The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 04, No. 25, November, 1859

"Why, Cerinthy," said Mary, "how glad I am to see you!"

"Well," said Cerinthy, "I have been meaning to come down all this week, but there's so much to do in haying-time,—but to-day I told mother I must come. I brought these down," she said, unfolding a dozen snowy damask napkins, "that I spun myself, and was thinking of you almost all the while I spun them, so I suppose they aren't quite so wicked as they might be."

We will observe here, that Cerinthy Ann, in virtue of having a high stock of animal spirits and great fulness of physical vigor, had very small proclivities towards the unseen and spiritual, but still always indulged a secret resentment at being classed as a sinner above many others, who, as church-members, made such professions, and were, as she remarked, "not a bit better than she was." She had always, however, cherished an unbounded veneration for Mary, and had made her the confidante of most of her important secrets. It soon became very evident that she had come with one on her mind now.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Now, Mary, there is that creature. Well, you know, he won't take 'No' for an answer. What shall I do?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I think not, materially," said Mary.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[To be continued.]

* * * * *LION LLEWELLYNSinging, shining, beautiful MayLureth me, draweth me, all the day.Once, when the season wooed me so,Lion Llewellyn, thou lovedst to go,Pacing before or close beside,Reticent, quaint, and dignified,Roaming with me, wandering wide;And if ever thy feet inclined,Weary with roving, to lag behind,When were my arms to aid thee slow?"Muver will cahwy her darlin'! So!"Not to the pines, my warrior gray,Gray and stately and scarred as they,—Not to the hill, or the valley glen,Shall we wander together again.Nevermore, in the dead of night,Shall I waken in cold affright,—Waken at sounds I know too well,Growl defiant, and horrid yell,Sounds that bristle the hair, and tellStrife is raging, and blood is shed,Blood and—fur, in the conflict dread.Nevermore, from my bed, shall IUnto the chamber-window fly,There, by the wintry moon, to spyThee on the well-sweep mounted high,—Mounting still, from the crafty foeCreeping and crawling up below;And, when thou canst no farther go,See thee crouch for the fearful leapOff the top of the old well-sweep,Then, with a swift and dizzy sweep,Plunge in the crusty snow knee-deep.Nor, for a lameness gotten so,Shall I nurse thee again,—all, no!Nevermore, from my willing handWinning the all I can command,Shall be heard the pathetic tone,(Solvent sufficient for heart of stone,)Making thy simple wishes known;Nor shall the vibrating long-drawn "Mr—r"Of thy tranquil thunderous purrBreathe again, to my ear attent,Bliss o'erflowing and deep content.As I fondly muse on thee,I recall the spreading treeOf thy goodly pedigree,Which, of shapely branch or bough,Hath no fairer growth than thou;And my glance caressing nowSweeps Alas, and Och Oh-Ow,Chryssa, Christopher, What-Not,Zabdas, Bunch, Longinus, Dot,Tom, Zenobia, Nonesuch,Turvy, Topsy, Inasmuch,Zillah, Zillah Number Two,Fremont, Dayton, Tittattoo,Hiawatha, And, and If,Minnehaha, But, and Tiff,Kitty Clover, Kitty Gray,Flossy, Frolic, Fayaway,Quip, and Quirk, and Dearest Mae,Nippenicket, Dido, Puck,Minnesinger, Friar Tuck,Periwinkle, Winkle Less,Quiz, Albeit, Bonnie, Bess,Midget, Budget, Mayaret,Jocko, Sancho, Hans, Coquette,Daisy Du Da, Ditto, Pet,Pancks, and Peepy, Tilly, Tarn,Tattycoram, Zoe, Clam,Little Dorrit, Uncle Sam,Tomtit, Pug, Penelope,Ike, Ulysses, Rosalie,Punch, and Judy, Ferny Fan,Cowslip, Hecate, Caliban,Filibuster, Jonathan,—Name them all who may, who can;For the half has not been toldOf the branches I beholdOn the honored parent-stem,And the later growth from them.Lion Llewellyn, faithful friend,Brave and gentle to the end,Would that I once more might hail,Like a banner on the gale,Waving slow, thy jet-ringed tail!And thy furry coat of mail,Like the striped and spotted skinOf thy savage leopard kin,Would I might again caressWith the old-time tenderness!Why do I talk of what may not be?For the pillow of him I fain would seeWas changed long since from my motherly kneeTo the garden, under the willow-tree,—Weeping-willow and flowering moss.Over it riseth nor pile nor cross;We, who only have felt his loss,Needing no sculptured stone to tellHow he battled, and how he fell,Or where sleepeth who sleeps so well.What is the destiny of his race?Is there, I wonder, no other placeWhence they come or whither they go?Earth-existence the all they know?Does the living intelligenceDie in them with the dying sense?Or, from the body passing hence,Does it find in another sphereBeing in higher form than here?For summers twain, the willow keptIts watch where low the warrior slept,But, on the third, a blight had creptUpon the vigor of its frame;Nor knew we how or whence it came.Whisper it low and fearfully,The tale of ghostly mystery;For toothless crones and graybeards saidThat from the presence of the deadAn influence around was shed,Like warlock's foul, unholy spell,Of malisons and curses fell,Which steeped that soil with venom dank,Of which the fated willow drank.Whether it were or were not so,At least so much as this we know,That on the willow fell decay;And though, when all things else grew gay,It feebly strove to look as they,Yet was its summer crown of prideWorn lightly, and soon cast aside,And when Spring found it, it had died.A mound, and a stump with moss o'ergrown,Now mark the place of his rest alone.I see that the soft west-wind to-dayFrom the cherry-trees beareth their blooms away,And wherever its fitful currents flow,Rising or falling, swift or slow,The tender petals like white wings go,Floating, eddying, wavering low,Wheeling and sinking in showers of snow;And under their light and flickering fall,The mound, and the flowering moss, and all,Grow blanched and white as a billow's crest.Thou that often these arms have pressed,Nestled warm to thy mistress's breast,—Thou that takest thy colder rest,Now, in the breathless and pulseless ground,Close, but untenderly, folded round,—Ever, by thy drifted mound,Sleep, the Mystery, be foundMost mysterious, most profound!And through her enchanted air,Lighter than petals fair,Brooding Peace sink downward there;And the blasted willow makeHaunt perpetual, for thy sake!

TOM PAINE'S FIRST APPEARANCE IN AMERICA

"It were wise, nay, just,

To strike with men a balance: to forgive,

If not forget, their evil for their good's sake."—Saul, A Drama.

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

* * * * *

An essay against African Slavery, written for Bradford's paper, introduced Paine to the notice of several distinguished men,—among others, to that of Dr. Rush. Many years afterward, in a letter to Cheetham, the Doctor described his first interview with Paine. In this communication, he insinuates that he suggested the famous pamphlet and the no less famous signature, "Common Sense." But in 1809, the venerable Doctor was an old man; and even in earlier days, his keen appreciation of "Ille ego qui quondam" and "Quorum pars magna fui," as the choicest passages in Virgil, was good-naturedly noticed by his contemporaries.5

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

* * * * *

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

* * * * *

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

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

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