. Read
the song she sent me. And what do you think she
asks me for ? She wants me to write her out the phi-
losophy of slavery, the reason it has been in the
world. I shall try to do it. (Perhaps she may never
make me many requests.) Then I shall go to Boston
myself. I want to see Stella, and have a fond word
from her heart to help me along in the future tumult."
Charley Merlow was amazed at Earnest's hurried
words, and at his intention of becoming a soldier. He
knew that his friend had no taste for it, and that noth-
ing but the feeling of duty could induce him to forsake
his seclusion and his books, for the savagery of the
camp. But he knew that dissuasion would be unavail-
ing. He merely said : " We can't do without you.
Think of it again. Don't decide so hastily."
Then Charley added a good-by, and walked sadly
away.
" Not fit for any such thing ! " he muttered. " Use
him right up, and make a funeral for us. Plenty of
others to go, strong men, used to exertion. Ought
to wait awhile at least. All wrong, all wrong ! "
CHAPTER XXII.
ON the 25th Earnest wrote Stella the following
letter :
" Let it be, my dear friend, as you say. While the
whole land is burning with activity, we will pause a
moment and ask why.
" The immediate cause is evident. The South has
honestly declared it, throwing down the glove for sla-
very, which it loves, and which it knows we at the
North hate, daily more and more.
"But the North does not detest slavery as the South
adores it. There are few John Browns among us,
men ready to fight and die for the absolute idea of
freedom. In one sense, I should say we are not good
enough for that. Then I should have to modify the
assertion. Conscience is not conservative : yet I think
it has largely entered into our forbearance and moder-
ation.
" There is much to consider when we examine the
North.
" For one thing, we fully appreciate the horrors of
war. The South does not. Slavery never did. The
system, in all parts of the world and throughout history,
has always produced two classes of men, soldiers and
(190)
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 191
serfs. The master, whose every whim has been grati-
fied by slaves, will brook no contradiction, no restraint.
He is always practically a warrior. Oppose his will,
he draws his sword. To subdue and govern, or to find
' glory and a grave ' in the attempt, has ever been his
leading thought. His annals give no other account of
him, from Cheops to Beauregard. His conception of
manhood has always been to kill his opponent, if an
equal, and to crush his inferior into the menial of his
household or his land.
" No, the South has not dreaded war, but has de-
sired it. I know the plea is ' to be let alone.' I think
a few Southern men, educated at the North, honestly
mean it, and would like peace on that condition. But
for years the one blissful vision of the South has been
conquest. The South expects to subdue us to its will.
It deems us too paltry to fight, and supposes it can beat
us if we should do so. Its most scheming men have
believed that we would eventually throw up every
principle for the sake of Union ; and now, seeing us
obstinate and enraged, it is glad of the chance to thrash
us into humiliation.
" Here is a mistake similar to that which a rough,
brutal man makes in judging a refined, serene man,
who dislikes contention, not from fear but from a sense
of its wrong. The rough man thinks his neighbor,
who will not fight with him, a coward. But surely
Socrates and Paul are no less brave than some roister-
ing Earl of Huntingdon turned into Robin Hood, or a
Captain Warner wearing on his coat, in silver letters,
the avowal that he is ' commander of a troop of robbers,
an enemy of God, without pity and without mercy.'
192 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
" The North is not timid. It dislikes war, because
it sees there is a better arbiter of difficulties. It credits
enlightenment, thinking that when men are truly en-
lightened they will wish to be just, to do right. The
South cannot comprehend this conviction. Slavery
inevitably believes that mildness and prudent industry
are cowards. Feudal France thought that commercial
Holland would not resist her, thought so till the
dikes were down and the land submerged. ' Nobility '
supposed the early communes would not fight, until the
conceit was knocked out of its head, the brains going at
the same time.
" The civilization of the North is superior to the
civilization of the South, as the world knows directly
from experience, the leading nations having passed
through slavery and sloth into freedom and industry,
trying and proving both. The difference is solely an
affair of growth.
" Here I come at once upon the matter of your request
the law the cause in God's providence of the
system of slavery.
" How should I expect to enlighten you ? I know,
my friend, that you have been upon these universal
grounds which now invite me. You have beheld the
light above them which harmonizes all particulars, all
incongruities, into one vision of the Creator's benefi-
cence. Well, then, I shall recall and confirm to you
that sublime view ; without which we are all children ;
so that every toy of interest, of pleasure sets us spinning
in its own little whirl.
" Let us begin as far back as we may, and speak the
one commandment to every created thing : * Pro-
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 193
gress ! ' It is the key that unlocks all secrets. It is
the password into all heavens.
" Was our globe once a mass of fiery ether, the first
emanation of Deity that our science perceives ? The
step from this primary visible effect, back to God, we
need not attempt to trace. But the fiery ether solidi-
fies, becoming, in ages enough, the surface of a world.
Now it is the barren extremity of matter, a naked
rock. From this point it ameliorates. There is the
coral, the fish, the plant, the animal, and, when all is
ready, man. Does this last production come up through
the preceding ones, retaining their nature, dropping
their forms ? Is it their direct offspring ? However
this may be, it embodies all their qualities and powers,
and carries them up to a wonderful height, into the
realm of intelligence, reflection, and modified self-
direction. Behold a being who is the middle of the
universe ! God's spirit has been breathed into his soul ;
God's material forces have been thrown into his body
and moulded to his shape. He will use everything
above him, everything below. He will unfold more
and more the wisdom of the skies, the knowledge of
the earth, taking the result into himself and growing,
which growth through the spheres will be evermore
his life.
"At first he is in a state of mental babyhood,
roaming the primitive wilds of the earth in unclad
fierceness ; strong in body, but merely instinctive ;
knowing just enough to sustain life and to extend it.
Yet presently he will arrive at self-consciousness. He
will ask himself: ' Who am I, in this strange world,
without power to cause myself, and while I can do
17
194 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
much, am still limited on every side ? ' Asking the
question, he will draw the inference, ' There is some-
thing above me which governs and guides.' Then he
will look to the sun and moon as representatives of the
Power his thought has mirrored to him. He will
worship. He will say that not to worship is a crime.
After a while, he will commence to write a history of
himself, which will be called ' The Annals of all Races
and Nations.'
" At this juncture, my friend, he is well started in
life. Nor could we start him differently and speak the
truth. His mythologies all mean this ; and you and I
have learned better than to read them by their coarser
sense.
" Now let us glance at Slavery "as we read history.
" The system is very venerable, like polygamy and
cannibalism. We must make the broadest statement
for it in this respect. We may even assert a little
crustily, with Mr. Andrew Bell, that ' it is humiliating
to civilized man to know that, when authentic general
history first records the doings of his earliest progen-
itors, she speaks of his kind as being nearly all bond-
men if not absolute slaves.' The Mother of the
Nations said, I know not how many thousand years
ago, ' Some men came from the head of Brahma, to
think ; some from his arms, to govern and fight ; some
from his trunk, to produce and distribute the necessa-
ries of life ; some from his feet, to dig and build, to
bear the heavy burdens of the others.' The idea was
established, and became Hindoo Caste. By it the
lowest orders of society in India, the mass of men,
were slaves. They were such throughout Asia.
They were such in Egypt, in Greece, in Rome.
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 195
" Yes, slavery is venerable. We must even say more
for it. In one of its chief phases it was once a bene-
faction and a reform.
" Society, at the outset, was patriarchal. The father
of a family was the ruler over his wives, his sons, his
dependants. The family increased to a tribe. A de-
scendant of its head, or a strong usurper, was then its
chief. Men had two pursuits, to fight for the ground
on which they established themselves, and rudely to culti-
vate it. They were savages. All men, as we have
seen, look to some mysterious Power which creates and
governs them. A great spiritual intellect pierces
through all manifestations of that Power, and calls it
Unity, Allah, God. A cannibal believes it to be a more
majestic cannibal than himself, with a bigger club and
more ferocious appetites. The Hebrews, just emerging
from darkest bondage, and entering upon the track of
rapine, regard it as a haughty and jealous God-at-arms,
demanding the blood of men, women, and children,
who worship some opposing military deity. Hence the
hot-headed, miscalculating, capricious Jehovah is their
conception of the Creator of heaven and earth. He
demands the extermination of enemies, the cutting
them up root and branch, leaving none alive. In this
state, society is too barbarous for an extended and ma-
ture system of slavery. Women are servants or play-
things ; the weak, who cannot fight, are the same.
But veritable, historical slavery is yet to come, an im-
provement.
" Now, the soldier kills his foe in battle, or offers him
as a sacrifice to the favoring deity who is supposed to
have aided in capturing him. The bones, perhaps, are
196 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
heaped up as a trophy. By no means must the wor-
shipper spare an enemy to his God. But later, both
mercy and selfishness conspire to the innovation. It
seems rather harsh, even to a Hebrew savage, to
murder a poor mortal after he is rendered totally de-
fenceless. Why not make him a * hewer of wood and
a drawer of water ' ? It is done. The captive, formerly
slain, is preserved as a slave. Yet afterward, if a battle
go wrong, the conservative priest shall snuff ' infidelity '
on all the winds. He shall declare that Jehovah has
been disobeyed, Israel has been defiled by mercy to
Canaan, and the retribution has appeared. So flinty
and frivolous is mankind, in the red, dripping history of
his childhood ! Slavery is the result of war, and of
the proud indolence of the warrior, governor, and
priest.
" We pause here for an instant. Does God, the
true Father of all races, ever permit a system to exist
which is not best for the time and place, and for the
people who are its builders ? No. Let us revert to
the Hindoo, with his doctrine of caste.
" We shall find a great truth at th v e foundation of it.
We remember that, to the Hindoo, Brahma is the
impersonation of God's creative faculty. Well, some
men came from the head of Brahma, to think. These
are the highest, the Brahmins. Here is a declaration
that the sage, the saint, is the salt of the earth. The
maxims are identical. They mean that God has so
constructed the universe that the religious genius is
always the first gentleman and the greatest force in any
realm.
" The second class are magistrates and warriors.
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 197
They come from the arms of Brahma, to govern and
fight. But they are under the guidance of the Brah-
mins, whom they must consult and obey. Here is a
recognition of the fact that the practical administrators
of the State those who mould the perceptions of
genius into laws and customs are next in importance
to genius itself, that Aaron must needs execute, while
Moses designs.
" Then come the merchants, the distributors,
from the trunk of Brahma ; and last, the laborers,
the diggers and builders, from his feet.
" Really there have always been these four classes of
men in the world, perfectly distinct from each other.
So far, caste only expresses a universal truth of human
nature.
" But it was made permanent. One class must never
rise into another. No member of a lower order must
ever attempt to enter a higher, or to perform any of its
functions. As one was born into the world, so must
he go out of it.
" This part of the institution is a terrible, unmodified
assertion of our maxim, ' Like begets like.' We may
state its underlying truth thus : Some men are born
with natural endowments superior to those of others ;
culture is necessary to eminence ; eminence and culture
should transmit superiority.
" These are rules of every one's mind and conduct.
When, too, the sources of culture were very few, and
were necessarily monopolized by the few ; when it was
literally impossible for one condition to ascend into
another ; when the masses were sunk in hopeless, stu-
pid, willing ignorance and debasement, caste merely
17*
198 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
proclaimed a practical, undeniable fact. It was a neces-
sity. It was a blessing, not a bane. But as soon as
the sources of improvement multiplied, and it became
the wish and the possibility for men indiscriminately to
rise, the weighty millstone became a shackle about the
neck of progress. Bitter and bloody has been the
struggle to throw it off, a struggle in which millions
have yet found their employment, their hope, their
gratification, and which has afforded to history nearly
all its pages of heroism.
" In one form and another, caste has existed from
the beginning, and to-day a remnant of it is about to
fall in America, drenched in blood. Here, you say, it
rests on color, and we term it American slavery. Is it
a sin ? an absolute, unqualified sin ?
" We must say yes; we must say no; we must add that
there is no such thing as an absolute, unqualified sin.
" Why is it that we all have two eyes, while so few
can see two things at once, or two sides of the same
thing ?
" Sin is a matter which is heaven to-day, hell to-
morrow. The patriarch may think himself a man after
God's own heart, yet be a polygamist and a slave-
holder. While he does not know he commits a sin, he
is no sinner. Refusing to grow, this is sin. Cling-
ing to the old, while seeing the new and knowing it to
be better, this is sin. Excessive conservatism is the
only crime ever committed in the world. If I am a
fool or a savage, who shall blame me for mumbling
blasphemy or torturing my foe ? But if by any means
I can be taught to know better, and my conscience
rebukes the former ignorance, dare I linger in the old
way ? Then I am Satan's own.
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 199
" ' An eye for an eye ; a tooth for a tooth ; burning
for burning : ' this was once a law of God. That is,
it was the best a barbarous people knew, and conse-
quently their conception of God declared it. It was
Jehovah's mandate. Virtue and necessity obeyed it.
But when there was one came to look deeper, and to
say : ' Nay, love your enemies ; bless them that curse
you ; do evermore as ye would be done by,' and
when the hearts around him reiterated this command,
the virtue which had obeyed the old law, if continued,
degenerated to a vice.
" There are a thousand illustrations. But sin is
always the refusal to enact the perceptions of con-
science, or the weakness which postpones the deed.
" Slavery was not a sin when the low condition of
the race rendered it conscientious, satisfactory, unavoid-
able. In the nineteenth century, in North America,
with the New Testament in every house, and the Dec-
laration of Independence acknowledged as truth, it is
the sin of sins, which has debauched and disgraced
thirty millions of Christians into such Atheism as ven-
tured to jeer at any law higher or better than a barely
tolerable Constitution.
" Now the retribution is upon us. It cannot but be
terrible. We shall deserve to lose every life that will
be laid down. God's law of universal justice is exact.
The pendulum has swung far into darkness. Its return
will be just so much death. Then there will be a bet-
ter life.
" I have made the assertion of Progress. You
would scarcely ask the proof. You have known it.
But the argument is not complete without one more
200 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
word, Experience. How do we know that we ad-
vance from the lower to the higher ? That word gives
the answer to men and nations. For the history of
nations is. only a reflection of man, the shadow his
presence throws upon time, the outward image of his
inward unfolding. Each soul lives, in greater or less
degree, the annals of the world. The soul itself is
barbarous or civilized, beauteous or unlovely, precisely
in accordance with its growth, its intellectual and
moral growth. There is no enduring reward for it
except its own enlargement. There is no real punish-
ment save its own debasement.
" ' There is no crime,' said Goethe, * which I might
not have committed.' Why this acknowledgment?
Simply that he knew himself, and recognized in his im-
pulses and ideas, from infancy to manhood, those things
which, if he had possessed the means of executing
every one of them at the moment of desire or tempta-
tion, would have paralleled the record of all misdeeds.
Rousseau's " Confessions " are a most unreserved and de-
tailed avowal of Goethe's admission. Here was a man
of remarkable virtues in his time and place, who had
yet broken about all the commandments, and might
very easily have made no exception of any one.
" Early boyhood makes small scruple of coveting,
lying, swearing, stealing, and the like. If I have never
killed a person, it is not but I had a hearty will to do
so, several times, when a boy, as I distinctly remember.
" An honest and fair lady once told me that ' every
girl is at some period of her life a flirt.' Vanity is
active, and craves the admiration of many, before love
a higher, later faculty is satisfied with the affection
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 201
of one. I might have told my friend in return, that
every boy is at some period of his life a snob. I have
never known a bright boy, well circumstanced, who
did not think himself a natural lord, born to command
and to be obeyed. How many inferiors such a boy
imagines are around him, and how gladly he would
reduce them to the menials of his wants ! , The boy is
a slave-holder. That is, he would be one if he could.
Fortunately he cannot generally*carry his views into
practice ; so he is spared being a Hebrew patriarch or
a mediaeval baron. At seventeen, give him full power
to express himself in action, he would be Themistocles
or the Sultan of Turkey.
" Slavery and polygamy, always inseparable, are in
every youth. I mean the spirit and will of those in-
stitutions are in undeveloped human nature. Restraints
of circumstance may prevent them from taking shape
in action. But there they are, in the boy.
" So much I have known for myself, and have seen
in others. Why not make the statement, as any other
truth ?
" But, my friend, let us think not too ill of our kind.
You know the features of even the animals are in us,
too plainly to be denied. Yet their rough forms are
much suppressed when we take them on, and are over-
grown by our superior structure and traits. So, the
youth's outward action may be decorous and pure, the
notions and desires of barbarian ancestors being over-
borne by the weight of present civilization, until he can
grow, perhaps unsullied, to the summit of the loftiest
thoughts and emotions that man has ever entertained.
" This constitutes the thinker, great and good, who
202 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
comprehends folly as well as wisdom ; for lie has passed
through one state to the other. He knows, from expe-
rience, ttyat love is better than passion, that justice is
better than will, that kindness is better than hatred,
that beneficence is better than oppression. He has
found that life is growth. Not that it is the mere accu-
mulation of culture and aids about a certain tone of
mind, which may yet be selfish and low ; but that it is
the ascension of tonifi of mind themselves, each into a
nobler and happier, until the sublime height is reached
where the man desires to resign himself to wisdom, to
justice, to love, the height where his will blends with
God's will, and where his only selfishness is in seeking
welfare by subordinating all things to universal law,
the method and manner of the One Only Perfect.
" A friend of mine had arrived at an insight of this
last ascension, though too often he stood at a distance,
looking rather than doing. He was not always good,
though always better than many others. Gross and
common forms of sin were no longer a temptation to
him. He preferred death to dishonor ; poverty to
mean wealth ; insignificance to wrongfully-acquired pop-
ularity. He would be his own servant rather than
secure his leisure or elevation at another's expense and
degradation. He was true and just to man, true and
tender to woman. He would not have held a slave to
own a continent.
" But he had not always been so. He had been
full of faults. He had wept for not a few sins. We
know that man always errs and sins and weeps. My
friend, by stumbling, had learned to walk with surer
step ; by sinning, he had been taught to rise above
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 203
many sins ; having hated, he knew how to forgive ha-
tred ; by weeping, he had felt how to pity those who
wept. He was natural and human ; nothing more.
But many changes and many periods of history had
been incorporated in his experience. He knew how
events had occurred ; for they had occurred to him.
He spoke from within, and with certainty ; for his mind
had been a picture of the world, with its lights and its
shades. The old and the new made the picture ; and
the new included the old. It was greater, nobler, hap-
pier ; so he knew it was better.
" If any one doubted his argument, as applied to
individuals or nations, he did not deem it worth his
while to dispute. He knew the doubter did not yet un-
derstand himself, that his nature had not introduced
itself to his own observation and reflection.
" But my letter has become too long ; I will close it.
I have written only the matter of your request, and
of course the subject could bfe much amplified. But,
when writing or speaking to you, I feel as though you
had already uttered all that I declare.
" In a week or two, I trust I shall see you. I intend
spending a few days in Boston. Then I shall bid you
good-by for a long while. I am going South to phi-
losophize 'under brass-buttons and danglers. Yet how
can I help it ? The cause is very sacred, though many
of the present motives connected with it are little and
heartless. At starting, I shall want your encourage-
ment and a smile. They will be more valuable than
most things I shall carry with me. I think you will
not refuse them to me.
" Your friend,
" EARNEST ACTON."
CHAPTER XXIII.
TEN days passed, and Earnest was in Boston. It
was not long, as will easily be inferred, before
he presented himself to Stella. As he mounted the
steps, and stood in front of the massive door of her
residence, he could not but remember how empty and
sombre the elegance of that stately mansion had been
to its caged inmate ; how gladly she would have ex-
changed it, and all its surroundings, for simple com-
fort, and one deep, fond, sympathetic heart.
His name was hardly announced when Stella met
him, with an extended hand, a smile, and a slight
blush.
" I am very glad to see you," she said, " and have
felt for several hours as if you were near me, although
I had received no intimation of your arrival in the
city."
She conducted Earnest into a spacious drawing-
room, and seated herself at his side. They conversed
a few minutes, and then she said,
" Now that you are here, my friend, you will stay
with me a while, certainly. And we can do quite
well, I presume, with no others to enliven our con-
versation. In this room we may be interrupted.
(204)
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 205
Some one may call. Let us sit awhile in my ' sacred
rooms,' as the domestics term the library and a room
I have used in connection with it for my music.
There we shall be undisturbed."
Earnest was quite willing to accept her invitation,
and to see that Stella did not shrink from him in the
least, but seemed to desire that no minute of their
interview should be wasted.
Again they were seated, side by side, now in the
library. It was a pleasant apartment, of medium size,
furnished plainly, yet with much grace and elegance.
Since Mr. Torson's death, Stella had renovated and
rearranged it in conformity with her own ease and
tastes. He had filled it with heavy and elaborate
furniture, which she had removed, and replaced by
less weighty and cumbrous articles. Each chair in the
room seemed to indicate, by its size and shape, that
its occupant could find in it a new and relieved po-
sition, without intermission of reading or meditation.
Everything was- for use and comfort. Even the
pictures and ornaments seemed for suggestion. Con-
sequently there was an air of luxury about the place
that no amount of mere costliness could have pro-
duced.
Earnest observed this at once.
" What a cosey, inviting sanctum you have, to be
sure," said he ; " but I should think it would almost
persuade one to laxity instead of application. Here,
I should count myself in the paradise of the peaceful,
I fear, and never work for improvement, as my friend
has done."
" And I could very well dispense with the place,"
18
206 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
replied Stella, " although now that I have it, I make
it as comfortable as possible, and then try to occupy
myself so that I forget all about it. I am better con-
tent here, and in the other room there, than elsewhere
in the house."
So saying, she rose and drew aside two large, mag-
nificent curtains, and revealed an apartment in which
was a grand-piano, and looking down on it from every
side were the tuneful " Nine " in marble.
" Ah ! the home of the Muses," said Earnest.
" This, too," she continued, " I do not need. I
would gladly let it go for the gratification of simpler
feelings than it inspires. But, you know, perhaps,
that it will not let me go. So I am as thankful as
may be, and make the most of my surroundings."
" It would be almost a pity," Earnest rejoined, " to
decrease, in any way, their elegance and suggestiveness.
Yet I am aware they have not brought you complete
happiness. I suppose, however, you owe them a large
debt for that very reason."
" Certainly I do," said Stella, " and I try both to
acknowledge it frankly and to appreciate it. We are
all very much beholden to our misfortunes, as no one
has declared to me more clearly than yourself. In
some way we must all be mellowed to a certain in-
difference to mere circumstances, before we can be
permanently comfortable. We must be willing to
forego happiness before we can be happy. Everything
is liable to be taken from us but hope and trust. They
are worth all the rest, and I am thankful to \vhatever
has been a discipline forcing me to think, to feel, to
know.
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 207
" Your life lias been very different from mine ; yet,
if I am not mistaken, we have unconsciously striven
to reach the same goal, a summit from which we
could view the world intelligently, devoid of fear,
of hate, of misgiving. Our tortuous paths to the^
height the mere means of gaining it are indiffer-
ent, now that they are in the distance behind us. To
you, were they ambition? want of wealth, want of
station, want of fame ? Were these the dreams and
playthings that first drove you to the highway of truth
and exertion ? Well, the result, my dear friend, is
generous, noble manhood.
" To me, also, there were dreams and toys. I
dreamed of love, and I longed for admiration. But
I wanted the best. Thus I too was in search of
power, such as it was ; thus I too was inspired to
labor. Then, when disappointment and pain came to
me, the labor itself had become my inspiration and my
solace.
" I have won something ; for it is something to see
that I can win nothing more except by new labors
and cares and duties, and to accept my lot as Provi-
dence imposes it upon me. Nor is this quite all.
When I met you, I had so attuned the chords of my
nature that it was in harmony with yours. May I
say it ? I think I could comprehend and appreciate
you ; I am sure I could respect you. If one would
choose friends, such sympathy is not the least of attain-
ments."
These last words were calm. There was no tremor
in Stella's voice ; but that eye, its soft, deep azure
was unspeakably full. Earnest looked into it. His
spirit and his will beckoned it to draw nearer.
208 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
" Your friends should be very happy," he said.
" God grant they may never be unworthy of your
choice."
And as he sat there by her side, his soul still said :
jCome, come, come ! Her eyes she could not take
from that look, that imploration, that command. They
were fixed, they were charmed, and now they saw the
supplication alone. Come, come, come ! and tears
blinded the blue, and Stella was in a lover's arms,
a lover whom she loved. The arms folded her all
about, and warm lips pressed their fervor upon
hers.
" Speak to me ! " she cried. " Oh, it was cruel,
that behest which I could not disobey, while yet I
feared, and grew weak, and Earnest, speak to me ! "
" Yes, my own, my darling, my beautiful queen !
speak to you and say that your heart rests at last,
where mine has throbbed to place it since almost the
first moment I saw you ; where still I dared not place
it, where still I did not mean to press it, as now I do !
For I meant to bow lowly, to tell you I was a sup-
pliant who asked merely to hope, to think sometimes
of love for some very distant day, if life should be
spared, and happiness and duty could be yours, while
you were mine.
" But our hearts have spared me several very gallant
and very self-sacrificing speeches," he added, with a
smile, " while you, the dearest of women, are here,
here, bound to my soul !
" What have I done ! Well, I would not undo it.
We were created to love each other ; were we not,
my own ? Our fates were joined when we met, and
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 209
it were better to die for them, if they ask it, than to
live and forego this moment ! "
Thus these two restrained, thoughtful young people
had resigned themselves to their feelings, and, like the
children that we all are at many an hour, they were
absorbed and glad in the present. But they were
" children of a larger growth." They knew their own
hearts ; they knew the hearts of others ; and, as all
emotions blended in the meeting of their lips, they
only realized a rapture for which they had long seemed
to be waiting. They did not tremble at love, nor
shrink from loving. They were young, but they had
learned much ; and of the heart's wisdom they were
not afraid.
The hour, the morning passed away. Still they
were there together.
" How happy I am, and how secure ! " said Stella,
as she awoke at last to a thought of the future.
" How much delight I find in these caresses, which
we cannot hope shall last ! You are to leave me in
a few days. I cannot bid you stay ; and perhaps
you will never fold these arms about me again. But
I know that you love me. I knew it before, my idol ;
but now you have told me so, with kisses and em-
braces. How could I ever see you turning fondly to
another, feeling, as I do, that, for both our sakes, you
should be mine, I should be yours ! Now we may
wait, we may mourn, we may suffer. You may be
killed, and then I shall not stay long here alone.
But what of that? Now we can die for love as well
as for duty. We will think, we will pray, we will do
18*
210 LOVERS AND THINKERS. .
no wrong, my guide, my guardian, my only-loved.
But our hearts are bound together.
" We will ask no promises ; we need none. Neither
of us can be faithless in a thought. God has given
me what I have asked. Now, if he should take it
away, I will bow, and bless him, and die.
" Surely I do not think that would be so hard a
fate as many another. Better so than to live un-
loved. Better so than to live unloving. Far better
so than to live for love to chill, for enthusiasm to
burn out, for life to grow selfish and timid and
empty. I am right, dear Earnest; am I not? What-
ever may come, we will not regret this hour. I do
not feel unworthy of it ; for I would give all that
you would have me give, for it and for you.
" My fortune seems a burden, weighing me, as it
does, down, down, away from you. How quickly
would I push it from me, if I could, to hear you speak
one word, call me that nearest, fondest name I long
to hear as I look at you : to be yours wholly, to us
and to the world.
" But no, you need not speak. I know what you
would say. We remain lovers. It is best for us, best
for my poor old parents, best for my duty. Were it
not so, I would not live apart from you one moment
longer than you bade me. And, Earnest, you would
not hold me from you long. Surely you would not.
" Let me dream. We could live, if my wealth
should go. Hopefully we could live on little, and "
thankfully on more. Much, we should not need ; for
ourselves, not our circumstances, would be our care.
Common vanities we have conquered ; display would
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 211
be beneath us ; and the opinions of the world regarding
our estate, we have seen their shallowness too fully
to heed them. Something for a little home ; something
for a friend who might come to it ; something for
books and music ; then something for the poorer man
or woman or child we should see : would this be so
very hard to procure ? If one could not do it readily,
two, I think, could ; finding their tastes cultivated and
their improvement secured in the process.
" Earnest, I have often mourned over the incomplete
life I lead. Nothing seems to me so grand as to elevate
one's powers, whatever they may be, and to impart the
result to others, for their happiness and benefit. How
much time and labor, for instance, I have given to my
music. Now perhaps you will smile, even against your
better judgment, which will sustain me ; but I have
often thought I should delight to instruct others in the
knowledge and pleasure I have gained from that de-
licious source. And mind you, if anything very, very
romantic, or sad, or strange, should occur to tempt me,
I would turn public or private performer on my piano,
and show that I had not possessed the advantages of
wealth so long, without cultivating some taste or talent
that could enable me to dispense with it."
" Plush, my darling, I pray you ! " said Earnest, the
tears falling from his eyes. " Your dream is noble,
and for you it is not at all impracticable. I will
acknowledge no sentimentalism that would terrify me
at the thought of congenial and worthy employment, for
myself or for any other human being. But just now,
the vision saddens me. I cannot bear to think of my-
self as committing you to the smallest inconvenience or
212 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
discomfort. I should never have come here if I had
not intended to fly directly away from you. I knew
you loved me. You were to me the dearest object on
earth. How could I avoid merely saying as much ?
It seemed as if I could even die better and more brave-
ly afterward. And in that event you would not
mourn me more than as though I had never allowed
myself this precious interview.
" I could not look to the end. Yet I hoped that, in
the rapid changes of present affairs, your fortune would
soon cease to be in the way of the world's progress,
and that you could do with it as your long considera-
tion and deliberate judgment might choose. Perhaps
I have too much confidence in myself. But I also
have labored hard and a good while to unfold certain
powers and attainments. Certainly, if I were unable
to render you and yours comfortable, I could quickly
decide on some things I would not do.
" But we will see. For three years I am vowed to
the service of my country. What will happen mean-
while, we cannot tell. But I deprive you of nothing
by loving you, and I increase my own happiness by
adding to it one beautiful hope.
" There, a kiss, my darling Stella, and let me go
from you. We have been with each other a long time.
This evening shall I come again ? "
CHAPTER XXIV.
THAT evening, and every evening for the next
ten days, those two fond hearts were together.
This was not all. Stella had suddenly taken a
liking to her carriage. She must ride to Bunker Hill,
to Cambridge, to Mount Auburn, to Dorchester, to
Concord, wherever there was aught that Earnest
spoke of with pleasure or enthusiasm, wherever there
was aught that Stella thought he would esteem or
admire. Anything that they might be together ; every-
thing that as few moments as possible might be spent
apart, this seemed her constant, almost her only
thought.
" My dear Earnest," she said, " we can be with
each other only a little while ; then long, long months
must drag heavily between us ; or who knows what
besides ? I have always lived in the future, always
given the pleasure of to-day for the good of to-morrow.
But now, during these days you are with me, I will
exist for nothing else than for you and for them.
They will pass away. Desolation may follow them.
But I shall have known God's sweetest gift.
" Yet, Earnest, you will try to come back to me
again, will you not ? You will never be reckless,
(213)
214 LOVERS AND TBIXKERS.
never run into needless harm ! I ask so much ; I
dare not ask more. For then you would no longer
love me, and I should blush at seeing the image of
my poor, weak self. I will never ask you to be un-
worthy. God help you to do all you ought. I bid
you go where you should ; so, if it be down under the
red sod, my soul will not be unworthy to follow yours,
but ' will wake, and remember, and understand.' But
walk carefully, Earnest, my Earnest now; walk
carefully, where prudence shall not be a crime. Think
of me always when you can ; yet I too must needs
say, think of duty first."
He kissed her fair, clear brow ; he kissed her warm,
melting lips ; he pressed her to his heart.
" I will do all you wish, Stella. Let us not paint
the future. I too, say, let us live these few days in
all their sunshine. How bright and hallowed they
are ! "
They would not stay always, those ten bright,
sunny days. They were a delicious revel for two
full souls, a banquet of love such as not every life
affords, such as no life often spreads. The chill whis-
per that breathed of separation, stole among their joys
to tip them with the keener zest. But at last the
whisper was, " Now : the time has come."
They tore themselves away from each other, mourn-
fully, tearfully, speechlessly. Yet the warm hands,
which wrung out the farewell that their lips refused
to utter, were joined in hope ; and there was the
prayer to God, such as is alone written in the blood
of hearts that love, when they are cleft asunder, per
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 215
haps for months or years, perhaps for so long a season
that earth cannot again join them.
Now they had parted. Almost it seemed to them
as if there was no one left alive in the world. The
dream had ended, the dream in which all but their
love was a blank. It had ended, it was broken. But
they could wake to nought else.
Well, there would be time enough to wake, and
duties enough to be done. Let them think yet a little
of the heaven that was the dearest they had found.
CHAPTER XXV.
" G TELLA, my dear, it seems to me you look very
^ pale and very sad this morning. May your poor
old father, who hasn't always done the best for you,
but has yet always thought he loved you, ask why ? "
So said Rufus Maign to his daughter, the morning
after she and Earnest had parted.
The old gentleman had offered no comments on any-
thing that Stella had done, or wished to do, since he
came into her household. Not because he selfishly
feared to offend her, but simply because he had come
to think, at last, that she was not to be questioned
and judged like others. Her seclusion from choice ;
her tenderness to the humblest of those around her;
her constant application to her music, or to studies
deeper than he cared to understand or investigate ;
her wonderful brilliancy at times, in the presence of
such friends as she enjoyed to meet ; and, withal, her
solicitous care that he who had forced her to the one
great sacrifice of her life, should have whatever could
make him comfortable and happy; all these things
had latterly impressed Mr. Maign with his daughter
as with no one else.
" Ah ! mistaken man that I was ! " he had more
(216)
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 217
than once soliloquized ; " she was born under a loftier
star than ever shone over my old counting-room. I
didn't comprehend her. How I wish I could make
her amends ! Perhaps I can yet."
And ambition rose again beneath those gray hairs ;
and he toiled and schemed, settling old debts, and
freeing himself from their weighty trammels. Happily
they were not many now ; and using a few thousands
of dollars as he knew how to use money, they were
soon cleared up. Once more he stood erect, owing
no man a cent, as he declared. But still the gray
head was busy, crammed with money-articles and
market-reports. The old merchant was again on the
scent, and in a few years who could tell what might
happen to him ? So he thought ; so he said to him-
self alone.
Now, for the first time since he came to her home,
her father asked a question which Stella could answer
by any commonplace, if she chose, but which she
knew expressed a desire to probe her heart. Yet the
tone was so kind, and the manner so considerate ! The
man's old haughtiness and abruptness had all gone.
" Stella, my dear, it seems to me, you look very pale
and very sad this morning. May your poor old father,
who hasn't always done the best for you, but who has
yet always thought he loved you, ask why ? "
Gently these words came to the sadness of which
they spoke.
Earnest had met Mr. Maign every day, the
young man coming in and going out Ayhen he pleased,
riding with Stella, sitting hours with her in the " sa-
cred rooms," till the servants stared with wonder at
19
218 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
such unusual proceedings. But not a word had been
said on the subject, and Mr. Maign always smiled on
both his daughter and her friend.
Yet who was he? It was indeed strange. ... A
young man she had met while visiting Cora Clandon ;
a good-looking, well-bred, intelligent fellow. Well,
Mr. Maign would wait. Stella knew her own affairs ;
he, or any one else, could well trust her. But now he
asked the cause of that pale cheek, the melancholy
brow, and the eyes which seemed to have been very
tearful.
" Father, I will tell you. Why should I not ? Mr.
Acton, the young man who has been here during
these last few days, I love ; and I love him, knowing
that perhaps I shall never see him again."
" And why not, my daughter ? "
"He is going into the army : a man who really
has no more business there than I have : as gentle
as a woman, shrinking from the least harshness,
his mind having dwelt for years with the sages, the
poets, the saints. He thinks it his duty to go, and
for that he leaves a quiet seclusion of thought and
study, which to him is a sort of earthly paradise, for
the life of a soldier. And I know him. I know his
will. That hand, which has so tenderly held mine,
will be terrible to others, terrible to himself, if necessary,
when it grasps a sword. He will laugh at danger, and
spurn security. Duty solemn, stern, unbending duty
will be all he thinks of. He is not like most of
us. He means and welcomes death in the cause, if
death needs to come. Such a man I have loved, and
have seen him leave me. Yes, I am very sad."
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 219
And tears gushed from Stella's lids, and her head
fell upon her hand.
Presently she looked up and continued.
" I have told you all. It was your due. It seemed
strange to you, no doubt, that a man you had never
before seen should be with me almost constantly. But
we loved, had done so in spite of ourselves. We were
not to remain with each other. I knew there would
be time enough to think, to consider everything, after
he had gone : perhaps a whole lifetime. So we filled
the hour as it came."
" Who is he, Stella ? Is he rich, or poor ? No, no,
my good girl ; don't curl your lip so. I'm not going
to deserve it. I know you think I've considered that
question once too often, at least, already. So I have,
dear ; but this time, you mustn't blame me. You
shall have no reason to do so. Let me come fo the
point, then, as soon as I can. Thanks to you, I've
paid all my miserable debts that have been hanging
over me, and I've made a little besides. In my judg-
ment, there was never, since I was born, such a time
to make money as now. In two years I mean to
make twenty thousand dollars. I think I can do it.
I couldn't understand such a girl as you. I did you
wrong. But the old post-horse is good for something
yet, in his own way. In two years, I say, I mean
to have twenty thousand dollars. I've almost broken
your heart ; but I'll try hard to mend it. I want the
money for you. If the young man should live to
come back, you shall have it, or he shall have it, or
we will do what you like with it. I couldn't buy you
such a house as this, or the one we used to have. But
220 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
I know you now : you wouldn't care for it. I'd do
my best, and maybe make you happy. Then you
could leave these traps of Jabed's behind you, or let
them go to the secessionists and the dominies, if they
must. The will was a bad affair, a bad affair, the
meanest of all, curse the thing I But we'll get the
better of it somehow. Yes we will, Stella, my dear
child, and you shall be content."
Stella was speechless with surprise. Such words
from such a father ! a man who had always been
grasping, and worldly, and vain, whose first thought
and foremost endeavor had been possession, accumula-
tion. What had effected so vast a change ? Was it
the loss of his money ? Was it her imprisonment in
her own wealth ?
She had noticed that, since he first came to Boston,
he had been ceaselessly active, busy in the morning,
thoughtful and engrossed in the evening. He gave
himself scarcely any relaxation, unless when it was her
hour for sitting with him and conversing, and some-
times smoothing his white hair. Then the restless,
knitted brow became unoccupied and sunny.
Had he observed her loneliness of heart, which had
nearly become an accepted part of her life ? that
loneliness which her retirement, her music, her stud-
ies, had so often been evoked to solace and to cheer?
She could not tell. She had striven to appear happy,
that he might not be reminded of his having impelled
her to be sorrowful. She had often really felt happy in
seeing him once more occupied and unbroken.
But he had made no allusion to former days, to her
husband, or to any alteration of his own vkws and pur-
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 221
poses, until now. Now she comprehended, in an in-
stant, the meaning of that renewed energy, that intent,
anxious, tireless look.
She was too deeply moved to speak ; but she went
to her father, and putting her arms about his neck,
kissed his forehead and his lips, then hurried out of
the dining-hall to her own room.
The name of father had now a significance which
it had not hitherto borne, which she had longed,
only, that it could bear.
19*
CHAPTER XXVI.
WITHIN a week after leaving Stella, Lieutenant
Earnest Acton was in the Volunteer Service of
the United States.
When he first thought of entering that service, he
had determined to do so as a soldier in the ranks. He
felt himself without capacity to lead men to battle.
But many others, possessing quite as meagre an ac-
quaintance with the " tactics " as he, were stepping for-
ward, ready to take high places. Young merchants,
and clerks, and lawyers, competent enough, doubtless,
in their several employments, appeared . to gauge their
modesty and their yet undeveloped military skill, pre-
cisely by the best possible positions they could secure.
It is certainly well for soldiers, as for other men, to
have confidence in themselves, if they would succeed.
But Earnest supposed that being a commander implied
fulfilling the duties of such a person ; and although he
strongly inclined to trust genius and native good sense
more than mere drill and routine, he fancied that he
ought to know something of these things, before aspiring
to a trust which might easily involve a considerable
number of precious lives.
" But bother your fancies," said Captain Norcum,
(222)
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 223
the friend in whose company Earnest had purposed
enlisting ; " you shall go as one of my officers, if you
go with me. Your conscientious hesitation is all very
fine. But you have a head and a heart ; and those aro
things, I can tell you, that will be very much in de-
mand. Come ; I am considered quite proficient, as
holiday captains average ; but you shall be my twin in
tactics before the month is over.
" Besides," added the jolly captain, laughing, " you
can resign, you know, and step into the ranks, any time
you please. You shall be my first lieutenant. Alf
Bowles will be second."
But Earnest declined.
"Well, then, Bowles shall be your superior. You
take the place I had intended for him."
" I will try it," said Earnest, and the matter was
settled.
As every newspaper teems with accounts of battles/
and with the details of camp and field life, it would be
almost uninteresting to follow Earnest through the par-
ticulars of his military experience.
From Ironton, his regiment was sent to Fortress
Monroe, where it remained while the battle of Bull
Run was fought and lost.
Earnest's first taste of warfare was at Bethel, an
unfortunate and inglorious taste, he thought ; and
especially bitter, as the following day he learned the
fate of Major Winthrop, the eager and devoted, whom
at first sight he had admired as a great-hearted, cultured
gentleman, and had loved as native to a more generous
and genial world than our poor eyes are accustomed to
behold.
224 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
The Major fell on Monday. The Saturday prece-
ding, Earnest with fourteen of his men, was out on a
scouting expedition between Hampton and Bethel,
when suddenly a party of rebels, numbering twenty or
more r and mounted, appeared on the road, swung round
a brass howitzer, and let fly at the fifteen. Earnest
ordered his men to the side of the road, where they
were partly sheltered by woods; and by some loud
shouting to imaginary reinforcements, and by a cool
use of the muskets, he beat a safe retreat for his own
party, having had the grim satisfaction of seeing two of
the enemy fall from their horses, wounded or dead.
He supposed that, all things considered, he had done
pretty well, and was not dissatisfied with the exploit.
But presently he met Major Winthrop, who rode up
and questioned him minutely about the skirmis.
He answered, stating the number of rebels and the
number of his own men.
That dashing hero's eye glistened.
" Twenty rebs ! " he exclaimed, " and you were
fifteen ! Why didn't you take their gun ? "
This view of the case had not entered Earnest's
mind ; and the attempt would certainly have appeared
somewhat rash. But he felt, instantly, that if Major
Winthrop had been in command of the fourteen, the
effort would have been made to capture the howitzer.
Perhaps it would have succeeded. Perhaps the hero
would have fallen two days sooner than he did, " the
only brave man," as the rebels declared, that they saw
among the Union soldiers, on the memorable day of his
death.
But what was his own life to that great, magnani-
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 225
mous heart, that keen, thoughtful spirit ? One of the
few was he, who knew the magnitude of the struggle
to which he had given himself, knew the North,
knew the South. Freedom for mankind he asked ; not
long life for Theodore Winthrop, who was ready and
willing to die" that his country might live. To be early
in heaven was for such as he !
On the 31st of May, 1862, Earnest was in the van of
the Army of the Potomac. He was now Captain
Acton. He had been in the service a few days more
than a year, having passed through four battles and
nine skirmishes without a scratch. Eleven days he
had been in the hospital, and every other day on duty.
He had not been home, nor had he asked to go. Stern-
ly punctual, and ever ready at his post, he had waited
upon duty or death, as that which he had come to do,
that to be done. No wonder he was loved by his men ;
no wonder he was trusted by all.
In another week he was to be a lieutenant-colonel.
Captain, now Colonel, Norcum was in command of the
regiment. By rank, the post of lieutenant-colonel be-
longed to Alfred Bowles. But his turn had come to
be magnanimous. He was a good-hearted, faithful
officer, yet slow, and wanting in address ; while the
quick, cultivated mind of Earnest had enabled him to
become " every inch a soldier ; " and his natural free
and easy kindness, all of which he could express, had
made him the pet of the rank and file. Besides, he
had twice ventured his life to save that of another, and
each time it was a private not belonging to his own
company. In one of these instances, he carried off a
22G LOVERS AND THINKERS.
wounded man in his arms, and with his pistol disabled
two of the enemy who were trying to oppose him.
The example of personal valor, and his invariable
touch of the cap to the humblest, were in themselves
sufficient to make him the private's favorite. But
beyond this, he had the name of strict temperance
and unmistakable integrity. When, therefore, Major
Bowles received friendly intimation that the lieutenant-
colonelcy would shortly devolve on him, by the resig-
nation of the incumbent, he frankly said, in his homely
but noble way, that he knew of a better man ; and if
the boys all round would' nt object, he would hold his
own, and see Captain Acton go over him.
The offer was hailed with applause, and a torrent of
compliments soon rolled upon the honest Bowles from
officers and men.
" It is very generous in you," said Colonel Norcum,
" yet I think you'll never regret it. Between you and
me, Acton is to-day better able to lead the entire army,
than some others that you and I know of. He means
fight, at least."
But the .plans of Major Bowles were destined to be
sadly frustrated in every way. In his self-sacrificing
estimate, he had not taken into account that in a few
days was to be fought, and lost, and won, the battle of
Fair Oaks. On the 31st of May, and on the 1st of
June, 1862, such was the work to be done.
The record of the battle is known. Heavily, and in
force, the Confederates bore down from Richmond on
General Casey's division, shattering, and forcing it back
upon the larger body. Then came the fearful, the
desperate struggle for recovery. Colonel Norcum's
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 227
regiment was to have its mettle thoroughly tested.
Gallantly it went into the fray, its gallant colonel at
the head. Another instant, and he was thrown speech-
less to the ground, his horse killed by a shell. The
lieutenant-colonel was sick, and absent from the field.
Major Bowles did his utmost, rushing to Colonel Nor-
cum's post, and holding the regiment firmly up to its
task. But those terrible rebel sharp-shooters coveted
the life of so brave and upright a man. He, too, fell
from his horse, shot through the body. As he was
raised for an instant, he spoke the name of Captain
Acton, glanced at the line, and fell back dead.
The regiment began to waver. There was not an
instant to be lost. Earnest leaped upon his friend's
horse, which had not been harmed, and thundered
along the front.
" Boys ! " he shouted, " will you see me die alone ?
Come ! Once more ! " And away he dashed, straight
for the rebel columns.
With a mournful, dissonant yell, the " boys " fol-
lowed him. They fought like a regiment of tigers over
their young. Yet they lost ground, foot by foot, inch
by inch. Only once they gained a few rods. Earnest
had shared, in part, the fate of his colonel and major,
having been violently dismounted, and shot in two
places, through the neck and the arm. Then the
regiment, especially the members of his own company,
seemed to stake everything on him. Without com-
mand, but with united impulse, the latter forced their
way to his body, supported by frantic squads along the
line. Fifteen Federal soldiers, seventeen Confederates,
lay dead and dying, immediately around him, on that
228 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
disputed piece of ground. But he was borne from it,
at last, by those who would know nothing else, for the
time, than to achieve their purpose, or to die.
He had done all that man could there do ; and they
had done for him all that mortal might can be inspired
to do for one who loves and honors men.
On the 2d of June, removed from the late scene
of conflict, Earnest was receiving what care and atten-
tion could be bestowed on him by the as yet dishonest
and ill-regulated medical and commissary departments
qt F . His wounds had been probed and dressed,
and it was thought he would recover. Two telegrams
had been sent homeward, one to his father, at Iron-
ton, one to Stella, at Boston, stating that he was badly
wounded, but doing well.
From the moment the news of the battle of Fair
Oaks reached Stella, she had been exceedingly dis-
tressed, as if with a presentiment of terror and mis-
fortune. Her determination was fixed. If word should
come from Earnest that he was in danger, she would
go to him herself, and provide for his wants. The
word came. It was brought to her at the same time
with a letter, the superscription of which she recognized
as the handwriting of Cora Clandon. She read the
dispatch, and threw the letter aside. She then wrote
a short note to Earnest's father, informing him that
within an hour she should be on the way to Washing-
ton, accompanied by her butler, an old and trusty
servant, and should proceed immediately to F ,
to take care of Captain Acton, and to supply him with
every comfort and attention.
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 229
She called the man whom she intended to take
with her, and, to the utter amazement of that worthy
individual, which his rather dark mulatto face did not
fail to show, asked him to have a carriage at the door
in forty minutes, and be prepared to accompany her to
the Army of the Potomac.
" Don't wait for explanations," she said. " You
have lived with me five years, and know me. Please
get ready at once."
" Yes, ma'am." And the old butler left her.
Stella went to her room, and in a quarter of an
hour was draped in plain gray travelling apparel.
Late the next night she was at F -, and was
inquiring for Earnest.
" Shall I tell him who waits to see him ? " asked
the person to whom she was addressing her ques-
tions.
"Yes, a sister, the dearest he has on earth."
She was in no mood for formalities.
How surprising, and how welcome was her tired,
anxious, sleepless face, to the wounded young lover,
pale and haggard, lying there on his pallet !
" Ah ! Stella, I can want nothing now \ " he mur-
mured, as he saw her ; " but what a place for you ! "
" Never mind that," she replied. " But you must
be quiet. I shall stay with you."
Fortunate was the young soldier to receive such
care as that which, during the next two weeks, was
supplied by Stella. Carefully was every direction fol-
lowed by a nurse who had so much to gain or lose.
Tenderly were his parched lips moistened ; tenderly
his hot brow bathed. Gentle was the restraint which
20
230 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
soothed him to' sleep, when his mind Avandered away
into the Conflict again, and he shouted and begged to
be followed to the death. Bravely she bore it, when
one of the surgeons told her that, in his next lucid
interval, if she had anything she was especially de-
sirous of saying to him, it would be well to communi-
cate it ; for he feared that Captain Acton would live
but a few hours longer. Tearfully at last, and only
then, she sank away, completely overcome, when
Earnest was pronounced not dead, but strangely bet-
ter, and but of all danger. Then she slept a long,
deep, heavy sleep, from which it appeared almost as
difficult to waken her as it had been to recall her
enfeebled lover from his decline toward the land of
shadows.
But the burden had been lifted from her, her prayers
had been answered, and her heart, was filled with
thankfulness and joy.
Five days still she lingered at F , an angel of
mercy in the abode of desolation. Not Earnest alone,
prayed that God would spare " the sweet lady's
brother " to her who had a kind word and a helpful
hand for every one she came near.
In fact, there were some special reasons for their
benedictions. Soon after her arrival, she had ascer-
tained that some of the pale skeleton-figures she saw
young men, many of whom had left good homes,
to fight and die for their country were here actually
pinched with hunger, put off with pitiful, undue
allowances of food, that the blood-suckers of the com-
missariat might fatten their pockets upon these ghastly
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 231
cheeks. What could she do ? Nothing but send John,
her dark butler, to the nearest place where provisions
could be procured, hand him her purse, and order
him to buy whatever was needed, without stint. In
her flame of indignation and grief, she thought not
o o * o
of the consequence to herself, thought not of the
annual allowance for charity to which she was lim-
ited, but only remembered that she had a plenty of
money with her, and that servants of their country
and their God were literally starving to death under
her eye.
John employed the purse freely, and gave it back
to her lighter by nearly six hundred dollars. He was
honest to buy, and faithful to distribute ; and was un-
accustomed to question whatever he was told to do.
" Madam, my mistress, wished me to bring you
this ; and would, you like some of this ? "
Then tears would well up to the eyes of those
rouo-h men, their languid faces would brighten, and
o * o o '
their voices grow very soft.
Later, the report was circulated that the mysterious
lady who had come to attend Captain Acton, whether
his sister or not, was very rich, worth millions ; that
she was personally acquainted with the Secretary of
War; that she would represent affairs to him as she
had seen them here ; and that somebody would be
sure to suffer in consequence.
She allowed the report to pass for what it was worth,
and instructed John not to lessen its value.
When, a few days afterward, a certain burly-faced
quartermaster desired to be presented to her, she replied,
loftily, that she should be very sorry to form the
232 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
acquaintance of so unscrupulous a man, and should not
only Hbc reluctant to take his hand, but, if matters were
not mended, she should do what little she could to pre-
vent that hand from repeating its recent niggardly acts.
Her words, her look, her bearing, were not to be
mistaken. She was evidently a lady, and had money.
The plethoric rascal of the commissariat was satisfied
on this point, and Stella had the happiness to see an
immediate change in the rations.
But for the accidental rumor of her wonderful in-
fluence with governmental functionaries, which some
imaginative youth had probably dreamed, she would
never have thought of attempting to displace a quarter-
master of volunteers. On her return to Washington,
however, she did make the attempt, in person, stating
who she was and what she had witnessed. Her words
carried with them the weight of indignant truth,
which it almost choked her to utter ; and the tears
which she could not suppress were perhaps eloquent.
At any rate, Earnest, who was yet unable to start for
home when she departed from F , wrote to her that,
three days after she left him, the man of whom she had
complained had been ignominiously dismissed from the
service, and that the poor fellows she had fed from her
bounty were then fully impressed with the belief that
his " sister" was a "near relation of Mrs. Lincoln."
CHAPTER XXVII.
STELLA had been at home several days, when sud-
denly the recollection of Cora's unopened letter
occurred to her. She had been pondering, with some
mortification, her hasty benevolence to the soldiers at
F , which, if it should come to light, or should be
honestly revealed by herself, as she believed it ought to
be, might deprive her of her fortune.
The issue could easily be avoided. She could call
the money she had spent, her father's ; she could say
that John had exceeded, in his purchases, the amount
she had designed he should expend ; she could replace
the money in a hundred different ways. But had she,
or had she not, really, though unthinkingly, broken
one of the provisions of her husband's will ? She
acknowledged that she had.
What, then, was her pleasure and surprise, as she
read Cora's long, chatty epistle.
" DEAR, DEAR STELLA :
"I've lots to tell you, lots to begin with, about
yourself, and another sweet, charming dear, and Cap-
tain Bub. She the lady sweet and charming is
20* (233)
234 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
a Southerner, or pretty nearly one, and Captain Bub
likes her. She is a relation of yours that you have
never seen and don't know ; and the whole matter
is romantic and curious enough for a novel.
" You remember, Captain Bub went to New Or-
leans with General Butler. Well, only a few days
after he arrived there, a young lady accosted him in
the street, and asked if he would be kind enough to
conduct her to the commanding general. She was very
genteel and modest, and didn't offer to. spit on him,
or pretend to be sick at the stomach when he touched
his cap. (Captain Bub is always very gentlemanly, if
he is my brother.) He told her he should be very
happy to conduct her to General Butler, but that the
general was engaged, and would probably not be able
to see her before the next day. At this she appeared
utterly dejected ; and she kept looking behind her, as
if she was afraid of something. He stood in front of
her, with his cap lifted from his head (I can see just
how graceful and handsome he looked), and, when the
pitiful tears fell from her eyes, he asked her if it
would be possible for one of General Butler's subor-
dinate officers and one of his particular friends to be
of any immediate service to her ; at the same time
handing her his card, with the name of Captain Law-
rence Ide Clandon on it.
" ' I don't know,' she answered ; ' but I think you
can if you will.' Then, looking straight into his face,
but blushing as she did so, she asked : ' Do I look
like an honest person ? ' and, turning away, she wept
like a flood.
" ' By Jove ! you do ! ' exclaimed Captain Bub.
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 235
' It would be unsafe for a man to tell me you do
not.'
" ' Then can you see that I am protected pro-
tected even from arrest as a thief, it may be until
General Butler can see and hear me ? '
" Captain Bub looked at her with perfect astonish-
ment. She bore every mark of being an amiable and
cultivated lady. Her conversation and manners both
indicated it. Moreover, she was very pretty, ^ not
quite so tall as you, and rather stouter, with dark
hair, brown eyes, prominent but regular features, and
an unusually intelligent and sweet expression. Cap-
tain Bub was struck with her. He pitied her, and
instinctively perceived that there couldn't be any cause
to charge her with crime.
" ' I think,' he said, ' that a word to General Butler
will procure me permission to keep you from all harm.
But the general will want to know your whole case in
twenty seconds. May I ask you some questions, so as
to speak intelligently to him ? He never admits any-
thing on one's predilection or supposition, but dives
right for the facts.'
O
" Meanwhile, since Captain Bub had noticed her
frightened glances backward, they had naturally walked
towards General Butler's quarters.
"Clara that is the young lady's name Clara
Summers appeared perplexed and abashed at the
further information thus demanded of her by a young
stranger-officer ; and she hesitated for a moment.
Then, looking up into his face, she inquired, ' Have
you a wife, or a dear sister ? '
" Captain Bub smiled, and said, ' I am not so
236 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
fortunate as to have a wife yet ; but I have a very dear
sister, not far from your own age, as I should guess.'
(Of course he meant me, Stella. I'm glad that he
and I think so much of each other.)
" ' I'll tell you my story,' Clara said to him. ' But
it is shocking, and would be painful to relate even to
your sister, if she were my near friend. Think of
what she would have to do if in my place ; and for-
give me for telling you some such dreadful things as
I must refer to if you are to hear the truth.'
" Then she gave him an outline of her whole his-
tory.
" She was born in Virginia ; but her parents came
from Boston. Her father's name was James Summers.
Her mother's maiden name was Julia Torson.
" You will see instantly that Clara is your husband's
niece, the person who, if found, was to have his prop-
erty, in case you shouldn't abide by the will. Isn't it
funny that she should turn up in this way, and now be
actually in the house of your best friend ? for she is
here with me.
" But I must go back to the story.
" When Clara's mother was a young lady, she was
a great favorite, it seems, with some old stick or other
in Boston, who was very rich, and whom her father
desired she should marry. But she couldn't be per-
suaded to do it. She had formed certain preferences
of her own, which were in the way of any such
arrangement. The affair ended by her marrying
Mr. Summers, a young man whom she loved, and
being forbidden ever afterwards to enter her father's
house.
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 237
" Her brother, who was several years older than
she, and who had already acquired some property,
sided with her father, called her a fool, and said she
had disgraced them both.
" It wasn't so very easy to see why ; for Mr.
Summers was a young lawyer of considerable promise,
who soon moved with his wife to Virginia, becoming
successful, and even quite distinguished in his profes-
sion.
" But he had one proud fault. Having been snubbed
by his wife's father and brother, he was determined
to maintain her in style and affluence. He did so ;
but spent his income, instead of saving it. He was
young, and his practice was constantly increasing. He
thought there would be time enough to accumulate
money when he desired.
" It was so for eleven years ; when suddenly he
died.
" His wife had been more prudent than he. She
had persuaded him to buy a house, at one time when
he was able to make the investment ; and when his
affairs were settled up, she found herself in possession
of this and some other property, which, being sold,
yielded her a few thousand dollars.
" She then came North, Clara being about ten years
old.
" On the way from Philadelphia to New York, Mrs.
Summers was sick, and was confined to her state-room
on the boat. Clara was permitted to run about in
the cabin, promising she would go but a certain dis-
tance from the door of the state-room. A number of
the passengers took a good deal of notice of her, and
238 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
as she was not timid, she was quite willing to receive
their attentions and their sweetmeats. One gentleman
seemed to take a special fancy to her ; but finally,
asking her name, and being told it was Clara Payson
Summers, he let go her hand abruptly, and said not
another word to her while she was on the boat. She
thought it a strange incident at the time, but soon
forgot it. A day or two afterwards, she happened to
recall it, and spoke of it to her mother. Mrs. Sum-
mers inquired minutely about the gentleman's appear-
ance.
" ' He was pretty big,' Clara said, ' and had a scar
on his forehead, the shape of a y upside down (A),
and a large ring on his little finger, with a white
stone in it; and on the stone was a lady's head,
which looked, mamma, a great deal like yours, when
you have your hair put up in puffs. He told me it
was a picture of his mother.'
" ' So it was, Clara,' replied Mrs. Summers ; ' and
it was a picture of my mother too. That man, my
daughter, was your uncle. But he hates me, and he
will never love you.'
" Clara says she has never forgotten the sad, weary
look with which her poor mother said this.
" You knew the man also, Stella ; and you have
known him still better, since. Do you suppose he re-
lented a little, in after years, and that the image of
Clara would haunt him ? For you know you told me
about the chance he gave her in his will ; though he
evidently didn't really believe it would avail her much.
" She never saw him again, and I presume he never
took any pains to inquire after her.
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 239
" Mrs. Summers' object in coming North, was to
give Clara a thorough education, and to fit her for a
teacher, as she might some time have to rely wholly on
her own exertions for support. She was placed at
school ; and, if my judgment is worth anything, she
must have realized every expectation. My dear Stella,
she is positively the smartest and sweetest girl I ever
met, your own peerless self excepted. I don't wonder
a bit that Captain Bub took a fancy to her.
" But how I ramble all around in the account of her !
" Clara and her mother lived at the North eight years,
Mrs. Summers being an invalid most of the time.
" About the close of the eighth year she died. The
money was nearly all spent, but Clara had as good an
education as one of our best seminaries could afford her.
Six months after her mother's death she 'was prevailed
upon to go to South Carolina as a teacher in a gentle-
man's family there.
" Now comes the bitterest part of what poor, dear
Clara had to tell Captain Bub.
" Colonel Rawlston, with whom she went to reside,
was an elderly man, polite and pleasant, whose house-
hold was composed of three daughters and one son, the
latter a young lad of ten years. Colonel Rawlston's wife
had been dead a few months, and his eldest daughter
supplied her mother's place as mistress of the mansion.
Her education was presumed to be complete. Clam's
duty was to instruct the two younger daughters in
French and music, and the lad in whatever he could
be persuaded to learn, except riding horses and shooting
birds, two accomplishments to which his mind was
principally given. He immediately became attached,
240 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
however, to the ' Yankee lady,' as he termed Clara, and
an occasional lesson was coaxed out of him. lie told
Clara that she wasn't at all the woman he had expected
to see when he heard she was coming. He thought
all the Yankee women had ' peaked noses, long, bony
arms, only a little thin hair on their heads, and couldn't
see without specs ; ' but that she was ' handsomer than
any of his sisters except Sallie, and a heap pleasanter.'
" This Sallie, the youngest daughter, was Clara's
favorite. She was, as young Ben had said, the prettiest
one of the three, as she was also the most amiable.
She was quiet and sad, and very unobtrusive. She
always dressed with remarkable plainness, and shunned,
instead of courting society. Her sisters generally treat-
ed her with kindness ; but appeared quite willing to
encourage her seclusive tastes and habits.
" You'll hardly believe why, Stella. Southern men
are strange beings. Colonel Rawlston, Clara says, was
an educated, agreeable man ; but Sallie, though his
daughter, was not his wife's child, but the child of a
quadroon woman, at one time his mistress and slave,
who was herself the daughter of a Southern senator.
" She didn't wish to live in the relation imposed upon
her by Colonel Rawlston, and her reluctance Avas well
known to his wife, who, like a Christian Northern
woman as she was, pitied the bondmaid instead of
hating her.
" Sallie was born, and her mother dying within a
year, Mrs. Rawlston insisted on adopting the little one
as her own child, which she finally did. When Sallie
was fourteen, she heard the circumstances of her birth
related by an old slave, and went directly to Mrs. Rawl-
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 241
ston, to know if it was possible they were true. The
good woman told her they were ; but called Sallie her
own dear daughter, soothing and comforting her in
every way she could.
" The dear girl's heart was broken. From that hour
she was melancholy and timid, shunning nearly all
acquaintances. But to Mrs. Rawlston she was more
than a daughter, she was truly a willing, a devoted
slave. During the lady's long sickness (she died of
consumption) Sallie was her constant attendant and
untiring nurse. She saw her last faint smile, and
received her last blessing.
" Clara had been but a short time in Colonel Rawl-
ston's family, when Sallie informed her of these things,
asking the young teacher if she could love and in-
struct her as well as if she were really Mrs. Rawlston's
daughter. Her sisters, she said, had obeyed their
mother's dying injunction to be kind to her ; but they
were proud, and, as her history was not a complete
secret, how could they be fully reconciled to the rela-
tion she bore to them ? Little Ben, she was sure, loved
her fondly, and now, while he was a child, she found
much happiness in his attachment. But her chief hope
was that Clara would teach her all that she herself
knew, so that in two or three years she could go
North, live there, and take care of herself.
" O Stella ! how I wish she could have done so,
and could have come here to me ! But worse than
that was to befall the darling.
" When Clara had been with her a year and a
half, the scholar, as Clara asserts, being superior to
the teacher, and when they had vowed inseparable
242 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
friendship at the North, where they intended going
together, Colonel Rawlston died. His estate was found
nearly insolvent, and the charge of the family devolved
on Captain Raspar Rawlston, the eldest son, who had
lived many years in New Orleans, and who seemed
almost a stranger to his sisters and his young brother.
" He was a terrible man, a dealer in cotton and
slaves, who was very rich, but reckless and dissipated.
(I believe that nasty rum puts out the last spark of
a man's decency.)
" What do you think he did ? He introduced the
two sisters into the most aristocratic society of New
Orleans, and claimed Sallie as his slave, that he had
bought in settling up his father's estate. She was a
' nigger,' he said, ' but one that had been a favorite
in the family.'
" Then he tried to make her his mistress, having,
it was reported, three others already. He kept her
away from his sisters and little Ben, threatened her,
and persecuted her, until at last, in a fit of desperation,
she snatched one of his own pistols, and spattered her
brains in the wretch's face.
" A week or two previously she had insisted on
giving Clara an elegant necklace, which she had worn,
and with it a locket containing her likeness. Rawlston
found it out. Not satisfied with what he had done,
he soon attempted to repeat the experiment on Sallie's
friend, the free, white Clara ; and, as one of his loving
bits of persuasion, swore he would have her arrested
as a thief, if she made any disturbance. He actually
abducted her from his residence, where she had re-
mained with his sisters. But she escaped from him.
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 243
" ' And now, sir,' said she to Captain Bub, as she
finished the account, which I, of course, have spun
out so as to give you every particular, ' and now,
sir, I have found you, a gentleman I am sure ; and
can thank God I am safe.'
"Perhaps, my dear Stella, you can imagine how
Captain Bub bore the recital. I asked Clara. She
said that he was perfectly dumb with astonishment.
When she came to Sallie's death, his eyes fairly turned
round in their sockets, and flashed with a green glow,
like a cat's. He didn't speak a word for several
minutes, and then his voice was calm and low. But
she says she inwardly prayed that Captain Rawlston
wouldn't permit himself to send for her that day, and
almost as much for his own sake as for hers.
" She wasn't inquired for ; but the next morning a
file of soldiers proceeded to Captain Rawlston's house,
to summon him, with his two sisters and little Ben,
to appear at General Butler's head-quarters. It was a
summons which didn't admit of hesitation or delay on
the part of any one of them. They were there in a
short time, and were questioned separately.
" Captain Rawlston was disposed to be haughty and
imposing. He said it was quite likely he had accused
a certain Miss Summers, or one passing tfrider that
name, some Yankee woman of no account, of
stealing. It was also quite likely he might have
threatened her for so doing. He was not aware, how-
ever, that such a matter had anything to do with the
military government of New Orleans.
" * You have much to learn, sir,' replied General
244 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
Butler. ' Do you know the whereabouts of a young
person' named Sallie Rawlston ? '
" ' A certain girl Sallie, whom I suppose you mean,
was my nigger. She was foolish enough to blow her
head off some days since. If you want her, you'll have
to look for her in h .'
" 4 Take care of this brute ! ' ordered General But-
ler. ' I shall want him again.'
" The sisters were each examined. They were lady-
like, and both seemed surprised, though pleased, to see
Clara. They hesitated, evidently not knowing for
what they were there, or what they were expected to
say. They testified wonderingly to Clara's attainments,
integrity, and gentleness.
" Then little Ben was brought in. He appeared
slightly intimidated at first, probably having heard ter-
rible stories about the Yankee soldiers. But the sight
of Clara reassured him. He ran to her, and, putting
his arms around her neck, kissed her, and wanted to
know if anybody had dared to keep his dear Clara
Summers there against her will.
" No, she said, she had come there of her own
accord.
" ' My son,' asked General Butler, ' would your
dear Clara Summers steal anything ? say this chain
and the locket.'
44 The child stamped his foot, and burst into tears.
44 ' Are you her friend, or not ? ' he asked.
" 4 Yes, my little man, I am her friend,' the general
answered, with a smile.
44 4 Well, then,' cried Ben, ' if you'll lend me those
pistols of yours, I'll fight with any man that says Clara
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 245
Summers would steal. I'm little, sir, but I can shoot
like the devil. My sister Sallie, my dearest pet sister,
gave those things to Miss Summers, and I saw her do
it. Will you let me take the pistols ? '
" ' Perhaps I will let you take the pistols some time,
my little friend ; but no one here believes Miss Sum-
mers would steal, any more than you do. Your brother
thought so ; but he has made a mistake.'
" ' My brother thought so ? He's a fool. He's mean,
he is. He made Sallie go away from us ; and she's
dead, sir.'
" Such was little Ben's testimony ; and, as you may
suppose, it was satisfactory.
" Ben was sent out, and Captain Rawlston brought
back.
" He was found guilty of using vile, slanderous, and
threatening language to Clara Summers ; of an assault
upon her, and attempted abduction.
" ' I have seen and questioned your sisters and little
brother,' said General Butler. ' I respect them highly
They alone save you from Fort Jackson. You will
pay within an hour, into the hands of Captain Clandon
here, five thousand dollars, as a partial compensation
to Miss Summers for your insults.'
" Such was the substance of General Butler's de-
cision.
" ' I'll do no such thing ! ' shouted Captain Rawl-
ston : * I'll be d first.'
" ' Just as you please, then,' was the general's grim
reply. ' Captain Clandon, you will please fill an order
to have this man hanged to-morrow at sunrise. Lieu-
tenant, what comes next ? '
21*
246 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
" Rawlston was thunderstruck. Here was a Union
general to be obeyed by the ' chivalry ' of New Or-
leans. Or, if not, the chivalry must swing for it.
" ' I'll pay the money,' growled the culprit ; ' but
such usurpation I never heard of.'
" ' Probably not, sir. Captain Clandon, he proposes
to pay the money. It must be in gold. You will ac-
company him, take a man or two with you, and,
when the proper amount is in your keeping, discharge
the fellow. Should he attempt to escane, remember
that you are reputed to carry the surest pistol, next to
mine, in the Department of the Gulf. I doubt he has
a soul ; but let that at least be the only part of him
that shall elude you.'
" The money was paid. It was given to Clara, and
as soon as convenient she came North. Captain Bub
insisted on having her come right here. He acknowl-
edges, in his letters, that he h'kes her very much, and
wants me to see how much I can think of her. I shall
have no trouble in being very fond of her. She seems
sweeter and more pleasant every day. She's stylish
too as a princess, though as plain in her tastes as your-
self.
" I've told her all about you. Captain Bub informed
her that he knew her uncle's widow, ' a young wo-
man,' he said, ' to be sought and respected as much as
any lady in the United States.' That was starting
Clara with a fair impression, wasn't it ? and I've
put on all the finishing touches. I wish you could meet
her right away : only then, with you two together, I
should have to sit demurely in a corner and play with
my thumbs.
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 247
" But I must stop writing, or you'll never get through
my letter in the world. I'll let the rest I had to say
go till the next time ; or still better, till you come and
see me again.
" Can't you do it right away ? Yes, do. Make
Clara and me a visit. We'll . have good times. You
and Clara can talk up the past, present, and future, in-
terspersed with great men and women ; and when I
can't reach your sublime heights, Charley Merlow and
I will perhaps try to entertain each other in such poor
way as the like can.
" Do come, Stella, and I'll tell you when Charley
and I are going to be married. We've been lovers an
age. 'Twont be possible to wait much longer.
\ " Good-by.
" As ever,
"YouR CORA."
CHAPTER XXVIII.
STELLA dropped the letter, and, after sitting im-
movable and wrapped in meditation for several min-
utes, she hastened to her piano, and the beautiful song,
" We may be happy yet," rang through the house, with
every shade of force and expression, from the simple
melody played with the utmost thoughtful tenderness,
to the storm of frantic hilarity in which the air itself
was almost covered up and lost in the exuberant wild-
ness of variation. Then she stepped to her writing-
table and penned a note to Cora, stating that she should
be at Ironton the next evening.
Stella had confidence in her judgment of persons.
She wished to see Clara Summers at once, and satisfy
herself regarding the mind and heart of one on whom her
happiness now so much depended. For she had deter-
mined that if Clara should prove to be all that Cora
had depicted, she should very soon be placed in posses-
sion of the greater part of that estate by which Stella
herself had been so hampered and circumscribed.
Yet now, more than ever, she desired the means of
her own comfortable independence. She remembered,
of course, the object for which her father was indefati-
gably laboring. He had alreadv done even better than
(248)
LOVERS AND THINKERS.
he anticipated. He Was making money very rapidly,
and she knew it was for her. But the most of it was
constantly invested. As her father's operations had be-
come larger, he had grown to be more and more the
venturesome old merchant, seeming bent on making
good all his former losses. He was vigilant and shrewd.
Still, it was possible that his plans might again miscarry.
Then Stella would need something of her own, for him
and for her. Earnest had been so badly disabled by
his wounds, and, still worse, by the fall from his horse,
simultaneously received, that, although he would not
probably be maimed, he might never again be able to
resume his duties as a soldier ; and his surgeons had
told him that, for many months at best, he could not
completely recover his strength. Him above all else,
Stella could not but include in her desires and calcula-
tions.
She had always felt that in strict justice she was
entitled to a part of her husband's property, sufficient
to support her comfortably. If he had awarded her so
much unconditionally, leaving her mind and body
free, she would have been perfectly satisfied. Had she
known of such a niece as Clara, she would have begged
to have her handsomely endowed, as she would have
done for all others having natural claims on the estate.
She appreciated the value of money, having no senti-
mental abomination of it, but only of vanities, frivoli-
ties, and abuses so generally attaching themselves to it.
She knew that it gave, in special, the best of all the
world's good gifts to a superior mind, the leisure for
cultivation and for self-satisfying action. One mode
of such action might easily be to aid hundreds of fellow-
250 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
beings, a matter, certainly, which Stella, if any one,
could comprehend.
Would it be proper, then, for her to be the recipient
of a small part of this fortune which she had about
decided to turn immediately over to Clara ? Such a
person as Clara must be, would not fail in generous
appreciation of a transfer, which one word spoken by
her uncle's widow could prevent in any case. No,
surely not. And she would wish that Stella should
still derive some benefit from what she had in so large
a degree possessed. Stella thought of her old father,
and of her stricken young lover, and said this would
be right : she should have some little of Mr. Torson's
large wealth. Clara would surely make her the offer.
Stella was not mistaken. Clara Summers was as
represented, generous, enthusiastic, noble, and highly
intellectual. Having been thrown upon her own re-
sources, she was self-dependent ; and, with the most
feminine delicacy of perception, she had a masculine
business tact. Stella perceived at once that her new-
found niece was an impersonation of the most lovely
features of the present, and a mirror of the future ;
that her mind dwelt in the realm of ideas ; her soul
revolved, one with the stars, in the orbit of obedience,
law, duty. There was no mistaking that frank, un-
reserved manner, those eager, unstudied words. What
she looked and said, that she felt and meant. And
her glances were reflections of the heavens, and her
sayings were not those of the selfish or the common.
For Stella they were easy to interpret. In three hours
she knew Clara well, and loved her fervently. In
three days, she trusted her thus :
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 251
Her arms were about the daughter of Virginia, and
they sat together.
" Clara, dear," she said, " I want you to take your
uncle's fortune. You have heard how it has grieved
me, perhaps."
" Yes ; and what will you do then ? "
" What would you have me do ? "
" Take three quarters of it, or what more you say,
directly back, at my hands, and then love me as your
niece and your friend. Will you do that ? "
" No, my Clara, not wholly. I will love you in any
way you please. But I do not feel as though much
of that fortune belongs to me. Your uncle did not want
to trust me with it. He said so. He did not know, of
course, that he had a niece who could use it more
effectually than myself; and that too in ways I might
like to employ it. But that was his own affair. He
ran the risk. I regard it as his own responsibility. Yet
I have a theory in the matter. I think that when he, a
rich man, contemplated leaving me as his widow, it was
my right to have a comfortable provision to use unfet-
tered. I would have been content with two or three
times my yearly income, as the entire amount, if he
had wished. He gave me, instead, the use of the whole
estate, but bound me to it like a slave. You shall have
the money, the whole of it. I will then take, if you
say so, as a gift of your love, twenty-five or thirty
thousand dollars. I think I have a rightful claim to so
much."
" Well, you are a scrupulous soul," exclaimed Clara,
with a smile and a tighter clasp of the arms. " But
why, in the name of sense and sensibility, are you not
252 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
as much entitled to ten times the amount you specify-
as to that little end of the fortune ? You were his wife.
I was only his niece. My parents displeased him. You
lived with him, faithful and trusted ; and all the more
to be treated handsomely, as you did so without loving
him. It is evident that he only gave me a chance in
the will because he knew nothing about me ; and he
probably doubted my ever reaping any benefit from it.
I shall employ the money as much against his bygone
wishes as you would do. I shall take that course, de-
void the smallest twinge of conscience. I am clear on
the subject. To me, it is plainly my duty to disregard
the inclinations of my sometime uncle. It is only a
trifle of indirection to put the whole estate on me. No,
positively, my good aunty, my dear Stella, your terms
are ' out of the question,' as the merchants say. You
are altogether ' too hard on me.' But I am sure it is
O
impossible for us to quarrel seriously about money. We
already know each other too well for that. Let me tell
you, however, what you may do. You may transfer
every cent to me as soon as you please. Then, what
I can induce you and youi's to accept, by the power of
tongue and quill, I suppose will be my affair."
She kissed Stella as she finished speaking. The ca-
ress was returned, and Stella said that she must content
herself, she supposed, with being persuaded.
CHAPTER XXIX.
ON the 7th of July, the " Ironton Evening Chronicle"
announced that Captain Earnest Acton had arrived
in town, still suffering severely from his wounds received
at the battle of Fair Oaks.
" We are, sorry to say," continued the article, " that
it is feared this gallant officer will not be able to resume
his place in the field. It was supposed at first, as our
readers will remember, that his wounds were fatal. In
his almost superhuman effort to hold our heroic boys
up to their task, after it seemed a hopeless one, Captain
Acton's person was necessarily exposed with utter in-
difference. The result is fresh in all minds.
" He has partly recovered from his bullet-wounds,
and it is thought he will fully recover from them. But
in falling from his horse, he received injuries which will
probably affect his spine, rendering him weak for many
months, if not permanently preventing him from again
serving his country in battle.
" We sincerely regret to learn the fact. He was
soon to have held a higher position in the army, and
would have filled it with signal ability.
" It is a loss which the service can ill afford, to be
deprived of those who, in addition to bravery and
22 (253)
254 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
address, have a thorough understanding of the present
momentous contest in all its bearings, and who feel
that no sacrifice can be too great, in securing for a con-
tinent impartial freedom and enduring justice. Captain
Acton was one of these. As he fought at Fair Oaks
against all odds, so we hope, against all opinions, that
he will yet live to fight again."
The day after the above mention of Earnest's re-
turn home, he was not a little surprised by the follow-
ing letter.
"AT CORA CLANDOX'S.
" DEAR SIR :
" I do not know that you have yet heard of any
such person as myself. Permit me, then, to introduce
you to Miss Clara Summers, the niece of the late J. Z.
Torson, Esq., and, much better, the friend, as well as
niece, of his lovely and accomplished widow.
" During the last few days I have been placed in
possession of my deceased uncle's entire property. While
living, that gentleman did not see fit to own me as his
relative ; and at his death, did not know, I suppose,
at least was not at all certain, that I was in existence.
Still, he saw fit to make in his will a provision through
which my dear Aunt Stella has turned over to me his
fortune. On so doing, she expressed herself willing to
take back, as a gift from me, the very modest, or rather,
under the circumstances, the very pitiful allowance of
twenty-five thousand dollars. We could not agree
upon that sum. She has, it seems to me, by every
principle of equity, a much better right to three quar-
ters of the whole estate, than L have to keep for my-
self the remaining quarter.
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 255
" However, she cannot be brought to my terms.
She says that she became my uncle's wife against her
judgment, and very reluctantly. She took no thought
of his money ; and, as he did not want her to have it,
she thinks that, out of self-respect, she ought to take no
more than will support her comfortably and pleasantly.
I cannot look at the matter in any such light. I have
therefore insisted on putting into her hands twice the
sum she proposed (fifty thousand dollars), and, by my
utmost powers of persuasion, have at last prevailed
upon her to retain that amount.
" Now I want to ask a favor of you. It is, that you
will receive the like sum, and make what disposition of
it you choose. Then I shall beg of Stella's father that
he will do the same.
" My uncle has, living, two or three distant relatives,
poor and common, but worthy people, whom he
did not recognize in any way, as I can learn, but who
have, I think, some natural claim to a small part of his
property. I intend they shall have moderate bequests
at once, just as though they had been remembered in
the will.
" There will be left, as I compute, something over a
hundred and fifty thousand dollars for my share. If
you and her father should agree to my proposals, my
dear aunt, my sweet friend Stella, will have, directly
and indirectly, about that amount also, the estate
being divided not far from equally between us.
" It appears to me that my self-respect is at stake,
as well as hers. She should have had the unfettered
use of the estate. It was a gross insult and injustice to
so noble a woman to deprive her of it. I, the distant,
256 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
unknown niece, might have had, by right, a small pro-
vision, as much, or rather more, than Stella first pro-
posed to accept from me. And then I should have
been much richer than I ever expected to be. Yet,
simply because I can do so, I have now figured for my-
self one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, to half of
which, at least, Stella has a better right than I. Is it
fair to insist on my being still more avaricious ?
" Furthermore, if my uncle were now alive, holding
his former views, he would be as much averse to seeing
me in possession of his riches, as any other person
whatever. For the most of his opinions I have no re-
spect, and for his prejudices I don't care a fig. I shall
employ the bulk of his wealth directly against his selfish
and obsolescent notions. The system of slavery, for
instance, which he inclined to propitiate, if not to foster,
I hate heartily, knowing it thoroughly. His property
shall aid in supplying materials for its destruction. My
religion, too, is practical, a thing to be used for the
welfare of God's children here as well as hereafter.
What my uncle termed New England ' infidelity,'
that intense purification of ritualism, and a purification
whose exponents have been some of the greatest re-
ligious souls living or dead, I do not fear as he did,
knowing more about it, probably, than he had the in-
ducement to comprehend. I would lend it my dollars
much more readily than for theological propagation at
Timbuctoo. For all these considerations, my mediocre
uncle's superior and magnanimous wife might just as
well have his fortune as might his wilful and headstrong
niece.
" But I have another reason for mentioning my own
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 257
tendencies. Sensitive people recoil from gifts ; and if
you are not persuaded that you should accept my offer as
a right due Stella, I want to prevail on you to take it as
a present due yourself. You would not consent to an
aimless donation ; probably not to one of mere good-
feeling : you must understand the giver; the giver
must understand you. Now, if I can give from suffi-
ciently exalted grounds, perhaps you will grant me the
pleasure of acceptance. I have listened with deep in-
terest to much I have heard very discriminating friends
say regarding you ; I am acquainted with many of your
actions, as well as your thoughts. You have been oc-
cupied with the gravest questions and interests which
affect the human kind. I can easily perceive it was
never plainer than now what vast influence for good,
a generous mind, powerful, cultivated, and independent,
can exert in the world. You would commend me, if I
saw fit to tender a considerable present to a beneficent
institution. Yet I know several Americans, each one
of whom is a greater benefit to the country than any
hundred such institutions that could be picked out.
Pardon me for offering you the sincere compliment of
thinking that you have begun life in a way to become
such a man.
" Believing so, I shall be very grateful, I assure you,
if permitted a contribution to the more ordinary mate-
rials of your advancement and usefulness. What I
shall expect in return, yet have no need to ask, is, that
the zeal of the scholar for the true and the right will
equal that of the former soldier, who now, it is said,
can be a soldier no more.
" Hoping that I may have, at the proper time, the
22*
258 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
honor of being your niece, I content myself now with
being
" Your friend,
" CLARA SUMMERS.
" To Capt. EARNEST ACTON."
Clara's letter was enclosed to Stella, and sent to Bos-
ton, whither the two had gone some days before, Clara
having returned alone. Mr. Gebard, a conscientious
and able young lawyer, had accompanied them to Bos-
ton. Their purpose had been to enter at once upon
the transaction which Clara's letter now referred to as
complete.
Stella had acknowledged her infraction of the will,
and nothing could be done but to execute the provis-
ion in favor of Clara Summers. So Clara became an
heiress.
The parties representing the pro-slavery interest in
the will had materially changed their views since the
inauguration of rebellion, and said that they should
now be heartily ashamed to lend their efforts in even
the remotest manner to oppose the cause of freedom.
They were democrats of the Butler persuasion.
The theological interest was at first disposed to stand
out, especially as it had just entertained hopes of coming
into its share of the property, through Snorton Ruffat,
the peculating quartermaster of F , who, after being
dismissed the service of his much-abused country, had
come to Boston, and, seeing Stella in the street, had
made inquiries by which he learned something of her
history, and obtained a clew to the tenor of the will.
He was immediately eager for retaliation, offering to
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 259
prove that Stella had no further claim upon the Torson
estate. The regenerated hunkers were cool to him ;
the agents of theology hailed his statement with glad-
ness. But at this juncture Clara Summers stepped in,
Mr. Gebard's keen eyes, twinkled humorously, and the
necessary documents were in his pocket. Distinguished
counsel on both sides declared the case to be clear, all
argument to be futile. Discomfited theology there-
fore concluded to be peaceable, - its invariable course
in all history, when it has been able to take no other.
The business settled, as far as Clara's presence was
necessary, she returned to Ironton, Stella promising to
follow her soon, and to complete the visit, never too
Ions;, which she had intended for Cora.
O '
" And where we can be conveniently near our dear
friend Captain Acton, my delectable auntie," suggested
the smiling Clara.
But, as we have seen, the " delectable auntie " had
not yet come.
So Clara's letter was sent to her. Earnest would
not conclude anything in her behalf without consulting
her, and he asked her judgment concerning his own
acceptance of so large a gift, provided she should not
wish him to take it, having her welfare in view.
Stella replied : " Do as you like, my dear Earnest
as you think right and best. I trust your judgment
more than my own. Perhaps my feelings were morbid
regarding my apportionment. But I never craved a
very large fortune, and I came almost to hate Mr.
Torson's money.
" Now it is Clara's. She certainly has a right to dis-
pose of it as she chooses.
260 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
" One thing I will say of her. She is regal in mind
and heart. She is not to be judged by others. She
can be injured neither by granting nor by submitting
to favors.
" Pardon me, my love, a bit .of pleasantry. Clara is
the only person I have met, whom I would do the
honor to be jealous of, if you knew how to be ca-
pricious. She is a pearl of great price."
Earnest soon had an interview with Clara, and, after
conversing with her an hour or two, he concluded to
take from her fifty thousand dollars, which she be-
stowed with as simple satisfaction as {bat with which
a generous child shares an orange with a pet companion.
Yet this superb young woman had, on one or two oc-
casions, been in actual need of a few dollars. She had
labored for her daily bread, and was already meditating
upon the manner of investing her remaining capital, so
as to make it pay every fair and honest cent. She
was prudent, and of Yankee stock. Only she knew the
meaning of a sacred trust.
CHAPTER XXX.
OTELLA soon fulfilled her promise, coming back to
N-' Ironton to complete a visit of uncertain duration.
Clara remained there for the present, and to Cora's
inexpressible, yet constantly declared satisfaction, the
three friends were together under one roof, all happy
in the commodious mansion of Richard Clandon.
Cora wrote to her brother, " Captain Bub," all the
circumstances of the young teacher's sudden transmuta-
tion to a lady of fortune ; and deputed him, in Clara's
name, to hunt up little Ben, and assure him that his
friend Clara Summers remembered him with much
affection, and would hold for him at the North five
thousand dollars, the money his brother had been
obliged to pay her, which the boy should have, with
interest, whenever he should need it.
" Tell him, too, that if he is ever in trouble, he must
come to Clara ; and she will try to be a sister, almost
as good to him as his poor Sallie.
J' And now, sir," she continued, " you may as well
be assured that Miss Summers will be, in this place, a
person of innumerable attractions, acknowledged by
several more than innumerable adorers. So look sharp,
absent soldier. If you don't want her for my sister-
(261)
262 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
in-law, what in the world shall I do with a brother of
such sorry taste ? If you do, well, that's all : but
time is precious where rubies are scarce. Get a fur-
lough, my tall brother ; get a furlough, and come to
pay us your respects."
Captain Clandon replied that he should do so as soon
as he could without personal discredit or injury to the
service.
" In respect to Miss Summers," he wrote, '^1 shall
defer, in my taste, to no one, not even to the crazy
and bantering Sissy Cora herself. When I think of
Miss Summers, I almost wish, momentarily, that I were
one of the ' peace party ' with you at- home. Yet I
suspect a man must be worthy of his country to win
her.
" Seriously, dear Cora, the lady has left a deep im-
pression on me. I think of her very often. If the
beaux multiply to my harm, say to her that when the
celestials are raffled for, I must positively have one
chance in the chief prize. Then I will do my best, and
abide my luck quietly, like a decent, practical fellow."
Cora was certainly proud of the fine, soldierly Cap-
tain Lawrence Ide Clandon, whose lofty figure and
almost imperious bearing appeared in ridiculous con-
trast with her diminutive appellation of " Captain
Bub." How could she help reading to Clara a brief
extract from his letter !
" What shall I tell him ? " she asked. ,
Clara smiled and blushed.
" Tell him the celestial raffle shall not come off while
he is deprived of a chance."
Here were indications of more lovers for the future.
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 263
But Earnest and Stella, Charley Merlow and Cora,
were soon to be established in another category. They
were to move out of the world of " young people,"
all migrating together. The day was set. It was to be
early in September.
By close care and constant attention to his ailments,
Earnest had regained his health much more rapidly than
was at first deemed possible. He was still rather
weak, so was easily fatigued ; but otherwise he ap-
peared nearly as well as ever.
The marriage ceremony was very simple, the im-
mediate relatives and a few warmly attached friends
being present at Mr. Clandon's, where the two young
couples were joined in wedlock till death should sever
the solemn tie. Weighty forms and profuse display
were needless, that to them the hour and the lesson
should be impressive. They had read the meaning of
that blessed sacrament, in life and in their own souls.
Thoughtfully yet gladly and trustingly it was to be re-
ceived ; sacredly it was to be regarded and preserved.
Years ago, in his boyhood, Earnest in particular had
questioned the rite, as he had done with many an-
other, demanding its central import to him, to the
world, to God. He had scrutinized its historical phases ;
he had worked upon the problem of its moral aims.
Like all other of the world's chief institutions, he
had found it established, first in human nature, then in
customs and laws.
In the earliest ages, when the mind of childhood,
with its restless and wilful strivings, was the motor
and guide of mature men their wishes having almost
no limitation save the boundaries of their mere strength
264 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
to do, intellectual, reflective morality not yet evolved,
marriage was, as Earnest had found, the conjunc-
tion of tyrant and his toy or slave. The equality
of woman's nature with man's was not perceived ; for
only the roughest properties of man's nature were held
in esteem. Virtue was physical courage and force.
Beauty was a sweet bauble, to occupy one's leisure ;
to be tossed gside or changed at one's pleasure. But
the race grew out of childhood. In Greece, it
became a sprightly, enthusiastic, sensitive youth.
Man's attachment to woman was then purer. Spiritual
values and refinements could be considered. The Gre-
cian could love ; and mere passion was no longer para-
mount. Civilization thus began the disuse of polygamy.
Out of civilization at last came a soul loving enough to
bestow Christianity upon the nations ; and this was to
complete the amelioration.
Earnest had but to look into his own experience for
a reflex of the entire transition, except that his senti-
ments, through these changes, had not, as in history,
been unfolded into multifarious actions.
Marriage, then, was to him, as its forms declared, an
indissoluble bond, holding him to the pure, radiant
woman there at his side, until her mild, happy eyes
could look no more into his, or until his own should lie
cold, rayless, and closed. " Love, cherish, and pro-
tect ;" this he would do, and would impart to her
what wisdom and worth might be given him, that last-
ing benefit might flow upon her ; and he would receive
the promptings of her tenderness, her perceptive good-
ness and truth, that enduring profit should flow to
him. "Love, honor, and obey;" this she would
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 265
do ; for to both there should be no standard of will or
whim. The true, the right, which are that heaven
the soul exists to seek, should claim the allegiance
of each, and to this she and he would gladly bow.
Thankful for every good thought, for every noble
deed of his life ; grateful to Heaven for every crystal
of purity garnered, and for every temptation repelled ;
glad that he was in some sort worthy, yet very humble
that his worth was less than he or the angels might
wish, Earnest took the hand of her who was the
chosen of his heart. Charley Merlow and Cora stood
at their side. The few questions were asked, the
few responses were given, and the friends were hus-
bands and wives.
23
CHAPTER XXXI.
A MERICAN events of the year succeeding Earnest's
-*- marriage were to be momentous in their effect
upon the ages, and prominent in the history of man.
But amidst them Earnest was to be an observer, not
what is commonly considered a doer. Cheerful and
happy, capable of regular and continuous mental
exertion, it was still much as the physicians had pre-
dicted : he did not recover his full bodily vigor and
endurance. Among half-invalid civilians he passed as
sound. Old Doctor Wisely, and many another friend,
bade him look well to his health if he wished to stay
long with them.
His sword had been thrown aside. Now, however, he
grasped the pen. He wielded it often, sometimes as-
sured that error was weaker for the stroke, that
man was stronger in faith, higher in freedom.
Thus he gave the soul's mite of charity, as best he
could, to the needy, while his open hand never with-
held the more material offering with which God's rich
are favored, not vulgarly, for themselves alone.
But, toward the close of the year 1863, Earnest de-
termined upon visiting New Orleans. His chief motive
was to see for himself the condition of the many poor
(266)
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 267
beings, suddenly emerged from slavery to freedom, who
were in that vicinity and at Port Royal, and to look
into, or at least glance at, the noble efforts which had
been made in their behalf by humane men and women
of the North. He thought that perhaps he too might
lend his hand, his brain, or, if nothing more, his purse,
to the cause.
Not men now not any one class of men, but
man all men, he regarded as his kin. There were
threads of relation, he observed, however subtile,
between him and the highest of these, between him
and the lowest also. He ignored none. But he
perceived that of all classes in the land, the slaves and
the freedmen most required, and best deserved, the
philanthropic attentions of the intellectual, the wealthy,
and the benignant. They were the most helpless, and
had been brought to their impoverishment by the self-
ishness and sin of American citizens. It was for
American citizens, then, to try, even at the eleventh
hour, to afford them what incomplete reparation might
be possible.
And above all, Earnest saw plainly that until the
Negro should be recognized as a man, with all the
natural rights and privileges of any and eveiy man, the
White would himself be petty, tyrannical, lazy and snob-
bish, far enough from the likeness of God, in which
he supposed himself created, a sorry child, indeed,
needing costly and severe instruction, some portion of
which he was already receiving, from the sabre, the
rifle, the cannon. Whatever then might contribute to
the manhood of the Black, would contribute in quite
as large degree to the manhood of the White ; and
268 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
Earnest had traversed the centuries and the soul too
carefully to be unaware that the White's manhood re-
quired enlargement much more than his pocket, how-
ever astonishing the fact might appear to him.
The riots of the preceding summer, induced by
those not without a certain kind of intelligence, though
consummated by the most ignorant of the vile, showed
that in both the hyena and the jackal were to be
tamed and overgrown, and that thousands of Ameri-
cans were like the diseased and bloated German in
the play, who was cured of his malady by having a
large number of fools cut out of him. Education,
employment, encouragement to martial valor, any-
thing that would aid the Black to assert his equal hu-
manity, would cut one fool of prejudice or distrust
out of the White ; and for the good of all, such sur-
gery was unmistakably the achievement of the age. -
It is prpbable, too, that those truculent demonstra-
tions of July made Earnest, as many others, actually
prefer, in most respects, the loyal, unoffending Negro,
to the Celtic or Saxon savage, who ground him into
bloody dust. Even the pictorial newspapers repre-
sented the rioter as uglier in face, uglier in form, worse
smelling, and in every way lower and more beastly,
than Sambo was ever depicted in the palmiest days of
Pierce or Buchanan. The persecutor or persecuted
which would the sane, not to say the cultivated, deem
superior ?
Indignation is sometimes a powerful auxiliary to be-
nevolence. Possibly it was a spur to Earnest's action,
when he decided to proceed South, and throw all the
energy and means he could spare into a single channel.
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 2G9
For his health was not yet secure, and although Doctor
Wisely said that the mere change would not be detri-
mental, he declared that his friend would be sure to
excite and overwork himself, " into the box, into the
box!"
But go the young man would, and his wife, with
their friend Clara Summers, accompanied him.
Clara enjoyed participating in all good works. Per-
haps, also, she enjoyed the prospect of meeting Colonel
Lawrence Ide Clandon ; for " Captain Bub " now
wore that title, with the corresponding insignia on coat
and cap ; and he was still stationed at New Orleans,
where the party were to proceed at first, stopping at
Port Royal on their return. Three months after Cora
had advised her brother to " get a furlough ," he had
procured it, and had spent a few weeks at home. It
was not long before numerous young ladies began to
whisper to each other, that Captain Clandon and Clara
Summers were " engaged." It was probably true in
this instance, though it is not infallibly so in all in-
stances, as we know, Avhen young ladies whisper the
like.
But Earnest's plans were to be suddenly frustrated.
The day after his arrival in New Orleans, while in the
street with Stella and Cora, proceeding toward Colonel
Clandon's quarters, they were met by a person in uni-
form, who appeared slightly intoxicated, and whom
Stella immediately recognized as her old enemy, Ruffat,
the discharged quartermaster. He also recognized
her as well as Earnest, and was unable to contain his
rage.
" Ah ! you damned Miss Virtuous ! " he exclaimed
23*
270 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
with a sneer, as he brushed past, " so you've got your
brother cured, have you ? "
Earnest's first impulse was to knock him down. But
as his face flushed, and his arm rose, Stella besought
him to take no notice of an affront from a drunken
man ; or, at any rate, to do nothing more than report it
to Colonel Clandon.
They passed on, and in a few minutes were in their
friend's apartments. On mentioning the insult to him,
and the causes of it, his eye glittered and his lips whi-
tened ; but in a tone even lower and calmer than usual,
he inquired the man's name. Stella gave it, and Ear-
nest said he wore a lieutenant's cap.
" He could not have entered the service again under
his old name, however," said Colonel Clandon. " He
has changed it. Describe him, if you please."
To describe him was easy :
*' A coarse, gross person, with a repulsive scar from
the left cheek-bone down toward the mouth."
" I know him," said the colonel ; and, stepping out of
the room, he ordered that a guard be detailed to arrest
Lieutenant Murkin, acting in the commissary depart-
ment, and that the prisoner be brought forthwith to
him.
It appears that the man was connected with the bri-
gade of which Colonel Clandon was then acting as
commander.
About ten minutes elapsed before his order was
obeyed. Meanwhile he conversed cordially with Ear-
nest and Stella, and with a tone of unmistakable pride
and tenderness, as he spoke to Clara Summers.
Lieutenant Murkin was brought in, and the guard
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 271
was ordered to leave the apartment, but to remain just
outside the door, in the street. The culprit seemed to
read his fete at a glance, and to feel that humiliation
and renewed dismissal from the army would be meted
out to him, if nothing worse. He glared on the party
with maudlin yet desperate fury, and, before a single
question was put to him, he suddenly drew a pistol and
aimed it at Stella. Earnest as suddenly stepped in
front of her. The pistol was discharged, and the ball
entered his chest near the shoulder. He staggered and
fell, and for an instant he alone was heeded. Colonel
Clandon caught him, and laid him carefully on the
floor, perceiving at once that, however badly he might
be injured, he was not killed.
Murkin sprang to the door and rushed out. His colo-
nel, whose lip was perfectly livid, but whose move-
ments were fearfully calm, followed him. The guard
had raised their muskets to fire, as Colonel Clandon
reached the door. He ordered them not to do so.
Then, as he drew a rather small single-barrelled pistol
from his pocket, he muttered, " No musket-shots :
sure work for the fellow this time ! "
That unerring weapon, not the second in the
Department of the Gulf, as General Butler had once
intimated, but the first, the surest, was levelled and
fired.
"Sergeant," he ordered, "have the body removed:
he is dead : you will find him shot through the brain."
He then sent for the two best surgeons of the bri-
gade, and, composed and grim, he returned to Earnest.
As he reentered the room Clara looked up into his
face, then turned away with terror. Her lover's ex-
272 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
pression, at that moment, she never forgot. The
trained officer bred to kill ; the flaming volcano hide-
ously self-controlled ; the gladiator with deliberate
death in his gaze, had broken through those refined,
handsome features ; and, as he replaced the pistol in
his pocket, she read the fate of the man who had ven-
tured to insult, and had then attempted to shoot, a
soldier's guest and a lady.
The look flitted away. Bending over Earnest, and
looking at the wound, he said, " It is serious, but not
mortal. He will live."
Stella and Cora were reassured ; and, under his in-
flexible, imperturbable will, were quiet and helpful,
like children.
The surgeons came ; Earnest was removed to another
apartment ; his wound was dressed ; and once more
Stella's soothing and vigilant attentions as a nurse,
were exerted to prolong that dear life.
He recovered very slowly. The shock had been too
great for one whose constitution was already shattered.
Tedious weeks passed before he gained sufficient
strength to walk, or even to stand. Finally it was
thought that he could return North with safety ; and, as
he was impatient to go, Colonel Clandon secured the
party every comfort that could be afforded them for the
voyage, and they started for New York.
The passage was long and stormy, and when they
reached that city, Earnest was obliged to wait there
several days. He was too weak to continue his jour-
ney immediately to Iron ton.
" Once in our snug home, which you have arranged
so cosily, my Stella, and I feel as though I should
scarcely leave it many times again."
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 273
Such was his first intimation, which was spoken
with a quiet smile, that he looked forward to what
Stella and Clara had both begun to dread, in spite of
their hopes, although neither would own it to the
other by as much as a look.
Stella perceived his meaning instantly.
" O Earnest ! " she murmured, and sank to the
floor.
She had borne up with cheerfulness, even humor,
until that moment. But she had come to place such
implicit reliance on what her husband said, that now,
when he spoke thus to her, she felt as though even this
matter were settled ; that she must give him up ; that
before long he would die.
Fair, loving young wife, it was well, perhaps, to
prepare her for the stroke. Yet how could she bear
it ? It seemed as though her own life would ebb im-
mediately away, if his were taken from her.
CHAPTER XXXII.
T?ARNEST was not mistaken. He had but a short
J-^ time to live. From this last infliction by the bul-
let, with the attendant debility, he never recovered,
although he lingered several weeks, between life and
death, after he reached home.
To him it was not dreadful to die. In his early
youth, it will be remembered, life, not its termination,
had appeared terrible ; and more than once, in his
doubt, his misanthropy, his antagonism with the
world's ideas and endeavors, he had longed to flee any-
where away from the hated scene. So trivial, so selfish,
so mean it all seemed, that why should he stay where
there was nothing, and yet worse than nothing, for one
like him? Bitterly he had asked himself the ques-
tion ; then, from regard to others, and from sheer
scorn of all possible events, he had still maundered and
groped along, tempted, but not quite enticed, by
every dark rolling stream, until at last the sunlight
of truth and faith broke through upon his soul, and
he felt as jubilant in his independence of persons
and circumstances, as he had felt disconsolate before
their secret was read and their tendency revealed.
The sphinx answered, the riddle solved, the heavens
opened, what was there now to fear ?
(274)
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 275
" It is pleasant to die if there be gods ; it is sad to
live if there be none."
" True, Marcus Antoninus," Earnest could declare ;
" and I have beheld the gods : it is beautiful to live, it
is beautiful to die. Sad? There is nothing sad, but
living to hatred, and littleness, and folly."
Whatever the sermons teach, the bed of death is not"
commonly a spectacle of terror to the departing soul.
Sorrowful it may often be to leave its familiar sur-
roundings ; unspeakably pained it may be to sever
from other loved souls whom it could aid and succor in
this hard circle of fleshly phantoms, where none may
be left to protect when it is withdrawn. But for
itself it does not usually tremble, if left to its own
thoughts, and to its God.
Every one views himself as no one else can regard
him. He sees where his ignorance submerged him in
sin, where circumstances bore down upon him with a
pressure, overwhelming at the moment, if not at a
later moment when he might have been stronger to
resist. He would do better now, he feels ; but could
not do better then. Somewhere there will be help for
him, somewhere, pardon. Such is doubtless the view
and the hope of the very worst : else would he crave
dissolution, annihilation, the sooner the better, by his
own hand. For the universe is a poisoned dagger to
the breaker of its laws, and stabs the criminal, of its
own accord, at every turn.
Even the most vile and wretched often die with
complacency, with gladness : for is not hope literally
their all ? William Mumford the gambler, like John
Brown the religious enthusiast, is hanged perfectly
composed.
276 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
But a faith, little or great anything that is
trusted, makes death a festival. Relying upon it, the
Hindoo will pitch himself into the mouth of the nearest
crocodile, and the Christian will sing hymns at the
stake while his tongue shrivels in his throat, and the
throat is crisping into cinders. If Voltaire the sceptic
will meet death calmly and courteously, much as he
would greet a polite Frenchman, what affright has it to
the searching insight of Socrates, or the all-believing,
all-pitying love of Jesus ?
It had been Earnest Acton's fortune to live his short
but crowded life, which was now about to breathe itself
away, in a period when old forms of faith had been
broken up, while many materialistic, and practically
atheistical minds yet clung to the creeds and rituals for
respectability or greed ; while many other minds the
little and common honestly worshipped in the old
ways, unquestioning because unthinking ; and while a
few other minds, active, conscientious, and aspiring,
but without intuitive perception sufficient to melt
forms and doctrines into their historical meaning and
essence, after struggling a while with doubts that
would arise, looked upon all matters as doubtful, and
then, unreconciled with their thoughts, but needing
some faith, accepted the one of the most accessible
evangelical church, and debarred the intellect from
further questioning.
These three classes composed the conventional
religionists, a large body, excluding and misappre-
hending the loftiest intelligence and deepest piety of
the time, and hesitant to accept the noblest works ;
but still helpful to themselves, and beneficent to the
LOVERS AND THINKERS.
country, especially during the last two or three years,
by magnificent undertakings of patriotism, charity,
and practical Christian mercy.
Outside their circle, beyond it and above it, lived
and labored in America some of the mightiest religious
spirits that ever existed in the world. They were
called infidel, yet they were most faithful ; they were
.called destroyers, yet they were constructors. They
were confounded with the deists of the eighteenth cen-
tury. But what were Voltaire and Hume and
Gibbon ? Strong men, it is true, and superior in a
moral as every other sense to the majority of their
contemporaries. But they were of this world : they
lived in material facts. Seeing the rubbish which
littered Church and State, they kicked it out of the
way, doing noisy and disagreeable, but worthy service.
They were so impatient, however, of the rubbish,
that they spurned spiritual truths which it concealed.
They caused every good intellect to doubt ; but this
was all ; they helped it no farther.
The nineteenth century completed their task, thank-
ing them for all their negative demonstrations, but rec-
onciling these with the presence of God in the human
soul, and with the exalted mission of the Christian Re-
ligion.
Through the thick darkness Germany first saw the
new sun, while yet it has shone most brightly upon
that favored granite where the Pilgrim landed solely
that he might worship his God ; and, when it lighted
Theodore Parker into the world, it made even the
piety of ecclesiasticism appear as inferior as its mental
capacity.
24
278 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
The number of minds that had completely and satis-
factorily wrought out within themselves this transition,
was comparatively very small. Earnest had followed
them, had understood them, was one of them.
Then there was a large class in the process of that
transmutation which he had undergone. They were
rationalists, doubters, and sneerers, of all shades and
degrees. The most of them were honest, well-mean-
O '
ing, and instinctively favorable to each noble move-
ment for the freedom and elevation of mankind. Un-
certain of man's relation to God, they yet held to
man's just relation to his fellow-beings.
Earnest had known a few men, like his father, so
natural and unconstrained in an artificial epoch, that
they had walked along untouched by dogmas and mys-
tifications, believing in God, believing in goodness, and
asking no more. They were too healthy to catch the
prevailing theological epidemics, and so had never been
troubled with the affliction or the cure.
Through such a period of spiritual convulsion, with
the changes it brought upon institutions and customs,
Earnest Acton had journeyed to an overlooking, inclu-
sive faith, and now the journey was to end.
To leave Stella, while they were both so young, and
had just begun their glad dependence on each other,
this was the keenest sorrow, though less for him than
for the dear one to be left behind. Heavy-hearted she
would be, heavy-eyed and dreary.
But the world Avould still be around her ; and her
duty would ever be before her. If there would be few
to bless her as he had done, there would be many
whom she could bless, poor souls who would much
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 279
need that her kind, chastened heart should find rest
for itself in being busy for them.
And was not the love of two hearts, each for the
other, but a delightful initiatory symbol of a love that
both were to feel for universal beauty, and truth, and
goodness ?
Bright vision of earthly fondness such was, after all,
its enduring splendor ! The one great, happy lover
of all history was it not that most divine man of Cal-
vary, who could sweetly, willingly embrace death itself,
in his love for the fair, the true, the infinitely beautiful ?
To such love the soul of man and woman must rise
before it can be free, before it can know the meaning
of heaven. The end of life is to reach such a love ;
the beginning of joy is nothing else than this.
Upon such high ground Earnest consoled her who
was worthy of such consolation, and would not forget it
in his absence. It is all the living can offer to the living !
It is enough to offer. It is all the dying can offer to
the living ! Let them heed it ; for they too are in the
presence of death, and to triumph is to know that death
is easy to those who love so much that they cannot fear.
During one of the last days of Earnest's life ly? was
visited by a friend, Mr. Welby, a conscientious and
devoted young clergyman of the Methodist church.
They had known each other several years, and, though
very different in all respects, a warm personal regard
existed between them.
* Well, my friend," asked Mr. Welby, " how do you
feel to-day?'"
" As though I should last it out, and perhaps two or
three days after it," Earnest replied, cheerfully ; " but I
280 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
shall leave you pretty soon. Any day, almost any
hour, may take me now."
The good, sensitive clergyman saw that here was the
same friend he had so many times met in health, high-
hearted, firm and trusting to the last. No need of dis-
cussion, no place for it here. Mr. Welby had felt, at
first, as if he ought to say some word to that dying man
whom he loved, some word even yet for his soul.
But that soul was so calm, so content, so ready for the
coming change, that he saw it -rested on immovable
convictions, and must be left to its God alone. He for-
bore all remarks, therefore, that might excite Earnest,
but, before leaving him, asked if he might pray for one
who was very dear to him, one who was himself
aware that perhaps they might never see each other
again in life.
" Certainly, my dear friend," said Earnest ; " let us
repeat together the Lord's prayer. You remember the
old Grecian, Pythagoras, taught that we should not
plead with God for particular favors, because we are
perpetually ignorant of what God always knows to be
best for us. We are to trust his plans, not beg for the
fulfilment of our own. I have often felt this inculca-
tion ; and some prayers I have heard would have choked
me in the utterance. Yet we constantly aspire, in
our feelings, to be something better than we are ; and
the aspiration for good may surely come to our lips.
And thanksgiving for God's bounty and his goodness
must be felt and expressed, wherever his presence is
truly in the heart. That beautiful prayer which Jesus
addressed to his Father in heaven, hallowing his
name ; asking that the divine will be done on earth ;
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 281
that our simple daily needs be supplied to us ; that our
sins may be forgiven, and that we may forgive the sins
of others ; that we may not be tempted, yet when
tempted may be delivered from the evil : that prayer
has long seemed to me to include all that man may say
to God, or ask of him, all that a trusting soul can
present to the Author of its being and blessings."
Earnest spoke with fervor. His eye brightened and
his cheek flushed. The friend made no reply, but
knelt at his bedside, and together they repeated those
tender, touching, solemn words.
Mr. Wei by then rose and took Earnest's hand.
" Good-by," he said : " I am very glad I came to
see you. I hope we shall meet again."
" Yes, we shall meet again," answered Earnest, " and
where there are better gifts than we know."
With strange yet far from unpleasant feelings, the
clergyman departed.
The next two days Earnest sank rapidly. The
third morning the sun rose bright and warm, and
though, during the night, a January snow-storm had
covered the ground with pure white, the day was
brilliant and beautiful.
When he had found himself unable to leave his
room, our friend had requested Stella to have a bed put
up for him in the little library, so that he might hear
her play on her piano, in the adjoining room. Her
music was never more welcome to him than now ; and
besides, he wished to impress her as far as possible with
his own realization that his descent to the tomb was
but a triumphal march beyond it. Could she only
24*
282 ' LOVERS AND THINKERS.
mount the car with him ! When he thought of this,
he sighed, for the moment, and longed to look back.
Stella would not leave him night or day. At first
she shrank from her piano, almost frightened at its
tone ; but it was such a pleasure for him to hear it that
she overcame her reluctance, and even gleaned some
small comfort for herself as she played.
On this resplendent winter morning, after a fevered,
restless night, Earnest sank into a quiet slumber of an
hour or two, and then awoke.
11 Stella, my dear," he murmured, " will you play
me, < Who Treads the Path of Duty ' ? "
She went to the piano, and the music of that grand,
impressive, yet joyous song of Mozart's floated through
the rooms. He thanked her with a fond smile, as she
returned to him ; and drawing her face down to his, he
kissed her lips and her brow.
" Stella, you have been a dear, good wife, all my
soul asked. And even now you are worthy not to
despair. Without this last sweetness and trusting
greatness, I should not be quite satisfied. We are not
dependent on so poor a stay as persons and circum-
stances. God bless you. God will bless you."
Earnest spoke clearly and unbrokenly, but with great
effort of will ; and when he had finished, he sank away
exhausted. In a few minutes he looked up once more,
still with a smile.
" My father, poor old man, love him, Stella,
while he stays ; he has done a great deal for me. Let
Charley Merlow have my cane ; and if Clara and Cora
would like any little keepsakes, you select something
for each. Give Jerry Kay a hundred dollars."
LOVERS AND THINKERS. ' 283
Saying this, Earnest dropped back, on his pillow,
closing his eyes. Presently his father, accompanied
by Charley Merlow, with Clara and Cora, entered the
room. Alger Acton had been in the house during
the night, and toward morning had lain down for a
little rest. It was early ; but Charley and the other
friends had called to inquire after Earnest, just as
Stella left him for an instant, to tell his father that he
was dying. They all followed Stella to the library
without a word.
Earnest saw them as they stood around his bed, and
his eyelids moved with an expression of salutation.
His lips parted as if he was about to speak ; but he
only smiled, and, first placing his hand over his heart,
he raised it slightly, and pointed upward. He then
extended it to Stella, and held the other out to his
father. It seemed as if he could still talk to them, if
he should try, but that he had no more to say, and was
quietly observing this last strange transition. He did
not struggle, and he appeared to feel but little pain.
But in half an hour, as the sunlight, which he would
not have excluded, fell upon the spot where he lay,
his features had turned to marble whiteness : they
were rigid and cold.
Earnest Acton had entered upon a higher life. But
there were sobs and tears ; and muffled voices mourned
him as dead.
LAST CHAPTER.
A NOTHER year has gone since Earnest died.
-*- Its months have not passed unfraught with
changes in the world ; they have not passed without
some changes amidst the group which made up the
attractions and repulsions of Earnest's life.
Let us glance at some of the group.
His friend Clara Summers, although she is still
simply Clara to her immediate circle of companions,
is called by society Mrs. Clandon, while the punctilious
speak of her as Mrs. General Clandon. Her husband
is one of the most efficient and trusted among the
younger officers of the regular army.
To Charley Merlow and Cora nothing, save the
absence of Earnest and the quiet, uncomplaining grief
of Stella, has yet appeared to dim their joys. A baby-
boy, Earnest Acton MerloAv, has 'been given them to
love.
It would be painful, very painful, for Charley to
leave his wife and child ; but as the war has continued,
and he has felt that he might be called on to bear his
part of the heavy burden, he has learned something
of the soldier's duties ; and both he and Cora look
forward to a day when possibly he can no longer
(284)
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 285
remain beside her and regard his duty; when she
can no longer bid him linger at home. They look
at their infant, and perceive that what the father
shall leave undone, the child must do ; that peace
cannot bless the nation till barbarism and its warriors
are crushed. Shall one generation fail in the effort ?
then it will be for the next generation to succeed.
God has ineted the task to the century, and they
know that it cannot shirk the stint.
Rufus Maign is no longer in business. At the time
of Earnest's death the veteran merchant had nearly
retrieved his fortune. Stella had more wealth than she
needed ; and why should he strive and labor still ?
To comfort his daughter now, and to aid her in
benevolent undertakings, would be enough, he thought,
for a man over sixty. Father, mother, and daughter
are again together, and together they are busy,
busy for many others than themselves.
Jerry Kay, the strange old Irishman, has followed
Earnest into a higher life. On earth he was deprived
of advantages ; he was devoid of culture ; he was
deemed ignorant and common and low. He swept
the streets, and went on errands about the markets.
But the uses and manners of that other world are
not as our customs and distinctions. Who shall tell
what the old man is doing? Was he faithful and
honest below ? We may be sure, then, that the gods
have missions for him now.
And Stella, is she content ? can she be happy ?
Not wholly content, not quite happy, as you commonly
mean it ; nor does she need to be so. She is very calm
and placid, very sweet and kind. Her spirit dwells in
286 LOVERS AND THINKERS.
a high, pure atmosphere, and though she has heen se-
lected to bear much sorrow, she is not deprived of all
jy s -
During those winter days, after Earnest had gone, it
seemed doubtful that she would long tarry to mourn
him. She was so prostrated with anxiety and fatigue,
that only through a prolonged sickness, she found re-
newed health and strength. Her soul was clouded with
grief, and her eyes were often wet with tears. So much
she gave to nature, and could not help giving. But she
knew there was brightness beyond the clouds, and that
not even to her was life for weeping. So when the
sunny spring days came, she placed flowers on the
spot where Earnest seemed to have been laid ; then
turning with a serene smile and a generous hand to the
needy and the lowly, she felt that his spirit descended,
and was close beside her.
She does not complain. She hopes, she loves, and is
loved by many. She has learned to renounce selfish-
ness, that to unselfishness all things may be awarded.
She blesses God, and lives in the world to do his will
as best she can, until it shall be his will that she re-
main no longer. Then she will die as Earnest died,
still with thanksgiving on her gentle lips.
She sat, a few evenings since, alone, as she thought,
in the twilight. She sang ; and her fingers flitted once
more along the key-board of her piano. I listened in
the distance, sacredly, but caught these words :
" I have laid my dead on my country's altar !
God gave me to moan :
To moan with a broken wail, to falter,
And to feel alone, alone !
LOVERS AND THINKERS. 287
" But that dearest life oh, yes, it was needed !
God gives me to bear.
It was Freedom's call that was heard and heeded :
And now he is there up there !
" The great and good of the ages are round him :
He would not be here.
Yet fondly he looks on the love that bound him,
And is near me, very near !
" Sometimes in my dreams ho will grandly murmur,
And point me a goal.
' Droop not, dear one,' he says : ' be firmer ;
Come up to the height of the soul.'
" I am well, O friend that wast with me, in wooing
The heavens with trust.
I have learned there is little of life but in doing
One Will : it is gentle and just,"
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